Their voices continued to get louder. I had a choice to make, and since it was making me so over-emotional I chose to take the high road and walk out of the house. Tensions were too high to be caught in the crossfires of that woman and her son.
From the moment I stepped out the door and Jamey’s friends saw me I wondered if the kitchen was going to be safer than where I was headed.
“He’ll be out in a minute.”
They were ducked down fastening the straps to hold the four-wheeler on the trailer as one of them spoke. “Sounds like she’s pissed.”
“She’s mad about me. Jamey invited me to move back in with him last night. She just found out.” A part of me liked rubbing in that we were back together. As upset as I felt, that made my heart start beating faster.
“Maybe it ain’t such a good idea.”
I was half-tempted to walk around the vehicle, find out who was saying it, and kick them in the balls. “Jamey wants us to be together, and so do I. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it.”
I heard them snickering something, It was certainly about me, but meant so that I couldn’t hear. A slam of a door caught my attention and Jamey came walking up to the truck. “Y’all ready to go?”
“You sure you’re done with your momma?” They teased.
“Fuck you, and fuck her. If I listened to ya’ll then I’d never have my girl back.”
I felt his hand grabbing and squeezing mine. “Come on. Let’s not let my mother ruin our day. We’re goin’ to have fun. I promise.”
I trusted that Jamey believed that whole-heartedly he was doing the right things and that we could have a chance to be happy again. After all, he’d invited me to do something that I’d never been able to do with him before. The idea of it was exciting, and I knew I couldn’t let her or anyone else get to me.
“We don’t have room for your girl, dude.”
I tried to look through the back tinted windows as he spoke. Seeing as there were two guys, and Jamey would have to sit in the back, I knew there was still a seat. Then Jamey grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “We’ll just follow you in my car. It’s not a big deal. I invited my girl, and she’s comin’ with me.”
Feeling content, I didn’t even think about the other person in the truck, not until we started on our way there and Jamey got quiet. “Do you know who the other person is?”
I thought it was a simple question.
“No clue, baby. Who knows with those two. They probably picked up some douche off the street. It doesn’t even matter. You and I, we’re goin’ to have a good time, right?”
I wrapped my arm under his and leaned closer to him. “Yep.”
Our relationship was off to a perfect start and I was so optimistic that this time it was going to be different.
Chapter 10
Jamey
Being with Peyton again had made me happier than I’d been in a long time. The argument with my mother wasn’t over, but I was damn sure that she wasn’t going to come in between us.
When I stepped inside of the kitchen and saw the look on my mom’s face I could tell she was more than pissed to see Peyton in her house. She’d somehow come to blame my being with Peyton with me going to jail.
Honestly, I understood how a parent would want to place the blame on someone else. The thing was, I got myself into that situation, because I’d been stupid. It was my fault that Peyton and I broke up, and my fault that I’d landed in jail.
Through it all I knew that I’d hurt them both. Somehow I was going to have to get them to see that they were the most important people in my life and they’d have to get along. Plus we still had her family to face. If my mother couldn’t accept Peyton and I, then her family sure as hell wasn’t going to give it a single thought.
I knew who was in the back of that truck. Just imagining Peyton’s face when she saw Ang get out was going to ruin our day together. It was like no matter how hard I was trying to include her and change my ways, something was preventing it from going easy.
I drove behind my friends contemplating turning around the whole time. I guess I should have thought out the decision to include her, but in my defense I hadn’t seen Ang in a long time. It had been even longer than that since we’d hooked up. Sure, I could have fucked her while I was with Peyton this last time around, but I hadn’t and that had to count for something.
It still didn’t make me feel any better about what was going to happen when Peyton saw that a chick was with us. I had to keep my cool and act like it wasn’t a big deal. If she got wind of me having history with Ang everything I’d done to get her back would turn to shit.
I turned to look over at Peyton in the seat next to me. Her long blonde hair blew as the breeze came in from the window. The hair stood up on my arms when I thought about the night we’d shared together. Having her back in bed was only half of my battle. I had to be a better man; one that was willing to admit that I wanted a relationship. I needed to be considerate of her feelings, and put her first before anyone else. Inevitably I’d known all along that it would come to this. Peyton had always been different for me. I think I only fought with her about it because I didn’t want to admit it to myself.
Like my brother, the bad-boy image was something I tried to live up to. I’d watched him toss chicks to the side without regret. It wasn’t until he met Lacey that everything changed for him. At first I thought he was crazy for falling for her. I mean, he had a perfect life. Then, all of a sudden, he was messed up in the head and miserable.
It wasn’t until they got back together that I saw the difference.
He was happy; happier than I’d ever seen him. My mother was proud, and for the first time I understood why.
Then I fought with myself over it.
Did I really want to admit that I was wrong?
Of course not.
Losing Peyton was like losing control of my life. The more I tried to move forward the further toward the downward spiral I got. I squeezed her hand to half remind myself that she was really in the vehicle next to me. “You look sexy.”
She giggled and looked away, out the window. “Stop it. I didn’t even have time to wash my face. My hair is a knotted up mess of a ponytail, and I’m wearin’ your clothes.”
