“Girl, you need to dump his ass!” Jennifer shouted through the phone. She had tried calling me all afternoon, but I was so angry I couldn’t even begin to speak to anyone until now.
I’d been driving around the city for hours, stopping in various places to take a break. Jaxon kept texting me and calling, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. It felt like it was one thing after another with him. First, he lied to me about who he really was, and now I was being sent scathing pictures of Jaxon with another girl. It all made me sick.
“I know,” I agreed. “I don’t know if I can handle his lifestyle. So many women want him. Will I have to put up with this stuff for the rest of my life?”
She snorted. “Most definitely. I’d get out now before things get too serious.”
They already were. I loved him. My phone beeped and I glanced down at the screen; it was Hayden. “Jennifer, can I call you back? It’s my friend Hayden.”
“Wait, you have to tell me what you’re going to do. Is it over between you two?” she asked, her voice desperate but also angry.
My phone beeped again and I sighed. “I don’t know. It’s just too much right now. I’ll call you back.” I hung up with her and answered Hayden’s call, regretting it the moment I switched over. It was probably Jaxon calling from her phone. “Hello,” I answered nervously.
Hayden’s voice answered. “Hey, girl. What ya doin’?”
“Driving. You?”
“Oh, sitting here getting ready to eat a massive bowl of banana pudding. I wanted to see if you’d like to come over and have some.”
I shook my head. “Nice try, Hayden. Let me guess: Jaxon is going to conveniently show up once I get there.”
“Nope. He has strict orders to stay away. I know what happened and I wanted to talk to you. There’s so much you don’t know and if you aren’t going to listen to Jaxon, you need to listen to me. Now come on, this pudding isn’t going to eat itself.”
Making a U-turn, I headed away from Charlotte to Belmont. “You promise he’s not going to show up?” I asked.
She sighed. “I promise. Now get your butt over here.”
We hung up and I prayed she was telling me the truth. Hayden and I were so much alike that I instantly felt a connection to her the first night I met her. I didn’t have many friends in North Carolina and I’d hoped she was going to be one of them. But if things didn’t work out with Jaxon, I knew she was his friend before mine.
When I arrived, I was relieved to see the driveway empty except for Hayden’s car in the garage. She opened the door when I walked up and held out a completely filled bowl of pudding in my face. “Here you go!”
The bowl probably weighed two pounds. “How much did you think I was going to eat?” I laughed, following her inside to the living room. Her two dogs, Bear and Patch, jumped up on the couch with her, trying their best to get a lick of her treat. She pointed at the floor and they jumped down, both whining at her feet.
She took a bite of the pudding and moaned. “I figured if I’m eating this much then you could too. It’d make me not feel so bad.”
“You’re too much,” I said, swallowing down a spoonful. It was the most delicious banana pudding I’d ever tasted; it even had extra vanilla wafers. “This is amazing.”
She said, “It better be; I made it. It’s actually my mother-in-law’s recipe. Ever since I tasted hers I’ve been hooked.”
She ate the rest of her pudding and leaned back against the couch. “Now that I’m reenergized, let’s get to Jaxon. I heard about the pictures you saw. I wanted to see what you thought about it.”
I could still see the images in my head. “Angry, pissed, overcome with rage,” I blurted out. She waved her hand for me to continue, but the other emotions were harder to face.
“I know there’s more, Bristol. Let it out.”
My eyes burned, so I turned my attention to the fireplace, hoping that I could hold back the tears. The heat of the fire could be felt on my face, but my chest was still ice cold. “I feel sad,” I whispered. “And betrayed and heartbroken. How do I know those pictures weren’t taken while we’ve been together?”
“They weren’t,” she stated in all seriousness. “I know who that girl is, and I can promise you that Jaxon had no clue those pictures were even being taken.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Sadie. They were only together that one night, but afterward, she’s been following him around. Some would consider it stalking. She obviously doesn’t like the fact that you and Jaxon are together. He thinks she might be the one who broke into his house.”
A car door slammed outside and my heart lurched, but Hayden patted my hand. “It’s just Derek. He had to stop at Evan’s house after practice to help him repair a fence.”
Derek walked in and dropped his gym bag on the floor, his clothes and red hair damp with sweat. “What’s up, ladies?” He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water before joining us in the living room.
“Nothing much. Just conversating about Jaxon. Have you talked to him tonight?” Hayden asked.
Sitting down in the chair across from us, he guzzled his water and shook his head. “No, why?”
“Apparently, Sadie is up to something again. She sent Bristol some naked photos of her and Jaxon, and also included a threatening letter.”
Derek choked on his water and it spewed across the floor. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m telling you, that girl has those crazy eyes. She’s fucked up in the head.”
“You’ve met her?” I asked him.
He nodded. “She showed up at one of our away games and went door to door to find him. He told her then to stay away from him, but she didn’t listen. The last time he saw her was at the coffee shop when she was waiting by his car. It’s crazy stuff.”
“Why would he even get involved with someone like that?”