High Risk Love

by Shannon Mayer

  I stayed silent, almost afraid to move. His head snapped up, eyes wide and shocked.

  “Is it?”

  “I think. Maybe. Yeah. Fucked if I know. I ain’t never been in love before,” I said, feeling my gut roll at the thought of never seeing her again.

  He let out a grunt and then started to laugh. “Seriously, you’ve got to be kidding me. Fine, do whatever you need to do, but don’t come crying to me when she breaks your heart.”

  I snorted and threw a pillow at him. “Since when have I ever come crying to you, smart ass?”

  After that, he let the topic drop, though his eyes watched me all too closely. An hour later, the front desk rang our room to let us know his cab was waiting. He stood, then reached across and grabbed my arm.

  “If you really think you’ve got a shot with her, much as I think you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, go for it.”

  I stared at him, wondered what had happened to the Jasper of a an hour ago.

  “Why the sudden change? Before, you told me I wasn’t good enough, shouldn’t even bother.” I restrained myself from smacking him.

  He shrugged. “I figured she was just another piece of ass you were planning to toss out once you were done with her. You and me aren’t good enough for women like her, but if she’s willing to give you a second chance . . . well, who am I to say it won’t work?”

  “I accused her of something she didn’t do. I told her . . . .” I closed my eyes, seeing her face and the hurt in her eyes as I screamed at her, seeing the fear in them as I pummeled Reggie. “I told her I couldn’t trust her.”

  Jasper’s cab was waiting, but he stood there, looking at me for a full minute. “You told her about me. That’s why you flipped out on her.”

  Ah, fuck.

  “Yeah. I did. I told her because I didn’t know how to make it right, because I knew you were right to blame me. You’re my little brother! Goddamn it, if I can’t protect you, how the hell am I supposed to look after anyone else? I told her and she didn’t judge me, or you, or even our piece of shit father.”

  Now it was out. I waited for him to explode, to lose his shit, and tackle me to the ground, pummel me into a bloody pulp. I’d let him; I deserved it.

  “And then you yelled at her because you thought she tipped me off that she knew.” He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t even flinch.

  I couldn’t even look him in the eye. “That’s the gist of it.”

  “Man, I can’t . . . .” He put his hands on his hips, his face one of mixed emotions that moved across him too fast for me to identify. “I came here in part to tell you I was wrong. That’s why the fucking therapy. What happened was just the fucking shithole of our life. You’ve got the scars on your body to prove it; you did keep me safe, the best you could. My scars just aren’t so visible. Let the past fucking go.” He paused and let out a big breath. “I am.”

  “You fucking well aren’t,” I snapped before I thought better of it.

  “At least I’m trying.” The exasperation was heavy in his voice. “More than you can say, douche bag.” His lips quirked at usage of our favorite childhood name for each other.

  I slid my hands through my hair. “That’s it then. Just let it go?”

  He shrugged and sucked at one of his canine teeth. “Yeah, let it go. Don’t let it burn you up.”

  I grunted. “Don’t wallow in someone else’s shit bucket. That’s what you’re telling me?”

  Laughing, he bent and picked up his bag. “That’s about it. Good advice, whoever gave it to you.”

  At the door, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “She’s the one who gave you that advice, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  Jasper smiled, really smiled for the first time in years. Behind it I saw the boy I’d tried so hard to protect, the boy with our mother’s eyes. “Then I think you’d better get your ass to Seattle and win her back. Because if she’s willing to put up with your shit and mine, maybe she’s worth fighting for.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, tossed it to me, and then stepped out the doorway.

  The door closed behind him with a click, and I sat on the edge of the bed holding the paper, the napkin with Jasmin’s information on it. He’d kept it for the last week without telling me. Maybe he knew me better than I knew myself.

  Could I do this? Blood pounded in my ears, worse than any stunt I’d ever pulled, any prank I’d ever been caught doing. Fear raced along my spine making me lightheaded.

  Fear nothing.

