20. Jackson
CHAPTER 20
JACKSON
I couldn’t bring myself to regret what we’d done, or even feel embarrassed that my men might’ve heard. They’d keep their mouths shut if they wanted more work from me. And even if they didn’t, we were both adults. What we’d done was reckless, but it wasn’t wrong.
“Jackson…”
I squeezed Hailey’s hand, but she’d gone tense. When I raised up to look at her, she’d turned away.
“Hailey?”
She sat up and pulled up the covers, hiding her body from the chest down. I pulled my pants back up, feeling self-conscious. I hadn’t regretted this, but maybe she did.
“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have?—”
“It’s not that.”
“Then, what’s the matter? Is it something I did?”
She threw the covers off and fumbled behind her back, hooking her bra up. Straightening her shirt. She found her panties and jeans and pulled those on too, and went to the mirror and finger-combed her hair. I figured I’d better get dressed as well, and did up my ripped shirt as best I could. With my tie on, the missing buttons didn’t show, at least till I moved and the whole front sagged open. Hailey laughed, but halfheartedly.
“Sit down,” she said.
I perched myself on the bed, but she didn’t sit with me. Instead, she leaned on the back of a chair, as if to put it between herself and me.
“I have something to tell you. You can’t freak out.”
“Telling someone ‘don’t freak out’ is how you freak them out.” I offered a wry smile, but Hailey didn’t bite.
“I’m serious. I need you to swear you’ll stay calm.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or to worry for real. I wasn’t the freakout type, and Hailey knew that. So what was she hiding that could be so bad? Maybe she’d called in the ransom tip herself. Got scared her folks might come, or hurt when they didn’t, and needed an escape hatch. That had to be it.
“If this is about the ransom tip?—”
“I’m pregnant.”
I didn’t react at first. I didn’t hear her. What she said was so different from what I’d assumed, it didn’t make sense to me. My brain shorted out.
“Did you hear me? I said?—”
“You’re pregnant?” I stood up, then sat down again. Pregnant? How long? Had she known when we first hooked up? But no, she’d been drinking.
“It’s yours,” she said.
My heart stopped. Mine? But that wasn’t possible. I’d gloved up every time. Plus, it had been how long since our first hookup? She couldn’t know this soon. Not for sure. Could she?
“Jackson? Say something.”
I swallowed. “How?”
She choked on a guffaw. “How do you think?”
“No, I mean…” I wasn’t sure what I meant. My mind was still playing catch-up. This was a mistake.
“I need you to say something. You can’t just sit there.”
I breathed deep through my nose, but my head didn’t clear. Mom had been pregnant when she’d said yes to Dad. The worst mistake of her life, thanks to a baby. She’d signed herself up for ten lonely years, him on the road, her with the kids. Raising me and my brother all by herself. And I was like him. I always had been. I had to keep moving. Couldn’t change who I was. Dad had tried for a while and it had been awful, the soft whisper-fights so us kids wouldn’t hear.
“You could just be late,” I said. “Because of the stress.”
Hailey leaned on her chair. “That’s what I thought. But I took a test, and yeah. Two pink lines.”
“And two pink lines, that means you’re pregnant? Because I’ve heard those tests can be kind of confusing. Some are just one line, others are two. Or they’re digital readouts, or blue and not pink. Are you sure you got the right one? Two pink lines are pregnant?”
“I read the box twice. It said?—”
“And when did you do the test? Where did you get it? You’ve spent the last two days stuck here with me.”
Hailey backed up, and I realized I was yelling. Or not yelling exactly, but getting loud. I was getting angry, and I wasn’t sure why. If she was pregnant, well, it took two. I’d taken that risk the same way she had. She wasn’t to blame, but?—
“I snuck out of rehearsal. You chased me, remember? I did the test then, at the store where I bought it.”
Rage burst in my belly, huge, all-consuming. It rolled through me like wildfire. Three days? Three days?
“Three days you’ve known this, and you couldn’t have told me?”
Hailey didn’t say anything. I surged to my feet. My blood was boiling, my head, my skin. I balled my hands into fists and paced up and down.
