But he pressed on, caressing her warm mound in his hand. She had been right on the edge. Maybe he could get her back there. “It’s okay,” he whispered.
“No, it’s not okay. I said no. Stop!”
He stopped, raising both hands and taking a step back. “Okay, I’m stopping,” he said.
Her hands hit his chest then, shoving him a few steps backwards. “Seriously? Seriously!?” she asked. “You were just using me to get back at Colin? Again???”
Beau shook his head. “No, it wasn’t about revenge.”
“Then what was it about?” Although he couldn’t see her, he felt pretty sure she was glaring at him with her hands crossed firmly in front of her chest.
“Respect,” he answered. “That skinny fucker thinks he can come in here and take whatever belongs to me. Just like in high school.”
“I don’t belong to you,” she was almost yelling now. “We’re not in high school anymore, and you can’t just fuck me in public to prove a point.”
“Why not?” he asked, frustration and anger coursing through his blood. “The deal was for any time, any place—oh wait, I forgot, it’s your night off. My bad.”
It was below the belt. He knew it was below the belt, but he couldn’t keep himself from saying it. It was better than the truth: that he was afraid. Afraid Colin Fairgood, the country music star who still had his sight and fame, was here for one reason and one reason only: to steal Josie away from him. And he had been pathetically attempting to mark her as his in the most ancient of ways.
Josie’s voice was soft and fierce when she answered him. “Beau, I’ve put up with a lot from you, mostly because I thought if I tried hard enough I could help you to change, that the good in you would win out over the bad. But I can’t put up with you anymore. You’ve have got to apologize.”
And even though he couldn’t see, he felt his eyes reflexively narrow. “What?”
“You heard me. Apologize for what you just said, for talking to me like that. Right now.”
“Josie…”
“And don’t you tell me Prescotts don’t apologize again. You don’t get to talk like that to me. Not anymore. Apologize right now.”
“The deal was—”
“I know what the deal was, and I’m telling you it’s off if you don’t apologize like a decent human being.”
“Apologize for what?” he yelled at her. “For using you the way you agreed to be used. Then pointing out that was the agreement?”
Her voice had a thread of iron going through it when she said, “Humiliating me was not part of the agreement.”
“That’s bullshit. Humiliating you was the cornerstone of the agreement, and suddenly you’re choosing now to get upset. Not when you made the agreement in the first place. Not last night when I showed up in your room. Now you decide to grow a backbone? Hmm, I wonder what changed.” He pretended to think about it. “Oh, yeah, I know. Another rich guy came along. One who still has his eyesight.”
“No, Beau. This isn’t about Colin. It’s about you. You treating me like crap, just so you can feel better about yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
For the first time since the argument had started, it sounded like she was hesitating, but she eventually answered. “It means you’re pissed off that you can’t see anymore, that you probably won’t ever be able to see again, and you’re taking it out on me when really, you should be working on accepting that you’re football career is over and learning to live without your sight.”
Her voice was soft as she said this. It reminded him of how Loretta used to talk him down from temper tantrums. When he was a child.
“Have you already asked Fairgood to pay you for sleeping with him, or are you just assuming he’s going to offer?” he asked, fury vibrating through his entire body.
He actually heard her sharp intake of breath after he said that. But after a long silence she said, “I remember when we were teenagers, back when we were still friends, before all the bullshit. You said your number one fear was turning into your father. Well, I’m sorry to say, that’s exactly who I see when I look at you right now, somebody who cares more about getting his way than all the folks he’s stepping on to get it. He never knew anything about the help, and you know what, even after what we went through this afternoon, neither do you.”
He knew more about her than she thought. He knew he loved her more than any other woman on the face of the earth. He knew she was stronger than she thought. But most of all, he knew, “If I had my sight, you’d pick me.” It felt like he was choking on the words as they fell out of his mouth.
“No, I wouldn’t,” she yelled back. “Because I was right about you in high school. You’re still a rich asshole and you still don’t deserve me. I quit, Mr. Prescott,” she said. “I quit this job and I quit you.”
“What’s going on here?” someone said to the right of them.
Beau bared his teeth. “Walk away, Fairgood.”
“Is he bothering you, Josie?” Colin asked, ignoring him. “Because if he is—”
That was a mistake. Beau made a quick calculation, before treating Colin to an uppercut. He’d been aiming for his jaw, but was just as satisfied, when his fist landed in the singer’s solar plexus. And even more so when Colin let out a thick, “Oooomphh!” and Beau felt him hunch over, setting himself up for one of Beau’s knees straight to the face.
“Colin!” Josie screamed behind Beau. He heard her quick steps as she pushed past him, to tend to Colin, who was probably laid out on the floor. Proving once and for all where her loyalty lied.
“Now you can quit,” he said.
20
“I can’t believe he did this to you,” Josie said, dabbing at the blood still issuing from Colin’s nose with the hotel suite’s tissue. They were now in his room at the top of the luxury hotel, tending to his wounds in an over-the-top room tricked out with an actual baby grand, heavy brocaded curtains, and beautiful white couches, which Josie was trying hard to keep free of Colin’s blood.
