Haze (18 page)

"I guess," I said weakly.

"Do you want your
job
or do you want
Jack
?" Jesse's tone led me to believe that I was legitimately being interrogated. If I had smelled cigarette smoke and coffee, it wouldn't have felt out of place at all.

"Why can't I have both? I want both." I felt super exposed, but it was of my own doing entirely. There was a tiny bit of red wine left, so I poured it in my glass and eagerly took a sip.

"A job's a job," Laura said. "If you like Jack, then you should stay with him. Sam sounds like a creep."

"But you moved here to make it on your own. That means something." Jesse seemed to be unhappy with Laura's encouragement. Based on the hours he put in every damn week, I knew he valued hard work presumably more than anything else. At least he was being consistent.

Honestly, I felt like I had one of those cartoon devils on one shoulder and an angel on the other. I was still just as confused as I had been when I began, maybe even more so now. The thought of a career based on my own hard work felt good, but then again, so did a relationship with Jack.

They were drastically different scenarios. Just because something
felt
good didn't mean you could compare it to other things that felt good. I couldn't help vacillating.

"But these two things aren't mutually exclusive," I pleaded. "Jack doesn't have to sign with MCI. It's his choice. We don't even talk about it." It seemed like perfectly sound logic to me, like it was the loophole that would save me in the end.

"He's in a bad position," Jesse said firmly.

"Who? And why?"

"Sam. Well, you kind of are, too."

"Why do you have to be so dramatic, Jesse? She's having a hard time with a hard decision." Laura stood up and walked to the bathroom, leaving the two of us there.

Jesse paused, seeming to catch himself. "Do you want me to continue, Effie? I'm sorry. I forget where I am and get carried away sometimes."

More than anything, I wanted
something
I could deal with, something almost tangible. Up until now, I was entertaining every possibility, and none of them made complete sense. Hiding felt good, but then again, so did proper confrontation.

It was easy to hide from what scared you, and I knew that too well. Real growth came from approaching fear head on and embracing how it made you feel. These were just words, right? I wasn't bound by blood or anything just from internally considering something.

"Just spill your heart out, Jesse. I'm braced." My hands inadvertently tightened around my thighs as he began.

"If he signs and people find out about you—an employee of the label, might I add—and Jack, it could wind up being a controversy and generating bad PR. If he doesn't sign, Sam will probably get fired if what you keep telling me is true. And if Sam actually knows anything and fails to succeed for the label, you'll probably get fired too, unless he keeps his mouth shut. It sounds like he's mad at you, so your chances aren't so..." He trailed off, knowing damn well that I already knew the end of the sentence.

My head started spinning. I hadn't considered any of this, just rolled with Jack's punches and had a good time. It was bliss and it was fucking powerful. I felt it; I didn't
think
it. Despite my several glasses of wine, I felt dreadfully sober and I just wanted to hide from everything.

"But Sam doesn't know anything. He thinks he knows, but I haven't admitted anything, even with his incessant prying." I nervously fingered the empty wine glass in front of me, wishing it would magically become one of those stress balls like my mom used to have around the house.

Jesse looked away, his focus on Laura, who was strolling back into the room. "Hey, don't feel like you need to explain yourself to me. If you're happy, that's great. I'm just trying to be realistic. We both pay the rent here."

"You and
being realistic
," Laura complained. She took her seat next to Jesse again and rubbed his shoulders. "What about having fun?"

"I said it's fine if she wants to keep seeing this guy. You missed that part,
sweetheart
." He played with his phone, perhaps because he was nervous about making a snide remark, or because it served as a distraction.

Laura munched on the last piece of garlic bread—it was probably cold, but she didn't seem to care—and then paused before the last bite. "I wouldn't give him up so easily, that's for sure. You could always sue the label if they fire you for no good reason."

"She'll definitely get far suing a huge corporation," Jesse said sarcastically. "You've got a couple million sitting around, right, Effie?" Laura just scowled at him.

I buried my head in my hands. "Okay, so what do I do?"

"It's your choice," Jesse said. "I mean, obviously it is." He looked over at Laura with mild disgust. "
She
seems to think I don't know about having fun. But that's not the case. I just want to give you good advice, not encourage possibly destructive hedonism."

"God, so dramatic," Laura complained again.

"Yeah, yeah." I nodded like I was taking notes in a class.

"You have three options as I see it: You take a break with Jack until the deal is over; you tell Sam and hope that full disclosure will do you a favor; or you do nothing and carry on how you are. Those are the three biggest cards you can play. You can be proactive, apologetic, or apathetic." He seemed to be pleased with his own simplification.

"Dammit." This was such a huge decision, one that I really didn't want to make. At the very least, I was privy to some new insight that had been foreign even a few minutes ago.

"I think you're worrying too much about this," Laura said earnestly. "Don't feel like you need to make a decision now. Not everyone is so prepared to make decisions on the fly like Jesse is."

Right in the middle of their two personality types—that's where I sat. It was a big chair, but it wasn't comfortable in the least. It had support in all the wrong places.

Being with Jack suddenly seemed so wrong, even if it felt so right.

I wanted to hide from this like a child hiding from a monster in the closet. My surviving through the night depended on it. My
future
depended on it. Even if the monster was figurative, just a figment of an overactive imagination, a stress-induced heart attack could still physically kill me.

After a number of minutes—I lost track of time, to be honest; I was so far inside my head I worried I'd never get out—Jesse sat up and looked at Laura. "Do you
wanna go watch something?"

