“Jason has a bright future. He’s brilliant and he has connections. In the world of politics, Jason can’t have skeletons like you in his closet. You won’t help him reach his goal. You’ll only bring him down. He’s been in love with Johanna since he was a child. Johanna was groomed to be the wife of a senator. She has grown up in the home of one of the best. I know she will be willing to overlook Jason’s baser urges that led him to you. But it has to stop before you affect his life any more. His grades can’t suffer, and he will attend that cotillion this weekend as her escort. It’s too important for him. If you hold him back, he will hate you for it later. I’ve dealt with your kind before, and I know you don’t go away easily. I’ll have one hundred thousand dollars wired to your account within the day. In return, you need to end it with him and disappear from his life. Do whatever you need to do to send him away if he comes back.”
I had seen this in a movie once. But having it actually happen to you was different. The dirty way it made you feel was indescribable. To think someone expected you to take the money and agree to something like this was like a slap in the face. Several slaps in the face.
She had seen my home and assumed I was in this for the money, because someone like her couldn’t fathom that I would have the ability to love someone more than money. Being poor didn’t mean I was soulless. I managed to shake my head no. Words had left me as I stared in horror at this woman who had given birth to the most beautiful, kind, giving, selfless person I knew. How was that possible?
“You’ll change your mind.” She handed me a small card. “Call me when you realize the stupidity of your decision. Unless he’s tired of you by then. I may not have to give you a dime. Now that Johanna knows she has competition, she’ll be working extra hard to make him happy,” Mrs. Stone said with an evil smirk.
She turned and walked out the door without another word. I stared at her back until she climbed into the limo and drove away. Reaching for the handle, I closed the door, then looked down at the card in my hand. She had left me her contact information. I wanted to burn it, but I didn’t. As much as I didn’t want to tell Jason about this, I feared that I needed to. I didn’t trust her. I wanted him to know that I had never accepted this from her, if it got back to him.
Needing to hear his voice, I walked to my room and dropped the card to my desk before picking up my phone. I wasn’t sure if he would be in class right now, but I could at least hear his voice mail.
It rang three times, and then a female answered. She was giggling and telling someone no. I just sat there and listened to her. She said hello again, but I was still too confused to speak.
“Jason is indisposed at the moment. You’ll need to call back later,” she said before hanging up.
I didn’t need someone to tell me who that had been. I just needed Jason to explain it to me. Apparently, Johanna was more than he had admitted to. There had to be some truth to his mother’s words. I knew that already. He had feelings for Johanna. I’d already come to terms with it.
Was he in love with her? Was that it? He couldn’t love me, because he loved her, and he was sewing his wild oats first. The idea of being his wild oats made me want to curl up in a ball and die.
JASON
“Give me the damn phone, Jo,” I demanded, snatching it out of her hands and shoving it in my pocket. I needed another study group. Seeing Jo pissed me off after her duplicity with my mother. She had known calling my mom would send my nosy mother to Alabama looking for me.
“Stop being so nasty to me.” She pouted and batted her eyelashes. Jo and I had grown up together, and last spring after I’d had to much to drink she’d gotten naked and crawled on top of me and I’d made the mistake of screwing her. Ever since, she’d been acting different. I never liked the Hamptons. Like Jax, I had always preferred the Sea Breeze house. But the place in the Hamptons had been handed down to us from my grandfather. It would actually become mine in a couple of years. It was the vacation home Mother used when she wanted to be seen. Sea Breeze was where we always went when Jax needed to be hidden for a while.
Johanna was a part of the Hamptons life we had always known. The fact that she had ended up at the same university as me was my bad luck. She was hard to get rid of. At least nicely.
It was obvious Johanna had grown fond of this idea that we should get married and I should be a politician. It wasn’t happening. For starters, she annoyed me. Her giggling got on my nerves. She kissed like a fish and she was spoiled rotten.
I grabbed my books and headed for the door.
