81. Chapter 81
Jase showered, dressed, and checked on his brother. Graham was cloistered on the floor with his temporary band aids—weed and booze—looking very much how Jase felt earlier when he couldn’t see a point to getting off his ass without his old man.
That feeling hadn’t entirely left, just shifted into what-the-fuck-ever territory.
He meant what he’d said to Lindsey. Jase had nothing to give when he just kept losing.
First his dad, then the money, now his way of life.
Without his inheritance, he had no means of supporting a baby unless he gave up the road.
He figured he’d lose Lindsey either way. Whatever life he could give her wasn’t one she’d want to live.
Jase stole a few hits off Graham’s bong and checked his texts.
No new messages.
He tossed the phone on his bed opened his closet to give his hands something to do.
He piled shirts, hangers and all, on top of his bed until the closet rack was empty, tossed ratty shoes into another pile at the foot of his bed, and dumped out a dusty box of pictures from the top shelf and fanned them on the floor.
Old friends he hadn’t seen or even thought about in more than a decade looked up at him from a past that felt foreign after all the years and miles he’d put between himself and them.
Like the pictures tacked to the wall above his dresser, these captured gawky Jase, pimply Jase, awkward Jase who couldn’t get a date if he got on his knees and promised mind-blowing cunnilingus.
Last night a bar full of women screamed his name.
And he’d chosen one who was too good, one he wasn’t worthy of kissing or touching or claiming. Who didn’t deserve to be dragged down with him when he found out the baby was his and he didn’t have a dime to his name.
What do you want from me? he’d asked Lindsey in Santa Barbara in that hot, dingy, completely perfect motel room. She had been naked and looking at him as if he wasn’t worthless, and he just didn’t get it.
Just for you to stop hating yourself had been her answer.
His phone buzzed. He’d been stuck on one of the pictures of himself with the group of losers he’d called friends, and they were all smiling as if they didn’t know they were losers or didn’t care since they were still kids and there was still time to do something about it.
That’s what Jase had done, wasn’t it? He’d run from who he used to be as fast as he could, as far in the other direction as muscles, a motorcycle, and no fucks for anyone—himself included—would take him, which was…
Everywhere.
And nowhere.
The last decade had flown by in a blur of yellow center lines and rotating beds.
The closest thing he had to friends were the bartenders who welcomed him back for odd jobs and slinging the occasional drink and packing the house for a song or two, paying him in tips and copious amounts of their cheapest swill.
His best friend, his dad, was in the ground.
Graham was…a bastard, now and always, but he was still Jase’s brother, and almost, almost a friend.
Now there was Lindsey, and he didn’t know what to do with her now that he woke up in a world without the money that could’ve built them a life.
His phone buzzed again. She’d been gone for a few hours, and it was about time she texted. Isn’t that what girlfriends did?
I need you. I’m at the hospital.
Chloe.
Hurry.
He took the stairs two at a time. Another text came through.
Something’s wrong with the baby.