by Piper James
He didn’t respond, and I smiled at the silence. That was the last thing I remembered before I fell asleep.
5
Rafe
Take that, Dr.-never-knew-I-was-alive-in-high-school. Bet you want me, now.
Those words played over and over in my head as I tucked a blanket around Jessa, let myself out of the house, and drove home. I’d pretended I didn’t hear them when they flowed from her lips. She might not have cared if I heard them in her inebriated state, but she would care when she woke up in the morning. The least I could do was save her the embarrassment.
We went to high school together? How did I not know her? There is no way in hell I knew her and somehow…forgot. Jessa Maddox is wholly unforgettable.
I parked my SUV in the garage before walking into my home. It looked the same as it did when I was a kid—same carpet, same appliances, same outdated furniture. The only thing I’d replaced was the old behemoth of a television—one wall now sported a big flat screen—and the bed in the master bedroom.
The place felt so empty now that my brother Nate had his own apartment and our little sister Lola was living in the dorms at college. I’d tried to get her to stay here. The school was only a thirty-minute commute, but she’d insisted she’d wanted the full college experience.
But I knew the truth. They both thought they were getting out of my way, leaving me open to finally start living my own life. I’d taken care of them after our parents’ deaths a decade ago, a barely-eighteen-year-old senior in high school. I’d been just a kid, myself. Our mother had died in a car accident, and Dad couldn’t handle his own grief. He’d ended up drinking himself to death…which was why I never touched the stuff, and could barely stomach being around those who did.
But with Jessa, it was different. Her drunkenness hadn’t disgusted me, but I was concerned over her safety and state of mind. What made her decide to get drunk in the middle of the afternoon?
I shook my head, chasing the thoughts away. What Jessa Maddox did in her spare time was of no concern to me. I barely knew her…or did I?
That high school remark crept back into my brain, and I wandered into Nate’s old room. Mom had always made sure to order yearbooks for us when she was alive. Dad burned mine in an anguished rage not long after the accident, screaming about nothing ever being the same and there being no reason to look back.
Nate had hidden his before Dad could get to them, and they were neatly arranged on a bookshelf in his room. Finding the book for my senior year, I plucked it from the shelf and sat down on his bed. I thumbed through a few pages, looking for Jessa’s pixie features and big brown eyes, but I couldn’t find her. The pictures were arranged alphabetically, so I searched the M’s in each class until I found her name.
With a grunt of success, I traced my finger across the row of pictures, stopping on the one that should have been Jessa Maddox. My face screwed up in confusion as I stared at a girl I didn’t recognize. She had a mouth full of metal braces, some pretty significant acne, and a very unfortunate haircut.
It was the eyes that got me, making me gasp. Those were definitely Jessa’s eyes. Dark-chocolate-brown and so expressive, looking at them now took me right back to that moment she’d landed on her knees in front of me and met my gaze as she shoved her bra behind her back.
Jessa Maddox was not this girl anymore. That was for sure. She was a gorgeous woman who assaulted strangers with undergarments and who may or may not have had a drinking problem.
And I didn’t have the time or energy for that kind of complication.
I had a job to perform and patients to take care of. They needed me, and taking time off for personal pursuits just seemed selfish. I’d make time for myself eventually. But now was not that time.
I placed the yearbook back on the shelf where I found it and headed for my own bedroom. I needed to eat, but first, I really needed to shower. I had a whole shift’s worth of dirt and germs on me.
As I undressed and stepped under the hot spray, images of Jessa danced through my mind, unbidden. Her teddy bear eyes, roaming over my bottom half as her luscious lips formed words about how good I looked in my jeans. My lips curved up, and a little too much blood rushed to my cock as I thought about her mouth.
Which led to another flashback of Jessa on her knees.
My hand slipped down of its own accord, making me grunt as my fingers wrapped around my dick, stroking it. Fantasies of Jessa flickered through my mind like a carousel. My tongue exploring her mouth while my hands roamed over every inch of her skin. Her body underneath mine, her nails scratching down my back, and—oh, shit.
I came with a growl, falling back against the shower wall. My muscles seized up with the power of it. I took several harsh breaths as my body slowly relaxed, opening my eyes to stare at the water circling the drain.
I hadn’t come that fast since I was a teenager, and I thanked the stars I was alone and not actually with Jessa when it happened.
“Stop,” I hissed to myself through gritted teeth before vigorously washing my body.
I needed to stop thinking about her. She was obviously a hot mess, possibly an alcoholic, and the daughter of one of my patients. Former patients. Technically, Greg stopped being my patient after he left the emergency room, and my house calls were made on my own time, at no charge. So dating Jessa wouldn’t be exactly unethical.
It didn’t matter anyway. I had way too much on my plate as it was without trying to start something with Jessa Maddox.
After climbing from the shower, drying off, and throwing on some basketball shorts and a t-shirt, I grabbed a sports drink from the fridge and plopped down on the couch. Grabbing the remote, I clicked on the television before sliding on my headset and tapping the buttons on my game controller.
Yes. Blowing some shit up in video games always cleared my mind and helped me to relax.
