Freaks in the City (14 page)

Hah. It was a waste of energy to ponder
Vanessa’s hidden agenda. As Father had been so fond of saying, all
would be revealed in time.

~~~

Nessa lay on her bed, idly flicking through a
magazine while Jay did… whatever it was Jay did to occupy herself
until Tyler finished up his classes. Surely she didn’t spend all
day preparing meals from scratch? Nessa would have outright asked
what Jay did to pass the time but she didn’t want to come across
all nosy and ruin the tentative truce that had formed between
them—a truce that had even resulted in Jay agreeing to call her
“Nessa”.

Shopping with Jay had been a revelation.
She’d been extraordinarily generous, reeling off a list of items
she deemed Nessa required, and not batting an eyelid at the cost.
Nessa had been so grateful for the opportunity to purchase quality
stuff that would last, instead of cheap and nasty knockoffs, she’d
been desperate to do something—anything—to show how much she
appreciated Jay’s generosity. Because she had little ready cash and
Jay had refused to let her shout lunch, the next best option was a
spur of the moment makeover for Jay. But after dragging Jay into
boutique after boutique in search of a special outfit that would
showcase her looks, it’d quickly become apparent the girl was
extraordinarily clueless when it came to buying clothes for
herself.

Nessa shook her head at the memory. Sheesh.
What was with the speed-shopping? Who did that—walked in, glanced
around, grabbed stuff off the racks and bought it without even
trying it on? No wonder Jay’s idea of dressing up was jeans and
tops and sneakers.

She grinned, imagining the expression on
Tyler’s face when Jay got ’round to wearing the gorgeous royal blue
dress Nessa had talked her into buying. Even in bare feet, on Jay
the outfit was a traffic-stopper. It’d certainly stopped that
snooty sales assistant mid-snark when Jay had emerged from the
changing room to ask Nessa’s opinion. She’d been all, “Omigod,
you’re that model from ANTM! Can I have your autograph?” Stupid
cow.

Did Tyler ever owe Nessa big-time, because
Jay had been ready to put the dress back on the rack. It’d taken
some fast talking from Nessa, the shop assistant,
and
the
abruptly no-longer-bored guy waiting for his girlfriend to choose
an outfit to convince Jay she looked totally hot and she’d wow
Tyler in the dress.

That girl. She had no idea how gorgeous she
was. Just like she had no idea a wolf-whistle from a guy was in
fact a compliment, and that Tyler would
like
seeing her all
dressed up.

Who could have guessed that shopping with
Jay would be so much fun? Or that she’d—mock-gasp!—actually like
spending girl-time with Jay?

Or that she’d begin to realize exactly what
Tyler saw in her.

Guilt dimmed Nessa’s glow of pleasure. As if
on cue, her cell phone bleeped an incoming text. Her stomach
flip-flopped. There was only one person who had this number. Heck,
she
didn’t even know the number because she hadn’t bothered
to find out—the whole, if I ignore it maybe it’ll go away
thing.

Her hands shook as she checked the
message.

Did you enjoy your shopping excursion? Keep
up the good work.

Her stomach crawled up her throat and she
clamped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from puking up the
delicious lunch Jay had bought her. OhGodohGodohGod. He’d been
watching them at the mall.

She deleted the text and flung the phone
away.

She was fooling herself. Again. She wasn’t
Jay’s friend. She was a spy.

Nessa buried her face in her arms and
wondered when she was gonna wise up and stop making dumbass choices
that always,
always!
ended up ruining her life and hurting
others.

~~~

Tyler resisted the urge to stick his finger
in his ear and waggle it around a bit to make sure he’d heard
right. Jay had taken Nessa shopping and they’d both not only
survived, but
enjoyed
the experience? Wonders would never
cease. It was like he’d been transported to some freaky parallel
universe where Jay and Nessa were BFFs.

Jay noted his reaction and responded with a
skillfully quirked eyebrow that could have meant anything from
“Surprise! She’s a nice kid, really—who coulda guessed?” to “I’m
merely biding my time, waiting for Vanessa to piss me off so I have
an excuse to stuff her in a box and ship her ass back to
Snapperton.”