“Don’t you get the danger you’re in? I’m supposed to protect you, and that goes for your baby. How do I do that if I don’t even know? What if you fell again and knocked yourself out, and I didn’t know when the medics came that you were pregnant? They could dose you with anything. You?—”
“Jackson! Stop!”
I advanced on her and she backed away, lifting the chair like a shield or a weapon. Cold shame washed over me, and I stepped back, hands raised. I forgot my size sometimes, how I towered over people.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Hailey laughed. “ Scare me? You don’t get it, do you?”
“All I’m trying to say is, why didn’t you tell me?”
Hailey rolled her eyes, and I saw she was angry. Not scared, but furious. Ready to burst. “Okay, I’ll bite. When should I have told you? When you were dragging me out to your car, refusing to tell me what was going on? I thought you were snatching me, let alone some freak.”
“I—”
“ No! ” Hailey thrust out her palm at me and I shut up. “Or should I have told you our first day here, between throwing up and getting shit from my parents? You know what they said when I texted them scared? They were pissed off at me because your guys went to check on them, and it looked funny and people might talk. I’m cooped up here in fear for my life, and all they can think is, what if there’s gossip?” She bit back a half-sob and dashed at her eyes. “Or maybe I should’ve told you this morning, when I felt good for the first time in days. What’s wrong with me, taking time to enjoy that? How very dare I steal a moment of peace?”
The last of my anger trickled away, leaving me feeling stupid, and like a jerk. Like the last guy on earth who should be a father, yelling and ranting when I should’ve listened.
“Hailey,” I started, but she cut me off.
“Someone’s outside.”
Footsteps clumped down the hall, then somebody knocked. Hailey turned her back as I opened the door. The man who’d come up looked vaguely embarrassed — Sean, his name was. One of my guys.
“Threat’s over,” he said, not looking at Hailey. He didn’t meet my eyes either, just stared at my tie. “Police caught two tech guys got fired from their jobs, thought they’d grab Hailey and make a quick buck. One of their girlfriends called in the tip.”
“Thank you,” I said. “They’re in custody now?”
“Yeah, and the girlfriend. She knew for a while. Claims she didn’t think they’d really go through with it, but they were in the concert hall when you got out.”
Hailey made a strangled sound, maybe a laugh. I glanced at her. “All right. Bring the car round.”
“It’s downstairs already, sir. Ready when you are.”
“Perfect. Let’s go.” Hailey pushed past me. I wanted to grab her and pull her back, but if I did, I might scare her for real. Worse, I might hurt her, and I couldn’t do that. So I let her go, and I gathered her things, and I followed her slowly down to the limo. I saw right away she’d taken the front seat, cutting off any chance to talk on the drive.
I sat in the back and tried to think my way through it all. So, Hailey was pregnant. Assume that was true. What were the odds the baby was mine? I guessed pretty good, based on what she’d told me. She’d been virtually cloistered till the night she met me, buried in Florida recording her album. That night was her first night out in God knew how long, so okay. Assume the baby was mine. How would that look, in an ideal world? Should I ask her to marry me? Buy her a house? I snorted at the thought of me buying her anything, of her wanting anything I could hope to afford. She could buy her own house. Her own mansion, even. What she needed from me was, what? My presence?
I thought of Dad again, those last few months. He’d taken a desk job to be home with Mom. But he’d been miserable, and so had she, and me and my brother had lived like ghosts. We’d tiptoed around them trying to be good, so good they’d be happy and the fights would stop. But still every night we’d hear through the wall, whispered unhappiness. Sharp accusations.
“It’s her fault,” I’d said, listening through an old juice glass. “She won’t let him go out. She’s like his jailer.”
Nick had punched me so hard he’d broken the juice glass. I still had the scar from where it gashed my cheek. A week after that, Dad had moved out. Would that be us, if I tried it with Hailey? I was like Dad. I got itchy feet. I couldn’t stay in one place, at least not forever. But I couldn’t just act like our child wasn’t mine.
What if I stayed with her ten months of each year, then in the summers, I’d take our kid traveling? Like Dad used to take me out on the road? I tried to picture it, but my head filled with whispers. Venom our kid would hear hissed through the walls. I couldn’t change who I was, and neither could Hailey.
People just didn’t change, hard as they tried.