Chapter 5
“I can’t believe they thought it was a short in the sprinkler system,” Mel whispered as they walked through the hallways. Their relationship status now seemed to be at dating if the looks the others were shooting them were anything to go by, which was hilarious to her.
“At least they’re not looking into it; do you know what would happen if they figured out that we caused that much damage? They have to replace the carpet in the ballroom and that alone is going to cost a couple grand.”
“Relax Tate, we’re in the clear. Nothing we did at the prom is going to give us any problems. I’ve got to get to work, and you need to go to class. Learn something,” she called out to him as she crossed the quad to her car.
“Be brilliant Mel.”
“Always,” she grinned heading into the city.
Jordan wasn’t there that day, the next, or the three following them and she wondered what was going on because he usually was there at least once or twice during the week.
When he finally showed his face on Saturday, her smile dimmed and she prayed that the company wasn’t the reason behind his look.
“Mel, can I talk to you for a minute?” he said nodding towards his office.
“Sure,” she stated following him as her stomach churned.
“How was the wedding?”
“Great, better than I expected,” she answered smiling at him.
“Really? That’s strange because I swore, I saw you and Tate coming out of the ballroom at the Royale that said the junior and senior prom.”
“Oh, we took a wrong turn,” she tried.
“Stop lying Mel, the game’s over. Do you really think I’m that stupid?” he demanded angrily and she knew by the look in his eyes that he knew the truth—or at least how old she really was, or perhaps wasn’t, was the better way to put it.
“Jordan, look I can explain.”
“I sure hope so, starting with what the hell is going on and ending with what the hell were you thinking!”
“How much do you know?” she asked turning to glance out the window to stop the tears.
“That you’re really a junior in high school! That both you and Tate are. That you’re really only seventeen! So why the hell are you passing yourself off as a twenty-one-year-old?”
“Do you remember when I told you my mom took off the day I turned fifteen?”
“Yeah leaving you with your grandmother, but that all was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“No, well the leaving me with my grandmother is because she died when I was two,” she admitted making his brow tick up a bit higher. “I’ve been on my own, completely on my own since I was fifteen, the day I turned fifteen actually, and the only person who knows the whole story is Tate.”
“What?” Jordan asked, his anger leaving him when he read the truth on her face. He crossed the room and sat down in the chair beside her.
“My mom was a really lousy mother; she’d go off leaving me alone for days.
She said goodnight to me before I went to bed, an oddity in itself that I should have picked up on, and in the morning, she was gone.
That is the complete and utter truth Jordan.
I was scared and alone, and I did the only thing I could think of—I called Tate.
He came over and stayed with me for a few nights and when we knew she wasn’t coming back, I had nowhere to go. ”
“You’re telling me no one knows other than Tate and now me?” he asked, worry and fury racing through him at what her mother did to her, how the men she’d been around looked at her, how Tracks treated her even more knowing what he did now.
“Yeah, if the school found out I’d be shipped off into the foster system, and I couldn’t do that. I mean look at me. I’m the same size as I was then in every way. I really have been fighting off advances since I was fifteen and everyone always assumed that I was older.”
“So you went out and got a job?” he questioned, unable to see how people didn’t question it. He hadn’t but only because he’d taken others at their words when he’d looked into her work history, had believed she was almost twenty-one even if she looked a bit young still.
“At first Tate and I would hit up the bars in town hustling for money but one night a couple of people weren’t too happy about being hustled by a girl and we both knew it had to stop.
I was barely managing to hold onto the apartment.
I knew I could move in with Tate and his parents but that would mean telling them the truth and risking everything if social services got involved.
I figured the only way to get through would be to get a job, so I did. ”
“When was that?”
“The beginning of summer after my freshman year. I’d been working for Henry for almost a year and a half when you showed up for that meeting. I’d gotten a fake internship in order to get out of classes, took a bit of convincing but I managed.”
“Damn it Mel, what the hell am I supposed to do now?”
“Please don’t say anything until October, Jordan. Once I’m eighteen they can’t force me into the system. I won’t make it in there even if it’s just for five months.”