Nessa tossed her fork onto her plate and
leaned back in her chair. “You don’t have to look so damn
surprised, Tyler. We’re both grownups. We can put aside our
differences.” Her gaze challenged him to disagree... and perhaps
apply the same sentiment a little closer to home.

He swigged his soda to stop himself blurting
a few painful facts. He oh-so-carefully placed the can on the
coaster and settled for, “Jay doesn’t know you as well as I do,
Vanessa.”

She gratified him by flushing a dull
crimson. And then floored the hell out of him by saying, “Can’t you
please call me Nessa? Even Jay calls me that now. And you know how
much I hate ‘Vanessa’.”

The trouble was Tyler did know. He’d
witnessed Mrs. Ward, Nessa’s mother, wielding the name “Vanessa” as
a kind of verbal whip, berating her daughter for being “too this”
and “too that”. Nessa had never been good enough for her parents.
In fact, the Wards had seemed to actively dislike their offspring.
He’d wanted to die of embarrassment the couple of times he’d stayed
for dinner when he and Nessa had been dating. Awkward didn’t begin
to describe the experience. And here he was, deliberately calling
her “Vanessa”—serving up a heaping of Mrs. Ward in every
syllable.

Shame turned the mouthful of insanely tender
steak Jay had cooked tonight into a solid lump. He took another
swallow of soda and choked it down.

A glance at Jay’s blank expression left him
clueless about her feelings on the matter. Fine. He’d follow her
lead. And if she got pissy about it later, then tough. “Okay,
Nessa
.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling so sweetly it
made him want to barf.

“Whatever.” Sheesh. How had this turned into
a Jay and Nessa against mean old Tyler-fest? Girls. He’d never
understand them in a million years. The only thing that’d make this
situation worse would be his sister, Caro. The three of them
ganging up would make the toughest guy whimper and run for
cover.

His cell phone blared the ringtone for his
parents’ home line. Great. He so did not want to deal with his mom
right now. He fished the phone from his pocket, intending to reject
the call and put it to voicemail.

“You should take it,” Jay said. “If it’s
your mother it might be important. And you should give her my
landline number, too.”

A chill skittered a spidery little dance
down his spine. What did Jay suspect? What hadn’t she told him?
Damn. Too late to have her up about it now—not that he’d do it in
front of Nessa in any case. “Hello?”

“It’s Mom,” his mom said. She always stated
the obvious when she called.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“What makes you think something’s up? Aren’t
I allowed to call you to check how you’re doing?”

Jeez. So much for the apology for her shitty
behavior he’d kinda been expecting.

He hopped down from the barstool. “I better
take this in the sitting room.” Huh. Like that was gonna help with
privacy given Jay’s super-hero hearing. But at least if things got
nasty again Nessa wouldn’t be listening in.

“Am I interrupting something?” his mother
said, her tone frosty.

He half-ran from the kitchen into the living
room. “Only a very nice dinner that took a lot of time and effort
to prepare.” Hell. He probably shouldn’t have said that.

“Oh. Well, I’ll call you later.”

“It’s okay Mom. Jay’ll reheat it for me. So
what’s up?” He mentally kicked himself. “I mean, thanks for
calling. And, uh, I’m fine. Everything’s good. How’re you and Dad?”
And when are you going to apologize for being such a bitch to my
girlfriend, or are we supposed to pretend it didn’t happen?

“Do you have anything on this weekend?”

Uh oh. Please God don’t let them be planning
another “surprise” visit. The last one had been bad enough. But
Nessa and Jay and his parents in the same room? Nightmare of
monumental freaking proportions. “I’m not rostered on to work this
weekend,” he said, carefully. “But if someone calls in sick I could
be called in at a moment’s notice.”

“I’m sure there must be someone else they
can call if you’re not available to fill in,” his mother said.

Double uh-oh. Time to cut to the chase.
“What’s this all about, Mom?”

“It’s been nearly five months since we last
saw you. And your dad and I—” A sigh gusted through the phone
line.

This couldn’t be good. Not if she was making
such an effort to choose her words. What the hell was up? Imminent
divorce?

“I don’t want to hear any more of your
excuses. We want you to come down for the weekend. Caro’s going to
be here and we thought it’d be a good time to—” Another pause. “We
thought it’d be nice for us all to get together.”