I played a couple of rounds of my favorite first-person shooter game, but my heart wasn’t in it like it usually was. After getting killed by a noob for the second time, I shut the console down and picked up my phone.
I tapped the icon for my text messages and pulled up the most recent thread. After Jessa had drunkenly handed me her phone and asked for my number in case she needed me to be her designated driver, I’d set it down with resolve. I wasn’t going to get drawn in any further, and I certainly wasn’t going to enable her drinking habit.
But once she fell asleep, I couldn’t help myself. Luckily, there was no security code required to unlock the device, and I’d programmed my number in under “Dr. Walton,” then texted myself so I’d have her number, too. Then I texted her back—In case of emergency only.
Like those five words would stop her from texting or calling whenever she wanted to. Like I wanted them to stop her.
Closing out the message, I pulled up a popular social media site and searched her name. I was surprised to see she had very few followers, and only followed one account—her dad’s bar, The Bullpen. There were a couple of pictures of her posted on her account, and the rest were of an orange cat. Must be the infamous Butthead.
I clicked on one of the pictures of Jessa to blow it up to full screen. She had a small, flirty smile on her face as she held up a shimmering shot glass, as if toasting the photographer. She wore the tiniest vest I’d ever seen, and her breasts were nearly overflowing the tight material.
I closed the app and dropped my phone to the couch. I was right. She was a party girl who liked to drink. And while I didn’t want to judge her for that, I just couldn’t bring that kind of pain back into my life.
I leaned back and let myself remember that awful day, ten years ago. The worst day of my life.
“Mamá, can we stop by the mall? I want to get a Christmas present for Allison.”
“Si, mijo, we can stop.”
I smiled at her from the passenger seat. Buying a gift for my girlfriend would’ve been something I did on my own, but Mamá loved shopping and finding the perfect gift was an adventure for her. I knew
she’d want to help, so I’d purposefully waited until we were out together to buy something for Allie. It wasn’t that big of a deal to me. We’d only been dating for a couple of weeks, and it wasn’t serious.
But I’d be headed off to college in a few months, and having these special moments with Mamá would become few and far between. I was going to miss her when I left, but she was so proud of me. I would be the first doctor in the family.
I looked past her, through her window as we crossed an intersection, and time seemed to slow down to a crawl as I opened my mouth to shout. Mamá slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. A late model pickup truck ran the red light and slammed into our car.
I screamed as the car spun around and around like it would never stop. The sounds of breaking glass and crunching metal grated against my eardrums. Something splashed across my face, warm and sticky, but I had my eyes squeezed shut in fear, so I had no idea what it was. I didn’t want to know.
We slammed into something, the car going deathly still as horns blared and people shouted in the background.
“Mijo.”
Mamá’s voice sounded weak and distant, and I opened my eyes to see her bleeding and broken in the seat beside me.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said with a sharp edge of panic as I made several unsuccessful attempts to extricate myself from my seatbelt.
“Rafael, take this,” she said between labored breaths as she pulled her engagement ring from her left hand and held it in her open palm. “Give it…to…your girl.”
I took the ring from her hand, confusion and fear making my movements slow and shaky. Why did Mamá want me to give Allie her engagement ring? I was only eighteen. I wasn’t getting married.
I shook my head to clear it, the ring’s small diamond cutting into my palm. I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t need it, but her head drooped, her brown eyes wide.
Unseeing.
“Mamá, no!” I cried. “Mamá, wake up! Mamá!”
But she didn’t answer. She was gone, and there was nothing I could do to save her.
6
Jessa
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, sugar pie,” he replied as I made my way across the room. “Why so glum?”
“I’m not,” I said, plopping down into the chair by his bed and placing a hand on his forehead to see if he felt warm.
“You know you can’t lie to me, baby girl,” he said, watching me expectantly.
“I drank a few shots to take the edge off last night, and might have made a fool of myself in front of your doctor,” I mumbled.
“Define a few.”
“Four,” I admitted quietly.
He let out a low whistle. “Of my good tequila?” I nodded, and he shook his head. “That’s a lot for a tiny little thing like you.”
“Hey, I’m not tiny,” I argued, furrowing my brow.
I was smaller than the average woman, sure, at five-four, but I wasn’t tiny by any stretch of the imagination.
“If you’d let me help you out financially, you could put a little meat on those bones.”
“I have plenty of meat, thank you very much.” I crossed my arms over my chest to show him I was serious.
“Do you, now?” Dad asked, arching one eyebrow.
“Oh, God, Dad. Gross.”
He chortled with laughter at his own innuendo. The man might have been my father, but he loved embarrassing me with the dirty grandpa jokes. I was sure if I pretended to take him seriously and start talking about my sex life, it would shut him up real quick.
But in order to do that, I’d have to have a sex life to speak of.
“Okay, seriously, though,” Dad said, wiping the smile off his face, “can you head down to The Bullpen tonight and check on things for me?”
I cocked my head. “You don’t think Janice can handle it?”
Janice had been his manager and right-hand-woman for as long as I could remember. She was Dad’s age, strong, capable, beautiful, and pretty much awesome in every way.
