Score

by Jessica Ashe

  “Ah, that makes sense,” Sheridan said. Dad looked visibly relieved and loosened his grip on the fork. “Don’t worry about it. Jennifer got good grades overall and it’s not your fault if she messed up in a couple of classes. I’m still annoyed she was so rude to you tonight.”

  “No harm done,” Dad said.

  I felt sick and this time the nausea was nothing to do with my therapy. Jenny knew the modern Arabic dialect, not Egyptian. He was lying. I was sure of it. I’d seen Dad like this before, back when him and Mom were having problems. They had both lied to me about it for a while, but whereas Mom remained cool and collected, Dad’s body language often gave him away.

  “She must have been pretty bad to fail though,” I said. “Couldn’t you have just given her a bad grade?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Jaxon,” Sheridan said. “Let’s just draw a line under it.”

  “It does matter,” I said. “What was so bad about her paper?”

  “She turned it in late,” Dad said. “I had no choice but to give her a failing grade; university policy.”

  I would bet all my money that Jenny had never turned in an assignment late in her life.

  “I’m surprised she never came to you for help during office hours,” I said.

  “Me too,” Dad replied. “But many students are nervous around professors.”

  Silence fell over the table. Sheridan went back to eating dinner, which must have been getting cold now, but Dad and I stared at each other. Just a few hours ago I’d been telling him about my illness over dinner, and he’d been the same strong man who’d supported me all my life. Now he was like a stranger in front of my eyes.

  “She told me,” I said. “Jenny told me what you did.”

  “Son, I’m sure whatever she told you—”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I saw the email you sent her inviting her to your house.” I hadn’t seen it, but he wouldn’t know that. “You told me she never came to office hours, but I know you’re lying.”

  “What’s going on?” Sheridan asked. “Why would Jennifer go to your house?”

  “It’s just something a lot of professors do to get to know the students better. I—”

  “Leave,” I commanded. “Leave now and don’t come back.”

  “Jaxon, it’s not as bad as it sounds. It was all just—”

  “Leave,” I repeated. I couldn’t look at him. He’d gone from hero to villain in the space of a moment. He now looked weak and pathetic instead of strong and full of life.

  Sheridan didn’t say anything. He trusted me enough to know that I wouldn’t do something drastic like this without a good reason. Dad stood up and grabbed his belongings before walking outside. I saw him use his phone to call a cab.

  “Do you want to explain what all that was about?” Sheridan asked.

  “Not really,” I replied. “It’s not my place to tell you. I should go and speak to Jenny. She’s probably gone to Aaron’s.”

  “About you and Jenny,” Sheridan began, before trailing off.

  “What about us?” If Sheridan knew there was something between us then I wouldn’t bother denying it, but Jenny still didn’t want him to know and this was another thing that would sound better coming from her.

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  I had no idea where Aaron lived. I called him, but he didn’t pick up his phone. In the end, I decided to go back to the penthouse and let Jenny hang out with her friend for the evening. I owed her a huge apology, and turning up begging for forgiveness late at night seemed like the kind of cliché that Jenny would hate.

  I had an excuse for the last time I’d hurt her, but this time I had betrayed her trust and I couldn’t think of an easy way to win it back. That was the problem with trust; there was no easy way to gain it. Trust was ten times easier to lose than it was to win, but I was damn sure prepared to work ten times as hard if that’s what it took.

  Grand displays of affection were pointless. Jenny had never been impressed by wealth and spending money was too easy, too meaningless, for someone with my bank balance. I’d never felt so helpless, and for someone who had a disease that could kill them at any minute, that was really saying a lot.

  In the end, I settled for something boring. I couldn’t spend my way out of this problem, but perhaps I could rekindle memories of a happier moment we’d spent together. It might not be enough, but right now it was the best I could do.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Aaron.

  After spending the night at their place, Millie and Aaron had insisted on going into the city with me to help me relax. So far all we’d done was some shopping, but now we were looking for a place to eat. They clearly had a particular restaurant in mind, because Aaron had to keep looking at his phone to figure out where to go. He’d lived in New York most of his life, but still had a worse sense of direction than most tourists.

  “We’re nearly there,” Aaron said.

  “Why don’t you tell me the address,” I said. “I know his area well. It’s not far from work and this is close to the penthouse where I stayed with...” I trailed off when I caught Aaron cringing and looking distinctly like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “It was supposed to be a surprise,” Aaron said.

  “You’re setting me up with Jaxon, aren’t you?” Aaron nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me we were going to the penthouse?”

  “Because we assumed you wouldn’t come, and I think you should go up there and talk to him.”

  “You were right to assume that,” I said. “I don’t want to go up there.” The ruined surprise hadn’t been all bad. Jaxon hadn’t been in contact with me once during the day, and I was starting to think he’d forgotten about me. At least now I knew he wanted to see me. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to see him.

  “Just hear him out,” Aaron said.

  “I’m surprised you went along with this,” I said to Millie. She’d made no secret of her distaste for how Jaxon had acted last night.

  “Me too,” Millie admitted. “But we spoke to him this morning while you were still asleep. That man can certainly be persuasive sometimes.”

