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“Why does she have to save herself?” He captures my fingers.
“She just does.” I set Gabe’s glasses on the bed and slip around him to the window. My reflection hangs in the background of the Dallas skyline. I find Reunion Tower. Start counting the lights. But it doesn’t stop invisible hands from reaching in and pulling on my heart.
“Why does she have to save herself, Jess?” Gabe steps behind me, a vague apparition in the glass.
“It ruins the story when she can’t.” It ruins her. It’s ruining me.
I’ve pushed my mom stuff so deep, it’s burrowed in and grown roots that strangle every choice I try to make. Everything I believe about myself. Between her eyes staring back at me and that stupid scar she left on me, I can’t even look in the mirror.
Gabe’s hands come around to rest on the ledge on either side of mine, and I can feel his body heat against my back. “If the girl has to save herself, then she gets to decide how her story ends.”
“But she doesn’t.” I tip my head to the cool glass. “She never got to decide. Not when her mom wouldn’t stop drinking. Not when her dad turned into a roommate. Not when she lost out on her chance to have a family.”
“But what if she could decide?” Gabe wraps his arms around me. “Your words. Your choice. A new book about something you understand the way no one else does.”
Mywords.Mychoice. “You want me to put my screwed-up self out there for everyone to see?”
He stays quiet.
“I can’t.” My world tunnels to the kicking of my heartbeat and our reflection in the glass. And those invisible hands inside my chest stretch, stretch, stretch out my heart until it becomes a thin, taut rubber band. That snaps with a single sharp crack.
chapter 44
Gabe
“Not family first. Family only.”
~ Meredith Morgan
(played by the award-winning Meredith Wade)
Raising Ryder: Episode9
The view of the morning sky from David’s fiftieth floor office roller-coasters my stomach. Or maybe it’s the power of attorney I just signed and slung on top of all the other stuff straining my shoulders.
David’s presiding over the conference call with my agent from behind his massive desk, possibly on his third micro-scan of my new contract. Any way he reads it, the thing still has my balls in a chokehold.
I never minded allThe Packshit before. The insane shooting schedule, the exhausting lineup of fan events, Jax’s dress code, even the PDA with Kim. Now all of it fills my chest with lead.
“Those are the basic terms.” Over the speakerphone, Billy finishes translating my new contract from legalese to English in his thick West Texas accent. “Yer one lucky SOB they took you back, son.” He laughs. “Not an easy sell after that garbage with Gretchen.”
“Yep. Lucky.” I jerk away from the wall of windows. The sun’s too bright, the glass too clean, and the drop is forty-nine-and-a-three-quarter stories too far.
I undo another button on my long-sleeved shirt and tug at the collar. It might be a cyber meeting, but David’s all about keeping it formal. And sterile. I glance behind his bent head to the floor-to-ceiling shelves bursting with huge-ass law books. There’s nothing personal in his boring beige work space—unless you count the paperweight collection lined up across the middle shelf in order of size.
“This is good news.” Pushing the papers forward, David leans back in his leather chair. “Not even a slap on the wrist.”
“Then why do I feel like I’m signing over my balls?”
“Gabe.” David nails me with narrowed eyes and a knock-it-off tone, like I’ve embarrassed him on the playground in front of the other parents. Only he’s not my dad. And Billy’s heard worse. From me.
“You pay me to sell your balls, son.” Billy laughs. “It’s only a single-season commitment. With the option to renew.”
“Provided Jax remains viable to the organic growth of the storyline,” David quotes the contract.
Big-print translation: As long as Jax makes the show money. Small-print addendum: The show can quit me, but I can’t quit them.
I push the heel of my hand against my forehead against the drum corps marching behind my eyes. Jess pops into my head in herHello Kittysocks. And in the middle of this shitty day, I latch onto the only thing that makes me smile.
