With this, I figure I've had my dose of unwanted encounters for the day. Things can only get better, right?
So it's a shock to my system when I arrive at the café on Lake Street and find Cassie outside, by the door.
Blond hair loose, dressed in a long dress, she looks like a fairy.
An evil fairy.
I stop and face her. I'm on a roll. "You. I don't believe Jesse came onto you. Not for a second."
She shrugs, her mouth downturned at the corners. "I never said he did."
I gape at her. Words are failing me. I never thought she'd admit it.
"You and everyone else assumed he was the one who flirted with me and kissed me. You have no faith in him, and you're right not to." She pushes off the wall and sighs. "I'm doing you a favor, don't you see? Jesse is like me: he doesn't like attachments. He's not the kind of boy you need."
"But I'm the kind of girl he needs," I say, finding I believe the words as they spill from my mouth. "And even more importantly, he's the boy I love. So I'd appreciate it if you stopped getting in the way."
Looks like the strangeness of the day isn't yet over, but damn, saying those words to the bitch's face sure felt good.
Chapter Twenty
Jesse
Weaving through the familiar narrow streets and back alleys, I try to ignore the feeling I'm being followed, because that's just … paranoia. Nobody's behind me when I turn.
Except for a tall shadow that vanishes behind a dumpster.
Still … No. Just no. Get your shit together, J.
Jason is having a quick smoke behind the Golden Dragon, a new Chinese restaurant near his usual spot. He gets up when he sees me, a dark brow arched, and whistles. "Man, who pissed on your parade?"
I pull out my pack of smokes and light up, then rub at the stubble on my chin. "Aren't whores supposed to be sensitive and empathic and not ask such stupidly blunt questions?"
"Really?" He looks impressed. "I guess I never got the manual that came with the job. Neither did you, from what I recall."
I give him a half-hearted grin and suck the bitter smoke deep into my lungs. I've smoked so much in the past two weeks my mouth tastes like acrid ash and my voice is rough like sandpaper.
"What brings you over here?" Jason's eyes glimmer over the lit end of his cigarette. "In my empathic whore role, I'd ask if it's woman trouble, but not in your case. So what's up?"
I frown. "And if it is? Woman trouble?"
He laughs long and hard, choking on smoke. "Okay. That was a good one." He throws his cigarette to the ground, steps on it, and coughs. "Almost got me there with the serious face, dickhead. One day, though. I have hopes for you, pretty boy."
One day that has come and gone.
"Just checking on you," I mutter. "S'what friends do."
"Yeah, well. We're doing okay. Though I was gonna come find you. Rumor has it you reported Simon."
"I did."
Jason does a double-take. "The hell you did."
"What? You said I should. In fact, if memory serves, you said if I don't do it, more people will get hurt."
"Shit. I thought it was just rumors." He shrugs. "Not that it makes any fucking difference."
"What do you mean?" My cigarette has burned to the filter, scorching my fingers, and I throw it away. "A difference to what?"
"To Simon knowing you reported him."
I was about to pull another smoke and I almost drop the pack. "What the hell do you mean, Simon knowing? How could he know?"
Jason shakes his head, not a hair moving out of place in his perfectly styled hairdo. "Had you followed? Followed you himself? Happened to be there when you entered the police station? Fuck me if I know."
I remember the feeling of being watched at the station, and out, on the street, and suppress a shiver. "Why would he be following me?" The scars on my arm ache. I rub one of the deeper ones absently. "How the fuck would he know where to find me? It's been years since the attack."
Jason shoots me a shrewd look and cocks his head to the side. "You tell me, J. You never told me much about that night, or what happened afterward. You and Simon, you have history, don't you?"
I press my lips together and lean back on the wall, kicking a foot up to rest on the smooth surface. "History. Sounds dirty."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Time you told me the story. It's been years, man."
I sigh. These are things I never told a soul. I hedge, rub my face, search for my smokes in my pocket.
