Chapter 17
“Kill me now.” Jasmine groaned from her position on the floor in front of the couch.
“How the hell did you get on the floor?” Winter’s husky voice came from somewhere above her.
Jasmine turned her head on the rug and licked her dry lips. “I think I slid off the couch sometime after Empire ended…My goal had been to make it to the TV to change discs and I failed.” Jasmine waved her hand to the general area where the electronics were. The distance seeming less than it was last night while she was completely wasted. Dropping her hand to the floor with a thud, she let out a gust of air and immediately grimaced.
Damn, her breath was deadly.
Apparently, that’s what happened when you ate a strange mix of Twizzlers, pizza and Funyuns washed down with hard grape soda. Her stomach rolled just thinking about all the crap she had ingested the night before.
“You’re the nurse here…am I gonna die?” Winter echoed her exact thoughts as she threw her arm over her eyes, trying to block out the light coming from Jasmine’s balcony doors.
“If you die then I’m coming with you.” Jasmine heaved herself up and off the floor, her back protesting at the position she had slept for the last couple of hours. “Jesus, I’m too old to sleep on the floor.”
“What the fuck are you mumbling about over there?” Winter asked as if she just now realized Jasmine had been talking this entire time. “I can’t believe we finished off all of the liquor, even the old Malibu you had over the fridge.” Winter had given up trying to avoid sunlight as if she were a vampire and instead was pushing her crazy hair off her face.
“Shhh…don’t mention liquor.” Jasmine moaned. Flopping into the large chair in the corner, Jasmine pulled her legs up to her chest. “My stomach hates me right now.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure that my ass hates me considering I just wasted this last week’s fitness with all of the shit we ate last night. There is no amount of points to cover that many calories. Why did you let me eat that tub of frosting?!”
Jasmine snickered at Winter. “You are the one that found it in the cabinet and I believe when I tried to stop you from finishing it you said you ‘didn’t want it to spoil.’ Honestly, with the way you were clutching that container, I wasn’t about to lose a finger.”
“Jazz, I think I may puke…” Winter clutched her head, and moaned out the words.
Shooting up off the floor as if she were electrified, Jasmine knew what she had to do. Now, she just hoped she had the stomach to pull it off.
“Get up.” Jasmine nudged Winter’s leg with her knee.
“No, let me die in a puddle of my own vomit. I wanna go out like all the famous rockers I’ve idolized.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes and then stopped the moment she felt nausea rolling around again. “Get. Up.”
“But why?” Winter looked up at Jasmine through the veil of her hair.
“We are going to get biscuits and gravy.” It took every ounce of control that Jasmine had in her body at that moment to keep her own stomach from rebelling at the thought of eating. Especially something as thick and heavy, but she had learned long ago that it was the only thing that would help. Either that or she had tricked her body into accepting a heavy breakfast as a sacrifice to the Gods of Bad Decisions.
“Nooo,” Winter groaned out as if she were mortally wounded.
“You know it’s the only way.” Jasmine held out her hand to her friend. “C’mon, we never got into our pajamas so we don’t even need to change.” Pulling Winter up, she made sure that they were both steady on their feet before she let go of her arm. “The buses are running so we can take them all the way downtown. I’m pretty sure neither one of us should be navigating a vehicle at the moment.”
“I don’t know if I can handle the bus today, Jazz. All that stopping and going makes me sick just thinking about it,” Winter admitted, holding one hand to her mouth as if that were going to keep the demons at bay.
“Butler?” Only one word was needed for Winter to understand what Jazz was asking. When Winter nodded her head with a tight smile on her face, Jasmine picked up her phone and hit the icon for one of her favorite people.
“Butler, I need you. No, scratch that. We need you,” Jasmine said when her cell connected.
“Wheatfields?” the gruff-voiced man asked, still sounding sleepy.
“Yep and a ride,” Jasmine answered as she surveyed her living room overflowing with trash.
“Let me get some pants on then I’ll be right there,” he said without complaint, proving yet again why he was one of her favorite people in the world. Everyone should have a Butler in their lives. He was there as a shoulder to cry on, a designated driver when you needed one last minute, he didn’t mind chick flicks, and understood the importance of biscuits and gravy.
Tossing her phone down on the couch, Jasmine propped her hands on her hips. “He’s on his way so I say we have about fifteen minutes to get some of this trash cleared out.”
Winter looked around, her hand still covering her mouth but also part of her nose. “The pizza box needs to go first. If I smell that I’m gonna hurl.”
Jasmine nodded. The feeling was mutual. Taking a moment to breath deep, she tried to brace herself for the cleaning she needed to get started on. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t like cleaning. Her issue was more along the lines of being scared of what packages they might find that she didn’t remember eating.