“Wait, what about Saturday night? When are you picking me up?” she asked, slipping her arm in mine.
“I already told you I couldn’t do it. Stop acting like you didn’t hear me,” I said.
She shrugged. “I know you’ll come. You won’t stand me up.” The cheeriness in her voice made her sound as crazy as the giggling did.
When I stepped outside the library, a voice called out from across the lawn. “Jason.”
I shook Johanna’s hold on my arm loose and walked away toward Morris.
“Where did you find the girl with you in the picture that you tweeted this weekend, and where can I get one? Because, dude,” Morris said, “she’s smokin’.” He gave me a nod, his eyes wide with appreciation. Jess did that to all men.
I couldn’t keep from smiling. She was mine, and damned if that didn’t feel good. No one knew the Jess I did, and that felt even better. “Yes, she is,” I agreed. “She’s f**king perfect.”
Morris followed me to my next class, and I got to talk about Jess. It wasn’t until later that evening when Jax called that I remembered the call that Jo had answered. Checking my recent calls, I saw Jess’s name at the time Jo had answered my phone.
“FUCK!” I roared, ignoring the people around me, and dialed Jess’s number. I needed to find some privacy. I had some explaining to do.
I called three times and it kept going to voicemail. I checked the time. She was still at work. There was a chance she didn’t take her phone in with her. I left her a message telling her to call me, then sent a text message saying I was sorry about earlier. If she hadn’t called in two hours, I was calling again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
JESS
He had called three times while I was at work. I had sent it to voice mail each time. His message said for me to call him. So did his text message. Why had it taken him so long to decide he needed to contact me and explain?
I pulled into the driveway and momma’s car was still there. She should have been at work by now. She hardly ever missed work. I climbed out of the truck and headed for the house quickly. My thoughts focused on Momma.
Opening the door, I started to call out for her when I saw her sitting on the sofa. The look on her face told me something was, in fact, wrong. Had Jason’s mother talked to her? Threatened her? No, Momma would be in jail, not sitting on the sofa missing work. She didn’t take shit from anyone.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, dropping my book bag to the painted cement floor and walking over to her. “Are you sick?” I asked, unable to sit down. I needed her to ease my mind. I had a million different scenarios going through my head.
Momma motioned to the chair behind me. “Sit,” she said.
I shook my head. “No. Tell me what’s wrong,” I demanded. The worry and concern had exploded into full-blown fear. This wasn’t right. The last time she had acted like this, my best friend in kindergarten had been hit by a car riding her bike and died. That alone told me something was terribly wrong.
“I got a lot to say, and you standing there ain’t gonna make me talk faster. So sit your ass down,” she said.
“Is someone dead?” I asked, needing to know that Rock, Trisha, and the kids were okay.
She shook her head. “No, ain’t no one dead. Now sit down,” she said, pointing to the chair again.
I noticed that the ever-present cigarette in her hand was missing. Had she lost her job? Surely not. They loved her there.
“I didn’t have no errands to run today. I had a doctor’s appointment,” she said, then cleared her throat. “It was my fifth one this month. About six weeks ago I noticed a lump in my breast when taking a shower. It was hard to feel since I have the implants, so it was pretty big when I noticed it. I got me an appointment and went in, and they had to run some tests. Today they got back the final results, that it is breast cancer, and ’cause it’s been there awhile it’s spread some. They’re gonna need to do a mastectomy, and I’ll need chemo treatments.”
I couldn’t move. All I could do was sit there and stare at her. This felt like death. This was just as bad. “Can they get it all?” I asked, unable to ask her if this would kill her. I couldn’t accept that.
She nodded. “Yeah. They can. They think I’ll be fine once they do the mastectomy and I go through chemo. They’re positive about my recovery. So don’t go worrying about that. Problem here is, I ain’t got insurance. I make too much to get government help and not enough to afford the monthly costs of it. The hospital is going to let me make monthly payments. They actually start this month because all that testing wasn’t cheap. We’re gonna have to move. We need cheaper rent. I’ll also need to find a job that I can work and make enough money to support us. My old one isn’t gonna be possible no more.”