Jason waits me out, until I start talking.
"That night wasn't the first time Simon came to me," I finally say. "Somehow he'd decided I'd be a good fit for his gang. So he cornered me again and again, insisting I join. I said no. I don't do gangs, guns and drugs."
The rules Helen set for me before she vanished.
Jason is leaning forward, brows lifted. "Go on."
"That night … he wanted me to submit to him." I open my mouth to say more, but the words fail me. Dammit.
Jason lets out a low whistle. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
I nod.
"Holy shit." He fumbles for his pack of smokes. "Didn't know he's batting for my team."
"Maybe he isn't. See, it's about control and dominance, or some shit like that." I googled it on Gage's laptop one night when I woke up drenched in sweat, my mind playing the events of that night in a never-ending loop of horror.
Suddenly Jason grabs my arm, his eyes round as saucers, and he looks sickly pale. "Dammit, J, he didn't … He didn't manage to force you, right?"
"No." I shake my head. "Shook the motherfucker off and kneed him in the balls. Could be why he went into a rage and broke a fucking bottle on my arm."
"Christ, J." Jason snorts, shoulders shaking, then releases my arm and glares at me. "It's not funny."
"Never said it was."
A beat of silence.
"Is that why you left right after?" Jason asks.
"I went to a group home for a while. I didn't feel safe here."
His turn to nod, gaze turned inward, and I really hope he isn't reliving some dark memory of his own. "And now?"
Now … I glance around in the gathering darkness. "He only has to make one wrong step, and they'll take him in. Meanwhile … Watch your back, Jason."
"You, too, baby. Take good care of that gorgeous body for me." He winks at me, gives me one of the lazy grins that nets him both men and women, and turns to go. "See you around."
Although in front of Jason I pretended not to give a shit, on my way to work I jump at shadows and imaginary footsteps. I arrive at the taco joint out of breath, my heart slamming against my ribs as if trying to escape.
Jesus Christ, man. This shit is really getting to me.
"Ho, boy." Mel scowls at me as I grab the baseball cap with the joint's logo and ram it on my head. "Slow down. Someone after you?"
"No. No one's after me." I grab the bags of greens and start tearing them open, pouring them into a bowl. "How's business tonight?"
It takes Mel a long moment to reply, and when I look up, my brows draw together, because he's sweating, his face red as if with fever.
"Business's fine," he finally says. "Isn't it your night off tonight?"
I shrug. Better working than having time to think. "You okay, Mel?"
"Sure I am. Too warm tonight."
Well, he has a point. Inside the joint it's pretty hot. "Why don't you go sit outside? I've got this."
"I'm sure you do." He chuckles, but doesn't get up. "Said I'm okay, boy. Make sure there's cheese and chilies ready in the bowls."
"Yessir."
"Hey, you know how I ended up here? Did I ever tell you the story?"
I glance back at him, surprised. I've never heard him talk about his past. "No."
"Ah, well, it's a long one. To keep it short, I used to live on a farm, way back when. My family owned cattle. We grew up there, my brothers and I. Those were good times."
"Didn't know you had brothers." I pretend to check the chili bowl, curious to hear more.
"Two of them. Howard and Dale." He wipes at his brow with a big, gnarled hand, and for the first time ever I wonder how old he is. I thought maybe he's in his sixties, but he looks older tonight. "We inherited the farm when my parents passed away, one after the other. Heart attack, and cancer."
I wince in sympathy.
"I didn't want to stay on the farm after that. I wanted to see the world, live in the city. We had a fight, my older brother Howard and I. So I packed up and left. I traveled a lot, hitched rides on cars and trucks and boats. I walked across Europe. I went to China."
The chili bowl forgotten, I lean forward, straining to catch every word. "China. Wow."
"Yeah, that was something." He chuckles. "A vast place. Weird people. Kind, too. Different. I thought that was the farthest from home I'd ever be, and I thought I'd be happy. Well, I was wrong on both accounts."