Chapter Twenty-Six
JESS
This was the third time this week that Krit had shown up during my shift, causing problems. He had literally dragged me away from one man I was doing a lap dance for while wrapping me up in his jacket. He had cursed a blue streak.
I had begged Delilah to let me handle him and not have him thrown out. She had understood when she found out he was a family friend who was having a hard time dealing with my new job. She had just warned me that it had better not happen again.
So now Krit was coming and paying for all my available times for lap dances and taking me to the back, where he continued to tell me he’d marry me and he could take care of my momma’s medical bills. When that hadn’t worked, he had pleaded with me to get Medicaid. I had explained that the care Momma would receive wasn’t sufficient. Medicaid didn’t cover everything she needed, and the medical bills would start piling up soon.. I had to strip for several years to pay it off as it stood right now.
Once my shift was finally over, Krit walked me out and to my truck. “I can’t f*cking stand this anymore, love. You’re gonna have to stop. I’m gonna get motherf*cking arrested the next time I have to hear one of those horny f*ckers talk about your tits and the things they want to do to you.”
I liked to pretend those men weren’t there and they didn’t talk about me or think about me. Hearing Krit tell me only made me feel dirty. My skin was sensitive from my rubbing it raw when I scrubbed myself each night. Even though no one touched me, I could feel their eyes on me. It made me feel cheap and worthless. But I had paid all our bills and I had put down enough on Momma’s surgery cost that they were scheduling it now.
“Krit, please. Just stop coming. I wish Rock had never told you. He knows why I’m doing this. He knows I have no other option. You knowing is only making it hard on me. You can come every damn night I work, but I can’t stop. I need this money. So just, please, let it go.”
Krit kicked my wheel and swore, then let out an angry yell. “This is bullshit! Where’s that pretty boy at now? Huh? With all his f*cking money? He wanted you, but he ran like hell when things got tough.” He pointed at himself. “I’m not running! Someone has got to give a damn, Jess. Someone has got to f*cking give a damn, or you’re gonna lose yourself.”
I had already lost myself. I hated looking at myself in the mirror. I felt tainted. Knowing my momma had lived my entire life like this broke my heart even more. She had done it for me. This awful, disgusting feeling she had lived with for me. The jaded woman she had become made sense. Men couldn’t touch her emotionally because she had cut them off. I understood that now. You had to do it to survive. If you let yourself focus on how they viewed you, it was too hard.
“This is my choice. I made it and I’ll live with it. I won’t let my momma die! Do you hear me?” I screamed, unable to control my emotions. “I won’t let her die! So back the f*ck off. I just need you to back off.” I jerked the truck door open and climbed inside. I didn’t look at Krit as I backed out of the parking lot. I made sure I was far enough away before I let the first tear fall.
* * *
Our apartment complex wasn’t in the best area of town, but it was cheap. That was what mattered right now. Momma had a gun, and I was pretty damn sure I could use it if I needed to. I reached for my can of Mace as I opened the truck door and kept my finger on the trigger as I jogged up the stairs and to the door that belonged to us. Checking to make sure I was alone, I unlocked the door and hurried inside, then went back to locking the three locks that afforded us some security.
Once I was sure we were safe, I went quietly to the bathroom to get cleaned. Momma was always asleep when I got home, so when I walked inside with my mascara running down my face each night she didn’t have to see it.
Turning the water on as hot as it would go, I stripped down and stepped into the small shower, letting the water wash me clean. Closing my eyes, I imagined the dirty that clung to me going down the drain with the water. It was the only way I could cope.
I stayed under the water, soaping myself over and over again, until the water ran cold. The iciness sometimes wasn’t enough to send me away. There was a numbness that came with the freezing-cold water. Tonight I didn’t stay for that part. I was exhausted mentally and physically. Delilah had mentioned that I had dark circles under my eyes tonight, and then she’d done some makeup magic.
My toes throbbed from the heels we had to wear all night, and I cringed as I walked quietly to the bedroom and crawled into bed. Momma was softly snoring beside me. We hadn’t gotten a two-bedroom because this saved us money and because the house we had rented before also came with one of the beds we used—it wasn’t ours. Only my bed belonged to us. We hadn’t bought another bed when we could both sleep in this one. And once Momma was dealing with the chemo treatments, she would need me close to her at night.
I pulled the covers up to my chin and closed my eyes. It was my favorite part of the day. I could escape and dream now about things out of my reach.
JASON
I needed closure. That had to be it. I couldn’t move the f*ck on. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and I couldn’t stop being so damn angry at everyone. I yelled at most people brave enough to talk to me.
Her truck hadn’t been outside her house. No one’s car had been there. The place had looked empty. I hadn’t gotten out but had instead told Kane to take me to Live Bay. If she wasn’t here, someone would be here who knew how I could find her. Before I’d left, I’d called her, but her cell was disconnected. Dwelling on why her number would be disconnected got me so worked up I couldn’t focus on the real reason I was here. To end this with her. I needed to see her and tell her exactly what I thought of her, and then I could walk away.