She was going to live. That was all that mattered. I didn’t care about moving. We’d made it through hard times. Momma never let us go hungry. She’d done whatever she could to pay the bills.
Now it was my turn to take care of her. I loved my job, but it wasn’t nearly enough money. I needed something that paid more. “I’ll get a job. Something that pays well,” I told her.
She grimaced and wrung her hands in front of her. “Ever since you was a little girl, I wanted big things for you. That beauty of yours was a gift. Then you ended up with a smart head, too. That brain and those looks were meant to give you the world. You shouldn’t be here with this burden on you. I didn’t get insurance. Now I’m paying for it, and so are you.”
My momma had fought hard my entire life to be a single mom and not lean on a man for anything. She used to say you can only depend on yourself. I disagreed. She could depend on me. “I’ll use this brain and these looks to take care of us,” I assured her. “We’ll be fine. I promise. It’s time to learn to depend on someone else. I’ve got this.”
I stood up and walked over to the sofa and sat down beside her. This time I pulled her into my arms, instead of the other way around, and held her. The only person in my life who I never doubted loved me was my momma. I would do whatever I had to in order to make sure she got better. “We can do this together,” I said, more to myself than her.
My phone was ringing in the pocket of my book bag, but I ignored it. I knew it was Jason, and I would deal with him later. Right now the fact that Johanna was answering his phone was the least of my worries.
“Can’t believe I’m about to say this,” Momma said, “but you know they’ll hire you at Jugs. You’ll get top pay, and if you go that route, you’ll be safe there.”
I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself that using my body was the only way I could make the most money. Waiting tables wouldn’t be enough. The only way I could use my body to make the most money was to follow in my mother’s footsteps. I would lose Jason, though. He would never allow it, and I couldn’t let him stand in my way. My heart took another hit at the realization. Our time together would be shorter than I had imagined. But my momma’s life came first.
The easy answer was lying in my room. I could have it all paid for with one phone call to Mrs. Stone, but I would never do that. I wasn’t using Jason to fix my problem. I loved him. As much as I loved my mother, she wouldn’t want that money either. I would get money the only way I knew how.
“What if we moved farther away from the beach? About an hour or so away, the rent will be cheaper for small apartments, and we’ll be closer to the hospital. And because I’m young and I have the body, I can probably get a job at Delilah’s. It has higher-paying clientele.”
Momma looked defeated, and I hated seeing her like this. She was always so tough and ready to take on the world. “Delilah’s is the big time in that world. Hard to get a job there because they only accept the best. You’ll be hired. Probably make three to four times what I make now,” she said.
It was hard for her to accept that I was about to do what she’d worked so hard to keep me from. I wished I had another answer but I didn’t. I wouldn’t be finishing my two-year degree after all. Might as well face the fact that my future was mapped out for me a long time ago. No use in fighting it.
“That boy ain’t gonna be okay with you stripping,” Momma said.
I nodded. “Yeah, I know. We were gonna be over soon anyway. He has a girl at college I think he’s in love with. I was just the walk on the wild side before he graduates and becomes a politician.”
“Well, he never did realize what he had. But then, most politicians are idiots, so that’s not surprising.”
I managed to laugh even though it was the last thing I felt like doing. I would much rather have cried at how unfair life was. Why some people were born with all the luck, and then others were given one punch after another. I wasn’t going down just yet. I had more fight left in me.
Tonight, I wasn’t calling Jason back. I couldn’t do it without breaking down and crying. This wasn’t his business. I wasn’t his future and he wasn’t in love with me. I had to deal with it on my own. The hardened wall I had let come down slowly began to erect itself as I sat down and made a list of things I needed to handle this week. By Saturday I would be ready to go get a job and an apartment.