“How are you supposed to live Mel? Go to school...college…”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t find out until this time next year,” she said lowering her face from him.
“I didn’t like lying to you I just…I couldn’t think of losing Tate.
He’s the only person who’s ever been there for me through everything.
The first time my heart was broke, the first time my mom forgot my birthday, the first time I was attacked… ”
“What? Mel,” he said as her voice cracked slightly making his heart ache for her, for what she’d been through, the damage others had done to her.
“I was waiting for the bus when an older classman grabbed me and tried to pull me into the bushes. I was fourteen and they wanted to see if I was like my mother.”
“God Mel,” he said wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. “Shh, it’s okay. It’ll all be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” he stated wiping her tears away. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“How?”
“I’m going to find your mother.”
“That’s not going to help. She’s not going to stay,” she said between laughs of swallowed tears.
“Yes it will. Mel, do you trust me?” he asked gently, stroking her hair from her face, calming her enough to stop crying and laughing as hysteria tried to take over her.
“Considering I just told you the truth, yeah.”
“I’m going to find your mom and I’m going to have her sign a paper giving us permission to get married.”
“What?!” Mel shouted jumping up and taking a step back away from him in shock, certain she’d misheard him.
“Nothing will change Mel except you can live anywhere you want. We get married, you get to keep your job. You can stay in school, be there more if you want. I won’t force you to give up Tate.”
“But we’ll be married?” She couldn’t quite imagine it, and she blinked shaking her head as she tried to get her mind wrapped around the idea.
“I’m not going to make it a real marriage Mel, just something on paper that keeps you safe. We can find a new apartment—house, somewhere inside your school zone so you can remain there and we’ll be roommates.”
“So you want me to marry you, work for you, but we’ll just be friends? Jordan, this is insane.”
“No, what’s insane is a gorgeous, brilliant, talented seventeen-year-old pretending to be twenty-one in order to work to keep a roof over her head and not be ripped away from her best friend.
Just look at it this way Mel. No matter who finds out that your mother’s out of the picture no one can do anything about it.
You and I will continue to work together and once you’re safe, finished with school, including college because you’re going, you’re too smart not to, we’ll see what happens,” he said but she just couldn’t wrap her head around all of it.
“I can’t. I can’t let you do this Jordan.”
“You’re not letting me. I’m offering Mel and the way I see it you have two choices, marry me, or be prepared for what happens when the truth comes out because I can’t just let you stay here working for me knowing all of this, and if you even tried to go back to working for Tracks, I would tell someone the truth, even if you’d hate me for it.
Women aren’t safe around that man and knowing what he already tried to do to you once…
he wouldn’t care that you’re still underage. ”
“And you’re the lesser of two evils?” she said, reading the truth in his gaze that he really would tell if he thought it the best thing for her which made her love and hate him at the same time.
“Fine. If, and trust me it’ll be a really big if, you can find my mother and convince her to sign the papers, I’ll marry you. ”
“Not the way I expected to have a marriage proposal answered but it’ll do.” Jordan grinned at her as he kissed her forehead and headed out of the office.
“Where are you going?” she asked from the doorway.
“To find your mother. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Great, stupid, idiotic, no good, prom,” she said kicking the stool once the door was shut. She winced at the pain that radiated up her leg and hobbled over to her desk. She might as well enjoy working for as long as she could, because there was no way Jordan would ever find her mother.
∞∞∞
“Mel, this is insane. We have what a week and a half left of school? We’ll just take off; we can play pool up and down the coast and then head east. Dad won’t turn us in, and once you’ve worked the tournament again there’ll be tons of people wanting you to go pro.
You’ll make a fortune and then you can get your GED and do college,” Tate said as they walked through the hallway after first period.
She’d hidden in her room the entire day before unable to admit that her secret was out and that she was in deep, deep trouble.
“No, I’ve thought and thought and thought about this and it should work.
Jordan isn’t going to try anything and let’s be honest with the way Stephanie’s been going after me lately, it’s bound to come out that she’s gone. ”