JASON
The car stops and Donovan starts to get out of the car. “I can open the door for myself, Donovan.”
“No, stay in the car. Or you’re going to be very sorry,” he says, then gets out.
I’ve been looking through my cell phone at the many messages Brittany’s sent me and not paying attention to anything else. I look out the window and see Brittany standing on the sidewalk in front of my building. And just inside the lobby, I can see Pamela sitting on a sofa inside.
Shit!
Donovan hurries to Brittany and they come toward the car. I scoot over and she gets inside. “There you are, Jason. Where the hell have you been?”
I shake my head. “No, you don’t get to ask that.”
Concern fills her face. “You’re slurring.” Her arms are quickly around me and she’s hugging me. “Jason, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. It all happened too fast. I’m so sorry.”
After a second it computes that she realized I found out about her and the hot man she was with earlier. I run my hands through her loose, dark waves and kiss her neck. “I hate that you did that, baby.”
“I know,” she says, then pulls back and looks at me. She runs one hand over my cheek. “Baby, you look like hell.”
“Man, why do people keep saying that to me? Do I really look that damn bad?” I run my hand over my face and then through my hair.
“Well, you’re normally so gorgeous, it’s just that you look completely stressed. Please don’t tell me I did this to you all on my very own?” She takes my hand and kisses my palm. “I didn’t mean for anything to bother you about that ceremony.”
I stare at her, trying to see deeper into her than I did before. “Why didn’t you ask me to go with you? I don’t understand any of this, Britt.”
She nods. “You want to come home with me, Jason? We can talk all about everything.”
“To her place, Donovan,” I call out to my driver. “Did you talk to that woman who was in the lobby of my building?”
I cross my fingers she didn’t. When she nods, I uncross them and let out a sigh.
“You really have been lying a lot, haven’t you, Jason?”
Laying my head back on the seat, I groan, “Britt, my life’s a fucking wreck. I’ve gotten myself in so deep, I had to create that app to keep up with all of my lies.” I roll my head to the side and look at her. “I need you, baby. And you need me.”
“I know you need me, Jason. As for me needing you, well, honestly, I don’t.” She looks out the window.
I laugh, “Ha! You sure as hell do need me. You see, I happened upon one of your men, Brittany.”
She looks back at me with narrowed eyes. “And just how did this happen and who was it?”
“At the little bar I went to. It was this guy named Ryan.”
“Ugly Ryan? You met him?” She runs her hands over her face.
“You call him that? So uncool, baby. I get it, but so uncool. That guy really likes you. He tried to fight me over you.” I laugh. “I knocked him out with one punch.”
“What?” she asks with a little shrieking sound. “Why did you hit him? That’s so not called for.”
“If you knew what he said to bring that out of me, you wouldn’t think that. He actually said you gave great blowjobs. I had to knock him out.” I nod as she shakes her head.
“Over that? You hit him over that, Jason? Oh, man, this is terrible. I need to call him and you need to apologize. He’s not even a violent man. He’d never have hit you.” She looks a little pale as she pulls out her cell phone.
“No way!” I shout and grab her phone. “You’re not calling him. I told him you guys were over. That’s why he wanted to fight me. So you don’t have to tell him anything. He knows I’m making you mine. He understands. Well, not really understands, but he knows, anyway. I don’t want you to talk to him ever again.”
She makes a terrible laugh, kind of like a witch. “Give me my phone.” She holds her hand out and I shake my head. She punches me in the arm and I laugh as she cries out, “Ouch! What are you made out of, steel? Damn it, Jason! Give me my phone and don’t tell me who I can and can’t talk to.”
I put her phone in my back pocket. “I’m not giving it back to you. And I will tell you who you can and can’t talk to. You need me in your life to help you straighten it out. Just like I need your help.”
The sound of a cat growling comes out of her mouth and she’s on me like a little spider monkey. Before I know what’s happened, she has her phone and is crawling off my lap.
“Thank you,” she says with a nice calm voice. “I don’t like not having my phone. It makes me anxious.”
Trying to make sure I still have all of my limbs intact, I run my hands all over myself. “You don’t say.”
“So, what did you tell Ryan?” She looks at me like she didn’t just attack me. “Because you know you had no right to do that.”
“You and I came to an agreement last night, if you’ll recall. So I felt like I did have a right to tell him you’re off the market. And would you like to tell me what you told the woman in the lobby?” I brace myself for what she’s about to say.
“I didn’t tell her a thing. I felt sorry for her stupid ass, Jason.” She looks at me with sadness in her deep green eyes. “She thinks you two are getting married. How sad is that?”
I bite my lower lip. “Yeah, she’s not the only woman who thinks that. I’m kind of an ass that way. I don’t actually ask any of them. I do tell them I want to be exclusive because I don’t want them to be with anyone else. Some of them get the idea that one day we’ll get married.”
Her dark brows furrow. “You are a super asshole!”
“I am aware of that. But I try very hard not to hurt any of them. Telling them the truth that there is no real future is mean. Don’t you think it would be mean?” I look at her for some compassion.
She shakes her head, making her dark, silky waves crash around her shoulders. “What’s mean is lying to anyone, baby. How do you not know that? I know your parents didn’t raise you to think lying was okay.”
I smile with her words because I made a phone call today and my parents were ecstatic to find out she and I were back together. “I called Mom today. She and Dad are very happy about us getting back together. They want us to make a visit soon. I bet your parents will be happy to have a visit from you, too.”
She looks down and plays with the hem of her dress. “Are you?”
I know that look she has. “They can’t still be mad at me, can they?”
She nods and won’t look at me. “Apparently, the neighbors still bring up that night.”
“Fuck! I was a damn kid. When will I ever live that down? It’s not fair, Britt.” I take her by the shoulder to make her look at me. “You know it’s not fair.”
A couple of wrinkles form between her brows. “Who told you life was fair?”
I lay my head back on the seat and groan again. “So your parents are against this, huh?”
“Of course.”
Her answer, while honest, kind of hits me hard. “Why can’t you tell them you forgave me for all that crap?”
“Mostly because I haven’t,” she says, then places her hand on my leg and runs it up and down. “I’m not a good liar. What I feel comes out.”
I find it hard to pull my head up to look at her but finally, I get it up. “If this is going to work, you have to forgive me for what I did to you when we were young.”
She cocks her head to the side. “Why do you think just because you tell me to forgive you that I can do that so quickly? It’s been a whopping twenty-four hours since you came back into my life. Things can’t happen that damn quickly, Jason. Sorry. And I’ll continue to tell you the truth. No matter how the fuck hard it is for you to take it.”
“How about just don’t say anything if it isn’t nice or positive? Leave that negative crap out.”
“That’s it, Jason!” she shouts as her hands fly up into the air. “You hate arguing! You hate having to look at your flaws and correcting them! I’ve figured you out. That’s why you have so many women. You can’t take the reality of life with one person. Being with one person means things get ugly sometimes. The truth gets told and you can’t take that.”
“You think you’ve figured me out this quickly?” I stare at her in disbelief. “I’m a little more complex than that.”
She rolls her eyes. “No, you are not. Men are pretty simple creatures and you are one of the simplest. Things get a little sticky with a situation, you change your situation. Plain, simple, and easy.”
“Okay, first thing. I told you no more rolling of the eyes. It makes you look like a giant brat. Second, I am not simple. I am a very complex man. All men are not simple and easy to figure out. I wouldn’t ever bother trying to figure me out if I were you. I’m not asking you to analyze me. Just love me.” I end my lecture with a kiss on her cheek. “By the way, I love you. I haven’t told you that since you left today. Do you have anything you’d like to tell me, rosebud?”
I can tell she’s trying very hard not to roll her eyes at me, but then they go soft as I gaze into hers and her words come out soft as her hands caress my cheeks. “I do love you, Jason.”
A smile comes all the way from my heart and moves over my face as she moves in and kisses me. But only for a brief moment. She pulls back and makes a terrible face.
“Oh, I forgot. I threw up,” I say, and feel hot with embarrassment.
“Yuck! Why did you throw up?” she asks as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “What’s to drink in that little fridge there? I need to rinse this taste out of my mouth.”
I reach into the fridge and grab us both bottles of water. I open hers and hand it to her. “Here you go. And I’d rather not tell you why I threw up. It’s a thing I don’t want to recall at all.”
“Did it have to do with Ugly Ryan?” she asks, then takes a drink and swishes it around her mouth.
I nod and do the same with my water. “Anyway, on to any other subject. Tell me about the awards ceremony and tell me how you’re taking me to all the rest of them you’re going to go to.”
She laughs. “Okay, about that. See, my agent is the one who called me this afternoon. And when she told me I had a mere three hours to get ready and get there, I freaked out. Josh has been going with me to these things for a while now. So instinct took me over when I went into panic mode.”
“Did you tell him about me?”
She fidgets and I know her answer.
How in the hell are we going to get rid of so many damn people who are in our lives so intimately?