JAMESON
Soph was beginning to claw a hole in my arm, practically piercing the skin while her aunt approached. She was nearly cowering behind me like a child, despite Jules being her aunt.
I was distracted for a fleeting second, watching a stray dog run across the sand between demolished homes. Thomas and Elizabeth’s was barely touched, compared to the wreckage around us. Soph stepped out from behind me and my gaze followed, naturally drawn to her. I had never seen her so drained, so riddled with fatigue and stress, even after almost drowning.
Why do I keep going back to that?
My eyes followed the way her messy strawberry blonde hair tickled her porcelain face with the breeze. She was exquisite in this weather, the gray, misty sky that was accompanied by patches of blinding white sunlight. This must have been what she looked like in Oregon, minus the raw nerves I could practically feel when she touched me.
“Jameson. Sophia.” Jules’s arms snaked around Soph, but Soph’s hand didn’t stray from mine. “Oh, ma chère, I was so worried for you. You just left in the middle of the night! Don’t ever do that again.”
“I’m eighteen,” Soph reminded her.
I bit my bottom lip to stop the laughter that threatened with her response. She is eighteen and she left in the middle of the night because your boyfriend has a file on us. Then she almost drowned. Shit.
“I know, darling, but we were so worried about you. When Thomas called Simon, it only made us worry even more because we couldn’t be with you.”
“You were more worried about her being here than somewhere unknown?” I blurted.
Because she could’ve drowned. That would’ve been the alternative. Thanks to your boyfriend…and me.
“No.” Jules shook her head, patting Sophia’s hair while she addressed us. “I just…you must have been utterly terrified, ma chère. Jameson, are your aunt and uncle home?”
“Oui,” Soph mumbled, causing my heart to tremble at the sound lifting from her tongue. “Ils sont à l'intérieur de la maison. Allez voir.”
Jules kissed Soph’s forehead and briefly scanned her attire, probably ensuring she was in one piece…and maybe considering the fact Soph was in my clothes. Soph was in my clothes. I was dying. Literally.
“She’s going to talk to Thomas and Elizabeth,” Soph interrupted my daydream. “We should figure out what to do about Simon.”
“What did you say to her?”
“What?”
“In French. You speak fluent French, don’t you?”
“Un peu. Ma mère était française. Je m'excuse. Je ne parlerai pas en face française de vous encore, Jameson.”
My heart stopped. “You’re amazing, Sophia.”
She looked up at me, a smile flirting with a soft pink glow gracing her face. “What happened to Soph?”
I kissed her. Twice. “She’s here.” Thank God.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else, Jameson.” Her head rested against my shoulder, pulling my heart to my knees. “Please don’t leave me again.”
“Jameson! Sophia!” Elizabeth’s screech even startled the seagulls.
We reluctantly turned around and headed toward the house. Jules had distracted us so much that I forgot to see if Soph was better from her attack, from Thomas’s poor vocabulary. As we approached the sandy yard that contained more of the beach than I had noticed, Soph turned to me.
“What?” I held my hand out for her, hoping to guide her in through the space next to the palm tree.
It was more fun this way. I’m sure it was pissing off Thomas. She stepped in and turned again, staring at my eyes. Hers were so blue—vivid, bright, far deeper than she allowed most to see.
“Merci de me protéger.”
She was trying to kill me.
“Darling,” Jules announced, stepping into the sandy living room.
Looking around, I remembered the last time we’d spent time in there. I was so mad at Soph. Furious. She found out about me. She ran. She almost…stop it.
“I was telling Thomas and Elizabeth that Simon had to run off already. Some of his properties along St. Pete’s are just destroyed. I haven’t even been to our house yet…or what’s left of it.”
“Oh,” Soph whispered.
I glanced between her and Thomas as he entered the room, his arms furiously crossed against his chest.
“Turns out Simon’s gone for a few days.” His eyes bored into mine. “Elizabeth, you should take Sophia and Jules back to their house and let them check on things. Jameson and I have some business to do around here.”
“Of course.” Elizabeth smiled. I hadn’t noticed her enter, my mind was racing with the spinning wheels behind Thomas’s eyes.
“I don’t know how they’re going to have a graduation ceremony,” Jules mumbled. “The school is probably in shambles. Mon Dieu. Ce n'est pas bien.”
