Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Jack
“Fucking liars.” I huff, slamming my laptop closed on my dining table.
“What’re they saying now?” Aimee’s voice startles me.
“Jesus.” I place a hand to my racing heart, “When did you get here?”
“Just Aimee is fine. And I’ve just got back. I did shout, but you were obviously in a deep dive.”
Yeah, that could be said for what I was doing.
After two weeks of back-to-back away games, where I have played like dog shit due to the constant ache in my hip, I decided to torture myself further and read what the press have been saying about me.
Turns out I’m going to be benched for the rest of the season and have my contract dissolved.
At least football is all they are gossiping about and there’s been no secret photos of me and a gorgeous brunette kissing on a pool table leaked. I sigh and run my hands over my face trying to rub away some tension.
Fuck, that kiss. It was everything. I have never wanted somebody more in my entire life.
Not seeing her since has been hell. I have tried to give her space to sort her head out after her admission of not quite being over her ex.
But I am desperate to speak to her again.
It’s not like I don’t get it; she was with him for years, nearly married the prick.
Guy, I mean. She was blindsided by the breakup, and it was only a few months ago, of course she isn’t ready for something other than sex right now.
I almost gave in, when she said that’s all she wanted. Shit, when I got my hands on her and felt how wet she was for me I almost lost it. To have even just a taste of that woman would set me for life. But I’m greedy and I don’t want just a taste. I want to feast, forever in her presence.
I groan and rest my head on the table. The cool, hard wood does nothing to soothe the headache that is forming behind my temples. “Come on. It can’t have been that bad.” Aimee says standing behind me and squeezing my shoulder.
“It’s not that,” I say, my voice slightly muffled by the table I refuse to get up from.
“What, then?” She settles into a chair next to me. I feel my cheeks heat so I don’t lift my face hiding my reaction. “There’s a girl.”
I hear Aimee sigh, “Of course there’s a fucking girl.
” I turn my face towards her, cheek now being cooled by the wood.
She has leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms, a small crease in her brow.
“What have you done now? Got someone pregnant? Slept with another investor’s daughter?
Oh, fuck. Tell me there’s not a non-consensual accusation about to come out. ”
“Christ, no!” I shoot up in my chair. “None of those things. And especially not the last one. Jesus, Aimee. What do you think I am?” My heart pounds in my chest at the accusation. The fact that my sister, of all people, would think me capable of anything like that, really fucking hurts.
She lifts her hands in surrender, “Okay, sorry. I know you wouldn’t do that.
You just look like whatever problem you’re having is going to end your career or something.
” She waves a hand at me studying my ragged appearance.
She’s not wrong, I haven’t even showered today, let alone fixed my hair.
The clothes I put on after training yesterday were the most accessible—from the creased pile on the floor—when I woke up this morning, so I donned them.
“Not my career, but she might end me.” I grumble and drop my head back to the table with a thunk.
Aimee chuckles, “I can see that. What’s the problem? She won’t sleep with you?”
“The opposite.”
“She will sleep with you?” She asks, clearly confused.
“She only wants to sleep with me.”
“I’m confused? Isn’t that like you’re thing?” I scowl at the small smirk on her mouth and her eyes widen in delight, as if she is enjoying this. “Oooohhh! You like her!” she teases. “Little Jacky has a crush!” She squeals and starts making kissing noises.
“Fuck off,” I say flatly. “And don’t call me that.”
“Jacky and…” she starts to sing, “Wait, what’s her name?”
“I’m not telling you her name.” She laughs again and gets up out of her chair and dances out of the room singing, “Jacky and what’s-her-name, sitting in a tree. K.I.S.S.I.N.G…”
“Fuck off, Aimee!” I shout after her. I hear the spare bedroom door slam, “What are you even doing here, anyway? You don’t live here!” I shout again.
I sigh and slump back to the table. Not willing to entertain another round of, the-spare-room-isn’t-yours-but-you’re-more-than-welcome-to-stay-until-you-find-a-place, with my sister. Not a minute later, my phone vibrates next to my head. I glance up, incoming call from mum.
“Hey, mum,” I answer.
I am immediately cut off by screeching in my ear. “Jack David Cartwright, why haven’t you told me you are seeing someone? Your mother should know these things. Is she pretty? I bet she is beautiful. When can we meet her? Tell me all about her.”
I groan and slam my head back on the table. Fucking Aimee.
The women in my life are going to kill me.
***
Emily
I should remember that talking to my mum helps nothing.
If anything, she has made me feel worse.
I’ve been ignoring her calls for a good month but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and answer.
I would love to have the type of relationship where I could call her about anything—guy trouble, work issues, a new fabric softener I have found—but that’s not how we are.
Our relationship is virtually non-existent.
We are less ‘mother daughter’ and more ‘woman who had a baby and the baby’.
I realised this when I was eighteen and in my first year of university.
I wanted to come home for the three week Christmas break because the accommodation would be empty and who wants to spend Christmas alone?
