Page 36 of One Mistake

“Nothing he said about you if it made you change who you are was right, Reese.” He looked away from me when Alex sat our drinks down.

“You guys are up to like forty bucks.” We’d had four of these each at five bucks each, so Jameson’s confusion didn’t make much sense.

“You guys have an open tab for the Alphas.”

Alex shook his head. “Ryder’s card’s been turned off for a while now. It’s all cash for you guys unless you have a different card you want to use.”

Jameson’s skin turned red, dangerous, stroke red. Didn’t take a genius. He didn’t have any money. “I got this.”

I pulled a couple twenties from my bag and tossed them onto the counter. “You can get us next time we run into each other.” I couldn’t be sure he heard me. He honestly looked as if he wasn’t seeing or hearing anything and it had nothing to do with the watered-down whisky we’d been drinking. “Are you okay?” I laid a hand on his shoulder then cupped his bearded cheek. “Jameson?”

“Oh shit. This really is the end.” It was as if he’d just realized how on the wrong side of things he’d become. “I can’t pay you back.”

“I don’t need…”

“Unless you want me to do your homework or I could have sex with you for the money…” He shook his head. “I don’t have a job or money or…fuck.” He went from red to green. I’d seen that look before. A look that required fast action.

I pushed away from the bar and pulled him from his stool, led him outside and around the building, waited for him to throw up the twenty dollars worth of alcohol we’d drank then handed him a wet-wipe packet I’d kept from a rib place I’d stopped at the other day after shopping for some more comfortable boots.

“Thanks.” When I nodded, he looked down and leaned a shoulder against the building. “You’re way too good for him.” His eyes filled with tears. “I’m so screwed, Reese. What am I going to do?”

I didn’t have an answer, but I had a shoulder. I pulled him close and let him crowd me against the building as he cried it out into my hair and my throat. Then his lips brushed my neck and his hands circled my waist—Jesus, this guy had big hands—and pulled me closer to him. I pushed him back. There wasn’t time to panic because he was too big, too strong. I gave him a shove anyway and prayed he would be off balance enough or smart enough to fall back. “Come on, Jameson.”

He took a full step back and held up his hands like I’d forced his surrender. “I’m sorry.”

“You took a shot. It didn’t work out. We’ll pretend…it didn’t happen.” I nodded, swallowing back the fear. Instead, I held out my hand. “Come on. We need to get you home. Where are you staying?”

He walked three steps then took a break like he wasn’t used to two-a-day practices and running wind sprints. “In my mom’s fucking basement. How pathetic is that?”

“It could be worse.” Homelessness. Hunger. Instead, he had a warm bed to fall into and a dry place to live.

He nodded and started walking again, this time pulling me around the side of the building to the parking lot. “You know what? He doesn’t deserve you.” I didn’t want to encourage more intimate behavior that would give him the idea I was up for more than getting us both home safely, so I didn’t answer. “He shouldn’t have broke your heart.”

This time, I shrugged. “Yours either.”

“I deserve it. You don’t.” He closed his eyes and swayed then opened them up again with a smile. “Anytime you want to get back at him…” He grinned and shot me the finger guns along with a wink then stumbled toward the bus shelter.

I turned in the opposite direction, toward the apartment, and I walked all the way there, ignoring the do not disturb bra hanging on the door. It was five blocks from the bar and I needed to use the bathroom. Beth could’ve had a do not disturb tiger guarding the door and I would’ve walked right in past it.

But I didn’t make it three feet before I saw the clothes strewn from the front door to the sofa where she was on the couch with a guy I would’ve recognized anywhere, a guy who thirty years ago was probably his own version of the big man on campus, but the alcohol in my blood and the urge to pee stopped me from investigating further.

14

Ryder

At some point, I was going to have to go back and try again to see my Dad, but Mom had a blockade so big protecting him from me, that I couldn’t get through. No forgive or forget in her game. Obviously. But she underestimated how much this meant to me. How far Dad’s help would go with what I needed.

I spent the afternoon in the lobby. Again. Saw Mom pass from one side of the building to the other—and not by accident either. Nothing happened by accident. Not with her. She knew I was there. She knew I’d see her on the inside while I waited outside the glass doors. Hell, she probably even knew what I wanted to say to Dad before I figured it out.

Around four, I finally figured he wasn’t coming out. And no way was I getting in. So, I went to the parking garage, marveling at the lack of security that allowed me to walk through the gate straight to Dad’s car—a sportscar that had all the flash and bang of a midlife crisis. Well, at least I knew he was there.

When he finally walked out, it was after six, and Mom was long gone. She had a Monday Massage which meant I had about ten minutes to talk to him before he went to his Monday night mistress, not to be confused with his Tuesday afternoon Tootsie, his Wednesday whatever, Thursday something or other, etcetera, etcetera.

“Hey, Dad.” I pushed off the wall and met him at his car door. “I know you’re in a big hurry, but I need to talk to you.”

“I tried to get a note out to you, but no one wants to go against your mother.”

I shrugged. That was okay. I couldn’t very well expect Dad to grow a pair now when he hadn’t in thirty years. But I could expect him to help me out. Whether or not those expectations were worthy would remain to be seen. “I need money, Dad. And not the hundred here and there you’ve been giving me.”