20. Jake
Chapter 20
Jake
I thought I was pretty awesome. Dad was right about that.
In school, no one dared mess with me. I gathered information and kept records of everything I found. I used it whenever necessary, just as Dad taught me. By high school, I started to feel a little bad about it doing it, because I’d started to see another way.
Kindness.
Loyalty.
Sacrifice.
I wanted it, and I was fascinated by it, but I never trusted it.
Until two days ago, I never felt like I fit in with my foster family. I wasn’t sure why. I thought it might have been because I still had a father. I told myself it was, like my dad always said, because the Fansees were unbearable do-gooders.
Victims.
I was born to be a warrior, a taker, not a patsy.
Imagine my surprise to discover that I really am the son of two infamous murderers. At least warriors and invaders like Vikings or Saracens were honest about their violent intentions and proclivities. They were raised in a culture that celebrated their barbarity.
No one celebrates murder.
There’s no narrative where I’m the child of anyone good.
After I manage to film the scene I agreed to do today, barely, I stumble back to my apartment. Blessedly, my dad—er, my uncle—is gone. I spend more than half of the nine hours I could have slept digging around for and reading articles on my parents.
My disgusting, horrible, awful parents.
They were every bit as terrible as my uncle described. In fact, I’d have said few people were as bad as my dad, but it turns out my dad was closer to the pope than he was to my real biological father.
And my crackpot mother might be worse yet.
She fell in love with him via email after he’d already been convicted.
No wonder I don’t fit in with the Fansees. No wonder helping my ‘dad’ came so easily to me. I was a monster all along, from the very most basic level of my DNA on both sides.
When Octavia calls the next morning, it wakes me up with just enough time I can shower before showing up for my scene. I look like death when I roll up, but the makeup people are miracle workers.
I should be relieved that I’m able to work, but I’m not. A Viking wouldn’t struggle with their true nature, so why should I? But that night, when I’m finally done, and Jane sends me home, I text Octavia.
Dinner?
She likes the text, so I tell her I’ll pick her up in twenty minutes.
Before I can leave, May jogs up, waving her arms. “Hey, any chance I can grab a ride?”
“Oh, shoot,” I say. “I’m about to go pick up Octavia, and I have a two -seater car.” I point.
“Where are you picking her up?”
I rattle off her hotel.
“That’s where they have me staying.” She beams. “If you can just drop me off there, that would be amazing.”
“Sure.”
I jerk my thumb at the passenger door. She must be able to read my mood, because she spends the whole ride texting on her phone, probably with her boyfriend.
My mind works frantically the entire ride. I’ve worked out one way out of this mess—one—but it’s a nasty one. Sadly, any way I look at it, this is the only way. When I get to the hotel, I wait for May to get out, and then I press my head against the steering wheel and think it all through one last time.
There’s a tapping on the glass.
I whip up my head, prepared to chew May out, but it’s not her.
It’s Octavia.
She’s even more breathtaking than I remembered. It’s like every time I see her—fragile and strong, smooth and raw, brave and scared, fury and forgiveness, all in one—it breaks me all over again. Tears actually well up in my eyes, and I have to shove them back down.
When I get out, she hugs me. “I know it’s only been a day since we saw each other last, and I know this is kind of silly, but I missed you. ” She looks up at me with a half-smile. “And I know I shouldn’t say this, but the thing is, I always wondered how people could possibly know stuff like this, and now, for the first time, I get it.”
Huh?
“Jake Priest, I’ve been a fangirl for a long time, and I knew you had a gorgeous body, and I knew your dimples were amazing and your sparkling eyes made women swoon. I knew I could stare at your poster for an hour, but now that I know you , you’re not what I thought you were.” She rests a hand against my cheek. “I realized in the past day, while I was missing you, while everything reminded me of you, that I love you, Jake Priest.”
She giggles, and it’s not annoying at all. It’s light and bubbly and joyful.
“Why do I keep saying your first and last name?” She shrugs. “I don’t know, and maybe this is way too soon, but I?—”
“We need to break up,” I blurt. I hate myself for using what she just said to do what I need to do, but it will make things easier and more believable, and this has to happen. For her sake.
She freezes.
Then she laughs. “Ha.” She slaps my chest. “Good one. You almost got me.”