"Sure," she said. "Are you okay, Effie?"

I looked up, semi-ashamed after realizing that I was probably contributing heavily to a somewhat awkward situation. The two looked tired or bored or
horny
or something. They had done their jobs, so I wanted to set them free. "I'm fine, really. I just want to zone out and think."

"Yeah, think it through slowly," Jesse said confidently. "Do a cost-benefit analysis of each option."

"Great suggestion, hon." Laura's voice was overflowing with sarcasm. "Reduce human relations to economic terms when emotions are involved. Guaranteed success."

Jesse laughed it off and stood up, helping Laura once he had reached his feet. "Well, goodnight, Effie."

Laura waved as they left the living room and I was alone. She paused right before her slender figure disappeared around the corner and turned around. "Hey, Effie, can I meet Jack sometime? It would mean a lot to me." Her words were whispers, so I responded at the same volume.

"Sure. We can set something up."

Her face brightened enough to illuminate all of the dark spaces in the room. "Thanks, Effie." And like a puff of smoke, she vanished.

I suddenly worried that I wouldn't be able to follow through with my plan...

Chapter 10

Jack texted me about an hour later to inform me that he was going to be pulling an all-nighter and that we'd just have to talk tomorrow. A part of me was secretly happy that I wouldn't hear his voice, wouldn't have it as an overwhelming influence in my endless stream of deep thoughts. I had no thoughts of jealousy, no worries regarding him and
Lexy.

Honestly, I didn't know whose side I belonged on. Everybody had pluses and minuses, upsides and downsides. I didn't want to lose my job and I didn't want to lose Jack. I didn't know how much longer I'd be able to cope with Sam's aggressiveness or if it would get worse and just push me over the edge. Allowing that to happen would almost be more of a passive approach, and inaction sure sounded nice.

I was feeling so malleable, so susceptible to influence it almost made me sick.

Sam had been so nice leading up to this deal, and if I tried to see this from his perspective, I needed to cut him some slack. If what he said about his wife was true, I could see why he'd get stressed out about these sorts of things, especially if the label was counting on him to pull the strings and secure the deal. He was carrying an enormous amount of weight on his shoulders, and he couldn't do anything about it until Jack acted.

I knew my mom and dad would be disappointed if I lost this job, not that their opinion dictated much in my life anymore. Still, it had been my dad that had urged me to come here, urged me to try and make my own way in this gigantic, fast-moving city that I really knew so little about.

Things were racing so fast with Jack, so blazingly quick that it genuinely seemed like a blur. I was feeling things toward him that I hadn't felt after years with Timothy. It was like a separation of the men from the boys (I think people still say that), black and white, night and day. Jack was something special, no doubt. Did special translate to
reliable,
though? That wasn't clear.

If reliability meant money, then Jack was definitely reliable. That was a really simple definition, however. If reliability meant straightforward and predictable, Jack definitely
wasn't
reliable.

If I lost the job, I was stranded here. If I couldn't find a job quickly, I'd be begging my parents for money, worried that I was going to get Jesse and me booted out of the apartment. I'd probably still have Jack—well, unless I broke it off for whatever reason—but I would hate to ask him for any help. In fact, I probably wouldn't even be able to do it. My lips would go numb and I'd be unable to speak the words.

Digging myself into my own hole was just going to require my own efforts to get out of it. The idea of a quick fix like Jack's money just felt cheap, but I wasn't entirely sure why.

The more I thought about it, the more I believed that I was just moving too fast with Jack and needed to slow down by a couple of notches and re-analyze the situation.

I didn't want to end things with him—no way—but I did want to wait out the storm of this record label decision. I couldn't help but think of it as a hurricane approaching the shore, one that would bring all sorts of devastation with it—well, if he
didn't
sign with MCI.

Without the situation at work, I knew I never would have slowed down. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, right?

Infatuation. Obsession. These words came to mind when I thought about Jack and myself. I was feeling so much, and although every fucking beautiful feeling was probably entirely true, there was still that distinct possibility that it was just something that would
pass
. In a couple months, he'd get bored and start sleeping around and I'd be nothing, a disposable girl that was used up and ready to spend some time breaking down in a landfill.

Why the hell are you being so ridiculous, Effie?
Jack had been nothing but sensitive and honest with me, inviting me along when he shared his deepest, darkest secrets. The way he touched me, the way he talked to me. The way I had begged him to forgo the condom and then panicked. Something like magic went on between us, something that made me feel safe and protected from everything, even if I wasn't. Was that feeling worth something?

Ignorance is bliss, right?

I continued to dig, continued to follow the light as if I were trapped in a cave underground. A job was a job. I did the work and was compensated for it. If I didn't fuck it up, it would still be around in a month or two, maybe even in years. It was dependable right now.

So was Jack, but I needed to test myself, needed to test just how necessary this all was. I did value my job, unfortunately, so I had to put that first, at least until I sorted some of this out. It hadn't even been two weeks and I was basically head-over-heels for this guy. We had been spending so much time together that it was a huge letdown just to have a night off tonight. That was embarrassing for some reason.

Jack was internationally famous and in demand. It's not like we wouldn't spend nights apart now and then...

Maybe I was a little masochistic, but I just needed to breathe, to push Jack one step away from me so I could get a better look at the whole picture. It felt kind of like pushing a square peg into a round hole, but sensible for some strange reason. He might flee and that would mean the end of a potentially life-long beautiful thing.