5. Iris
Iris
Monday morning, I dragged myself out of the warmest, coziest bed on earth. The temptation to curl up against Jackson and pretend I’d done it by accident while asleep was so strong that I leapt out of bed to avoid the impulse.
I got ready in the bathroom. Jackson wasn’t far behind me, and we both left at the same time. It was almost homey.
I’d parked behind him, and he followed me to my car. “Be careful.”
“I will,” I said, glancing around at the quiet street. Jackson only had a few neighbors out here on the edge of town, and hardly anyone else was awake. “Mom’s probably already left, so maybe I should head home after work instead of coming back here.”
Jackson pressed me against the side of my car, both of his arms coming up to box me in. I knew he was just being his usual overprotective self, but my core clenched, and I had to fight the urge to arch against him.
“You’ll come right back here until I know for sure that she’s gone.”
“I haven’t heard from her since Saturday.
It’s not like she’d tell me if she left town.
” Mom had never seen fit to inform anyone of her movements, least of all me.
Since thinking about that sent another spike of pain to my heart, I focused on the small moment of intimacy in front of me, on saying goodbye to Jackson before leaving for work, on his warm weight a breath away from mine.
Jackson’s thumb ran down the side of my face, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. “I don’t care. I need to know that you’re safe.”
Tilting my chin, I said, “I’ll be fine. I’ve always been fine.”
His eyes traced the line of my lips, sparking want and curiosity. I’d thought…since I’d moved in here…but I must be wrong. If Jackson was into me, I’d have noticed before now, right?
Right?
“I need you to be more than fine.” He leaned forward, his face so close that the shadow of fresh-shaved stubble on his jaw was visible beneath his tanned skin.
I went up on my tiptoes. Just the tiniest bit.
Lust flared in his eyes. I licked my lips and wondered if all my teenage fantasies were about to come true.
Sharp rustling through the branches in the empty lot next to us had him scuttling back, shoving me behind him in a jerky move, his head swiveling around.
“It was just a squirrel or something running under a bush,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Get in the car.” He didn’t even turn around before barking that order. “That was too much rustling for a bitty squirrel.”
“Maybe it was a deer, then.” They were all over the place.
He shook his head, still not looking at me. “If you don’t get in the car, you’re going to be late. Travis wouldn’t like that.” It was a weak excuse, and we both knew it.
I did as I was told, but only because I planned to spend my entire day examining the last five minutes.
Bet he doesn’t look at Travis’s lips like that.
I pushed away from my desk and stretched.
Spending so much time hunched over, writing emails or making phone calls, couldn’t be good for the human body.
Maybe I’d walk up to the nearby college campus and get some takeout for lunch.
It was a short stroll, and between campus police and the general buzz of people, the biggest danger was the heat.
If Jackson found out, he’d blow a gasket, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
A quick peek into the front office revealed Maya at her desk, hard at work. She’d asked how I was this morning, and I could see a deeper question lurking in her eyes about Friday night, but she hadn’t brought it up directly.
“Maya,” I called out.
She startled at my voice, then shot me a smile.
“Look, I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t mean to nearly get us stranded but, uh, something came up…”
After a searching look, she said, “You ran into someone you wanted to avoid. You don’t have to explain that to me.” Something flickered behind her usually bright smile.
I blinked at the easy acceptance. I’d expected her to dig—after all, I was the one who had talked her out of driving. If I hadn’t done that, we’d have been able to get home, no problem. “Thanks. Are you ordering anything for lunch? If you haven’t, I can grab you something while I’m out.”
“No, I brought my lunch today.”
“Ah, well, that’s probably better tasting, but we don’t all have that kind of time,” I said with a self-deprecating smile.
Maya was the best receptionist we’d ever had—way better than we deserved—and she still managed to cook for herself, and she always had a smile on her face.
I was a little jealous that she seemed to have her shit so together.
“I’m going to walk up to campus for lunch. If I’m not back in forty-five minutes, send an ambulance. I’ve probably died of heatstroke.”
“You can get delivery.”
I made a face. “No, I need some sunshine.”
I made it two blocks before Mom popped out of the tree cover to my right and joined me on the sidewalk.
She looked a little worse for wear, in the same clothes she’d been wearing on Saturday, but they didn’t look like they’d been washed since.