“You couldn’t look like shit if you tried. Have you seen yourself in the mirror? Damn, the only thing that kept me straight while I was locked up was bein’ able to think about you the whole time.”
Peyton turned to face me. “You thought about me that much?”
Seeing that she was intrigued, I knew my answer meant a ton. “Yeah, I did. Didn’t you think about me?”
She shrugged. “Well, yeah. Honestly, I was trying to get over you. You hurt me, and I knew I had to move forward.”
It was a punch to the gut. “Damn don’t get all honest on me now. You know how to bruise an ego, that’s for sure.”
She nestled her head against the side of my arm. “It’s not because it’s what I wanted, Jamey. You gave me no choice. We were headed down a terrible road. One of us had to be adult about it.”
“True, but you could have missed me a little more.”
“I missed you a lot,” she admitted. “I thought about you all the time, and worried. The last thing I wanted was for you to go to jail. I felt like it was all my fault, especially how we left things.”
I shook my head while still looking forward. “It wasn’t your fault, Pey. I was fucked up. You had me all messed up. I was a fool for not bein’ a better boyfriend. You have to understand that I don’t know the first thing about relationships. Well, I know how to fuck them up, obviously, but that’s it.”
“We need to start over, if that’s even possible.”
“What’s that mean?” Right away I was worried.
“We need a clean slate, Jamey. Dwellin’ on the past ain’t goin’ to get us anywhere. We have to get past everything that happened, because if we can’t do that, than neither will our families. Seriously, if we want this to work, we’ve got to try h
arder and pretend that it’s a whole new relationship. We’ve got to promise to get over the past.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Nobody is goin’ to take us seriously unless we can prove without a doubt that we’ve changed.”
She hugged my arm tighter. “Have we changed?”
“I’d like to think we have.”
“So no more lies?” She asked.
“None. I promise. You know everything.”
“Then we’re off to a new start.”
Even though I knew Peyton meant what she was saying a part of me knew that it wasn’t going to last forever. That’s why when we pulled up behind my buddy’s truck I hesitated before getting out.
The moment I saw Ang jump out, I turned all of my attention to Peyton. She couldn’t see me freaking out. At first Peyton was too busy getting out and tending to me. She disliked my friends enough to not care what they were doing just feet from us.
I walked up to the trailer and began to unfasten my four-wheeler. With my focus on getting my ATV off the trailer before anyone else, I wasn’t looking around to see where Ang was. I should have been prepared for them to see one another. Call me a coward, but I ignored the fact that I could hear Ang talking to me.
I sighed and looked toward the sound of her voice.
“Who’s this, Jamey?”
I stood up and looked over at Peyton, standing there wondering the same thing about the girl with the Jersey accent. “This is my girlfriend, Peyton.”
I watched as Ang gave Peyton a once over. She reacted by raising her brow and doing the same thing back. “Who are you?”
Ang, being the way she was, turned back to me and smiled. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend.”
I couldn’t believe she was going to be a bitch the first five minutes of being around us. “Ang is Turk’s cousin. She’s just here visitin’.”
“Actually, I’m attending Salisbury University. You’re going to be seeing a lot more of me, Jamey. In fact I was thinking that maybe one night we could hang out like we used to.”
She was messing with Peyton on purpose, ruining my first day back together with her. “I don’t think so. As you can see, I’ve got a girlfriend.”
Ang started to walk away. “It never stopped you before.”
She was playing off my prior indiscretion and it was pissing me off, so much that I could have shoved her down on the ground, had I been willing to hit a girl.
“Like I said, no thanks.”
“Whatever.” Ang finally walked back to the front of her cousin’s truck. Knowing that I already had to get Peyton calmed down, I pulled my four-wheeler off the vehicle and started it up. While turning to wait for Peyton to jump on behind me I caught a glimpse of her displease with what had just transpired. Obviously she was curious, and I was going to have to come up with something creative if I wanted to end this day as a couple.
After Peyton finally got on, we sped away. I wasn’t about to wait for all of them to follow us. The trails that we rode on were so long with many different turns to take. I knew I could lose them without a real effort. Peyton clung to my back as I rode hard over the rough terrain, jumping over low spots and splashing through puddles. Once we’d been riding for a good half hour, I pulled off to a grassy area and turned off the engine. Peyton slipped down from the ATV and jumped right in my shit. “Who was that?”
“I told you about her a long time ago. She used to come ridin’ with us. It’s no big deal, baby.”
“I saw the way she looked at you, Jamey. That’s not what nothin’ looks like.”
I walked toward her, breaking the little distance between us. “I promise you that there’s nothin’ between that chick and me. She’s just bein’ a bitch because she don’t know you. Who am I here with, because I’m pretty damn sure it ain’t her.”
Peyton shook her head, second guessing herself. “Sorry. I guess it’s goin’ to take me a while to learn how to trust you. Can you forgive me?”
It made me feel guilty, but at the same time, I knew that in this case she was wrong. Ang was nothing to me. There wasn’t anything about her that even compared to my feelings for Peyton. “We’re cool. How about we sit over here and rest for a while.”
Peyton walked over to a grassy spot and plopped down on the ground. I swooped in behind her, pulling her back against my chest. “It’s pretty here.”
