Chapter Sixteen
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Alex had no sooner walked in his back door when Jessie came walking out of the guest bedroom. “How are you feeling?” He asked as he passed through the living room on his way to the kitchen.
He needed a beer and he needed one bad. After that long ass drive to Austin and back, Alex wanted nothing more than to sit back and relax. The only thing that would make it better was if Ashleigh was there with him. Since he’d been busy with work and she busy with a deadline, he hadn’t gotten to see her in two days now – not since that smoking hot scene in his office. The mere thought made his blood pressure soar.
But, instead of sneaking off to Ashleigh’s, he’d be sitting at home with his ex-wife, hoping she would get well enough to go home. He had made a point not to spend the night at Ashleigh’s since Jessie had been released from the hospital, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. No, he’d much rather be with Ashleigh, but truth be told, he was worried about Jessie, but more than that, he didn’t trust her.
Not a good place to be, honestly.
“A little better. My arm hurts, but the Advil is helping.” Jessie said softly as she curled up on his couch.
The doctor had offered pain meds, but after a brief chat with him, they opted not to go that route. Jessie was a recovering addict, and the last thing she needed was something to entice her.
“Thanks for letting me stay here. I’m just scared to go back home.” She said when he took a seat on the empty couch across from her.
“Well, Jeff’s in jail for a little while, so I think it would be safe for you to go home if you wanted to.” He wasn’t trying to push her out the door, but a gentle nudge wasn’t going to hurt.
It’s not that he didn’t like Jessie because he did. Hell, he’d been married to the woman. Although that little sham of a marriage was for entirely different reasons, but for some reason, Alex felt like he’d been here before.
Different man, same circumstance.
Alex met Jessie at a strip club when he was twenty-one years old. She was supposed to have been eighteen, but as it turned out, she lied about her age and provided a fake id. Being that she was a dancer at the club, that had caused quite a few problems.
But it hadn’t been the club giving her the most grief. It was her father. So when Alex found out that Jessie was being abused at home, he’d come to her rescue and the only logical way to get her out of that mess had been to marry her. He didn’t recommend it to anyone, but he had done it nonetheless.
They were married until she turned eighteen which was only a couple of months. Then they got the marriage annulled, and Alex had mistakenly thought that would be the end of it. He and Jessie were friends, and he wished her well and all that.
As it turned out, Jessie was a walking disaster. Her time at the strip club had led to some intense addictions – to both drugs and alcohol. Given that she had no one else to turn to, Alex again stepped in to save the day. And for damn near twenty years, he’d been coming to her rescue every time she needed him.
The problem was, he was beginning to think there was something more to these little stunts she pulled. Was she faking it? No, of course not. Her broken arm was proof of what Jeff had done to her. But the story he gave the cops was an entirely different one than the one she offered.
In Jeff’s version, Jessie had called him to come over, and once he was there, she instigated the fight, telling Jeff that the only thing she needed to do was to call Alex and everything would be taken care of.
Her version varied, depending on who she told it to. What she told Alex was that she had just gotten home from work when Jeff showed up. He proceeded to beat her because she wouldn’t go and get them something to eat. She’d been scared and injured, which was why she called Alex.
The scared and injured part he believed. The rest sounded like total bullshit. But what was he going to do about it? He’d spent the better part of two decades saving her from herself so to give up on her now seemed a little cruel.
“Do you mind if I stay here for a couple more days?” She asked sweetly.
Alex knew he was being played, knew she was doing the same thing she did every other time, but just like always, he conceded.
“Two days. But by this weekend, I need to get you home.” He had plans for the weekend and Jessie didn’t factor into them at all.
Pushing up from his chair, Alex took his beer and headed to his room. “I need to take a shower, but then I’ll order pizza or something. Give me fifteen minutes.” He told her without looking back.
Fifteen minutes almost on the money, Alex was back in the living room hunting for his cell phone. Jessie was in the kitchen pouring a glass of tea, so he called out to her. “Have you seen my phone?”
“It’s in here on the bar.” She told him.
“Thanks.” He said absently as he grabbed his phone. “What do you want on your pizza?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll eat anything.”
Alex hit the buttons to take him to his previously dialed calls. That was the only way he knew the pizza places number because he always forgot to add it to his contact list. As he was rummaging through the numbers, he noticed the last call that came in.
Ashleigh.
At seven twenty three.
But it wasn’t a missed call.
“Did my phone ring while I was in the shower?” He asked Jessie, turning to look at her. She got that same look on her face that she normally did when she was about to lie.
“Some girl called. I told her you were in the shower and that I’d tell her you called.”
Fuck! “Why the hell did you answer my phone, Jessie?”
Those damn tears welled up in her eyes, and she flinched like someone was about to hit her and it pissed Alex off. He was suddenly no longer hungry, so he grabbed another beer from the fridge and took his phone to his bedroom.
The second he had the door closed behind him, he dialed Ashleigh’s number.
No answer.
Imagine that.
Son of a bitch.
No matter how he tried to explain, this was not going to work out the way he wanted it to.
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Ashleigh couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Some woman had answered Alex’s cell phone. Worse than that, the woman said he’d have to call her back because he was in the shower.
That bastard.
Although they hadn’t talked about being exclusive with one another, Ashleigh had assumed as much. How could she not after all the things they’d been doing and that wasn’t even including the sheet scorching sex.
Shame on her, apparently.
When her phone rang a few minutes later, she just stared at the screen as it lit up with Alex’s name and number. There was no way in hell she was going to answer it. Not now. Not ever. As far as she was concerned, they didn’t have anything more to say to one another.
So why did she want him to explain? Why did she want to give him the chance to tell her exactly why that woman was at his house and that it wasn’t because he was a slime ball and sleeping with her while sleeping with other women.
That was her heart talking, not her brain.
Ignoring the phone, Ashleigh grabbed her laptop and went out on the back porch. It was dark outside, but the small light fixture and her computer would provide enough to do what she needed to do.
It was true, readers wanted emotions when they read the stories they loved. They wanted heat and lust and chemistry. Ashleigh could give them that at the moment because she was angry and hurt. No better time than the present to put it all down on paper.
At least this way, she might possibly be able to keep the tears at bay. She was fairly certain that once she let them go, there’d be no stemming the flow, and she just might drown.
How had she been so stupid?