AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He raised one of his legs up to an angle and rested his forearm on his knee. “Yeah, I figured that. Only the Ice Queen can manage to rile you up like this.” He tilted his head and watched as she started pacing again. “What did she do this time?”
Jillian gripped each elbow with the opposite hand and continued walking in a large oval. “Nothing. Everything. Just the same exact things she always does.” She stopped and turned to him, the corners of her eyes filling with tears. “She uses posters of people starving and children begging for food asselling pointsto make the auction hit whatever number she has in her head as a win for the night.”
She crossed the ground and sat down beside him, the frilly, fluffy skirt of the dress brushing against his leg, bare beneath his shorts.
He wanted to say the right thing, but didn’t have the first clue what that was. Instead he pulled a long stalk of grass free from the small patch growing beside him and stuck it in his mouth.
“She is exploiting the people she receives constant and excessive praise for helping…and it isn’t even actual help. She throws money at random organizations. She never checks them out to see if they are legitimate and actually send the money where it’s supposed to go.” Jillian pulled at pins and elastic bands until soft, ginger waves fell around her shoulders. “My mother is constantly presenting herself as an altruistic humanitarian, but only as much as it will look good, not do good.”
Dean twisted his lips to the side. “I know it drives you crazy, but your mother has been a self-centered, social climbing witch since the dawn of time.” He held up a hand. “Uh, no offense.”
Jillian stared out on the horizon for several moments in silence. “I can’t have a life like hers, Dean.”
When she used his real name instead of the nickname she’d given him, he knew to pay attention. “You’re nothing like her.”
Her hand swept up and down to encompass the designer gown he couldn’t even begin to guess the cost of. “Aren’t I? I’m sitting here in a designer gown bitching”—her eyes darted around as soon as the curse slipped from her lips and it made Dean grin—“about her being privileged, but I am really any better?”
“You see an issue with it. She doesn’t.” He lifted a shoulder and shifted uncomfortably on the rock. He was fourteen, what the hell did he know about poverty, wealth, need, or social status? “I think that makes you better.”
His parents might be something more than comfortable now, but they didn’t let much time go between reminders to their boys that it hadn’t always been that way for them and they expected their sons to work hard for everything they got, not skate by because their family had built a successful company. That, however, was the extent of his fiscal knowledge.
And although his parents had often preached kindness, empathy, and giving back, he knew jack shit about the kind of charities her mother worked with. All of those reasons equaled out to him keeping his mouth shut aside from agreeing with Jillian and letting her vent out all the emotions he knew she kept locked tightly away while she put on the performance of being the dutiful daughter.
“I want my life to mean something.”
Her simple statement cut through the confusing thoughts clouding his brain and brought his head up from where it had been bent, examining his sneakers.
He pulled his brows together. “What the hell does that mean? Your life means a lot.”
The gentle shake of her head sent a soft waterfall of red waves over her shoulder. When had her hair gotten so long? “No, I want it to mean something. I want to go to Ethiopia and Bolivia and Honduras and…everywhere there is a need.” She grabbed his hands and held them tightly in hers, her green eyes glowing with something he couldn’t recognize, but something that made his heart jump a few beats. “I want to physically help the people who need it the most, not just throw enough money at a cause to make myself sleep better at night and look like a hero to my friends.”
The passion in her voice was contagious. “You can do anything you want, Jillybean.” And at that moment in time he had never believed more in a single statement.
***
Jillian
Thirteen Years Earlier
Tap, tap, tap.
Jillian groaned and rolled over. It was a Saturday and she was determined to sleep in.
Tap, tap, tap.
Her groan turned into a growl as she threw back the covers and planted her feet on the floor. She padded to the door and yanked it open just as the obnoxious offender on the other side had lifted their hand to knock again.
“Sparky?” She yawned and scratched the head of hair she was certain had twisted into a giant rat’s nest overnight… as always. “What the hell are you doing here this early?”
As soon as she said the word she grabbed his wrist and pulled him into her room. She stuck her head out of the doorway long enough to glance up and down the hall before shutting the door and her eyes in unison and sagging against it.
Dean chuckled in response to her momentary panic and she rewarded it with a glare. “You certainly have developed quite the potty mouth there, Ms. Monroe.”
She shoved him as she walked past to bury herself beneath her covers again. “It’s all thanks to your horrendous influence on my vocabulary, Mr. Carlisle. Now you can feel free to tell me why you’re bothering me early on a Saturday morning, how you got in here, and then you can leave.”
“Frieda loves me. Your mother is at a garden party. It’s nearly eleven. And I have plans for you. So stop whining and get yourself out of bed.” He tugged at the covers and grinned at her grimace as the light hit her face again. “It would be preferable for you to shower and dress, but I’m not opposed to dragging you out of here in your pajamas.”
She pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes, begrudgingly sitting up once more. “As if you’re strong enough.”
