Break You (16 page)

I’d never pegged her as that type of girl, but then again, I didn’t know her all that well, did I? I’d give it a week, maybe, and then I’d ask her out again. If she was into the whole casual dating scene, a week would be the perfect amount of space for her. At least, I hoped.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BLAIRE

It was late when I got home from my shift at Cross Meadows. Every light in the apartment was on, but Paige was nowhere to be found as I came through the front door. Music trickled out from her bedroom, along with the stench of nail polish. I kicked off my shoes at the front door and headed to the kitchen to pour myself a large glass of the wine Paige kept stocked in the fridge for days like today. I started toward the couch and checked my email before resorting to checking my Facebook again. I knew all I’d do was look at that stupid picture of Jason and Marla I’d seen earlier, comparing her sex-kitten features to mine in my head.

Ugh, I didn’t want to, but it was like driving past a car accident—you couldn’t stop yourself from looking.

And there it was, time stamped from being posted earlier tonight. While I’d been busting my ass taking care of old people and thinking about our date from the night before, he’d been living it up in Coldcreek with Marla. Nice. I pursed my lips together and tapped on the messages area, ready to reread his message from earlier.

Hope you had sweet dreams last night, I sure did. But I noticed one thing...I don’t have your number. Seems like that would be a little better way to get in contact with you than through Facebook. Don’t you think?

Seriously? The time between when the picture of him and Marla had been posted and when he’d sent me the message hadn’t been very long. Not even forty minutes. Was he thinking of me while he’d been feeling Marla Danes up? I tapped back to the picture of the two of them. Yeah, thinking of me while he was sitting with her in his lap was highly unlikely.

“Oh, you’re home,” Paige said. She came down the hall with her fingers all splayed out and walking on her heels with her toes up in the air. “I was just gonna text you and see if you could pick up a movie on your way home.”

“Too late,” I said. I took a small sip of the wine I’d poured and clicked my phone off.

“Wine after ten?” She came and sat beside me on the couch. “Tonight must have been a rough night.”

“Oh, it was.”

“What happened? You don’t smell like poop.”

I laughed. “Well, at least I have that going for me. I didn’t get crapped on tonight, at least not my clothes. I did, however, manage to nearly get punched though. A few times.”

“Awesome,” Paige joked. “I swear, your job is so freaking entertaining. Never a dull moment.”

“That’s the truth.”

“Oh!” Her eyes grew wide and she shifted to stare at me dead-on. “How was your date with Jason last night? I didn’t even get to talk with you about it yet.”

Hanging my head back, I let out a loud groan. “Umm, it went all right, I guess. I’m not sure there will be another one any time soon though.”

“Why? What happened?” she asked.

“I don’t know. He’s just not the type of guy I thought he was,” I said, taking another sip of wine. “I thought everything went good…
really
good, but—”

“Really, really good?” Paige raised an eyebrow at me.

Heat crept along my neck and pooled in my cheeks. “Yeah, really,
really
good.”

Paige’s mouth dropped open. “You slut!”

“Oh thanks, that makes me feel so much better about it all.” I grimaced.

“You know what I mean.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you did that! It’s so unlike you… It’s so
me
…or
Lauren
, but not
you
!”

I sighed. “I know, trust me. I have no idea what I was thinking.”

“So how was he?” She scrunched up her nose in disgust. “Was he horrible?”

I laughed. “No, he wasn’t horrible.”

“Well, with the way you said you didn’t think there would be another date I figured that must have been why.” She jerked her head my way again. “Oh my God, did you like…puke on him while in the middle of
you know
?!”

“What! No!” I insisted. “Nothing like that. I thought we both had a good time and then while I was at work tonight I got on Facebook to see if he’d posted anything or left me a message, because for whatever reason we still haven’t exchanged numbers, and I saw this.”

Picking up my phone, I showed her the picture of Jason and Marla together.

“Nu-uh, no way. He slept with you and then goes to the bar with
that
? What the hell is his problem? No wonder you’re busting out the wine tonight. I would too.” She tossed my phone on the coffee table and stood. “Screw him, you’re better than that.”

