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Her son shot her a look that only confirmed she’d missed the mark on so many levels. He raised his brow, climbed out, and slammed the door.
Jessica sighed. She needed to do something about him. His anger concerned her. She added this to her mental list, ushered Catherine out of the backseat, and grabbed her backpack. No sooner had she turned to close the car door, had she heard the honking horn. She turned slowly to see none other than Shannon McCain pulled up aside her, window rolled down. Great. So she was occasionally late. Jessica flashed her best shit-eating grin.
Shannon eyed her daughter up and down. “Hello, Catherine,” she said in a voice an octave too high before turning her attention to Jessica and lowering it by at least a dozen. “It’s good to see you’re feeling better and that you are out and about. But certainly, you’re aware you’re parked in my spot.”
Jess cocked her head to the side, glanced back at the ‘McCain Family Parking’ clearly noted on the sign, and then turned back toward her former friend. “Oh, yes, about that,” she lied, “I’m surprised that no one notified you… It seems that the school doesn’t have adequate handicap parking. I took the issue up with administration and until we can all come up with a better solution… it seems I’ll need to utilize this spot. It’s really a good thing I realized this before someone at the city did and had fined the school. They were pretty thankful. Those fines can be quite hefty I hear. ”
Shannon’s eyes grew wide and her face reddened. She frowned, exhaled rather loudly, raised her window, and sped off without so much as another glance in Jess’s direction.
Jess smiled at her daughter. She really should
have considered using the disabled angle before. It would certainly save her the time, effort, and money trying to outbid Shannon McCain. Her husband would be proud, she thought. She’d make sure to tell him all about it the next time they spoke.
The yoga studio was crowded by the time Jess arrived. She checked in at the front desk and proceeded into her usual spot only to find that it was taken. She quickly picked a new one, rolled out her mat, and carefully made her way down to the floor—a feat that proved more difficult than she had neither hoped for nor expected.
Jess focused on her reflection in the mirror, tried to make herself appear taller, and did her best to avoid small talk. She noticed a few sideways glances and there were a few brave women who approached her to say that they were glad to see her back, but for the most part, her fellow yogi’s simply avoided her all together. To those that did approach, Jess was courteous but made it clear she wasn’t really in the mood for small talk. Once she began stretching, she questioned whether or not she was really up for the hour-long hot yoga class. Sure, there would be several postures that she would need to avoid, if not most of them, now that she gave it some thought—the same way she needed to avoid many of the women in the room, but yoga was about mind-body connection and while her body may not work the way it once had, she settled on the fact that her mind was fine.
Jess settled in and reached for her toes. Instantly, she felt searing pain. Perhaps this was a bad idea, she considered. Too much. Too soon. But she wasn’t leaving now that everyone had seen her arrive. People talk. She could do hard things, she silently assured herself. She had to do hard things if she wanted to get her life back on track.
To help get her through, she reached into her bag and grasped the pill bottle in her hand. With the other, she twisted the cap and calmly fished a pill out. She glanced around the room and noticed a few women quickly averted their gaze. Calm down. No one had seen the bottle, she noted. They’re just rudely curious about the gimp who thought it would be a good idea to show up for yoga. Jess looked around the room once more, and satisfied that no one seemed to be paying her any mind, she quietly slipped the pill into her mouth and swallowed. This would get her through. Just until she was stronger.
This was the last thought Jessica remembered having prior to awakening sometime later on a gurney. She surveyed her familiar surroundings, sighed, and pulled herself upright to a seated position. Seated adjacent to her, immersed in a book, was Myles, her new employee. The one she hadn’t gotten around to having Addison fire. Jess squeezed her temples and eyed the blonde haired, clean cut, oversized man. He was huge. Proportionally huge. He didn’t look up so she broke the silence. “I take it yoga didn’t go so well…”
He placed a bookmark between the pages and met her gaze head on in a way that made her instantly uncomfortable. His eyes were such a pale shade of blue that they practically cut right through her.
“I’d say that’s an understatement.”
Chapter Eight
What a dumb fucking thing to do, Myles wanted to scream at her. But he refrained himself knowing all too well this wasn’t likely to go over well. Instead, he took a more direct approach. “Are you trying to have your children taken away?”
Myles eyed Jessica, who picked at a thread on her hospital gown. It took all he had not to take his thumbs and gently wipe the mascara that had smeared beneath her eyelids. He wanted to reach for her chin and force her to look at him. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to ask her what in the hell she was thinking and to tell her how ignorant he thought she was for taking so much for granted. Mostly though, he wanted to know why he cared so much in the first place. “Answer me, Jessica.”
She frowned and slowly met his eye. “What do you think?”
“Since you asked… I think driving under the influence is a really dumb fucking thing to do. Doing so, with your kids in the car… well, that’s pretty hard to top.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Why are you here, anyway?”
He wanted to tell her that her staff had picked him because no one else wanted to clean up her mess, but figured maybe it wasn’t the best approach. “It’s my job.”
Jessica glared at him. “Well, I’m relieving you of that.” She nodded at the door. “You’re free to go.”
Myles brushed his forehead as if to say whew. “Everything has always come so easy to you, hasn’t it? If I had to guess… I’d say you’re a daddy’s girl, who never wanted for much…” Did she have any idea how much he would give to be in her shoes? Just once more, even if for a day, just so he could get it right.
She shot him a go to hell look, which told him everything he already knew. He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms behind his head, and leaned back against them. He stared at her for a second too long and then up at the ceiling. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. I’m under contract…”
Jessica changed the subject. “When is the doctor coming back? I need something for my head. And I need to get out of here.”
“No. What you need is to give in to the pain. Stop relying on substances to fix your problem.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do. Who in the fuck are you to talk to me about pain? You seem to get around just fine.”
The doctor entered then. She glanced from Myles to Jessica and cleared her throat. She looked down at the chart she held in her hand, and then extended the opposite to shake Jessica’s hand. The woman, all business, no fun, he’d accessed, eyed him as he sat up in his chair. “You must be Mr. Clemens?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She appeared confused but continued. “Jessica, it appears that you pushed your limits a little too far this morning… after reviewing your recent medical history, I would advise against Hot Yoga for the foreseeable future. The CT scan came back clear, which confirms my suspicions that it was over-exertion that caused the fainting episode.”