She was talking to herself, muttering something in French that I couldn’t understand, while Elizabeth wrapped an arm around her.
“Sophia,” Elizabeth said as she escorted Jules away from the room. “Meet us outside.”
Thomas, Soph, and I were statues until we heard the front door close. My eyes moved first, down to Soph, and then to Thomas. He was staring at me expectantly.
“What do we do?” She was the first to break the silence.
“Well,” Thomas sighed, “if Simon is really not at home, that gives us time to see what’s left of his things.”
“I took the file,” Soph interjected. “It’s here.”
Thomas’s head shook. “It is bigger than one file, my dear. Simon works for the Department of Justice and now he has been tracking you…or Jameson…or us…”
“Before we do anything,” I interrupted, mirroring Thomas’s cold posture, “Thomas, you need to stop acting like a dick to Sophia.”
“What did you just say to me?”
“You need to stop acting like a dick to my girlfriend and realize that she is also a victim in this. In more than just this.”
I knew I was making Soph uncomfortable. I could literally feel the tension radiating from her fragile frame, but someone needed to put that cocky bastard in his place. Thomas ran his right hand through his hair, as though conceding to us was utter torture.
“Look,” he groaned, “I’m not the bad guy. I’m a powerful man and you’ve always known that my role is to protect you, Jameson. You’ve known this for years. I’ve cared for you like my own child, let you live in our house, watched you learn and grow. It is entirely inappropriate and ungrateful for you to use such language toward me.”
“If you weren’t such a dick,” I spat, “I wouldn’t have to.”
“Fine,” Thomas snarled, his hands now on his hips while he stared down Soph and me. “I’m sorry for being myself, Sophia, and for not acknowledging the importance you represent to Jameson. This doesn’t mean we’re a family.”
“We weren’t ever one,” I grumbled, not sure if he could even hear the distaste that trickled from my mouth.
I looked at Soph again. Her body was swaying, almost in a trance, while her trembling fingertips danced along her arms as she held herself in one piece.
***
Simon’s house had lost windows on his first floor, despite the barriers he paid to have installed. The entire neighborhood was out observing, taking photographs, and sorting through rubbish.
“Casual,” Thomas repeated under his breath as he lifted a panel away from the window.
I didn’t know how he expected me to act casual when we were essentially breaking into Simon’s home. The room in which we stood was his office. Thomas knew exactly where to begin our search.
“What’d Sophia tell Jules?” Thomas said, not even lifting his head to me while he shuffled through drawers near Simon’s desk.
“Nothing yet. You really think Simon would leave something out in the open if he is so deranged as to track us? He wouldn’t want to get caught. Not against your job title.”
“I’m guessing by the people he could be working with, Simon doesn’t care about my job.” Thomas broke a drawer knob as he forced open a file cabinet. “And he doesn’t care much for his niece either.”
Thomas was holding a file, waving it in the air toward me while his eyes burned with validation.
“Or your friends,” he continued, reaching within the cabinet that contained a bounty of manila folders filled with documents, then pulling out another file and handing both to me.
My hands barely grasped the folders as I watched him continue to sift through the drawer. Thomas was so focused, determined on a mission he had yet to communicate with me. Maybe he didn’t know yet. Perhaps we were creating our own mission, like criminals. God. This is insane.
I looked down at the folders in my hands, entirely aware that the burning sensation deep within my brain was nothing but rage. Pure rage.
Olivia.
He had folders for Olivia and Soph. The folder for Olivia was dense; at least two inches thick with papers, photographs, and…her birth certificate?
“Why does he worry about Olivia Hart?” I questioned aloud, not even expecting a response from Thomas. “Thomas? Look at this file.”
With a heavy sigh, as though my existence was not on Thomas’s list of things to dislike, he stepped away from the cabinet and joined me. He took Olivia’s file from my hands and perused the paperwork.
“A birth certificate…there’s so much in here. Academic history, recent exam grades, transcripts, her college application…he was stalking her.”
