by Alla Kar
“What happened to my friend who always went out when she was upset?”
She’d fallen in love, that’s what. I’d been upset by plenty of men and my ability to fuck everything up. This time, I had actually cared about Cash—liked him, a lot. It was different.
Frankie slammed her fists on her hips. “I’m not going to stop talking until you come with me.”
Pressing my palms into my eyes, I sighed. “I’ll go—just for a little bit.”
Frankie smiled and helped me up. “What was it that you needed to talk to me about earlier?” I asked.
She turned to look over her shoulder. “Let’s just say that Cash Jenkins isn’t the only Jenkins we’ll be drinking away tonight.”
I lifted a brow but didn’t pry. I’d take her word for it. If Asher was as half bad as Cash, I would save myself the drama of knowing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cash
“Where the fuck is Joey?”
Asher looked up from his desk. “Well, well, look who’s finally talkin’ to his little brother.”
“Cut the shit,” I snapped. “It’s seven o’ clock, and he hasn’t been pickin’ up his phone all damn day.” He was supposed to pick up Sydney after her classes at the gallery.
Asher reached for his phone and scrolled over the screen. “He hasn’t texted me back yet from earlier. What’s up your ass?”
“He was supposed to pick up Sydney. Now he’s not answering the fucking phone. I’m leaving. I need you to close up for me.”
Asher stared at me blank-faced for several seconds. “Okay.”
I didn’t have time to question him. I grabbed my suit jacket and barreled toward my car in the garage below. I had no other reason for my madness other than not being able to get in touch with them. What if they had a wreck? Or something happened at the house?
I dialed my home, and Gloria picked up after a couple of rings. “Hell—”
“Is she there? Gloria, are Sydney or Joey there?”
“Well, goodness gracious, Cash. Shit. You scared the hell out of me. No, neither of them is here. What’s going—”
“Just call me if they show up, please.”
I hung up before she could drag me into twenty questions. I doubted Sydney went to her parents’ house, but it could have happened. I tried to maneuver my phone while maneuvering traffic, but I’d deleted her mother’s number out of my phone. I had it on my laptop at home. I needed to get home, quick.
The fifteen-minute drive only took six minutes. My tires squealed as I came to a halt in front of my house. The doors opened as soon as I reached for them. Gloria had opened the door. “Jesus Christ, Cash. What in the hell.”
I couldn’t stop to explain. Something terrible had settled in my stomach. Something wasn’t right. I tore through my house and crashed into my office like a hurricane.
My desk was still in chaos from the night before. She’d screamed my name for ten minutes straight on my desk. I kicked the paperwork from my floor and reached for my computer. That’s when I saw it. The sketchbook she’d had on her lap yesterday afternoon, her eyes squinted in concentration and her hair in a wild messy bun.
But the picture that held me immobile wasn’t in the sketchbook; it’d been torn out and placed on my laptop. Sweat built against my hairline as I stared down at myself. It looked just like me. The eyes were spot on, the hair—it was perfect. Yet, I couldn’t see the things that she saw, all I could see was the deal I’d made.
Before I even touched the mouse to my laptop, I knew what would pull up. There was a feeling in the air that borderline choked me, strangling the air that filled my lungs, the air I didn’t deserve.
Her mother’s e-mail pulled up, and my heart sank along with my body. Tears coated my eyes, and a memory slammed into me like a gust of wind.
A memory I’d blocked out.
Paint smeared against the floor, my mother’s canvas lay face down on the tile.
Everything looked big—bigger than I ever remembered it being before, which told me I was young at the time. Younger than I had ever had a memory. Seven or eight?
A loud crash echoed through the house, and my head snapped toward the kitchen. Large shadows cast against the wall. I neared the room, taking small steps, daring myself to get closer to the growing voices.
“Don’t!”
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do, you stupid bitch!”
I stopped when I rounded the corner. My father’s large frame hovered over my mother’s shaking body. She held Asher to her chest, and my heart dropped to my stomach.
I couldn’t remember making the decision to step forward, of pushing back the fear of my father’s raised fist. “Leave ‘em alone!”
Time stood still. In the amount it took for him to turn to face me, I’d already noticed the look on my mother’s face. “What did you say to me, boy?” he slurred. His walk was staggered; his face was the same one I saw in the mirror every day.
I swallowed my fear, willing my mother to get out of the room with Asher. “I said leave ‘em alone,” I whispered.
The heavy smell of whiskey on his breath scorched my nose, and I vaguely recalled my mother’s voice growing closer to us, but I was too aware of his fists curling at his side, and the way his mouth drew up into a sneer. “You’re gonna regret talkin’ back to me, Cash.”
The next thing I knew black encased my every thought.
When I came to Gloria stood in front of me shaking my shoulders. It took several minutes to gather my thoughts, push back what I’d just gone through, and stand up. “I need to go,” I whispered.
“Tell me what’s goin’ on, son.”
Shaking my head, I waved her off. “I need to go. I’ve—gotta go.” I stumbled out before she could stop me. Nothing made sense in my head. How could this have happened? My dad wasn’t even in my life—he’d abandoned us, hadn’t he?