He plunked his butt on the arm of the couch
and sagged with relief. A get-together. Nothing to be worried
about. Well, save for him still being pissed at his mom for the way
she’d carried on. Which was why he kept making excuses whenever she
hinted he should visit. “Can’t do a whole weekend,” he told her. “I
have a couple of assignments due and I’m already pushed for time.
How ’bout we head down Saturday morning, stay the night, and head
back Sunday morning after breakfast. How does that sound?”

A sharply indrawn breath clued him in that
he wasn’t gonna like what she said next. Jesus. Here we go again.
Same old, same old. He didn’t have to be Einstein to guess the next
words out of her mouth were likely to be “I’d prefer you don’t
bring your girlfriend.”

“This is supposed to be a family
get-together, Tyler.”

It was Tyler’s turn to suck in a breath—a
reeeally deep, calm-the-heck-down-but-make-it-clear-where-you-stand
breath. “
We
will be down Saturday. Expect us around
lunchtime.”

“Anyone would think you two are joined at
the damned hip!” His mom virtually snarled the words.

“Don’t start, Mom.”

“Or what?”

“Or it’ll be just you, Dad and Caro for this
family get-together.”

“You’d choose
her
over your own
family?”

“Don’t force me to make that choice,
Mom.”

“But your dad and I have something we need
to discuss with you.”

“If you need to have a private discussion
with me, I’m sure Jay won’t mind heading out for a jog ’round her
old neighborhood. She’s quite a reasonable person.” Unlike someone
else I could name.

“Why are you making this so difficult,
Tyler?”

“I’ll see you Saturday.” He disconnected the
call before she could say anything else and totally piss him off
and he blurted something he’d regret.

Shit. What was up with her? His mom had
always been pretty reasonable so far as moms went, but these last
few months she’d been like a different person. Sure, he could put a
lot of it down to their stand-off over his continued relationship
with Jay. But….

Could she be going through early menopause
or something? Nah. Surely that was hot flashes, not biting people’s
heads off and coming across all mean as a rattlesnake.

He glanced up to see Jay standing in the
doorway. “You heard all that, I suppose.”

“You should go without me.”

“You’re my girlfriend. If she’s
uncomfortable with that, then tough. Her problem.”

“If it’s a personal family matter she needs
to discuss with you then—”

“You’re my girlfriend. Whether she likes it
or not, to me you
are
family.”

“Am I?” She came into the room and shut the
door behind her.

“What?”

“Your girlfriend.”

He frowned. What was that supposed to mean?
“What the hell, Jay. Of course you are.”

“Then why haven’t we had intercourse? Isn’t
that what couples who are boyfriend and girlfriend do?”

His brain must have fried because he
couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“Is it because you don’t really believe I’m
human, either? Like your mother?”

“No! Jesus, Jay. It’s not that. It’s
just—”

“It’s just what?” She cocked her head,
staring at him, analyzing him, trying to understand. Trouble was,
he wasn’t sure he understood it himself, so how the effing heck was
he supposed to explain it to her?

“I want to be sure it’s right,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

Huh. That makes two of us. “I want
you
to want it for the right reasons, not just because it’s
what you believe couples do.”

“Statistics show—”

“Jay.” Tyler ground his teeth and tried to
channel calm. “This isn’t about statistics. This is about you and
me. This is about you wanting to be with me.”

“I do want to be with you. Otherwise I
wouldn’t have come back to you.”

Yes! Mental fist-punch. “That’s, uh, great.”
Better than great. Try freaking fantastic. Now calm down. Don’t
screw this up. “But there are a whole heap of reasons people want
to be around another person.”

“Such as?”

“Because they’re lonely. Because they’re
scared to be alone. Because being around that someone makes them
feel good, gives them a sense of security. Because… because… they
need that person in their lives to feel whole, complete.” Because
they feel obligated to protect that person, like Jay felt she had
to protect him.

“Those are all excellent reasons,” she said.
“So why is it not enough for me to simply want to be with you?”

God. Why was this so hard? Would he even be
having this conversation if Jay were human? “I want—need—to know
your feelings go deeper than want. Do they, Jay?”