Chapter 17 #3
I get to the front of the bar and still don’t see her anywhere. I can feel the light coating of sweat that’s broken out all over me in response to the panic that’s flooding my body. Shit, where is she?
From behind me, an arm points toward the window. “She’s outside,” Mark says and we both break into a run, bursting through the door and past the bouncers.
Not thirty feet away Jackson’s struggling as Johnny is pulling her down the sidewalk. It’s becoming a scene and several people have stopped around them. “Sorry, my drunk girlfriend doesn’t want to leave,” he tells the onlookers.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Jackson yells, but she’s slurring her words and I can see the doubt on the faces of those who stopped to help. They don’t know who’s telling the truth.
“Hey, asshole,” I yell as we run to catch up to them. Johnny’s head spins around toward me, and Jackson finally shakes him loose.
“Nate,” she cries as she runs toward me.
I grab her shoulders. “Don’t move,” I say, and she nods because my voice leaves no room for disagreement.
I spin and start chasing after Johnny, who’s running down the street like the fucking coward that he is. “Nate,” Mark says from right behind me before he clamps his hand on my shoulder, pulling me back. “Just stop.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I yell at Johnny’s retreating back, but I slow my steps. I watch him jump over the mound of snow along the sidewalk and climb into the passenger side of his truck. “I’m going to bury that asshole,” I mutter to Mark.
“Okay, but maybe don’t announce your intentions at the top of your lungs on a crowded sidewalk,” Mark says as we turn back toward Jackson. “You know, just in case he turns up dead.”
I cough out a laugh before raising my eyes to find Jackson and make sure she’s okay. The small crowd of people around her is dispersing, but as I come toward her two women move between us like a wall. She’s shivering in her leggings and sweater because of course she doesn’t have her coat on.
I look straight at Jackson. “Let’s get you home.”
They turn toward her. “Is this your boyfriend?”
“Not anymore,” she says, swaying slightly. “But he’s okay, he’ll take care of me.”
The two women look less than reassured. “I just want to make sure she gets home safely,” I tell them. “I’ll text her friends and let them know where she is.”
“Let’s see you do it,” one of the women says, so I pull my phone out of my pocket and send a message to Sierra letting her and Petra know Jackson’s drunk and I’m taking her home. I show them the text.
“Are Sierra and Petra your friends that you’re here with?” she asks Jackson.
“Yep. Lauren was supposed to come, too, but she got the stomach flu. Sierra and Petra are still inside. Petra wants to get laid tonight, and Sierra is moping about her stupid fiancé being a prick,” Jackson giggles.
The fact that she can laugh about this situation only proves how drunk she is.
Why did her friends let her out of their sight?
“Okay, enough sharing your friends’ secrets,” I say and move toward her.
The women part to let me through and I wrap my arms around her, holding her to me and trying to keep her warm.
“Can you guys just Uber home?” I ask Mark as I stand there running my hands up and down Jackson’s back as she curls into my chest for warmth.
“Sure.” Mark nods.
“And tell Sierra and Petra what happened. And maybe that it wouldn’t have happened if they were looking out for their friend. Make sure they grab her jacket and purse, or anything else she had.”
“M’kay,” Mark says as he turns to head back to the bar.
“You sure you’re okay with him?” the other woman asks.
“I’m positive,” she says, and rests her forehead against my neck. “Thank you.”
The women nod and turn to follow behind Mark. Jackson looks up at me, her big emerald eyes repentant. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, squeezing her a little tighter and hoping my heat will help her stop shaking.
“You know that’s not true.”
“Let’s get you warm,” I say, guiding her toward the bar and then down the alley to the back parking lot where I left my truck.
“Did you mean to leave with him?” I ask, turning toward her once we’re in my truck and I have the heat cranked.
“No, I just wasn’t thinking. I was feeling dizzy and he suggested we step outside and get some fresh air. My head is all kinds of messed up right now,” she says as she drops her forehead into her hands. “I was just trying to make you jealous.”
“Honey, you don’t need to leave a bar with a someone to make me jealous. Just talking to him was plenty.”
Jackson snorts, but what just happened was not funny in the least.
“You could have been hurt, Jax.” I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from yelling at her.
“You don’t know that guy. Your friends didn’t even know you left the bar.
You could have been raped, or killed. If I hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened just now!
” Her actions were so supremely stupid, but this still isn’t her fault.
No matter how much she drank, she clearly didn’t want to leave with him.
“If you hadn’t been there,” she insists, “it wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t even have talked to him.”
“Jackson, you’re dating Marco. And I’ve told you how I feel about you. You don’t need to flirt with some asshole in a bar just to dig the knife a little deeper, you know?”
Her eyes shoot toward me and she opens her mouth to say something, but then squeezes her eyes shut tightly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, reaching across the cab of my truck. Her head tilts to the side so I cup her cheek in my hand.
“Dizzy,” she whispers, taking deep breaths in and out through her nose.
“Are you going to throw up?”
“God, I hope not,” she says.
“Let’s get you home. Where are you staying?”
“Petra’s friend’s condo.”
“Okay, where’s that?”
“Dunno.” She shrugs her shoulders without even opening her eyes. “Somewhere in the village.”
Great. There are only about a dozen different condo complexes in the village.
She doesn’t know where she’s staying, and clearly doesn’t have a key since her purse and jacket are back in the bar.
Even if I called them to find out, it’s not like I’m leaving Jackson alone in this state.
I’m sure her friends would come home to take care of her, but they almost don’t even deserve that opportunity after the way they let her get abducted in the first place.
Fuck it. “You’re coming home with me.”
That news earns me a small smile and a whispered, “Good.”