It felt like bricks tied my ankles down to the floor, and each step felt like a miracle. My life felt like it’d been turned on its axis. Nothing connected, on top of which the only girl I’d ever truly cared about—gone. And I was the reason.
Driving wasn’t the wisest choice, but all rationality had left the building. My foot weighed heavily on the gas like lead and my fingers held viselike grips on the steering wheel, but my heart hurt the worst. She was gone. Dad hadn’t gone? What the fuck is happening?
Thirty minutes later I pulled up to her apartment building. My head still raced and nothing made sense, but I’d calmed my nerves enough to get up to her floor without someone calling the police on me. I was sure I looked just as bad as I felt.
I pounded on her apartment door, waiting helplessly for someone—anyone to answer. No one did. I knocked again, this time louder. “Sydney!” I screamed, my voice foreign. It didn’t sound like me. I sounded scared and vulnerable, like I did in my memory. Like a child.
“Answer me!” I yelled louder. Pain shot through my head and heart. I sounded like the man in my memory, the man I’d never remembered until now. He’d been in our lives, but my mother never corrected me, always agreed, so had Asher. Why did I have this memory? It was definitely a memory.
The door swung opened, but my blond-haired beauty didn’t stand in front of me. It was Frankie. “I need to talk to her,” I whispered.
If looks could kill. “The hell you do, you fuck. She doesn’t want to see you. We have plans.”
Plans. Plans without me. Anger and fear took control. It urged me to tell her that she’d signed a contract, but the fucking contract was why this had happened. Fuck the contract. Fuck me. “I know she’s angry, but I need to explain.”
Explain what? Explain how? I had no idea, but I needed to see her, touch her. Frankie scoffed in my face, tossing her long hair away from her shoulder. “You and your brother need to stay far away from us. There isn’t any getting out of this. Fuck off.”
The door slammed in my face, the wood only an inch from my nose. I wished it had knocked me out, taken away the burn in
my throat. My hand rose to knock again, but I knew better. She wasn’t coming to the door, and they wouldn’t answer again.
Running my fingers through my hair, I started back down the way I’d come. I dialed Joey’s number again—straight to voicemail. Motherfucker.
Joey was smart enough not to be at home, which meant he was in one of two places: the bar, or hiding at Asher’s house. I went to the latter.
His doorman automatically let me up. Music drifted from the other side of the door, but there was no way he didn’t hear me pounding on his door.
I stepped to the side of his peephole and waited, my anger rising. Finally, the door swung opened, the smell of liquor and scotch filled the hallway. Asher peeked his head around the corner and froze. “Cash.”
“Don’t fuckin’ Cash me, Asher. I know Joey is inside. Move out of the way.” I didn’t give him a chance to say anything; I pushed myself through his door and into the penthouse.
Joey sat on the bar, glass of scotch resting against his knee. His eyes widened when he noticed me. “Why in the fuck did you not call me today?”
Asher pressed his palm to my shoulder, but I shrugged him off, turning to face both of them. “Calm down, Cash,” Asher warned.
Joey slid off the bar, taking two steps toward me. “Cash, I was respectin’ her wishes. She didn’t want me to call you.”
“I’m your best friend. You could have called me, dammit! Now she won’t talk to me—”
“We told you!” Asher yelled. “We told you this would happened. We warned you but you wouldn’t hear it.”
Resting my interlaced fingers on the back of my head, I tried to catch my breath. Anger felt too deep in my body, like I’d die from the heat. And then I remembered. “Dad,” I whispered, standing up to look at Asher. “I had a memory about Dad today.”
Asher’s face turned pale, his eyes cast toward Joey. “What do you mean?”
“Stop playin’ stupid,” I spit. “I know good and damn well you know something. Why did I think he wasn’t there growing up? Why did I just now remember? You better start talking. I see it on your face.”
He stood quiet for several moments. Finally, he looked up and motioned for me to follow him.
An hour later, I sat staring at my fourth glass of scotch. The reflection in the glass revealed how I felt. It was how I saw my entire life growing up. Dad was there until I was twelve, and I hadn’t remembered any of it. I thought most people had trouble remembering their childhood. Turns out, they didn’t.
Asher cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry. Mom always made me promise.”
Promise not to tell me I’d been beaten as a child? I tried to make sense of everything in my head, but it didn’t connect for me. “I repressed all of those memories?” I asked, mostly to myself.
Joey leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It happens to a lot of people, Cash. People will repress them to hide the pain they feel. Do you think you’d have turned out this successful if you hadn’t?”
I gave him a shrug. “Who the hell knows?” I slid my glass on the table, running my fingers through my ruffled hair. “How come Mom didn’t tell me?”
“She was scared if the memories came back that it’d be too much for you.”
“Were you not—did he not hit you?” I asked
Asher frowned, and shook his head. “No. I’m not exactly sure why, but I was significantly younger than you. That’s the best reason I could come up with. Mom didn’t talk about it much with me, only to tell me not to mention it.”
I was glad the bastard had never laid a hand on my brother. The thought of it enraged me. Joey tapped my knee, and for a second I saw the long-legged boy from my neighborhood, my best friend since first grade. “I knew you then, Cash. You were a good kid, always sticking up for your mom and Asher. But you weren’t happy. The bruises,” he whispered. “You always hid ‘em good, but I’d see them when you stayed the night. You were better off forgetting them.”
