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“Has he?” I doubted very much that my ex-nightmare, who spent six months lightweight stalking me after I broke things off with him, would fully move on from any woman who had spurned him. If anything, he was spinning more complex yarns about why I was the bitch, or even the butch. He’d loved to accuse me of being a lesbian when I wasn’t in the mood. Great guy, Tommy, 0/10 did not recommend.
“All I’m saying is that if things fall through in New York, you can always come home.” Jeremy had said this to me no fewer than fifty times since I’d moved to the Big Apple, which equated to roughly two times a week. I appreciated the sentiment. It was at least better than what I heard from my big sister Tara, which usually sounded like“We know you can’t hack it there, so why don’t you just give up now?”
“Thank you, Jeremy,” I muttered. “But let me at least exhaust my options before I tuck my tail between my legs, mmkay?”
“What are your other options?”
“I-I don’t know yet,” I spluttered. “But I’ll think of them. Nicole reminded me that stripping is always an option—”
“Jessa Walton.”
I didn’t dare mess with Jeremy when he used his dad voice. “I’m just saying—”
Shrieks on the other end of the phone interrupted me, which brought a smile to my face. I knew those girlish squeals.
“The girls are home?”
Jeremy sighed. “Some sort of teacher in-service day, I dunno. Had to call off work to pick them up.”
“Why didn’t Chelsea go get them? I thought she worked swing shift.” I welcomed the digression from my own problems.
“She’s been going into work early lately,” Jeremy said.
“Well, tell Izzy and Hannah I said hello and that I’mnotturning to stripping, so don’t worry.”
My older brother let out a long, exasperated groan. “How much do you have left in your savings?”
I swallowed hard. There had barely been a savings to begin with. I’d arrived in New York on fumes from my minimum wage job as a welding company’s office assistant. As soon as I could escape,I did.All my accumulated funds had gone toward paying for fashion school and the triple rent—first month, last month, and a security deposit—required to get into my apartment. That was it. There was no wiggle room.
“I have…” What was the least frightening way to sayabsolutely nothing? “Enough to get by.”
“So you have rent covered for next month?”
That was a hard no. “Ahhhh…well…”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You know what, Jessa? If you won’t come home, I’m sending help. I’m calling Damian.”
His words landed like a lead blanket. My hand shot out in front of me to put a stop to this suggestion, even though he wasn’t here to see. “Hang on.”
“What?”
“You can’t do that,” I said, my lips dry for an entirely different reason now. “We don’t need to get the Fairchilds involved.”
“Why wouldn’t I? They’re the best friends I’ve got, and they’re two miles from where you’re sitting. Jessa, you know they’d help you in a heartbeat. Why can’t I call them?”
My chest began a slow throb that indicated a pending heart attack. Because the suggestion betrayed a truth so unsavory, I’d rather fling myself on a spear than face it head-on.
Not only was Damian Fairchild my older brother’s friend, he was my high school crush. The guy had stalked my fantasies and stained my attempts to date anyone else in high school, lest Damian secretly be in love with me and take my dating to mean that I didn’t truly love him,which I did.
And sure, I was a twenty-seven year old woman with enough curves to make a select group of grown men weep.
But when it came to Damian? I’d always be the goofy, overweight little sophomore he’d never more than glanced at.
“Well?” Jeremy prompted. My shocked silence must have worried him.
“Please don’t call him,” I said feebly, though I knew it would do no good. “It’s so humiliating. I’m broke and struggling. He’s rich and wildly successful. He probably doesn’t even remember me. Besides—”
“Jessa, how could he forget you? He spent the entirety of his senior year at our house. Sitting on the same couch as you.”