I shake my head. “It’s not a joke.”
She stiffens.
“I really like you, and you’re all the things I said, but this is just too much.” I step backward. “I just. . .can’t. I can’t do this anymore.”
Her lower lip trembles, and I scramble around in my brain for any other way, but there isn’t one.
“I’m truly sorry.”
Before I can say anything else, she nods once, tightly, spins on her heel, and marches woodenly toward the lobby.
It feels. . .too easy. I know it’s awful, but I sort of hoped she’d argue with me about it. I thought. . .I really am the devil. I just dumped her and I’m sore that she didn’t push harder to keep me around?
Ugh.
“That was. . .” May’s baring her teeth on the other side of the car. “Really, really brutal.”
I glare. “What are you doing here? That was private.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “But I took my backpack and left my purse.” She points. “I didn’t realize it until I got to my room and. . .no swipe card.”
I try to release some of my anger, but I can’t seem to do it. “Well, grab it.” I hit the unlock button. “And get out of here.”
“Jake—”
I throw up my hand. “Don’t.” I do not have the patience to deal with anything else right now.
“But, Jake?—”
“I said don’t .”
“I lied,” she whispers.
“Huh?” What’s she talking about?
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” Her eyes are darting all over, from me to the car, and back to me. “I told you that, because I knew you had a girlfriend, and I was desperate to do the movie with you.”
“You were that desperate to launch your career?” I practically spit the words out. “You shouldn’t have lied about it. It’s not like I can’t work with someone if they are single.”
“I wasn’t desperate to get the part,” she says. “I’ve just been obsessed with you for so long. I knew if I didn’t fake having a boyfriend, you’d realize how I felt about you immediately.” She circles the car. “I’m sure dealing with a breakup is hard, so let me just say that I’m here.” She touches my arm. “And there’s nothing you could want that I wouldn’t be happy to do.”
I leap backward, my eyes hard. “Good, then do this.” I lean down, the bitter words coming easily. “Go away. If I see you for one single minute when we aren’t working, I’ll never talk to you again, not a word that isn’t a line.”
She flinches, like I’m a monster, and it feels like the first right thing in my life right now. She should flinch—she senses that I’m telling the truth. But her reaction’s also kind of a joke. She’s nearly as bad as I am, coming on to me eight seconds after I’ve dumped my girlfriend. What kind of person does that?
Maybe we deserve each other, but I’m too wrecked to even consider torturing myself with someone like her. She is a good actress. I thought she was the girl-next-door in all but location.
Why does everyone lie, even people who seem so nice? When I get back to my place, my uncle’s waiting for me, outside the door as I requested.
“You didn’t go in,” I say.
“I couldn’t.” He glares. “You changed the locks.”
I smile. “I sure did.” The one good thing that happened today.
“And you told me to come an hour ago, so I’ve been waiting up here this whole time.”
My smile broadens. “You told me who I was yourself.” I pause. “So now I’ll tell you who you’re trying to bully.” I step closer, our faces inches apart. “You told me your plan yesterday, but today you can hear my terms. I’ve dumped the burned girl.” I manage to say that without flinching. “You thought my feelings for her were a weakness.” I scoff. “I used her, just like you used me.”
“Bravo,” my uncle says. “I really thought you liked her.”
My nostrils flare. “You said it yourself. I’m an excellent actor.”
“Perhaps the student has surpassed the master,” he says. “Go on. Tell me what you want now.”
“I’ll hire you as my manager—but you’re not my father. To the whole world, you’ll be Mr. Kingsley. No one will know you’re my uncle, and if you follow that stipulation, telling people you’ve already told that it was a joke, then you’ll get your twenty percent of my cut.”
“Okay,” he says. “And?”
“And then you’ll have skin in the game.” I smile. “Because I make a lot of money.”
He frowns.
“You want revenge on the Fansees, but that bores me.” I shake my head. “You’ll drop that, or I’ll release the information about my parentage to the media myself, and you’ll lose your gravy train.” I fold my arms. “Those are my terms. You can work for me, but you’ll remember that you work for me .”
I expect an outburst, or maybe another slap.
He smiles. “It’s taken twenty years, but son, I’m finally proud of you.”
Even though I just beat the devil himself, I’ve never been more depressed in my life.