  “He’s the second most charming man you know, right, dear?” Aaron joked.

  “Uh, yeah, second,” Millie said, smiling at me. “For what it’s worth, I do think it’s worth hearing him out.”

  We were just a short walk from the hotel now, so I agreed to go inside and headed up to the penthouse. I braced myself to ignore any expensive gestures he might make to win me back. Jaxon had never bought me expensive jewelry and I wouldn’t have accepted it anyway. If he thought something like that could make me forgive him then he obviously had even less faith in me than I thought.

  Jaxon didn’t accost me with jewelry—or even flowers or chocolates—when I walked in. There were no rose petals on the bed and no champagne on ice. Instead, Jaxon had prepared the small dinner table with a candle in the middle and a plate of food ready to eat. He’d ordered the chicken burgers again from room service, and I was hungry enough that I wanted to at least stay for dinner, even if we didn’t say a word to each other the entire time.

  “Hi,” Jaxon said awkwardly.

  “Hi.”

  “I know this doesn’t change anything, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sorry. I should have believed you from the start and the things I said were unforgivable.”

  “So you believe me now?”

  Jaxon nodded. “I still can’t get my head round it all, but yes, I completely and utterly believe you. I kicked Dad out of your house and haven’t spoken to him since. I wanted to do a lot more than that, I can assure you, but well, he’s still my father and it would feel weird to hit an old man.”

  “I never wanted you to hit him,” I said. “I just wanted you to believe me.”

  “I know, and for that I’m sorry. Will you join me for dinner?”

  I stared at the
food again and knew I was helpless to resist. “You did make a good choice I suppose.”

  I sat down at the table and noticed the mess in the small kitchen area in the corner. Apart from storing drinks in the fridge, the kitchen had gone completely unused the entire time we’d been in it. There didn’t seem to be much point in cooking when there was a world class chef in the kitchen downstairs.

  “Have you been cooking?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Jaxon replied. “I cooked this meal.” He motioned down to the food in front of me.

  The chicken burgers and fries had become something of a tradition after energetic sex sessions. When I looked closer I noticed the bread was different and instead of fries there were potato wedges.

  “You cooked this yourself?”

  “Yep. Don’t worry, it tastes okay. Not quite as good as what you get here, but I don’t exactly have a lot of experience in the kitchen.”

  “Why?” I asked. I was probably ruining a romantic gesture, but I hadn’t settled into a romantic mood just yet anyway. I needed more than just an apology to forgive him.

  Jaxon shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t know what else to do, to be honest.”

  “It looks good,” I admitted. “Not bad for a first attempt.”

  “This might not technically have been my first attempt. Let’s just say there are some homeless people near the hotel who ate very well today.”

  My mouth watered as I picked up the burger and examined the cheese melting inside and the crispy—probably overcooked—bacon between the cheese and the chicken. I took a large bite and then another one soon after. He’d done a good job.

  “It’s nice,” I said, when I looked up and saw Jaxon looking at me expectantly. He looked visibly relieved when I took a third bite and then a fourth. “How did you learn to cook this? Did the chef give you the recipe?”

  “No,” Jaxon said. “I tried that, but the bastard wouldn’t help me out. He takes a lot of pride in his work it seems, and my usual means of persuasion didn’t work.”

  “He wouldn’t take your bribe?”

  “Nope. Anyway, I found a YouTube channel online with a similar recipe and just swapped out some ingredients. She’s some English cook who keeps things basic which is ideal for me. The channel’s called Posh With a Twist. She swears like you wouldn’t believe, but it’s quite funny.”

  “If she’s trying to teach idiots like you how to cook then I can’t say I blame her,” I joked. “You’d need the patience of a saint to handle such a task. Or a bottle of wine perhaps.”

  I continued eating and we both made small talk, although we weren’t quite as relaxed as usual. It would take time for things to get back to any degree of normality, but that was time we might not have.

  “How is the medication going?” I asked. It had only been twenty-four hours since I’d last asked him, but that was the longest I’d ever gone.

  “It’s fine, but let’s not talk about that now.”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I want to talk about you,” Jaxon said. “What are you going to do now?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to go back to working for Avian Financial soon. That’s all I have planned.”

  “You don’t enjoy that work though, do you?”

  “It’s a job,” I replied, popping one of the potato wedges into my mouth. The wedges were possibly better than the fries prepared by the chef, although the chicken could have used a little more flavor. Not a bad effort though. I made a mental note to check out that Posh With a Twist YouTube channel next time I was cooking.

  “Let’s say my Mom never helped you get that job,” Jaxon said. “What would you be doing now?”

  “Probably working for a start up in California. The truth is, I don’t really know what I want to do with my life. I enjoyed studying when I was focusing on the Middle East, but your dad kind of threw a spanner in the works there.”

  “Yeah, he kind of did.”

  “Why all the questions?” I asked.

  “Because I’ve been thinking about something I want to do, and I’d like to get your thoughts on it.”

  I couldn’t care less about my job or career right now. That just didn’t seem important compared to what Jaxon was facing in his life. How could I care about where my future would take me when Jaxon might not have one at all.