I felt sick, filling my throat with the bile of disdain toward Simon. The sick bastard had a file on Soph and her best friend, a girl who had always been kind to me, always sweet and gentle. Olivia was one of the first people to welcome me to Bradenton. Olivia and I studied together. We talked after school. She was friendly, never asking questions about my past and never probing for her own curiosity. I could trust Olivia not to inquire, but I couldn’t trust anyone to truly know my story until Soph.
“Thomas, think about it. Olivia was my first friend when I came here.”
“If this has something to do with you, why aren’t your other friends in these files?”
“I don’t know…what’s the difference between Olivia and Luke or Owen?”
Thomas’s brows met, eyeing me suspiciously. “What is the difference between Olivia and them, Jameson? Clearly. This all makes sense. You and Olivia were like siblings once you calmed down enough to let anyone in. Think about what that might have looked like to someone on the outside, someone like Simon.”
“We weren’t that close.”
“You were whenever our families would get together and Bellini happened to be there,” Thomas groaned. “He probably thought you were dating or had the potential to do so. The fool actually thought you’d be so stupid as to date while keeping your secret.”
My eyes could have killed, tossing burning daggers into Thomas’s skull. I am stupid enough to date, but my secret is out and kept hidden, safely tucked away in Soph’s heart.
“Which brings me to the next folder.” Thomas cleared his throat, nodding toward the file about my sweet Sophia Reid.
Images of her during the storm passed through my mind. She was so strong, so frightened, yet still so capable—endearing, troubled, and beautiful.
“I still don’t get it though, Thomas. Why would me dating either Olivia or Sophia warrant him having a file on them? That’s so…illegal and just wrong. It’s wrong. She was living in his girlfriend’s house, Olivia is Soph’s best friend, and…to stalk them like this…”
“Criminals,” Thomas scoffed. “It’s the same. I’ve seen this before a hundred times. We need to call the police.”
“Then I’ll need to leave.”
I watched his eyes twitch, the reality and depth of this mess clicking within the mechanics of his brain. “I don’t want to have to decide between you and confronting Simon about this, Jameson. Both are necessary…”
“It wasn’t Soph’s fault.” I turned away from him, dropping the files on Simon’s desk.
It was covered with sand, insulation, and debris from his home. The crisp file looked wrong, entirely out of place, and sinful lying against the heap of rubbish on his desk.
“It wasn’t,” he agreed. He finally agreed with me.
The bastard knew it. He knew it would have happened regardless of Soph. It could have been Olivia. It could have even been Luke or Owen, but the fact that Simon was collecting information on people I cared about, especially Soph, drove me to a new level of instability. She had been violated. Her privacy, her own reasons for coming here; everything was desecrated and tarnished when it should have been safe for her.
“We’ll run,” I muttered.
“You can’t ask that of her.”
“She’ll follow.”
Thomas’s hand was resting on my shoulder, a grand gesture that he had only spared for me a handful of times since accepting me as his nephew.
“You can’t ask that of us.”
I turned around, studying the blue eyes that examined my dark face. “I wasn’t asking.”
Could I really take Soph from here? From her aunt? From her fresh start? If she was now at risk, like me living in a limbo state of paranoia simply by falling for me, then I had to.
Brakes hissed outside, causing my posture to stiffen and my ears to ring. Thomas looked behind me through the shattered remains of a window, his face tightening.
“He’s here.” Thomas stepped back, reaching for the files I held. “We need to put these away. Now, Jameson.”
“Jules said he would be gone for hours.” My voice shook. I swallowed the nerves twisting in my throat, struggling to steadily hand Thomas the files from the sandy desk. His head was shaking, disappointed and anxious just like me.
“I doubt that’s the first lie he’s told them to get them out of his hair,” Thomas growled.
We began running toward the back of Simon’s house, crawling over displaced furniture and debris. Thomas was several leaps ahead of me, already standing between Simon’s living room and the patio door. I couldn’t leave that file here. I couldn’t leave that piece of Sophia here.
“Thomas, I need that file.”
“No,” he snapped. “If you want everything to fall apart…if you go back in there, you’re hurting Sophia.”
Her name was all it took for me to turn back to Thomas and follow his lead out of the house, but we were too late. My knuckles burned as I tightly clenched my fingers within my palms, feeling the bones protruding through my skin. Hearing Simon’s entrance made my heart pound through my ears. I could kill him.