Chapter Twenty
JESS
I didn’t go home until Jason dropped me off on his way to the airport Sunday. Momma hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of me spending time with Jason again, but she didn’t argue with me about it over the phone.
However, I knew she would be waiting on me to get home so she could confront me about making stupid decisions. It was the reason I had told Jason not to walk me to the door even though he had tried really hard to. Eventually, telling him it would wake my momma and she needed rest before work had kept him standing at the limo instead. He had watched until I’d closed the door before he turned and got back inside to ride away.
He hadn’t told me when he would be back. He’d made me no promises. He had just said that he would call me. If this weekend had been even a tenth as special to him as it had been to me, then he would be back soon.
“Fire, baby girl. Playing with fire,” Momma said as she walked into the living room in her blue silk wrap.
“Don’t, Momma. Please. Let me enjoy this.”
She walked over to the window and watched as his limo pulled away. “You gonna sulk in your room again when this goes south? I can promise you Krit won’t come running back to save you.” She paused. “Then again, maybe he will. Maybe Krit is your Jess. Come to think of it, that makes complete sense.”
She was back to the Gilmore Girls thing again. I wasn’t doing this with her. Not today. “I have some things to do for work,” I told her before walking back to my bedroom.
“Did you love Krit?” Momma called after me.
“I wasn’t in love with him, no.”
She sighed loudly. “Well, I guess there’s always time for that. You did do this backwards, after all.”
I closed my bedroom door on my mother’s crazy relationship advice, then turned to my bed and lay down. Staring at my ceiling, I let the silly smile free that I had been trying to hold in. Jason had been different this weekend. He hadn’t been as standoffish. He had let me in. We had talked about his friends at school and his brother. I felt connected to him in a way I hadn’t before.
My phone started ringing, and I reached in my pocket to get it. Jason’s name was on the screen, and the happy giggle that erupted was one I hoped no one heard.
“Hello,” I said, unable to mask my happiness that he was already calling me.
“I wanted to hear your voice one more time. Once I get back, I have to study.”
“I need to do the same thing. I’m glad you called,” I replied.
I heard a soft laugh. “Good. I was afraid it might be too soon.”
“Hmm, maybe, but it’s cute,” I teased.
“Cute, huh? Do I need to remind you of my sexiness?”
This time I laughed. “Definitely not. I’m very aware.”
“Thought so. I’m hard to forget,” he replied.
“Agreed.”
He sighed. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Okay, be careful,” I replied.
When he hung up, I dropped the phone to my stomach. It was hard not saying anything more than that. Remembering that this was a casual thing was hard. There were no strings. Not that I intended to date anyone else, but still. The fact remained he could. And I wondered how I was going to handle it when he did.
* * *
The first part of the week, I stayed clear of all entertainment news and tabloids for fear I would see something with Jason in it that I didn’t want to see. When he hadn’t called me by Thursday, I caved and googled him to see if there was any news on him. But only old stuff popped up. There was news about Jax Stone’s new single and some photos of him and Sadie shopping on Rodeo Drive.
Friday I seriously considered going to Live Bay but changed my mind about five times during the day. By the time three o’clock rolled around, I had decided to stay home and work.
When my phone rang, it was almost four, and I ran for my phone. The sinking feeling hit when I saw Amanda’s name instead of Jason’s on the screen.
“Hey,” I said, trying not to sound too disappointed. I didn’t get calls from Amanda very often.
“Hey, Jess. It’s Amanda,” she said.
“I still have your number. Just because you hooked up with Preston and ruined all our partying fun doesn’t mean I disowned you as a friend,” I teased her. She was the kind of girl I would never be but often wished I could have been.
Amanda laughed. We had actually done very little partying. I hadn’t let it get too far. Back when Amanda had a wild streak, she had come to me to help her learn to have some fun. One night when she had gotten drunk, she’d let it slip that she was trying to get Preston Drake’s attention. He was the last guy she needed to be messing around with. Or at least, I had thought so. In the end she had wrapped Preston so tightly around her little finger that he’d cleaned up and stopped screwing his way through life.
“Yes, well, speaking of partying,” she said, “I’m having a birthday party for Preston tonight at the house. I just found out that even the single guys coming are bringing dates. And Preston just ran into a former teammate of his in town for the weekend and invited him. He has no date, and I don’t want him to feel like the odd one out. So I was hoping . . .” She trailed off.
“That I would come and make this an even number,” I finished for her, thinking that I would rather poke needles in my eyeballs.