And apparently, it was a LOT. Jasmine had finished tying the garbage bag closed just as a knock sounded on the door to her apartment.
Butler was here to save the day, and he couldn’t have arrived soon enough.
* * * *
Ten minutes later, Butler slipped on his signature Ray-Bans and escorted them down the stairs to his truck, and started the long-anticipated drive toward breakfast.
“You ladies really go all out, don’t ya?” Butler cracked.
“Shut the fuck up.” Winter groaned from the backseat of his truck.
“I’m just saying…I saw two pizza boxes—”
“One of those was bones,” Jasmine interrupted, feeling the need to clarify that they didn’t eat two whole pizzas, but instead one pizza and a side of braided breadsticks.
“So, one pizza, bones, Oreos, chips, Twinkies, a bag of marshmallows, a box of Triscuits with a can of spray cheese and cake?”
“Not an entire cake, just the frosting,” Winter whispered, leaning forward to tap Butler on the shoulder.
Butler raised his eyebrows and looked at her via the rearview mirror. “Why would you eat just the frosting?”
“Because we didn’t have the cake?” Jasmine giggled at her answer which caused Winter to snort.
“Thanks for helping bring down the trash. I appreciate the muscle.” Jasmine patted him on the arm, grateful that Butler had shown up when he did. It saved both women from trying to carry a trash bag full of regret down a couple flights of stairs, which was something that she wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon. “I was tempted to just pitch the bag off my balcony and hope for the best.” Jasmine simply shrugged when Butler looked at her like she was mental. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Butler, we didn’t interrupt anything this morning, did we?” Winter asked, her voice sounding stronger the closer they got to their goal.
“Nah, I had an early night. Went down to The Tinderbox and played pool for a bit before calling it good and heading home,” Butler admitted as he looked for a spot to park downtown. “I did see Will for a bit when he stopped by with the guys, but they didn’t hang around long.”
“Oh,” Jasmine said, unsure if she should ask if Leo had been with ‘the guys.’
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or are we going to pretend that the binge eating and drinking didn’t happen and you were just wanting a breakfast buddy this morning because you missed my face?” Butler kept his voice light despite his obvious curiosity.
Jasmine avoided eye contact at the question.
There was no way that she could lie to Butler. He was like the male version of Winter when it came to their friendship. She had first met him when Winter started dating Will. Butler had been a paramedic at the same fire station as Will, and she and Butler had hit it off immediately. A couple of the guys had asked if they were dating since they had become close, but they both knew that they were too much alike to be anything more than friends. Their relationship was similar to what Jasmine had hoped at some point her relationship with Jameson would be like. Well, if her brother hadn’t decided to join Doctors Without Borders and disappear for years on end doing what he loved. The brother she had but never really had. They talked about dates, ate off each other’s plates and he was extremely honest when it came to fashion advice.
Butler was always brutally honest. Jasmine knew that she was incredibly lucky to have another friend there to tell the cold hard truth, who was ready to listen, but never lecture.
Who was she kidding? Butler was also nice to look at. He was seriously sexy as fuck. With his short black silky hair and deep brown eyes, Jasmine couldn’t deny that he had made her nether regions tingle when they first met.
Even though her vagina had decided that he was firmly in the brother/friend category, it didn’t mean that the man was anything other than delicious to look at. If Jasmine had to guess, and she had heard many a story leading her to believe it was true, quite a few of the house calls that he attended were females that somehow ended up giving him their number.
And who could blame them? Even as she was lost in her own thoughts, Butler had parked and come around to open her door like a goddamned gentleman.
When he walked to the meter to pay for parking, Winter sidled up next to Jasmine as if she had something to say. Winter nudged her and wiggled her eye brows when they watched him bend down to pick up a quarter that he had dropped when feeding the meter.
“Stop it,” Jasmine said.
“You stop it,” Winter shot back. “I’ll never understand how something didn’t happen there.”
Jasmine just shook her head at her best friend. “Cut it out.”
“I’m serious. You literally called him and said five words, and he shows up on his white horse ready to take out the garbage.”
Jasmine nudged Winter with her elbow. “Keep your voice down.”
“Did something happen before and I just don’t know it?” Winter asked, her eyes lighting up at the thought of gossip.
“No, I told you that he’s my buddy,” Jasmine defended.
“That is one hot fucking buddy.”
Jasmine sighed, as she watched Butler kneel to pet the dog of a homeless man begging for change near where they parked. “We need to find him a lady.”
“I’m pretty sure the ladies find him with no help from us,” Winter said dryly, watching as a pair of jogging women slowed their pace as they got close to Butler.
Butler nodded hellos to the women, but didn’t give them a second glance before he walked back to where the women were waiting at the crosswalk. “Ladies, I believe our biscuits and gravy await.”