“Yeah, for a blind man you claimed wasn’t serious about rehabilitation, he managed to pack an impressive punch. And a knee.”
Josie studied his nose from a couple of different angles and plugged up his nostrils with two wads of tissue. “Can you breathe okay?”
“No,” he answered. “But that’s probably because you stuffed my nose with Kleenex.” His voice was muffled, but at least he wasn’t wheezing and she couldn’t here any telltale whistling sounds coming from his nostrils, which she knew, from working at the shelter, were signs you should watch out for.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” she told him. “But you probably want to get it checked out just in case. It’s hard to tell just by looking at it. And I’d hate for it to affect your singing voice.”
He shrugged. “Don’t worry about my voice, Jo-Jo. I’m what they call a personality singer. I can play the fiddle and write like nobody’s business, but my range ain’t all that great. Just about anybody could sing my songs better than I do. That’s why they’re so big on the karaoke circuit.”
She chuckled. “I like your voice. You might not have range, but your singing has character. I can hear you in every song.”
His blue eyes twinkled. “You been listenin’ to my albums, Jo-Jo?”
“Of course,” she said.
“If I’m remembering right, you never were much of a country fan.”
“I’m not,” she admitted. “But I made an exception for you because you were my friend.”
His eyes searched her face. “We’re not friends anymore?”
“No, we are,” she quickly assured him. “I’m just really sorry Beau punched you. And then kneed you. I mean, your face, it’s so pretty now.”
Colin waved his hands in the air. “But my fiddling hands remain intact,” he proclaimed. He flexed his biceps. “And this time it was more like Colossus versus the Green Arrow. So progress.”
Josie laughed. “You’re mixing u
p universes. DC and Marvel wouldn’t be happy.”
Colin shrugged. “Hey I got sucker punched and sucker kneed tonight. Cut this nerd some slack!”
Josie tilted her head to the side. “So all those hit records and this Captain America body and you still consider yourself a nerd?” she teased.
Colin’s smile dimmed. “Josie, I know what this looks like, the big career, the sold out stadiums.”
“The new body,” she added.
“The new body.”
“The big old honkin’ house you bought your mama.”
“The big old honkin’ house I bought my mama,” he repeated with a roll of his eyes.
“The high school girlfriends still pining after you. You know Mindy’s just dying for you to come by and see about her.”
Colin chuckled and nodded good-naturedly. “Okay, okay, I get it. It looks like I have everything now and I’m completely different.” His face grew serious then. “But Colin Fairgood, the skinny nerd you went in with on comic books every Wednesday because we couldn’t afford to buy them on our own, is still in here.”
“You’re still in there.”
Beau’s words from earlier suddenly echoed in her mind and brought tears to her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Colin asked.
Josie shook her head and pasted a smile on her face. “Nothing,” she answered quickly. Then before he could ask any more questions, she pulled another Kleenex out of the marble tissue box and used it to extract the tissue plugs she’d made for his nose. “Looks like the bleeding’s stopped. That’s a good sign. But like I said, you should have a doctor look at it.”
“I got a diagnostic test I could run right now,” he said. “I mean if it was really broken, it would probably hurt like hell when I did this, right?”
Then he leaned forward and kissed her, not in the tentative way of the kid he’d been in high school, but in the sure way of the man he’d become since then.
* * *
Beau was just about to throw back yet another shot of bourbon when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “Hey man, it’s me, Mac.”
He cursed. “Tell me Josie didn’t call you.”
“She didn’t call me, she texted me,” Mac answered. “Said I should come get you. I’m guessing she finally up and quit.”
Beau threw back the shot. “Yep. Somebody better came along. Colin-fucking-Fairgood. Can you believe that?”
“You mean that country singer, the one who did that one song with Roxxy RoxX? You serious, man?”
“Yeah, the country singer. He’s been after Josie since high school, and as soon as he found out she was free, he swooped in and took her from me.”
“That’s what she said?” Mac asked. “That she was quitting because she wanted to get with Colin Fairgood?”
“No, she said she didn’t like the way I was treating her. Said I deserve her. But that was bullshit. She split on me as soon as he showed up. Fucking Fairgood.” He tapped his empty shot glass on the bar and called out. “Bartender, I’m gonna need another one over here.”
“How much you had to drink, man?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “A few shots. Ten. Maybe twenty.”
“Which one was it? Ten or twenty?” Mac sounded alarmed.
“You know he stole another one of my girlfriends back in high school.”
“What?”
“Fairgood. I should’ve punched him back then. Back when I could still see.” An idea suddenly occurred to him and he grabbed on to Mac’s arm. “You know what? Let’s go up to his room and beat the shit out of him. Together.”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“C’mon, Mac, for old times sake. Football player to football player. We can’t let the nerds win.”
“Sorry, man, my fighting days are over.” Mac tugged on his shoulders. “Let’s see if you can make it out to my car.”
Beau knocked Mac’s hands away. “Didn’t I fire you?”
“Yeah, but I’m doing this as a favor for Josie. A real big favor,” the older man muttered under his breath before trying to help him out of his seat again.
