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My phone buzzed again. This time, it was Jeremy. When I picked up, I could hear commotion in the background.
“Hey there, little lady.” In the background, more shouts. “Just your family calling, to make sure you’re still alive in the Big Apple.”
“Of course I’m alive, Jeremy. Sheesh. Don’t you think the police would call you if they found my cold, dead corpse on the sidewalk?”
“Jessa Walton,” Jeremy hissed. And we were off to the races. I smothered my laughter as he started to officially pitch his fit. “How could you even say something like that? What is wrong with you?”
“You know, you might actually be speaking to my ghost right now,” I said in a spooky voice.
“Good, because that means I can give you the ass whooping you deserve for saying the words ‘cold, dead corpse.’ My lord above. You’re lucky the rest of them didn’t hear that. I know better than to put you on speakerphone. My lord.”
“What’s going on over there?” Shrieks of laughter pealed in the background.
“Just having a little cookout at Pop’s, since it’s randomly sixty-five degrees today down here. He says hi.”
“Tell him hi back.” My dad wasn’t one for talking, but when he talked, it was usually profound. He’d only called me once, and that was the night I arrived in New York, just to make sure I hadn’t been kidnapped en route. Jeremy was the official spokesperson for the family, in that sense. The only one who really communicated with me, outside of Tara’s hateful messages and pleas for money.
“I told him we were probably calling you too early,” Jeremy went on, “but he wanted me to check in. Are you at work?”
“No, I had a personal day today, actually.” I bit back a yawn as I spread out on the couch. It was a cracked leather couch that Nicole had brought—and left—and it would be the first thing to go when I had a spare dollar to invest in updating furniture and decorations.
“A personal day, huh? What’s that even mean?”
“I just needed the day off, lamebrain,” I teased.
“And they actually approve you to take a day off even though you’re not sick and it’s not vacation?”
“Well, yeah,” I admitted, stretching out my legs, rolling my ankles in wide, slow circles. “It’s part of the benefits package.”
“Oh, the benefits package.” The phone rustled a little, and then things sounded different. “You’re on speaker phone now, Jessa. Pops wants to hear this.”
In the background, more shrieking.
“Are the kids playing, or is someone getting stabbed over there?”
“It’s this dumb parachute game they bought,” Jeremy muttered. His girls were nine and seven now, and of all the things I missed about home, I missed them the most.
“Tell them if they play their cards right, I’ll bring them back even more parachute games from the Big Apple.”
“I willnottell them that, thank you very much,” Jeremy said.
“Is that Auntie Jessa?” Their excited voices grew nearer, segueing into unintelligible laughter and more shrieks as we greeted each other on speakerphone. I could just imagine their wild chestnut hair streaked with gold, their freckles glinting on cheekbones as they did for the whole Walton family. A few moments later, they had run off again, back to their game.
“So anyway, what were we talking about?” Jeremy began. “Oh yeah, personal time. So they pay you to just dick off at your apartment?”
I laughed. “I mean, sure, if you want to put it that way. But I needed the day to…catch up on some things.”And to recover from the insanely hot twelve hours of sex with your childhood best friend, Jeremy.I couldn’t even fathom telling him about what Damian and I had done. Jeremy would never believe it. Heck, I could hardly believe it.
“Jessa, I worked for my job thirty years and never had no damn personal day.” My father’s voice always sounded gruff, like he’d forgotten how to use it since the last time he spoke. “You either worked or you didn’t get paid. You’re living the dream, sissy.”
My gaze fell at the nickname. I could hear the pride in his voice. The stark wonder. After thirty years making hourly wages as a heavy equipment operator, he probably saw my job like something out of a movie.
“You are, Jessa. People have been talking around here,” Jeremy said. “They all know you work for the Fairchilds now. And hot damn if some of them aren’t a little jealous.”
“Nothing to be jealous of,” I said. “Tara isn’t there, is she?”
“No, she’s coming later.”
“Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy this job,” I told them. “It’s great. I just…”