Her hair was greasy, and some new sores had popped up on her chin.
Or maybe she’d been wearing heavier makeup the last two times I saw her.
“You can’t be here,” I said, drawing my purse closer.
“I know we left things in a bad place the other day, but I thought we could talk it out.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I told you, I’m getting old, and I’ve been rethinking a lot.” She let out a sigh, her entire body folding in on itself. “I’m trying.”
“Are you high right now?” I asked quietly.
She lifted one shoulder.
Well, she hadn’t flat-out lied to me, or gotten defensive. That was better than last time. Maybe she had something to say. “Fine. Talk.”
“It’s just, it wasn’t right, what your daddy did, cutting me out of inheriting my own home. And I’m in a…bad way. Twenty grand would help me get on the straight and narrow and make things right.”
I had no doubt that if Mom had inherited the house when Dad died, she’d have sold it and blown all the cash, leaving me and Travis with nothing.
Would she still? Was it really about the house, or was that just an angle? “You have to know I can’t come up with that kind of money. And without some evidence, I can’t trust your word after eight years of silence.”
“Eight years—oh, fuck you.” She spat on the sidewalk. “Paying me off has never been a problem before. If you and Travis can’t get it all together, ask your buddy Jackson for the rest.”
“Excuse me?” Why on earth did she think Jackson would loan me twenty grand?
“You owe me,” she snapped.
“Owe you? Owe you for what, exactly?” I picked up my pace, wondering if pressing one of those blue buttons that summoned campus police would be overkill. We were only a block from the first one.
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here!”
And there it was. Her justification for getting what she wanted, laying the guilt on thick. I’d seen her do it a thousand times, but I wasn’t usually the target.
This wasn’t about the house, or getting clean, or anything else but finding a reason to shake me down. Whatever I gave her would go straight to more drugs, or to pay off whoever she owed. Probably some small-time dealer or another.
“Wasn’t my decision to be born, now was it?” I ran my mouth while I looked for an exit.
“Listen, girl, you got twenty-four hours to hand over twenty grand, and we’ll call it even.
You’re my daughter, so I want what’s best for you, but these people I’m in with?
They don’t care so much. I’ve tried to keep Joel away from you, but he’d be more than happy to help you find a way to earn the cash. ”
“Twenty-four hours?” Ice dripped down my spine. Something told me that if Joel got involved, things would get way, way worse.
“Twenty-four hours.” She pointed at me and melted back into the tree line.
I trotted my ass back to work and called Jackson.
Jackson picked me up at five o’clock on the dot.
He’d made it clear he didn’t want me stepping foot outside without him, and I didn’t feel like arguing with him.
I was still too freaked out by what my mom had implied earlier today.
She’d all but told me Joel would kidnap and sell me to cover her—his? —debt.
When I would have crawled into the passenger side of his SUV, he stopped me with a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” As he spoke, he turned me to face him, his eyes running up and down my body in a way that should have felt cursory, but didn’t. Not quite. Not after this morning.
“No, she didn’t hurt me.” Not physically, anyway. Emotionally? Yeah, well. That’s what Mom did.
With one more searching look, Jackson let me go, and I got settled into the car.
“Tell me everything,” he said as he started the engine. He’d flipped his shit on the phone, but he’d been too angry to ask for details. Just cursed and told me not to leave work until he got there. Not that I’d been planning to.
I gave him a quick summary, ending with, “She said something weird about paying her off, like maybe Travis had done it before. Do you know what she meant?”
He shifted in his seat, eyes dead ahead. “I can’t be expected to know every little thing Travis has ever done.”
I wrinkled my nose. “She seemed to think you’d helped.”
Jackson shrugged, the line of his jaw tight. “She might just assume that because I’d help you and Travis out of most any jam.”
So maybe Travis had paid her off and not told Jackson? Although, that seemed odd. With how tight they were, sometimes it was like they shared the same brain.
“Describe this Joel guy.” Jackson’s low rumble forced me to remember the more pressing issue: Whatever my mom was mixed up in, it wasn’t good.
“Skinny, white, a few inches taller than me.” I was five foot nine, so that put him on the tall side of average. “He had short, greasy hair, missing a few teeth. He could be either a rough thirty or an okay sixty; hard to tell.”