  Before I could change my mind, I dialed the number, holding my breath. Would she be happy I called? That wasn’t likely. Would she yell at me? I’d deserve it, all of it, and I’d take it if it meant I could be near her. Could I handle being her friend, watch other men touch her if that was all she was willing to give me? The plastic case creaked under the strain of my hand.

  Finally the call went through, the phone rang three times, and then clicked over to a recorded message. Her voice both eased my anxiety and tightened the need I had to see her, to touch her again. To beg her if I had to. Fuck, I’d lost my mind.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Jasmin, please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. If you’re calling about the '69 Falcon, it’s already been sold. Thanks.” Her voice trailed off and the machine beeped for me to leave a message. I hung up the phone.

  The only reason she’d have sold her brother’s car is if she lost her job. And the only reason she would have lost her job was because of me. But she’d done nothing wrong. My phone rang, startling me, and I answered it thinking it was her.

  “Jasmin?”

  “No, this is Sienna. You did good today. Let me know if you ever need a job. I was surprised by how down to earth you were on set. Much calmer than I was led to expect.”

  I shifted the phone on my ear and started to pack my bag. “Yeah, thanks, I appreciate that. I’ve gotta go.” I started to lower the phone when she squawked.

  “What?” I asked. “I’m trying to pack here.”

  “Listen, I need someone on my next movie. It starts tomorrow in Texas. It won’t take long, a few days at most. I thought you might like the job.” Her voice was hopeful.

  “Call Hugh LaMer. He’s got a break between movies right now.” I hung up the phone, not caring if I was rude. All I cared about was getting to Seattle as fast as I could.

  13

  Jasmin

  Apparently word got around to anyone who was looking for a photographer that I was a slut, that in order to get the job, the pictures and the shoots I wanted, I’d do anything and anyone. Whatever reputation I’d had as an up-and-coming photographer was totally and completely ruined.

  Barely a week had gone by since I got back from Mexico and the only consolation I had was that Paul hadn’t been hired for my old job.

  Apparently Kevin felt Paul was too sneaky and underhanded. I’d outright cheered when Lily told me.

  Now I sat in the house Ryan and I had bought together, staring at the woodstove where I’d burned all the pictures of me and Jet. A week and I couldn’t forget my time with Jet. Or the way he’d looked crawling out of Tina’s bed, or the way he’d yelled at me. I vacillated between hating him and hating that I’d never see him again.

  I wasn’t sure which one was worse. Both left me empty, like a hollowed out gourd with nothing but a thin shell holding all my emotions back.

  The '69 Falcon had sold in three days. The money would keep things floating for a month, long enough for me to find another job. But it seemed pointless, just another stupid dream, a piece of metal that Ryan and my dad had loved.

  Footsteps echoed through the house and I turned to see Lily standing in the opposite doorway, watching me.

  “I’m worried about you, Jasmin.” She stepped into the room, walked right up to me and took my hands in hers. She was warmth against my cold. “Why haven’t you turned the heat on? Or at least lit up the stove? You have lots of wood.”

  I pulle
d my fingers out of her hands. “Haven’t been home much.” I didn’t want to tell her the woodstove needed repairs that I couldn’t afford.

  “We should go out, maybe walk down by the docks or something.” Her eyes pleaded with me. I could see that she thought I was in a funk. But it was far worse than that.

  “Do you think Ryan was right, do you think we should even bother chasing our dreams? Because I’m thinking maybe he had it wrong. That dreams are just there to chase and fall down on and break yourself into tiny little pieces.” My voice softened with each word until I was whispering.

  Lily sniffed, a tear tracking down one cheek. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  We stood there, caught between grief and shattered dreams, neither of us able to move forward.

  “Lily, I need to be alone for a while. Can you give me a few hours?” I gave her a smile that I knew wouldn’t reach my eyes, but for now we could pretend.

  “Sure, absolutely.” Her eyes were tight with worry as she backed away.

  The house went silent again with the click of the door shutting. So quiet and empty. Hollow, like me.

