The Keaton Series Boxed Set

by B. A. Wolfe

  “And why would I take advice from you? I don’t even know you.” I raised my brow at her.

  “Because honey,” she said slowly. “He’s never gotten over me and he won’t change, not even for some city girl. Yeah, I know why you’re here. The town is small and people talk. I just had to come see for myself the girl who he’s been following around like a little lost puppy. You’re just the shiny new toy. Now me,” she said, pointing to herself, “I’m the real deal. We grew up together and were high school sweethearts. You don’t stand a chance.”

  I didn’t have the slightest clue what she was talking about, but I’d had enough of her voice for one night. This girl clearly missed out and couldn’t help but try and ruin us, even though there wasn’t an ‘us’, but now understood why there wasn’t a ‘them’ anymore either. “Well that’s a shame for you, because I like him just the way he is. Not to mention, I might be the shiny new toy, but you’re the old one that gets sold for cheap,” I practically growled at her. I swung my chair in the other direction only to be saved by Jason, Moose, and Kasey who were quickly walking toward us.

  “Jason, we need to talk,” Anna barked as Jason stopped in front of me, his eyes staying only on mine.

  “We’re done Anna. It’s taken me a long time to realize it, but I don’t deserve you.” He finally shifted his eyes at Anna.

  “You do deserve me Jason. Can we talk in private please?” She begged like a toddler, whining out the last word slowly. Jason let out a huff and then looked at me.

  “No Anna, I deserve better than you.”

  I didn’t know much about Anna, but anyone with two thumbs and a brain could tell he absolutely deserved better.

  “Jason!” She slammed her palm on the counter and stared him down. I looked up at him and said what I knew I had to say.

  “Red light, Jase,” I smirked.

  “Me too, Sweetheart. Let’s get out of here,” he said, reaching for my hand. “Anna, I don’t want to hear from you again, ever.”

  The look on her face was like a kid being told no in a candy store. Upset and clearly as though she had never been told no before. It was glorious to watch. I looked at Moose and Kasey who were watching this final goodbye unfold in front of their eyes too.

  “Bye guys.” I quickly waved at them as we exchanged shocked glances.

  “See you later Moose and Kasey,” he said before hauling us out of the bar, one that I was glad to be leaving.

  “What all did Anna tell you?” he asked, his eyes firm as we hustled through the doors.

  “Nothing really, but it’s okay because I’m pretty sure I shut her up on my end,” I told him. “She really is quite the bitch you know.”

  “You have no idea,” he huffed.

  Jason was opening my door as we approached the truck, but my heart stopped my body from moving. I grabbed his arm and stopped him.

  “What was all that back there? With Jeff, why did you take him out like he was your punching bag? I’ve never seen you like that before Jason,” I told him, pausing long enough to take a breath. “I may not have known you a long time, but I know you well enough to see that this isn’t your normal behavior.”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his fists clenching by his side.

  “I couldn’t stand his hands touring your backside, Cassie. I lost it, okay?” His eyes finally peeled open, piercing mine. “He doesn’t need to be hitting on you.” He inched closer to me, placing a hand on my cheek. “You have enough going on in your life than to worry about being hit on by him.”

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “What do you mean I have enough going on in my life Jase?” I questioned him.

  “I mean, you need someone who won’t run when they find out you’re pregnant.” He stood motionless as his eyes pierced mine.

  Holy. Shit. “You know?” I gasped, almost losing my balance and falling down to the ground.

  “Yes, and you need someone who will help you through it, realizing there’s more to you than just a hot piece of ass, like Jeff sees. Drunk or not, what Jeff did wasn’t okay. I was raised better than that. I had to protect you.”

  I pulled his hand away from my cheek. I wanted to cry. I wanted to heave. Anything, but be standing here in front him. “How do you know? Did your mom tell you?” I asked panicked, terrified that my secret was out without me even knowing. I knew I needed to tell him, but having him find out from someone other than me was hard to take.

  He cocked his head. “My mom knows? What?” He looked upset and shocked as his eyes stayed trained on mine.

  “I had to tell her at the hospital Jason. I had to see if I was still pregnant. You didn’t answer my damn question. How do you know Jason?”

  “Sweetheart, I may be from a small town, but I’m not stupid,” he said deviously.

  I let out a deep sigh. I was completely shocked. It wasn’t that I thought he was stupid; it was that I thought I was better at lying.

  “Come on, Cassie!” He yelled at me as he threw his hands in the air. “If you constantly getting sick weren’t a dead giveaway, then maybe the fact you were running away was. It doesn’t take an idiot to put two and two together.”

  “Oh my God.” I put my head in my hands and began weeping, letting the turning feeling in my stomach match the outside of my body; tears streaming down my face.

  “Get in the truck Sweetheart. We need to talk,” he said, holding the door open for me.

  I got in, not thinking that I really had much choice in the matter. It was me who lied to him to begin with. The ice was already broken. How bad could the rest of the conversation go?