“Ugh, I know. Right?” I took another swig of my wine, letting it slide down my throat in the hopes that it would wash away the burning sting of tears creeping up.

I did not need to cry over this. So what if he was with someone else tonight—sucking face and screwing her silly—he’d never made any indication that we were going to be exclusive. Dear God, why had I thrown myself at him like that? Never again would I have a Long Island Iced Tea. That’s what I was blaming it on.

Paige popped the cork on the bottle of wine I’d opened and walked over to the couch with it in her hand, plus a glass. She checked her toenail polish and then curled her leg beneath her. After pouring herself some wine, she  set the bottle on the coffee table.

“So, he was at least good?” she asked. Her brown eyes glimmered with excitement at the possibility. “I mean, even if he didn’t intend to start up a relationship with you, he did at least know what he was doing?”

Jesus. Leave it to Paige to put it that way.

“Yeah, he was, actually,” I said with a large grin, before taking another swig of my wine.

“At least there’s that.” She shrugged. “It would be horrible if he was shitty in bed
and
had only been out for a one-nighter.”

I nodded. “The thing is…I’m not even sure he was out for the one-nighter.”

“Huh? What makes you think that? Aren’t all guys out for a one-nighter if they can score it?”

“Most I’m sure, but he didn’t even make the first move… I did,” I admitted. Crap, had I forced myself on him? Oh my God, I was
that
girl—the one who gets drunk and then practically rapes a guy. Damn it.

Paige’s lips curled into a smirk. “Are you serious right now? You expect me to believe that prim and proper Blaire Hayes was the one who initiated the first move with Jason freaking Bryant?”

“Yup, because it’s true. I kissed him first,” I said. The vivid image of me doing so flashed through my mind. “I practically jumped him as soon as he took me down to the river.”

“He took you down to the river? That’s creepy. I can’t believe you let that happen.”

“It wasn’t creepy. I think he was trying to give me some time to sober up before we headed home, so I wouldn’t barf all over his Jeep.” I had no clue if that had actually been his intentions or not, but it sounded good. Oh my God, had that been what he’d been doing…and then I’d thrown myself at him! My stomach hardened and my face and neck began to feel incredibly hot.

“Sure.” Paige rolled her eyes. “All I’m saying is if that had been me and I’d gone down to the river with some guy on a first date, drunk and alone, you’d have flipped a freaking lid.”

Rubbing my forehead, I realized she was right; maybe that hadn’t been my brightest moment. “You’re right. I know.”

“
But
, when you
did
go down there with him…what happened?” she asked, her attention shifting back to the rest of the evening besides my slip in judgment.

“I kissed him and practically mauled him to death with my vagina,” I muttered sarcastically. I downed the last of the wine in my glass and reached for the bottle.

Paige waved my words away. “You did not. I bet he had protection out and on in a flash once you started kissing him.”

Protection
. I’d forgotten that we hadn’t used any. My heart began to race in my chest as shooting spikes of adrenaline shot through me at this thought. How in the hell could I have let myself sleep with someone without using protection?

“No, not really.” I felt my face scrunch up as the words slid from my mouth. “He didn’t have any on him. He actually tried to stop me a few times, letting me know we didn’t have to go any farther…but I just kept right on going. Hence why I claim to have mauled him with my vagina.”

“You didn’t use any protection? What!” Paige shrieked. “That is it, you are not allowed to go out without a reminder talk with me on the do’s and don’t’s of casual dating. Rule number one: always use protection, Blaire! Always!”

I closed my eyes. “I know this, Paige. I just got caught up in the moment, I guess.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say and then they pop out a baby in nine months or end up with some disease they can’t wash off in the shower!”

I flinched at her harsh words of truth and my stomach knotted even more. There was no way I could be pregnant because I was on the pill, but catching something…that was a real possibility. What if Jason never used protection with anyone? Immediately the realization that wine and panic did not go good together for me clicked into place. Hot tears begin to trickle down my cheeks.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Paige said. “I was too harsh, wasn’t I? I didn’t mean it, I swear, Blaire. Don’t cry.”