Seeing her again and seeing she wasn’t what I had built up in my head would help me deal with forgetting her. She was still sitting on a damn pedestal in my head, and the girl on the phone who had told me she’d slept with Krit didn’t match the girl who had told me she loved me. The only way to prove to myself what she really was, was to see her.
I walked into Live Bay, and the jackass she was sleeping with was singing into the microphone. She’d be here. I scanned the crowd for someone I knew, but I didn’t see anyone familiar and I didn’t see Jess. I stepped through the crowd and looked back at the stage just as the eyeliner-wearing douche looked at me. He stopped singing and squinted his eyes against the stage lights as he stared at me.
I was ready for this. I wanted him to say something to me. I needed one good reason to knock the shit out of him. I took a step forward, and his eyes focused enough to realize it was me he was seeing. I saw one of the band members nudge him, trying to get his attention. He shook his head, not breaking his angry glare he had leveled at me.
He pointed at me. “You!” he roared, jumping off the stage and stalking toward me. I heard the rest of the band behind him as they started moving, but I couldn’t look away. What was this guy’s problem? He looked ready to murder me. I was the one who had the f*cking right to be angry. Not him.
When he reached me, he drew back his fist, and it connected with my jaw in a vision-blurring punch. I staggered backward, unprepared for his swing, but managed to get myself together in time to duck his next swing and take one myself. My fist hit his face with a solid hit.
Two band members grabbed him from behind and the other one stood in front of me, holding up his hands. “Easy,” he told me, and I cautiously dropped the fist I had drawn back to take another satisfactory punch. The blood on his lip wasn’t enough. I wanted to see him on the f*cking floor, unconscious. He’d taken her from me.
“I’m gonna kill him! He’s a sorry motherf*cker, and I want him dead!” Krit yelled as he fought against the hold the other guys had on him.
“Calm your ass down, Krit. Fighting with Jason ain’t helping her. It ain’t about him and you know it, so stop putting blame there and go calm the f*ck off,” Rock said as he stepped beside Krit. “Walk this off,” Rock told him.
Krit swung his angry glare back to me. “He left her. Like the spoiled, arrogant piece of shit he is. Didn’t even try to help her. She loves that sorry sonuvabitch!”
Rock stepped in front of Krit and said something low enough that I couldn’t hear him. I wanted to know what he thought I had done to Jess, because he sure as hell didn’t have his facts straight.
“Let him talk,” I said. “I want to know what it is I did exactly, ’cause the way I’m looking at it, I was the one who got screwed over,” I said to Rock’s back, and everyone around us went quiet.
Rock slowly turned around, and his attention was completely focused on me now. “Excuse me?” he said. The warning edge to his voice just added to my confusion. What had Jess told them I had done?
“I didn’t do anything to Jess. She slept with him and broke things off with me,” I said, pointing at Krit.
“She didn’t f*cking sleep with me!” Krit roared, fighting to get loose again as they held him back. “She just wanted you! Trust me, I tried like hell, but she only wanted you and you ran, leaving her at the first sign of trouble. What’s the deal? A stripper not good enough for you? Being forced to f*cking strip to pay her momma’s hospital bills too low for your uppity ass?”
“Enough!” Rock said, stopping Krit. “Get him the hell outta here before I shut him up myself.”
I no longer cared that Rock was the size and build of a brick wall. I needed to know what the hell Krit was yelling about. “No!” I said, moving toward him. “I want to know what he’s saying,” I told no one in particular. “Who is stripping to pay her mother’s hospital bills?” I stopped as the words coming out of my mouth clicked. “No,” I said, shaking my head. They didn’t mean . . . “No!” He was lying.
Krit looked at me incredulously. “You don’t know,” he said, almost too quietly. “She didn’t f*cking tell you.” He shook his head and slung off the guys holding him. “Motherf*cker!” he roared. “You don’t even f*cking know!”
I turned to look at Rock, still feeling the horror of what he was saying register in my brain. “What hospital bills?” I managed to ask through the gripping tightness in my throat.
“Her momma’s. She’s got cancer. They don’t have insurance, and she’s got to have a mastectomy. They had to move to a cheaper place, and Jess had to get a job that paid the bills and paid the large monthly payment she has to make to the hospital for her mother so she can get the surgery and get chemo.”
My chest felt like someone had just dropped a load of f*cking bricks on it. “When did she find out?”
“About four weeks ago.”
“He doesn’t even f*cking know,” Krit was still ranting. “She told me it wasn’t his problem. I thought she was f*cking protecting him, but she hadn’t even told him.”
I looked at him and her story all started to make sense. “She never slept with you four weeks ago.” It wasn’t a question. I knew the answer.
“F*ck, she wasn’t even talking to me four weeks ago. She was too busy escaping town without telling anyone. I ain’t had Jess since you took her away from me.”
My blood pounded in my head, and I knew I was heaving, as my breathing was difficult. “Where is she?” I asked Rock.
“She’s in Mobile at Delilah’s,” Krit answered instead. “Rock don’t know shit. I’m the one who goes there and pays for all the damn lap dances so she doesn’t have to give them to those horny-ass men.”
The image of Jess’s body being on display to a bunch of men was all it took. I turned and took off running.