Chapter Seventeen
JESS
Throwing myself back into school and work was the only thing that got me through the next week. Krit realized I was pulling away, and he was letting me. I wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t holding on so tight after Jason’s showing up at Live Bay. Part of me felt like I should go apologize to him, tell him I was sorry about how I was acting, but I couldn’t. I needed time to deal.
When Friday night came back around, Krit called three times. I didn’t answer. I wasn’t in the mood to face Live Bay tonight. I had brought home some things to alter from the shop. Focused on that, I almost ignored my phone the fourth time it rang. But it could have been Momma. Glancing over at it, I saw Jason’s name flash on my screen, and I dropped the pants I was holding and grabbed my phone.
Standing in my room, I stared at it. Why was he calling? I didn’t think about it too hard. I just answered.
“Hello,” I said, wondering if he had accidentally called me. Maybe he had meant to call a Jessica or a Jocyln.
“Hey, can you talk?” His deep voice came over the line and my insides went all warm, despite my better judgment.
“Uh, I . . .” Could I talk? Could my heart handle it? “Yeah, sure.”
He let out a relieved-sounding sigh. “Good.” There was a smile in his voice. I could visualize the way his lips curled up in amusement. “I’m sorry about last weekend. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. I just . . . I hadn’t been prepared to see you again.”
I wanted to laugh at that. He hadn’t been prepared to see me? Ha. Did he have any idea how he had affected me? “You surprised me,” I replied.
“You surprised me, too.”
“How did I surprise you? Surely you knew I would more than likely be there.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to calm my shaking hands. Talking to him like this was making me nervous. It was silly and ridiculous and I should have ended this call, but I didn’t.
“I wasn’t expecting . . . him.”
Oh. So he’d thought I was sitting here pining for him. Even if it was for selfish reasons and it made me a terrible person, I was thankful for Krit at the moment. If Jason had expected me to still be alone, I was glad he saw I was desirable to some people. “Why?” I asked, needing to hear him explain it.
“I don’t know.” He let out a hard laugh. “I’m a dick.”
That still didn’t answer my question. “Krit is different. I never imagined anything serious with him when it started, but his feelings ran deeper than I thought possible. So, yeah, he surprised me.”
Jason didn’t respond right away. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking. I wanted to see his face and smell his clean scent, so different from Krit’s.
“How’s school?” he asked finally.
“Uh, good. I guess,” I replied, confused by his change of topic.
“You guess? Sure it doesn’t suck? Mine sucks.”
No, mine didn’t suck. It was the last semester I could go to junior college. Which meant it was the last of my college education. I would be getting my associate’s degree in December.
“Why does yours suck?” I asked, my nerves finally easing as I lay back on my bed and relaxed.
“I’m doing what my parents want me to do. Not what I want to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to have time to decide. I’m . . . I’m thinking of taking next semester off. They don’t know it yet, but I want to be free to travel. Find myself. Figure it all out. I tried that this summer . . .” He stopped.
“But I messed that up,” I finished for him. He hadn’t come back to Sea Breeze after our trip to New York.
“No. I messed that up. None of that was you, Jess.” His voice had gone gentle, as if he wanted to reassure me. The smile on my face was ridiculous, but it was there.
“I didn’t expect you to answer,” he said.
“Why?”
“It’s a Friday night. I figured you’d be out.”
“No. I’m staying in tonight. I have work to do,” I told him. I didn’t want to tell him I had been hiding out since I had seen him last Friday. That wasn’t something he needed to know.
“Work as in school?” he asked.
“No, I’m working for a seamstress in town now. I have some work I brought home.”
“You sew?” he asked. I had surprised him. It was in his voice.
“Yes. I also design clothes. I’m working on Christmas recital costumes now for the local dance studio.”
He made a choking sound, like he had been drinking something. “You design stuff?” he asked after he’d caught his breath.
“Yep. The red dress I wore in New York—that was one I designed and made.”
“Holy shit, really? That’s amazing. That dress was . . .” He trailed off.
“It wasn’t a designer label and I know I didn’t fit in, but it’s my favorite piece,” I told him. He didn’t have to feel awkward.
“No, you looked beautiful in it. There wasn’t another girl there who even compared.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. He had also sent me home without an argument that night.
“I need to go,” he said. “Jax is sending a car to get me. I’m eating with him and Sadie tonight while they’re in town. But can I call you again?”