“Yeah. I seem to like it too. The stream over there is cool. Sometimes the deer come over to drink while I’m here chillin’. I don’t think anyone hunts this property, so it’s full of them. We used to come out here to drink after ridin’, but I don’t mess around with those jokers that much anymore. Today’s the first time in a while that I’ve even seen them.”
Peyton played with my fingers as she spoke to me. I appreciated her being with me, and valued whatever she had to say. “I used to wish you wouldn’t hang out with them anymore. They’ve been trouble since we were all in school.”
“Yeah, I know.” They were always trying to get me do shady things for fun. I got why Peyton disliked them so much.
“I wanted you to come with me today so you could see that when I went out I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong. This is fun for me, ridin’ and sittin’ back enjoyin’ the sunshine.”
“You sound almost poetic,” she laughed as she spoke. “Did those weeks in jail change you?”
“They were enlightening indeed,” I replied. “Really it wasn’t so bad. Minimum security. We watched television, played basketball, lifted weights, and even had internet time. It was more like I was being punished in my room as a kid, just the food was shitty, and my mattress sucked.”
“Did you have a cellmate?”
“We weren’t really in cells. It was more like a large room with sectioned cubes. There were four beds in each part and the top was all open. The people I bunked with weren’t hard criminals. Most were in for drug possession, or petty crimes. Bein’ in there gave me time to think. It gave me a chance to realize what I’d been doin’ wrong.”
“Honestly, Jamey, bein’ away from you gave me time to think too. I started goin’ to college, and I really like it.”
“You also started datin’ someone.” I’d waited long enough to ask about it. The fact that there was another guy in her life, that she refused to talk about, bothered me. If he was just a friend she would have spoken about him by now, and she certainly hadn’t. “Tell me more about him. Did you let him into your pants?”
She pushed away from me and stood up, putting her hands on her hips as she spoke. “We said we were startin’ fresh. Besides, he’s more of a friend anyway. He’s helped me, and I enjoy spendin’ time with him and his daughter.”
“Daughter? Is he a professor?”
She shook her head. “No. Of course not. He’s a business owner who lost his wife tragically a while back. He’s raisin’ his little girl alone.”
“My hero,” I announced sarcastically.
“Shut up. You sound like you’re jealous. I thought that wasn’t possible.”
“It’s not,” I lied. “Just makin’ light of the situation. Obviously the guy uses his daughter to get pussy. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
Peyton pointed toward me. “You don’t know him. He’s nothin’ like that.”
“Whatever!” I threw up my hands realizing how pissed she was becoming. “Don’t get your panties all bunched up.”
“It’s not like you have any room to talk.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I questioned.
“You slept with her, didn’t you, Jamey?”
“With who?” I played dumb.
“Angie. That chick I just met. I could tell she was hot for you, and you were avoiding her like she had a disease. I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were.”
“Tell me the truth. Have you ever slept with that chick?”
I knew I should have been honest. I should have just told her that we had a fling a long time ago, and done my best
to convince her that it was never going to happen again, but Peyton was hard-headed. She wasn’t going to believe me, and trust was out of the question. So I did what I thought was right. “No. I’ve never slept with that slut. It pisses me off that you’d even think it. I have standards you know.”
My girlfriend looked down at the ground. The guilt had returned, and I felt bad immediately. “I had to ask.”
“I’m not mad. Will you please come back down here and lay with me? I invited you here to be close to you, not argue about some dude, and a chick I don’t give two flyin’ fucks about. She pursued me, by the way, if you wanted to know.” More lies to add to the pile. Next I would be sent to jail for being a con-artist. My mother would be so proud.
Peyton tackled me, throwing us both down on the course grass beneath me. Her lips were suddenly on mine, and nothing else mattered. The more lies I told the crappier I felt. It also made me paranoid that something bad was going to happen. That’s why I had to savor every moment with Peyton. I was going to have to be a better person if I wanted a chance, because so far I was only giving her more reasons to be without me.
Chapter 11
Peyton
We spent the next hour making love, in the clearing, not caring about anyone coming up and spying on us. All I wanted was to be close to Jamey. Knowing the judgment was right around the corner, I wanted to savor every second of peace we had together.
While my mind was in a million places, my main focus was on my inability to trust Jamey. For some reason I felt like he’d been lying to me about Ang. Even after he’d reassured me, I just had this feeling like it wasn’t the whole truth.
It wasn’t until later that I would find out exactly what it was.
We’d spent a while alone, ignoring the fact that his friends were somewhere around. It was lunch time before we realized that the morning had gotten away from us. Since I’d left my phone in the car, I hadn’t even paid attention to it like I normally did. It felt as if time stood still when I was with Jamey.
We heard an ATV approaching and quickly put all of our clothes back on before it came into view. Jamey never moved from his seated position on the ground. Angie came into play, making my stomach turn when I saw her eying up my boyfriend. She was everything that I wasn’t with her dark hair and those big brown eyes and a curvy body that left little to the imagination. I could immediately see why any man would find her easy on the eyes. What made me uneasy was knowing that my guy was probably one of them.
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