I nodded.
Asher poured himself another drink, propping his feet on the table. “I think a subject change would be nice,” he said into the silence. “So what the hell are you gonna do about Sydney?”
That was the million-dollar question—literally.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sydney
My toes were just stretching toward the end of the bed when a knock sounded against the front door.
Shit. I sat up straight, feeling a heavy pressure under my eyes, my throat still sore from the night before. Drinking my sorrows away didn’t help like Frankie had suggested it would. It being her last semester of college, she had an early class, which resulted in my waddling in a long T-shirt toward the door.
Bang.
“I’m coming!” I screamed.
I opened the door to Joey. He stood with his hands in front of him, the same stern look on his face. “What do you want?” I asked.
He lowered his sunglasses. “I need to talk to you. Can I come in?’
I gave him a long look before checking to make sure Cash wasn’t hiding behind him. “He isn’t here. He doesn’t know I’m here either.”
I shrugged, and opened the door wider. “Sure, come on in.”
I offered Joey a coffee, but he declined. He waited patiently as I fixed my own, put some pajama bottoms on, and met him in the living room. Nyla was stretched out on her back beside him, begging to be petted, but he ignored her.
“Now, please do tell why you disturbed me so early this morning. It’s seven thirty.” Which wasn’t early for me, but my attempt to drink my sorrows away had tired me out.
Joey nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I know what Cash did was fucked up, but you’ve got to listen to me. You need to come back to work.”
I lifted a brow over my cup. “Really? That’s something I need to do, huh?”
Joey rolled his eyes. “You have every right to be a smartass, Sydney. But he does love you.”
Love me? I’d wanted that to be true. I’d fought it from the beginning, everything between him and me. There was never any question that I was truly attracted to him. Hell, my body still craved him. I’d thought about his hands on me when I danced with a guy at the bar the night before, but when he’d ducked his head to whisper to me, I’d frozen. It wasn’t Cash’s voice, and I hated myself for wanting it to be. He’d fucked me over—royally—and my mother too. My own fucking mother.
I slid my finger around the rim of my coffee mug. “Joey, I’m gonna need you to get to the point. I’m not hearin’ anything right now that’s making me want to stay in here. My bed is calling my name.”
He sighed, rubbing his palms over his face. “Cash has been struggling with something that he didn’t even know about for years. He just found out last night.”
I pretending the light swirls of my creamer were more important than anything he had to say. Suddenly my coffee was out of my hands and sitting on the table between us. “Hey—”
“Listen,” he snapped, grabbing my hands. “Cash was abused by his father as a child.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “He told me that his dad was never in the picture. Now he was abused by him?”
Joey stared at me for several seconds. “Cash repressed all of his memories. He is just now getting bits and pieces back of it. It must be because he’s never felt like this before. He doesn’t remember the pain from his childhood, his subconscious hid all of it, pushed back the part of him that needed to feel real emotion. He had never shown any kind of truly romantic emotion until now, until you. It’s brought back things his mind tried for years to forget.”
Suddenly my bed didn’t seem as appealing. “So you’re telling me I’m the reason he feels like shit? Well thanks, Joey. I’m glad you drove all the way over here to tell me that.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “This is serious. You’ve brought out what he needed. Love. He loves you. He fucked up, and you have every right to be pissed, but you need to know he does care for you. You shouldn’t
let this stop you from making your money either.”
I laughed. “I’m not going back to work for him. The five grand I made off of him will last me for a while. Plus, I do have another job that pays my bills. I don’t have to live like my parents. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Joey grabbed my wrists, bringing me close to him once I stood. “He’s a fucking wreck. Give it a few days and then come back. Don’t punish him forever for this. You’re meant to be with him.”
I snatched my wrists away from him. “Who are you, Miss Cleo? You don’t know who I’m meant for.”
He stood, towering over me. “I know you won’t find him in a damn club.” He reached back and pulled something from his back pocket. I looked down at the newspaper and déjà vu hit me. Me and what’s-his-name were sitting at the bar, drinking. It wasn’t the picture that shocked me but the small picture to the side, a picture of Cash. Jenkins and Henry split for good?
What. The. Fuck. I could imagine the look on my mother’s—I didn’t give a damn what my mother had to say. I glanced up at Joey. “Don’t judge me. You sure do know a lot about this. You knew he was playing me the entire time. So get off your fuckin’ high horse.”
Joey opened his mouth but closed it. He turned to walk out and stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “Just think about it, Sydney. Think about how you feel about him. He feels the same way, even though it might not seem like it. Cash isn’t the monster you might think he is right now.”
I turned my back to him, glancing out at the balcony. I couldn’t let him see me cry.
Mr. Scott stood in my doorway and cleared his throat. I looked back over my shoulder, smiling at his Hawaiian shirt and worn, faded blue jeans. “How’s the painting coming along?”
I shrugged, examining the mess in front of me. “Not too well.” I turned to face him—well, mainly to hide the destruction I’d made of my painting. “What’s up?”