I got home to find mum had swanned off with her boyfriend at the time on a six month around the world trip.
She had packed everything up from her flat, dumped it in storage and left without a backwards glance, to follow a man.
She hadn’t even told me she was going. She was disappearing for six months and didn’t even think to tell her only living relative.
I should have expected it really, it wasn’t the first man my mum had stalled her life for, it was just one in a long list. She is a hopeless romantic, she always put everything into relationships.
The only problem is that they weren't necessarily the kind of men that you should pack up your whole life and abandon your daughter for.
She had multiple boyfriends when I was growing up, they were always ‘the one’.
Until they weren’t. Then, the only person there to pick up the pieces was me.
I’m self-aware enough to know my mum’s unstable relationships are the reason I’m so cynical about love.
I have always been more practical. I look after myself, always.
Even with Chris, the man I was planning on marrying, I bought the house we lived in, but I wouldn’t let him put his name on the mortgage.
That place was always going to be mine if we ever broke up.
As shitty as the break-up was, being proved right about that tasted good.
It probably started when my dad left when I was six. It utterly broke my mum. She wouldn’t get out of bed for a month. I had to feed us both and force her to take me to school.
But Carol Ryan is nothing but a sucker for love and even after how shattered she had been, she still jumped in headfirst to every relationship afterwards. Brave, but ultimately stupid. It was like she never learned from one man to the next.
I learned though. I learned that relationships leave you shattered on your kitchen floor, unable to provide for your child. I learned that no matter how much of yourself you give to a man, he will throw you away.
I think that’s why I wasn’t surprised when I found out Chris had cheated on me. Hurt, yes. But surprised? No. I had seen my mum heartbroken too many times to believe love was ever a permanent thing.
My phone vibrates next to me from where I am led on the couch decompressing from the phone call with my mum. Jess’s face lights up my screen. “Hey babe,” she says.
“Hey,” I grumble
“How was it?” I had told her I was going to call mum, I knew I would need the support afterwards.
“Apart from the forty minute lecture about apologising to Chris and how he couldn’t have been that bad, and he has needs that I wasn’t meeting or he wouldn’t have cheated? Fine.”
“God, she’s so toxic,” Jess grits through her teeth.
“Yeah. It’s more annoying because she’s actually really good in her life now.
She was on her way to Neil’s son’s; he’s getting married soon apparently.
She was probably more concerned with the fact that my wedding is now cancelled and Neil gets to be the parent at this one and she doesn’t.
” Neil is mum’s current boyfriend. He has been on the scene for about five years now and they actually seem happy and I am glad for mum.
Apparently, love is a numbers game, keep trying and eventually you’ll find someone kind of thing.
“Ew,” Jess replies, I’m not sure if she’s ‘ew-ing’ Neil, his son, or marriage. All would be fair.
“Yeah.” I sigh, “She said something kind of, I don’t know, smart?”
“That doesn’t sound like Carol.”
I huff a laugh, “Yeah. So, I was telling her about Jack, without actually telling her. You know?” Jess nods on the other end. “And she basically called me a coward for not wanting to give my heart away again. I can’t help but feel like she is kind of right.”
“That’s a load of bollocks, Em. Men just fuck us up, best to just get what you want from them and ditch.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I sigh. “What if Jack is different though? Like, what if he wants to try?”
“Do you want to try?”
“I think so.”
“Then go for it. Just look after yourself, okay. Be careful. He’s not some random guy you met on the street. He’s famous, it’s a whole other world we don’t know about.” She has a good point there that makes me think of the picture that was taken of us at the bar the other week.
Maybe, if we could keep it secret, I would see him again.
“Please, he’ll only be a hook up, anyway. If it even gets that far. I doubt I’ll even see him again. He’s barley messaged this week.”
“Hmmm… You could message him?” she suggests.
“Jess, are you pushing me towards a man?”
“Purely research purposes only. I need to know if his dick is really tattooed.” I bark a laugh. “Look, you never talk about guys. I have heard about Jack on multiple occasions. Clearly you feel something?”
“What if it’s just lust?”
“Then fuck him and get it out of your system!”
“I feel bad about using him like that,” I admit.
“Why? You’re a bombshell. Lucky him getting to put it in you.”
“Ew.”
She grins through my phone screen, “Just promise me one thing?” I lift a brow, waiting for her request. “At least get him to send you a dick pic. I NEED to know!!” I bark a laugh.
I finish my call with Jess after more bashing of my mother and talk of whether Jack’s penis really is tattooed. It is basically a public service now that I find out.
What my mum said about being a coward has been playing over in my head.
I pick up my phone and look at the message thread Jack and I have shared.
He’s asked me so many questions, like he really is trying to get to know me.
Then, after my admission about not being over Chris yet, he’s given me space to sort out what’s going on in my head.
I don’t know if I’m feeling brave yet. But Jack has shown already that he is, or at least, he wants to be. So, if he is willing to try for me, the least I can do is try for him.
With a sigh, I hit the call button next to his name.