  “I’m just going to take things as they come,” I said.

  Mom and Dad would be shocked to hear me talking like that. I’d always been about the planning. When I was in school, my life revolved around the next set of tests or the next challenge. Near the end of college, I had lined up a number of job interviews and was ready to move smoothly into the next part of my life. One thing people never accused me of was “taking things as they come.”

  I wanted to tell Jaxon that I was ready to spend every waking minute with him, but I wasn’t ready to admit that I had already forgiven him for what he said to me last night. It wasn’t a good idea to let him off that easily.

  “Come to England with me,” Jaxon said. “Whatever it is you want to do, I’m sure you can do it there.”

  “You’re going back to England?”

  “Yes,” Jaxon confirmed. “I’m going to stay here for a few months until I finish my treatment. It seems silly to switch doctors now, but when I’m better—and I will get better—I’m going to head back to England.”

  “You want to play soccer again?” I asked. I admired Jaxon’s optimism, but by the time he recovered full fitness he would have missed at least one entire season and many clubs would be scared of signing him due to his health issues.

  “No, I don’t think so. I enjoyed playing, but I hate all the stuff that goes with it these days. The media scrutiny is intense and I could do without that. I want to coach instead. The Football Association over there is crying out for former professionals to coach the youth leagues and I’d love to do that.”

  I laughed. “You know, you never struck me as a teacher.”

  “Coach,” Jaxon corrected. “It’s a bit different. I wouldn’t be stuck in a classroom for one thing.”

  “And you want me to come with you?”

  “Of course I do. If you don’t, then I’m not going. I can coach here as well, but to be honest I prefer living in England. It would be nice to put an ocean between me and Mom. Well, between me and both my parents now I suppose.”

  “I suppose I could go back to school,” I said, giving serious thought to his proposal. It was too late now to pretend I hadn’t forgiven him for last night. “Maybe I could get a Masters degree in Middle East studies?”

  “Sounds like a plan. You wouldn’t need to get a job. I have more than enough money saved up from my playing career and I already own a house there.”

  I cringed as my mind flashed back to the time I visited Jaxon’s house at the beginning of the summer. “I’d rather not live in that bachelor-pad-slash-whore-house you were living in.”

  Jaxon rolled his eyes. “It’s not that bad. Okay, I’ll sell it and get a new place. I’d like to live in Liverpool though. It’s a cool area and you’ll get used to the accent.”

  “This would be a big move,” I said, stating the obvious. “Would we be able to keep our relationship a secret?”

  “Do you want to?” Jaxon asked. “Mom already knows and I think your Dad does as well.”

  “He suspects something, but it’s still going to come as one hell of a shock. What about the media? They’re going to make this sound gross and disgusting.”

  Jaxon shrugged. “Then so be it. I want to be with you Jenny, and one way or another it’s going to happen. I’ve wanted this from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

  “You don’t believe in all that ‘love at first sight’ stuff, do you?”

  “I didn’t,” Jaxon replied. “Okay, maybe not first sight, but do you remember that first time we stayed up all night talking and you tried to convince me that the ending to Lost was not a complete cop out?” I nodded, but didn’t t
ell Jaxon that I had since changed my mind about that one. “Since then,” he said. “I’ve loved you ever since that night. I never stopped.”

  “You’ve loved me since then?” I asked. Jaxon seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he had just used the ‘L’ word for the first time.

  “Yes,” he said. “Even when you were with other men and I was with other women. Especially when I was with other women come to think of it. I know you must have spent most of the last four years hating me, but I’m going to make it up to you.”

  “I didn’t hate you,” I replied softly. “Well, I guess I did hate you, but I loved you too.”

  Jaxon smiled, lighting up his face as he did so. “Does that mean we’re going to do this?”

  I nodded. Jaxon still had to beat his illness, but once that was done we could move to England and leave this whole mess behind us. I didn’t like leaving Dad alone—Carrie didn’t really count as company—but he would want me to live my own life and Mom had always been a huge fan of London. She’d come to visit as often as she could.

  “Do you want dessert?” Jaxon asked. “I don’t have a clue how to make ice cream, so we’ll have to order room service.”

  I nodded. “Have them bring up some ice cream.” I stood up and walked over to the bed. Right now I was in an old white bra and a pair of black panties; Jaxon wouldn’t care, but I wanted to keep some degree of sexiness alive while I could, and there should still be some lingerie in the dresser that I’d stashed there last week.

  Jaxon placed the order for ice cream and some champagne. “It’ll be about fifteen minutes,” Jaxon said.

  “You wait outside for it,” I ordered. “When it’s arrived you can come back in. I’ll be waiting.”

  I pushed Jaxon into the corridor as I walked over to the bed. It wouldn’t do him any harm to wait for a bit, and I planned to make it worth his while.

  The lacy black underwear was right where I’d left it in the bottom drawer. I’d never owned sexy underwear before. I guess I’d never really felt the need to impress any of my previous boyfriends or make a special effort for them, but Jaxon was different. I loved the way he looked at my body, which he seemed to admire regardless of whether I was naked, fully clothed, or somewhere in between.