Hope for Him (Hope Series Book #2) (17 page)

"What do you want, Carrington?"

"Generally or specifically?"

"Generally?”

"I want to be happy, genuinely happy. