Chapter 39

Jay

Looking at his blank computer screen, Jay rubbed the scruff of a beard irritating his cheek. He hadn’t gone home after being kicked out of Kasey’s townhouse. With Danny thinking he would be a few hours at least, he had decided to walk while thinking of how he could possibly fix things.

Never in his life had he been so short of words, so unable to explain what should have never happened in the first place. He knew it was a mistake to get the barista’s number, and even had the decency to tell her that. But for some reason he still carried around her phone number as if it may come into use at some point.

A small voice spoke softly from the back of his mind, questioning if he was intentionally holding on to Melissa’s number, but he was certain it was an accident. He’d never thought about calling her after the day he received the phone number. Why he hadn’t disposed of it was simply because he’d never seen it again, if he had there was no question he would have gotten rid of it.

How could he tell that to Kasey? Admit that he saw a girl that kind of looked like her, and so he got her number so that he could possibly fuck her, pretending the woman was Kasey. Only, Kasey surprised him, so he thought since he could have the real thing, the other woman was useless? No, that would not have gone over well, and that’s the reason he remained mute as Kasey screamed at the top of her lungs in the townhouse.

The hurt was evident in her voice, her tone, her eyes, her quivering lips. The scene was engrained in his memory, and was the reason he hadn’t been able to sleep at all.

After walking out of her development, he debated calling a cab, but decided to walk a little further. He reached the office before he even realized where he was headed, walking the entire five-mile journey in a fog.

His brainstorming had borne no fruit, and now the office was beginning to wake up, the secretaries arriving to work in time to greet their bosses. Jay was impressed by how hard they worked to make life easier for the executives like him.

As always, Mitchell arrived early, doing a double take when he walked past Jay’s office before peeking inside.

“Well, aren’t you just the—” Mitchell didn’t finish his sentence as his face dropped once he got a good look at Jay.

Quickly, he turned and pulled the door shut before plopping down in his regular leather loveseat, concern covering his face.

“What’s going on?”

“I fucked up, Mitch—again.”

Jay rubbed his face with his hands, trying his best to prepare himself to retell the story that had haunted him for the past twelve-hours. Beginning with the honest story about how he met Melissa, Jay struggled with recounting the pointless interaction. He watched as Mitchell smiled while hearing the story of Kasey’s perfectly planned dinner. Jay held back no detail about their evening together and how perfect it had been—the food, the wine, their conversation.

Jay loved Kasey’s home, and imagined it would have been somewhere he would have lived at her age. Mitchell nodded and contorted his face when Jay got to the climax of the evening. Once he’d told every detail, leading up to him arriving at the office in the middle of the night, Mitchell sat in silence, taking a deep breath before speaking.

“Why were you holding on to the number, Jay?”

“What do you mean? I wasn’t. I got the number, I put it in my pocket, and I went about my life. There was no grand scheme to keep this twenty-year-old in a stable for a rainy day. She was a cute girl. I got her number, never called, and forgot to throw the damn paper away!”

He was angry, but it wasn’t with Mitchell. Jay was furious with himself. There was always a doubt that he could be in a relationship, he knew that. It was far from his strong point, but he wanted to try for Kasey. She was worth it and he would do anything to have her. So, to lose her on such a dumb ass mistake felt worse than if he’d tried and failed. It was losing on a technicality, but he couldn’t expect anything other than the reaction she gave him.

“Why didn’t you tell her that?”

“I tried. Maybe I didn’t. I was so stunned that she even found the number, I froze. She was so mad. No, she was hurt. I hurt her, again, and she was just warming up to me. It’s so fucking stupid!” Jay yelled, banging his fist on the hard wood desk so hard it stung for minutes after the thud.

“Jay, you know I’m always rooting for you, I really am. But I think you may have muddied this one up too bad. There’s no way to clean this up, bro. It looks really bad.”

Just then, there was a knock on the door of Jay’s office.

“Come in!” he yelled.

Brenda, the head of accounting, poked her head in, obviously shocked by either Jay’s presence or his appearance.

“Sorry, Mr. Canton. I wasn’t expecting you to be in, but I heard you were in here, Mitch. Can I speak to you when you get a minute?” she nervously asked. The tension was palpable, and she wanted out of there as soon as possible.

“Go ahead, Mitch. I’ll catch up to you later,” Jay sullenly dismissed his friend.

“Are you sure?” Mitchell double-checked, worried about Jay’s well-being.

“Yeah, you’re right. There’s nothing else to be done.”

“I’ll be back after this meeting,” Mitchell assured him before leaving with Brenda.

The minute Mitch left the office, Jay began to collect his things, eager to put a new plan in motion. Mitchell thought there was nothing else to do because he didn’t know all the options available to Jay.

With a few taps on his phone, he alerted Danny to be downstairs and stalked out of his office, a man on a mission.

“Mr. Canton! I didn’t know you’d already arrived,” Jessica looked shocked to see him.

“I’ll be back in a few,” he said, without even making eye contact.

The ride in the elevator was short, his mind too concerned with getting Kasey back to focus on anything else.

“Mr. Canton! I was wondering if you’d taken the day off,” Danny smiled, holding the backdoor open.

“Rockwell Publishing!”

They were the only two words spoken between the two, who often had good conversation in the mornings. Danny had driven Jay enough to pick up on his moods, and today was not a talkative kind of day.

They arrived at Rockwell Publishing and Jay all but sprinted to Renee’s office, glancing around with the hopes of spotting Kasey. While he didn’t know what he would say, he couldn’t ignore the longing desire in his chest to at least know she was okay.

“You look like shit, Canton. Is it your drop in market share? Don’t worry. I won’t be taking too much more of the market until I can expand my office. There’s literally more business happening in here than we can handle,” she chuckled, with that evil laugh she always used around him.

“I need to talk to you,” he growled, inviting himself into her office.

“Hold my calls!” she barked at her assistant before following Jay into her office and closing the door behind them. “What do you want, Canton?”

“Is the deal still good?”

“What deal?” she crossed her arms defensively, preparing for some sort of punchline.

“One of my publishing houses for Kasey.”

It was the only plan he had, Mitchell was right, he was out of moves. It was desperate and he knew Renee would run the division into the ground, but it didn’t matter if he could have Kasey back.

“Uh, ye-yes.” Renee stuttered, failing at remaining cool.

“I’ll do it. Have your lawyers draw it up, I’ll sign.”

“I’ll have the paperwork drafted as soon as possible. Once I get your signature, I’ll get Kasey back to you.”

“Fine.”

He stalked out of the office as fast as he walked in. Renee was smart enough to know how good of a deal she was getting, so he expected she would be calling sooner than later. He needed to get his head together so that Kasey would be willing to hear him out when he did see her.

She deserved to know the whole truth, and he was willing to tell her. All he needed was another chance, but he couldn’t honestly say that he deserved it.