But Beau shook him off. “I don’t need your help anyway, ” he said, standing up by himself. “I’ll find Fairgood. Finish this fight and get a cab to take me home.”
And he would have, too, if the bourbon hadn’t caught up with him two steps into his mission. He staggered, felt his eyelids droop, and that was the last thing he remembered before waking up with a headache—one so powerful, he would have described it as blinding if he weren’t already blind.
“The hell…” he muttered, sitting up on his elbows.
Despite the lack of visual information, he immediately recognized that he was someplace different. The room just didn’t smell like his did. He groped around and his hands made contact with a smooth, satiny material. Also, this bedcover wasn’t the ridged one Josie had gotten for their bed.
Their bed. When had he started thinking of it as their bed, and where was Josie—
Memories from last night flooded over him, intensifying the headache. He sat up fully then, grabbing his head on both sides.
“Mr. Prescott? You all right?”
It was Mac.
“Mr. Prescott was my father, and I’m nothing like him,” Beau answered, thinking of Josie’s words to him last night. He then pushed through the headache and asked, “Where’s Josie? I’ve got to talk to her.”
“I don’t know, sir. She didn’t answer her phone when I tried calling her after you passed out—”
“I passed out?”
“Yeah, you’re in a hotel room right now. The manager said your family was old friends of the owner.”
Beau nodded. It had been so long since he’d been out and about in Birmingham, he’d almost forgotten how many connections the Prescotts had.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed, ignoring the resulting hammer pounding inside his head, and flung himself out of the bed.
“Mr. Prescott, what are you doing?”
“I told you not to call me ‘Mr. Prescott.’” He had to find Josie. He had to—
He tripped over something bulky and unyielding. Then he cursed a blue streak when he landed, legs and arms akimbo on the floor. “What the fuck?” he yelled. “What the hell was that?”
“I think they’re called ottomans.”
“What’s it doing there in the middle of the room?”
“That’s where most folks keep ottomans, in the middle of the room.”
“Not at my house.”
“No, but that’s because, Josie…” Mac suddenly trailed off, as if saying Josie’s name out loud was verboten.
But Beau sat up and said. “Josie, what?”
“She told me not to tell you.”
“And you’re going to stick to that promise, because Josie was the one paying your salary? Oh, wait a minute. She wasn’t.”
Still, Mac sounded all kinds of hesitant when he said, “She did a few things over the last week to make you more comfortable at the house is all.”
“A few things like what?”
“You know, just a few things: pushed all the furniture up against the walls, replaced some of the bigger pieces with smaller ones so you wouldn’t stub your toes; put down carpet runners so it’d be easier for you get from place to place; put different air fresheners in different rooms, so you’d be able to smell which room was which; had all the hardwood floors carpeted when we were at our appointment in Birmingham; placed a white noise machine in your bathroom, so you’d instinctively know which way to go when you had to—well go; and put decorative gripping down in the tub, so you wouldn’t slip.”
Beau sat there frozen, his mouth hanging open.
Then Mac snapped his fingers. “Oh, and she also put magnet closures on all the drawers and cabinets, so you’d never walk into them. I think that’s all.”
“You still don’t deserve me,” he heard Josie say again.
And that’s when it hit him. Really
hit him. Losing Josie to Colin Fairgood wasn’t bad. It was worse than that. In fact, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Even worse than his blindness. Because Josie was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And all he had ever been was an ass to her, and now she was gone.
“Mac you’re married to somebody blind, right? All this stuff Josie did for me... did you do the same for your wife?”
“Truth be told, Josie gave me a few ideas,” Mac admitted.
“She wouldn’t have done all that if she didn’t care about me, would she?”
“No, sir, I don’t think she would have.”
“And I drove her away.”
Beau fell back on the floor.
“Sir, are you all right?” Mac asked above him.
“No,” Beau answered, his voice terse. A clear and bright image of Josie crying in his arms the day before came back to him. How could he have let himself get out of control like that? How could he have pulled all that shit last night? How could he have been so blind in every sense of the word?
Josie had been right. About him. About everything. He didn’t blame her for going off with Fairgood, because he’d made one thing more than clear last night. He still didn’t come anywhere close to deserving her.
He set his jaw. “Mac,” he said. “I’ll take that help up now.”
Mac must have been standing above him the whole time, because he grabbed his arm and helped him stand up. And by the time he made it to his feet, the pounding headache was gone, almost as if it had been waiting for him to come to his senses before it let up.
“Tell me this,” he said to Mac. “If I wanted to figure out how to get rid of you, how would I go about doing that?”
“Are you asking how to fire me again, sir?” Mac asked.
“No, I’m asking how to make it so I don’t need you to get stuff done anymore.”
Mac still sounded confused when he answered. “Well, a lot of blind people live on their own. Hell, my wife could probably do it without me if she really wanted to, but that would mean you’d actually have to go about learning all that stuff you said you didn’t want to learn.” Something finally seemed to click for Mac and he said, “Wait up, are you saying you want me to teach you how to get around by yourself? Like a real blind person?”
His Pretend Baby Page 28