When I was little, I used to have daydreams about Janice revealing that she was my mom. Once Dad figured out what I was doing, he sat me down and told me the real story of my mother…and it was most definitely not awesome.
“She’s an old woman, Jessa.”
“Oh, I’m going to tell her you said that,” I sing-songed with a grin.
“You better not,” he chastised. “She’s not used to being there every night anymore and I worry. I wish I had someone to send in to give her a break, but there’s not really anyone else I can trust.”
His gaze locked on mine, all sad and guilt-trippy, and I jumped to my feet.
“Oh, no, Dad. No. No. No. I’m only here for a few days, then I have to get back to Atlanta.”
“Get back to what?” he asked, his voice serious and chillingly quiet. “Your tiny, lonely apartment? Your job? Oh, wait. You quit that job. And since you refuse to take any of my money, you can’t pay for that apartment anymore.”
“Harsh, Dad.”
“Truth, Jessa.”
“You know why I won’t let you help me.”
He blew out a long sigh. “I know, sugar pie. You want to make it on your own, and I commend you for it. But you’re not her, and you never will be.”
My dad had inherited some money from his parents years ago when they passed away. They’d died in a tragic plane crash when he was in his thirties, and he’d spent a few years blowing money on booze and drugs to numb the pain of losing his only family.
My mother latched onto him like a bloodsucking leech, and he fell for her, hard. She was young and beautiful, and until he put a ring on it, she was as sweet as molasses. His words, not mine. Things took a turn for the worst after the honeymoon, and she’d quickly tired of being married to an “old man.”
I sometimes wondered if she thought herself old, now that she was forty-five.
I wouldn’t know. She took off when I was an infant, taking half of Dad’s money with her. He invested most of what was left into the bar and raised me on his own. He did a damn fine job, too, if I said so myself.
“Come on, Jessa. Please. Just say you’ll stay until I’m fully recovered and run the bar for me. It’ll only be a few weeks, tops.”
“I’ll think about it,” I conceded.
Once he turned those sad baby blues on me, I was a goner. And he knew it, too. Big cheater.
“Thank you, darlin’. And you’ll head down there tonight just check on things? It might do you some good. Get out, see if you can meet up with some of your old friends.”
I arched a brow at him, and he laughed.
I never had any friends in high school. Acquaintances? Sure. But I never let anyone get close enough to be considered a real friend. The truth was, if I didn’t let anyone in, they could never leave or disappoint me. Abandonment issues. Gotta love ‘em. At least I owned it.
My adult social life had been much the same. A string of one nights stands in college left a bad taste in my mouth, which led to me owning an array of toys that kept me fully satisfied all on my own. At least, that’s what I told myself. I didn’t want or need the hassle of romantic entanglements.
Sometimes, I wondered what it would be like to have close girlfriends. Especially during ladies’ night at the bar or when a group came in having a girls’ night out. There was a hollowness in my chest as I watched them drinking, laughing, and having a good time together.
Maybe when I went back home to Atlanta, I’d try to make some friends. That is, if I could find a job and actually stay there.
“Okay, Dad,” I said. “I’ll head down to The Bullpen tonight and give everything a once-over for you.”
“You’re the best daughter a man could ask for,” he said.
“And don’t you forget it,” I replied, kissing him on the cheek.
“Believe me, I won’t. Now, get out of here and let an old man watch his ball game.”
The Bullpen was my dad’s dream come to life, and he treasured ev
ery square inch of the place. An homage to his favorite baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, the sports bar featured fifteen big screen TV’s, two pool tables, and a collection of dartboards and sports-themed video games.
Posters of baseball players graced the walls, all of them wearing the red, white, and blue uniforms of Atlanta’s team. Most of those posters were of Dad’s favorite pitcher and name-twin, Greg Maddux. Dad might’ve been a little obsessed.
Walking into the bar filled me with a warm sense of nostalgia. I grew up in this place. The scents of beer and fried food filled my nostrils, and I couldn’t contain my smile as I headed straight for the bar.
“What’s a girl gotta do to get a drink in this dump?” I called out as I rested my elbows on the smooth oak bar top.
Hazel eyes shot up to meet mine, widening with surprise before filling with pleasure.
“Jessa, honey, get around here and let me hug you.”
I grinned from ear to ear as I rounded the bar, losing myself in Janice’s warm, motherly embrace. She felt like sunshine and smelled like strawberries, just as she had for as long as I could remember. Pulling back, she propped her hands on my shoulders to hold me at an arm’s length.
“Let me have a look at you,” she said, scanning me from head to toe as I held my spine straight and locked my knees. “You’re too skinny.”
“I am not,” I grumbled, slouching. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
She turned me around and smacked my butt, saying, “At least your ass still has some shape. These aren’t those apple-booty butt-shaping jeans, are they?”
“Apple-booty what? No, Janice. This is all me,” I replied, shaking my rump at her.
“That’s my girl,” she said. “Flaunt what the good Lord gave you, and don’t be trying to trick people into thinking you’re something you’re not.”
“I’m nothing, if not authentic,” I said, sticking my nose into the air.
