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Jaxon lifts his hand to run it through his hair. He clears his throat and says, “Leave your keys, and I’ll bring your stuff from your car up to the apartment. I’ll send someone over to freshen things up a bit. I’ll also get them to put a few things in the fridge for you until you can go shopping.”
“Oh… um… you don’t have to do that.” I shift from one foot to the other, suddenly feeling unsure.
Jaxon sighs and looks down at his feet. He stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets before glancing back at me. “Angel, please let me do this for you. If you won’t let me help you in any other way, then please let me at least do this.”
It’s the look on his face that makes the decision for me. His eyes are pleading. It’s such a simple thing, moving my stuff from my car to the apartment, but Jaxon looks as though if I don’t allow him to do this he might become lost. It’s another look that should never grace his face.
I reach into my pocket, grab my car keys, and hold them out for him. No other keys are on the ring. “Thank you, Jaxon,” I say in a soft voice.
When he takes the keys from me, our fingers brush, and I swear I feel a zing of electricity run through my hand all the way up my arm. I look at him and he’s just staring at our hands, which are both still holding the key ring. A deep frown line has formed over his eyebrows. I wonder what he’s thinking.
I drop my hand from the keys and clutch them behind my back. This seems to clear away whatever thoughts Jaxon was just having.
“I’ll get them back to you before the end of your shift. When you get off, I’ll take you up and show you around.”
“Okay, that’s fine.” I turn to leave, pulling the door closed behind me.
The door is almost closed when Jaxon calls my name. I turn my head to look at him.
“If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
I give him a small, sad smile, and nod.
“Bye, Jaxon,” I say and turn back around.
Right before the door clicks shut, I hear Jaxon say softly, “Bye, angel.”
7
WHEN I WALK BACK TO the front, there are even more people in the place than there were when I first went to Jaxon’s office. Every seat at the bar is taken and there’re only a few tables left unoccupied. All of the pool tables are in use. It’s very daunting.
I’m still a little shaken up by my encounter with Jaxon. I wonder why a man such as him can affect me on so many levels. The feelings the man invoke in me are all over the place; fear, excitement, intrigue, intimidation, safety, bafflement, hope, and I wonder if the butterflies that are in my stomach when I’m around him could stem from a tiny bit of desire. The more I think about the last feeling, however, the more I realize that it just can’t be. I want nothing to do with one of the most basic instincts a normal man and woman can feel for each other. Sex. Nope, never again. I will die, if not happy, then content, without ever letting a man touch me intimately again.
The other emotions Jaxon brings out still puzzle me. The fear I can understand. I can tell that Jaxon feels strongly about women being abused. Obviously, there’s a story there somewhere. Whatever happened made a significant impact on Jaxon’s life. The hardness in his eyes when he guessed something bad happened to me is a testament to that. It’s that cold hard look he gets that brings about the fear. I’ve seen it before many times and it’s never been good news for me.
Excitement and intrigue are emotions I haven’t felt very much in my life. When you constantly worry about when the next beating and verbal abuse will come, there’s not much excitement to be had. This is something I’ve had to deal with since I can remember. But with Jaxon, there’s a tiny spark. He intrigues me because he doesn’t react the way I expect him to. He does the total opposite. Instead of lashing out at me when I raised my voice in his office, he soothed and comforted me. Although it scares me to think about being near him, just for the mere fact that he’s a man, I’m also very curious about our next encounter. For some reason, this man makes me feel safe. He makes me feel like I’m someone special, not just an object to vent against and use.
There are several people smashed up against the bar waiting for someone to take their orders. I make my way to them and jump back in the groove I had going before Jaxon asked to speak with me. The work helps distract me from my thoughts of him.
Back in college, I loved working at The Bryler. What I enjoyed about it the most was meeting new people. When I was little, the only time I was allowed to socialize with other kids was at school. All other times I was stuck in the house or in the backyard, which had a tall privacy fence. I had no friends, because hey, who would want to be friends with someone who couldn’t come over to play. Not to mention the fact that I wasn’t the cleanest little girl in the classroom. My clothes were always dingy and a bit too small for my body. More often than not my hair was an oily, tangled mess. Needless to say, my parents weren’t the type to get up in the mornings to get their child ready for school. They did for the first few years, but then it got to the point where they were too stoned to rise that early. I would be lucky if they were up by the time I got home from school. Actually, let me rephrase that, I would be unlucky if they were up when I got home.
My parents weren’t the nicest people you would meet. They were lowlife druggies who would rather score their next hit than take care of their child. Not only were they neglectful, they were downright mean and abusive at times. But it was the parties they threw that really made them despicable and horrible parents.
I shudder at the thought of the parties my parents threw, almost dropping a bottle of beer meant for a customer.
I tried so hard, so freaking hard, to hide my tiny body in the most inconspicuous places during those get-togethers. I even went so far as to hide in a dresser drawer one time. Even so, more often than not, my parents or one of their friends found me. I would kick, scream, and bite the entire time, but eventually, my child’s body would wear out, and then they would do horrendous things to me, and make me do things to them. I should be grateful because the men didn’t actually use their disgusting penises to penetrate me; however, there are many other ways to sexually abuse a child. Instead, they used other parts of their bodies.
What makes it even worse is the fact that when these people were doing these horrible things to me, my parents were too high on drugs to care. The men and women would drag me in the same room as my parents and perform these unthinkable acts, and my parents would idly sit by with blank faces. There were times they would be having sex with some of the other partygoers while they watched me being abused.
Afterwards, I would carry my limp self to the bathroom and get in the tub. No matter how much I scrubbed my sore and used body, I could never get clean enough. I would then crawl into bed, curl up into a ball, and cry myself to sleep. During those nights, even as a small child, my dreams consisted of ending the never-ending pain, by any means necessary. Even if those means meant ending my horrible life.
I’m interrupted from my dark thoughts by someone screeching my name.
“Bailey! It’s about time we meet, girl!”
I turn toward the voice, and my first thought is I’ve just seen the hottest freaking guy on the planet. My second thought is, the hottest freaking guy on the planet is one of the most flamboyantly gay guys to walk on said planet. I’m completely and utterly speechless.
From head to toe there is no mistaking this man prefers guys to girls, but it’s the shirt that really tells the tale. It’s white with a big colorful rainbow on the front. Below the rainbow, in big bold pink letters, it reads, “9 out of 10 men prefer big tits. The other man prefers the 9 men.”