  Twenty-One

  NOT A WORD WAS SAID as we headed in a direction we had yet to go in this town. I kept my eyes in front of me and Jason did the same. It was awkward and it was killing me, but I was hurt. He lied to me. He knew what was going on the whole time and made me believe I was hiding it from him. I wiped the tears that were slipping out in a continuous flow now as I thought of how he had to feel about me now, pregnant, lost, and apparently not as good of a liar as I once believed.

  “You probably think I’m a terrible person and I’m sorry I lied to you, but I was afraid. I was terrified of what you would think of me once you found out. I was scared of losing you and your friendship that I’ve grown to enjoy too much,” I said quietly as I closed my eyes, wondering if he even heard me.

  “Look, I’m not going anywhere, you have to believe me. I want to help you; you don’t have to go through this alone. I know you have your friend, but you have me too.”

  I looked over at him, his eyes still shying away from mine. “You should have told me you knew Jason. You shouldn’t have let me continue to hide everything if you knew.”

  “It wasn’t my place to say, Cassie. You needed to tell me, but then tonight, seeing Jeff and his damn hands, I couldn’t take it anymore,” he said, his hands slamming down on his steering wheel. “I knew you would want answers so I just had to come clean. Listen, I’m not proud of what I did, but I’ll be damned if I let someone put their hands on you.”

  “Where are you taking us?” I asked lost, hurt, and scared. I didn’t want to hear about his feelings, how he didn’t want someone else to touch me, yet he wouldn’t. I just wanted to run, go back to his house, and cry into my pillow.

  “You’ll see,” he said quietly.

  Before I knew it, we had arrived at what looked like a farm. I could only guess it was theirs. “Your farm?” I asked as he parked in front of a huge wheat field.

  “Yeah,” he said, finally looking at me. “It’s the only place far enough from the town that you actually feel far away from the world, I like it here.” He grabbed a blanket from the truck, the same blue quilt from his room as he stepped out. I did the same and followed him to the back, watching as he quickly spread the blanket across the bed of the truck before hopping down.

  “Give me your hand,” he said, reaching his out for mine. “Let’s take a walk and talk first.” I placed my shaking
hand into his. We started walking into the field, the wheat stalks tickling the bare skin in between the boots and my dress.

  I followed him, our hands intertwined, as we got further into the field. It didn’t take long for the nerves to take over my whole body. I stopped and let go of his hand. I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Jason, my heart is racing. I am so nervous right now. I just… I need to tell you what happened, I need you to know the whole story,” I told him.

  “I want to know what happened, Cassie, but only if you’re okay with telling me,” he said, his body facing mine.

  I wasn’t okay with confessing it, but he had to know. I just feared for what was to come after he heard it. I knew he wouldn’t be so inclined to help me anymore. He would think horrible things about me; I knew this, because I thought them myself.

  I took a deep breath and gripped my hands together. “My roommate insisted that I go to a party at her boyfriend’s house. It was a kickoff party for the beginning of the school year. For most like me, it was our last year. I never went out, especially to parties. I wasn’t the college party girl. I had too much to work for and riding on me to be that girl. She begged me, saying her boyfriend had a friend that she wanted me to meet and I needed to get out of the apartment and act like a college student for once. I let her words sink in this time for some reason.”

  My shoulders slouched as I looked at Jase. His face held a blank expression I hadn’t seen on him before. I peered down; I couldn’t look at him while I told him the rest.

  “It could have been the brunch with my parents. They’d let me know how disappointed they were that I wasn’t graduating a year early. I wasn’t sure, but I think that could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. My roommate went out, did the college thing on the weekends, and studied hard during the week. We had moved in together our junior year, so I knew her pretty well. She wasn’t the A student I was, but she wasn’t failing by any means either. I said yes to going. She helped me pick a dress out of her closet, and off we went.” My hand covered over my face. I wished, I prayed I could go back and change the course of history. I felt his hand gently pull mine away from my face. I looked up and watched as Jase’s eyes fixed on mine. They pleaded with me to finish.

  “I knew too. I knew that it was a bad choice to go, but the devil on my shoulder won, and so I went. I was actually having a lot of fun when we first got there. It wasn’t out of control like I thought it would be. There were a lot of people, but there weren’t people vomiting in the halls and girls dancing on the tables like I was expecting. I was naïve. I had never been to a party before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised.”

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch his anymore as I talked about the other guy. My heart wouldn’t let me.

  “My roomy introduced me to her boyfriend’s friend, Parker. He was nice. Said all the right things. I could tell he was a ladies’ man and I was very interested. After a couple of hours, the drinks were flowing and the touching was getting more intense. Before I knew it, we were kissing on the couch. We knew exactly what we were doing, and the sad part was, I thought it was what I wanted, Jase. I was having fun. This hot guy who was interested in me was good company. There wasn’t one thing to complain about, except the fact that we moved our make out session to his room upstairs. If I needed Mel more than ever, it would have been to stop me from going upstairs.” I started to feel the stinging pain behind my eyes. The tears were forming.

  Jase put his hand on my back and rubbed it gently, not saying a word, but letting me know he was there. That was worth more than anything he could have said.