  “Ryan, you were wrong. There are no dreams worth chasing.” My words echoed in the big room. I hated the way I sounded, the way my voice bounced around the walls.

  Something in me broke, and I let out a scream that echoed through the house. I reached out, grabbed the closest thing to me and threw it. The lamp hit the wall, ceramic base and light bulb exploding in a shower of frosted glass and dusty pink shards. There was nothing of value, nothing that would change the hurt spooling through my soul.

  The next lamp shattered just as easy as the first, then the figurines my mother had left me. Pointless, useless things that would never bring back the people I loved. My mom’s Norman Rockwell plates hanging on the wall were next, the pictures breaking up into unrecognizable pieces that joined the remains of the lamps.

  Distantly, I knew I was out of control, but I didn’t care. So much was gone, lost, what did a few trinkets and memories matter anymore?

  I spun, my eyes searching the room for something else to break, to prove that none of it mattered. To prove that gone was gone, there was nothing bringing anyone back into my life.

  In the corner of the room sat the white sheet covered piano, drawing me to it. I strode over, and yanked the sheet off. My anger turned to sadness. How long since I’d played? Not since Ryan’s diagnosis.

  My fingers whispered along the ivory keys, feeling the familiar dips and rub marks in the old piano. Our mother had taught me to play, and Dad had taught Ryan the guitar. We sang together, played together, made music together. But now the music was gone and I was alone, and I had nothing but the emptiness.

  For those few days in Mexico, I’d thought maybe, with Jet, I’d found a spark of life again. I closed my eyes against the tears trickling down my cheeks, as if that would make them less real.

  My fingers moved on the piano, plucking notes from memory, the sound filling the house as I played. Eyes still closed, I sat, leaned into the piano, drew the music around me, heard Ryan in my head playing the guitar, my parent’s voices joining in. This was why I didn’t play. I stopped with a gasp, eyes popping open wide.

  This had been my dream all along, to play piano, to sing with Ryan.

  There is only one person who can teach you to live again, Jazzy. Ryan’s voice whispered through me, as if he stood at my back, ready to sing with me.

  Warmth spread through my limbs, the heat of understanding lighting me on fire.

  It wasn’t Lily, or any of my friends that would teach me to live again. It wasn’t Ryan’s voice, egging me on. It wasn’t even Jet, though he’d shown me the path I needed and encouraged me.

  I had to decide. Was I going to live, really live, or just let myself rot inside, wither up and die?

  One or the other. There was no grey area, no fine line to dance along as I’d tried to do while in Mexico. Either I lived, or died in my heart and soul. What was it going to be?

  The silence of the house mocked me, as if it knew I would run away again, scared of the unknown, of the future and the risks it would hold if I tried to step out without anyone beside me.

  Emotions swelled in my soul, my heart—a fierce determination that I would not let this world take from me what I wanted. I would fight for it until my dying breath and if that meant I broke my heart on the shattered pieces of my dreams then so be it. So be it.

  I laid my hands into the piano and brought the music crashing into the house, demanding to be heard. My voice carried the tunes as if I’d never stopped practicing, belting out the lyrics through the tears and the anger. Anger at myself this time, for letting the fears instilled in me rule, anger that I had been so blind. I cried for the girl who lost her family, who lost her way; I cried for the girl who’d let her fear keep her from a man she’d almost fallen for. Cried for what could have been, if he’d been a better man.

  Hours passed and I finally eased back, my throat and voice raw, my arms and back aching. But it was a good ache, a good feeling. Like I’d purged some of the darkness, and had found a pinprick of light in the distance.

  The house was dark and still again, but the hollow feeling had faded, had lifted with my decision.

  Jittery with excitement, I rushed around the house, packing the things I would need. Demo tapes with me and Ryan on them, his guitar, which I could play passably well, sheet music we’d been writing together. What else would I need?

  Clothes, of course.

  The front door creaked open and Lily called out to me. “I can’t leave you alone like this, sad and . . . what the hell are you doing?”