The trio walked around the corner and into the small café known for their fresh bread selection. There was nothing quite like eating at Wheatfields. In fact, if Jasmine ever moved away, it would be one of the places she would miss the most. It was small with only a handful of tables, but the food was amazing and you couldn’t beat the smell of fresh baked bread this early in the morning. While they stood in line to order at the counter, neither of the women were surprised when Butler insisted on paying for their meals.
“I’m hoping that it buys me some info,” Butler said as he hustled them into the dining area trying to snag a table.
“What kind of info?” Winter blew on her coffee, the aroma filling the space around their small table.
“Like what’s going on with Leo, and why he looked like his dog was ran over yesterday when I saw him. What’s up with that?” The question was asked without judgement as Butler looked at Jasmine.
“Don’t be silly. Leo doesn’t have a dog.” The words fell flat as they came out of Jasmine’s lips.
“Hardy-har-har,” Butler deadpanned. “Now tell me why my favorite girl is looking like she was hit by a semi and I carried out a garbage bag with enough junk food to kill an elephant.”
“I screwed things up.” The words came out in a raspy whisper. Jasmine felt her eyes heat with tears while the group sat in silence for a few moments. “Ughhh, I really screwed things up.”
“What happened?” Butler asked, reaching for her hand on the table where she had started to tear her paper napkin to shreds.
“My mom—”
Butler held up his hands. “Stop right there; no need to say more.”
Jasmine huffed out a sad laugh, which turned into a case of the giggles. It was sad really, but the emotional overload from the day before decided to bubble over at that exact moment.
She guessed she really didn’t need to say more. Butler had been on the receiving end of her parents’ judgmental words more than a few times himself. Even though there had never been anything romantic between the two of them, their friendship hadn’t gone unnoticed by her parents. Her mom had been particularly brutal when she suggested that the only reason Butler was a paramedic was because he lacked the intelligence to go to med school. He had taken the harsh words in stride though, and never let her parents fluster or upset him. At least, never to the point that Jasmine could tell.
As Jasmine’s giggles died down, she studied her friend. Butler had his jaw clenched which usually meant he wanted to say something but was holding back.
“What is it?” she asked.
Butler looked startled for a second as he spun the salt shaker around on the table. “What is what?”
Jasmine reached over and took the salt shaker away from him at the same time their meals were delivered to the table. As they arranged their plates, overflowing with fluffy fresh biscuits and sausage gravy, Jasmine eyed Butler.
“I can tell you have something to say. So, spit it out,” Jasmine ordered, licking the gravy off her spoon.
“It’s not my place—”
“Bullshit,” Jasmine butted in. “You are my friend and I want to know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry, I can take it.”
Butler swallowed the food that he had shoveled into his mouth and took a quick drink of his water. “You want to know what I was thinking?”
“Yeah,” Jasmine egged him on.
“I don’t know if—” Winter tried to insert before being shut down by Jasmine holding up her hand.
“It’s about fucking time.” Butler sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his solid chest. “It’s about fucking time that someone has made you open your eyes to the poisonous people you call mom and dad.”
“Pffft, she calls them Victoria and Reginald half the time,” Winter interjected. Her eyes widened at the glare Jasmine shot her in innocence before adding, “Sorry, not helping.”
“Keep going,” Jasmine urged, needing to hear what he thought she needed to know.
“Your parents are vipers. They are the most awful fucking people I have ever met in all my days, Jazz,” Butler said plainly. “They should never have had kids with the way they have treated you. I seriously don’t understand how they could have raised someone so nice and sweet and good, and be as evil as they are. I’m not the least surprised your older brother got out and away from them as soon as he could.”
Jasmine didn’t have a response to his words, knowing that for most part they were true. Winter took that moment to throw her arm over Jasmine’s shoulder and hug her close.
“I am so glad they did have you though because I can’t imagine life without you. Seriously, who else would help me gorge on all that junk last night. Will’s a lightweight. He would have been crying like a little baby before I ever opened up that last pack of crackers.”
With those words, the group started to chuckle. Leave it to Winter to diffuse the situation like she always does. Jasmine gave Butler a small smile to let him know that she wasn’t angry at what he said. How could she be? She had asked him to honestly say what he was thinking and that’s exactly what she got.
Butler reached across the table and squeezed her hand where it sat clutching her spoon like it was a lifeline.
“And I hope that you know how to fix the mess you’re in because Will and Leo just walked in and I’m pretty sure I’m about to get my ass beat by the way he’s glaring at me.” Butler kept his voice low and his hand still where it was covering Jasmine’s own.
Turning her head slowly to the doors at the front of the café, Jasmine locked eyes with the man that she had spent the last twenty-four hours thinking about. By the look on his face, he wasn’t very happy with her right now.
Well…shit.