Could he call me again? No. “Yes,” I replied.
“Have a good night, Jess,” he said, the smile back in his voice.
“Yeah, you too,” I replied.
After we hung up, I stared at the phone for a long time. I shouldn’t have told him he could call again. Would that mess with my head completely? Could I move on if he was calling me and reminding me how I felt? No. That would be impossible. The wound would never heal. I had to tell him the next time he called. This wasn’t going to work.
JASON
Jax was sitting in the limo with a bottle of water, watching a football game when I climbed inside.
“Where’s Sadie?” I asked when I realized we were alone.
“Meeting us there. She’s picking up Star at the airport. I would have sent you to pick her up, but Star said you’re acting weird lately when she calls. So I figured it might be best if we talked before this thing tonight.”
Jax had agreed to do an event at Harvard tonight. It was for charity, and because I attended here he had agreed to it. He just had to sing a few songs and then sign some things for them to auction off. Star was also performing with him. After their appearance, we were going to head out to dinner.
Star was the female counterpart to Jax in the music industry. She was also a longtime friend of Jax’s, since they both started young and had been thrown together so much. Once Jax and Sadie went public, they stopped getting thrown together. Star and Sadie had had a rocky beginning, but they were friends now. And when Star needed a last-minute date and didn’t want anything that would cause problems for her, she called me.
“Bad week,” I replied, reaching for a water.
“Why?” he asked, studying me.
“Went to Sea Breeze last weekend,” I told him.
“Yeah, I know.”
Of course he knew. I had stayed at his place. He was still watching me.
“I saw her,” I said through clenched teeth as the image of what she had been doing flashed in my head.
“Ah, so the town’s bad girl still gets to you,” Jax said, grinning.
I hated it when he referred to her as a bad girl. He didn’t know her. He had never met her. He only knew the stories. She was so much more than that. “Don’t,” I warned him, and he stopped grinning.
“Wait . . . are you really hung up on her?”
I opened the water and took a drink. I wasn’t talking to him about this. He wasn’t any help. He had made it work with Sadie, so none of my excuses would stand with him. His life was different. Our parents weren’t trying to control him since he held their purse strings.
“You like her . . . a whole damn lot, from the looks of it.”
I glared at him. “Yes. I like her. But I f*cked it up. She’s with some alternative-looking dude in a local band. He had his hands all over her.” Just remembering the way Krit had kept his arm around her shoulders like she was a possession pissed me off.
“Is this a mutual thing, or did you get in too deep with a girl who likes to play the field? From what I’ve heard, she’s a flirt.”
I slammed my water down. “What you’ve heard? You’ve only heard shit about her. You’ve never met her. You don’t know that she’s fun and when she gets embarrassed she blushes. You don’t know that she can design and make her own f*cking clothes. That she pays her tuition at a local junior college and won’t get a chance to go any further because she can’t afford it. Her momma is a stripper, and the boy she grew up loving hit her and broke her heart and knocked up another woman. Yet when his drunk ass needs something, he comes to her and she sets him straight. You don’t know shit. So don’t act like you do.”
I was breathing hard when I finished, and I jerked my head around and stared out the window. I had said too much.
“Holy shit,” Jax finally said under his breath.
“What?” I snapped, still angry.
Jax shook his head. “Nothing,” he said.
I wanted to demand he explain himself, but I was afraid he’d piss me off and I’d hit him. Not a good idea since he was about to go onstage.
“I called her tonight,” I told him. I needed to say it. I needed to admit it.
“Did she answer?”
“Yeah, she did. We talked. She said I could call again.”
“Which member of Jackdown is she dating?” he asked.
I looked at him, confused. “How did you know it was Jackdown?”
Jax smirked. “I found Sea Breeze first.”
Oh. Yeah. And Sadie would know about Jackdown.
“Lead singer,” I replied, trying to block out the guy’s face.
“Krit? Really? That’s Trisha’s brother. Huh . . . ,” he said, surprised.
“What do you mean, ‘huh’?”
He shrugged. “Krit is Trisha’s brother. Trisha is married to Rock. Jess is Rock’s cousin. I would think those two grew up together. Known each other for years. Surprising they’re just now dating. Weird, almost.”
I hadn’t known that. Could he have been there just to make me jealous?
“You don’t think . . . ,” I said, but stopped myself.
Jax didn’t need me to finish. “Might be,” he replied.
I had to get back to Sea Breeze.