I laughed at her attempt to rectify the damage she’d done by speaking the truth. “You weren’t too harsh. It’s the truth…and I’m scared. What if I caught something from him? I mean, you saw who he’s with tonight. Obviously he has no standards.”

Paige wrapped an arm around me and pulled me in close. “No. You’re gonna be fine. I was just trying to prove a point. Everything will be okay.”

I leaned my head against her shoulder and prayed that she was right.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JASON

Beyond my control, one week of waiting to ask Blaire out on a second date turned into two. Things had not been in my favor lately. It had rained for two solid weeks straight and I’d found out after the first round of random flash flooding had started that the basement to Gramps’ house leaked like a bitch. I’d had to purchase a pump to get the gallons of nasty water out and then had to repeat the process of pumping it out numerous times. Then came trying to figure out where the freaking leak in the foundation was…which meant I had to fix the leaks that I found. It was a mess and I was well over my head, but toughed it out like a trooper for my mom.

I’d been so stressed and pissed off about the fucking basement and all the damn rain that I hadn’t had time to worry about when I should send Blaire another message on Facebook and if it should include my number this time. In fact, I hadn’t done anything. I’d been dog-ass tired trying to learn how to do shit properly and then having to learn to fix all the shit I’d broken while trying to fix the first thing the right way.

Over the last two weeks I’d come to a few conclusions about things: One, I sucked at home repairs. Two, my Gramps’ place was a fucking dump waiting on the right person to look at it close enough to realize this. And three, Sarah seemed pretty damn close to stealing my spot on the lease of mine and Brian’s apartment.

My life seemed to be in fucking turmoil.

I switched the channel on the TV in the “media room” of Cross Meadows, putting it on MTV. Some stupid show about teen moms was playing. I left it there, hoping to get a riseout of Gramps. Back in the day he would have never let me put the TV on some garbage show like that. Now, he just sat there and stared blankly at the screen without really seeing what was on it at all. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he realized I’d been here to visit him first thing in the morning every day this week.

It was sad, really, I was practically watching him wither away to nothing in this place.

They couldn’t get him to eat much—his food intake apparently had been decreasing over the last few days—and he never talked anymore. It was like he’d given up, like he’d decided that a world without my grandmother in it wasn’t a world worth living in. I admired that, while at the same time despised it.

I chucked the remote down beside me on the floral sofa they’d obviously had donated by some dearly departed old person’s family and propped my hand up to stare at him. He was dressed in a pair of slacks and a button-up shirt. He looked nice, but his socks didn’t match. I wondered if it was some nurse joke—a way to make him appear more vibrant—or if by the time they got to putting his socks on in the process of dressing him they’d just given up on whether or not he matched and grabbed the first thing they saw. At least he wasn’t still wearing his pajamas like some of the other residents here. That had to just aid in their depression. My eyes traveled to his face; it was drawn into a vacant look—one that said he wasn’t where he wanted to be and didn’t give a shit who noticed.

“Well, Gramps,” I let out a sigh. “I guess I’m off. I’ll probably not come by this weekend, but I’ll be back again sometime next week.”

Standing, I squeezed his shoulder and made my way to the exit. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t do a sweep of the hall and the nurses’ station before I walked through the door, searching for Blaire. I had yet to see her here, but I knew that her Facebook said this was where she worked…because I’d checked and rechecked it several times to be sure.

No Blaire in sight. Again. She must work the night shift or something.

Checking my phone for the time, I smiled. It was already almost two in the afternoon. I’d never spent the entire day with Gramps before, but the head nurse had called yesterday evening and told Mom she didn’t think Gramps had much of a fight let in him. So I’d decided if that was the case then I needed to spend some time with him, regardless if he was practically a vegetable, because I was facing this head-on. I’d decided it all early on and I wasn’t about to back down now.