“Yes, please? Rock and Trisha will be here. I know you aren’t a big fan of this whole crowd, so if you don’t want to, I understand,” she said.
That was typical Amanda. She was giving me an out in case I didn’t want to do this. She hated making anyone uncomfortable. I knew Marcus Hardy’s wife, Willow, didn’t much care for me, and honestly I didn’t blame her. I’d been an ass to her once. I had been so full of anger back then with my life in general, thanks to Hank. Probably time I apologized to the woman. Then there was Cage York’s wife, Eva. We had only had one run-in, but I had been a bitch then, too. I’d never had my sights set on Cage. He’d been more screwed up than Krit, but then he’d met Eva. Cage was so completely different now.
“I’ll come,” I said. This had always been a crowd I didn’t fit into but watched from the outside.
“You will? Thank you so much!” she replied happily. I listened to her tell me about the details and wondered if this was a major mistake. What if Jason had planned to call tonight and I was at this party and couldn’t talk to him?
After I hung up the phone, I sat there staring at it, wishing Jason would just call.
JASON
I had a test to study for and a paper to write. All week I had focused on my classes and making sure I was caught up and ahead of the game. My goal was to be available to leave for Sea Breeze by next Friday to spend time with Jess. Tonight I intended to call her, but I was going to get done with my course work first. I knew once I heard her voice I would be too distracted to think about anything else.
Only an hour into my studying, my phone rang, interrupting me three times in thirty minutes. I reached over and picked it up to see that Jax was the determined caller.
“What?” I asked irritably. He was wasting my limited time.
“Glad you could answer. I called three times,” he replied.
“I’m busy. What do you need?”
“Studying, I gather. You always act like an ass when I interrupt your study time.”
“Yet you kept calling after I ignored you the first time.”
“Did you get my text?” he asked.
“No. I was ignoring you.”
“I was just passing along some information that I thought you might find interesting, but then again, maybe not. I just figured since you were using my beach house so much lately, there may be someone bringing you there.”
Was he talking about Jess? “You have my attention. What is it you know or think you know?”
“You haven’t talked about it since that night in the limo. You were pretty upset about the alternative-looking guy. But since you were back in Sea Breeze last weekend and I have it on good authority that you took Jess into the house and kept her overnight, that things between you two are back on again.”
Since when did Jax have time to stalk my private life? “Get to the point.”
“Touchy. So you two are back on again,” he replied. I pulled my phone back and checked my text messages. I wasn’t in the mood for this.
Jax had sent me a photo of Jess sitting beside a guy, smiling up at him while he was saying something to her. Jax had texted: Look who’s got a date to Preston Drake’s birthday party.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, standing up and taking several deep breaths while I tried to decide what to do.
“You saw the text? That’s who sat across from Sadie and me during dinner tonight.”
“Where are you?” I demanded, walking to grab my keys and wallet from the dresser beside my bed.
“Sea Breeze. Preston and Amanda’s place. Everyone else is inside still eating, but I thought you should see that. Not sure what your relationship is with her, but you need to know she isn’t sitting around Sea Breeze waiting for you. But then, you had heard the stories about her. Don’t want you to get hurt.”
I opened the door to my apartment and slammed it behind me.
“What are you doing?” Jax asked.
“Going to the airport,” I snarled, unable to mask my anger.
“So you two are seeing each other. Is it exclusive?”
I stopped stalking toward the elevator. Was it exclusive? That one question had been like a slap to the face. What was wrong with me? I had been ready to go get on a plane and demand Jess explain herself. But I couldn’t do that.
“No,” I replied, and leaned up against the wall to let the heaviness settle on my chest. “We aren’t. Exclusive, that is.”
“Then I guess she isn’t doing anything wrong. Didn’t think she would right in front of me, but I still wanted to make sure you weren’t being screwed over.”
She was with a guy. Someone else. Was she going to kiss him? Had she already kissed him? Was she seeing him, too? F*ck.
“You still there?” Jax asked.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
He sighed, and I felt the big-brother lecture coming on, from the sound of his sigh. “Guess it’s time you deal with reality, then. I gotta go. Sadie will start wondering where I went.”
“Yeah, okay. Wait, did she . . . did Jess say anything to you about me?” I asked, holding on to the hope that I was on her mind.
“No, she didn’t,” he replied.
I hung up, letting the phone fall to my side. She was on a date. This was my fault.
I turned and went back to my apartment. Studying was going to be impossible now. I grabbed my overnight bag and threw some things into it while calling to book a flight.