  “When I woke up in his bed the next day, it was like nothing happened. We both got out of bed, said our goodbyes and I had my first walk of shame along with a few other girls. I felt disgusting and I wanted to vomit right there in the house. This was obviously normal for him, as it didn’t faze him when I walked out of his room. The rest of the day, I was useless. I was battling a major hangover and I was feeling more than lonely. All I wanted and needed was for Melanie to be with me. That was my first one-night stand, and I needed someone to tell me it was okay, that things were going to be fine. It wasn’t until the next night before bed that I realized I missed two birth control pills that month. I didn’t think much of it when it happened since I wasn’t having sex. Then, I vaguely recalled our conversation right before we had sex. We didn’t use protection, we both assured the other that we were clean and I told him I was on birth control. It was a night of too many drinks, being in the moment and not thinking clearly. Panicked wasn’t even the right word for what was going through my head after I let the actions of that night settle in even more.”

  I began to pace, traipsing over the wheat stalks, flattening them as I made a small path in each direction. I stole a few glances of Jase. He stood in the same spot, still as a statue.

  “My roommate came in, saw me terrified, and tried to calm me down, telling me that the odds were low. It’s almost 99% effective and I’d be okay. She reminded me it was only one time, it had happened to her before and she was fine. I let her words sink in and realized it was only one time, what are the odds, and that I did have a good time, I wouldn’t do it again, but I did something because I chose to, not because of my parents. I didn’t think things could go wrong at this point so I started to relax and breathe again. I was so wrong, Jase.”

  I stopped pacing and let the tears pour out of me, the sobs now uncontrollable. He snaked his arms around me, pulling me close to him, telling me it would be okay. I wanted to believe him, I really did, and even though he made me feel comforted, my life was still in shambles. I wiped away a few tears, still with plenty left on my face, and tried my best to control the sobs long enough to finish.

  “I let the fun, free flying Cassandra take over and I did the dumbest thing I could have. I dropped out of school. I walked into the administration office and withdrew from all of my classes. I hated what I was going to school for, and that party, as silly as it sounds, changed things for me. I realized how much my life wasn’t mine, how much it was what everyone else wanted but the most important person living it, me. I didn’t tell my parents I dropped out because they would have gone ballistic Jason. I was scared, but I also felt relief from taking charge of my own life. I called Mel and told her what I did. She was stunned to say the least, but then begged me to come down and see her. I told her I would soon. I had to try and figure out what I wanted to do next. I knew I had to tell my parents, but before I dropped the bomb on them, I needed to come up with a new plan for my life that I was taking back. By the time I figured out a few classes I was going to start taking in the fall for creative writing and journalism, I was hit with another obstacle. I missed my period. It was like taking charge of my life was the worst thing I could have ever done. I was scared, terrified, and alone. I went to the only place I could think of, to see Melanie.”

  “And that’s how you ended up here?” he asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “God, Cassie, I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone,” he said as he continued holding me. “Does Parker know?”

  “No, I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

  “You need to tell him,” he said, pulling back to look at me. “If I got a girl pregnant, I would want to know.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not like most guys Jase. You’d actually stick around to help. Guys like Parker have their whole lives already planned out. They wouldn’t even be a part of a kid’s life; they would just write a check and wash their hands of the rest.”

  “Cassie.” His eyes were steady on mine, as he looked overly concerned.

  “Yes.”

  “Promise me that you’ll tell him.”

  “Jase,” I said, trying to get the strength to tell him why telling Parker wasn’t in the plans. “I don’t plan on keeping this baby.” I looked down at my stomach as I said baby.

  “What?” he asked, his brows furrowed.

  “I can�
��t. I’m not ready to be a mom.”

  “What do you plan on doing then?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. I’ve thought about abortion, but I’ve also thought about adoption,” And the tears were back, raining down hard. It broke my heart that I felt this way, but I couldn’t throw my future away on a one night stand, even though I didn’t even know what my future held for me anymore. “I don’t know what to do, that’s why I was going to see Mel. She was going to help me figure it out.”

  He looked down at the wheat between our legs, shuffling his boots in it. I knew the wheels were turning in his head. I could only imagine the horrendous things he was thinking of me for what I did, for what I had to do, for who I was becoming.

  “Should I pack and go to the motel now?” I asked, saying what I knew he was probably thinking. I was relieved that he finally knew why I was running, but scared shitless I was going to lose his friendship or even worse, him.

  He looked up, his gaze piercing me. “No way in hell would I ask you to leave.”

  “I don’t make you want to run the other way?” I asked shocked.

  “Not even close.”

  “Why? Because honestly I want to run in the other direction from myself,” I admitted.

  “I saw it in your eyes when they wanted to take you to the hospital and then when I saw you again lying in your bed in the ER. I knew you had more going on and you were scared. I knew the look all too well because I had it once myself. I wanted to help you; I felt this instant connection to you. I can’t explain it, and it sounds cliché but.” He paused and let out a deep sigh before continuing, “But maybe you got lost for a reason.”