  I was standing in my closet, clothes strewn about as I picked through my outfits. “I was wrong, Lily, I was wrong. Ryan was right damn it. I’m going after my dream. I’m going to sing if it kills me.”

  Her face lit up and she squealed, dancing around me. Then it dimmed as she frowned at the clothes on the floor. “Wait, where are you going? You can’t leave; you have a house here.”

  “I’ll sell it. I’m calling the real estate agent next. I don’t have to be here for that to happen.” I threw a few more shirts into my last suitcase, an ugly brown one I hated, but it would have to do; my other one was still in Mexico with a broken zipper.

  Her face screwed up and she burst into tears.

  “Lily, what’s wrong?” I hugged her to me, feeling her body shake and shudder.

  “I don’t want to be alone again. I can’t lose you too.” God, she was the echo of me.

  “I didn’t want to assume anything,” I said. “But I thought maybe you’d want to come with me. I know what you want to do, what you really want to do, and we can both chase our dreams this way.”

  Sniffing back her tears, she looked up at me, her blue eyes huge and round. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Nervous, but excited, terrified and hopeful all at once, I nodded, mimicking Rodney’s voice—even though it would mean nothing to Lily, it made me smile.

  “Hollywood, baby.”

  14

  Jet

  Her house was empty and dark, the “for sale” sign out front confirming my fears. This was my fault; I’d put her in a position where she’d lost her job, had to sell her brother’s car and now had to sell her house. Her phone had been shut off, another bad sign.

  How the hell was I supposed to find her?

  I stared in the windows of the house, wondered if there was any way . . . I spun slowly to look at the real estate sign.

  Bingo.

  The real estate agent was there in less than ten minutes to let me into Jasmin’s house. The agent looked old enough to be my grandmother, and I worried that maybe Jasmin would get taken by some person looking for a quick flip with this old lady on her side. She followed me, close on my heels, pointing out the features of the house: the acoustics, the original hardwood floors, the curved archways. I stopped and she bumped into me.

  “I’d like to get a feel for th
e place. Is it okay if I walk around on my own?” I asked.

  She smiled, her face crinkling up with pleasure. “Sure, sure, I’ll just wait in the kitchen for you then, rest my corns.”

  Jasmin, wherever she’d gone, hadn’t taken much. The furniture, sparse as it was, looked well-worn, lived in. Not the stuff you’d see for staging a house to make it more saleable. No, these were her things. Hers and her brother’s.

  The piano drew me; I slid my hands along the ivory keys, knowing she’d played them, she’d touched them. Through the house I wandered, seeing her touches everywhere. The pictures on the walls were all hers, stunning photos that showed her skill, her eye for drawing the best out of her subjects.

  Into the back bedroom I went, stumbling to a stop. Jasmin’s room was the smaller of the two bedrooms, but it was all hers. The bed was made, tidy and neat, no knick knacks on her dressers or side table. Yellow comforter on the four-poster bed, some gauzy material draped between the posts. There were no posters on the wall, just more pictures that had her touch on them. An older woman who had her smile and eyes, Jasmin’s mom. Family pictures in every stage of life. I moved around the room, seeing her grow up right in front of me.

  The room smelled like her, the perfume she wore. I moved to the bed and sat down, feeling the fatigue set in.

  What was I doing here? Did I really think I had a chance with her?

  The real estate agent’s shoes clopped down the hallway. She peered in the room, smiled at me. “What do you think?”

  “I like it. Why is the owner selling?”

  She clucked her tongue. “I sold her this house, her and her brother.” She shuffled into the room and sat on the bed beside me, and patted my leg, then left her hand there. If she’d been much younger I’d have thought she was coming on to me.

  “Thing is,” she went on. “Her brother died. Six months or so ago; I went to the funeral. Lordy, was that the saddest thing I ever did see. She sang for him, near on made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. So beautiful, so wasteful, the loss of young life.” She shook her head and stared into space.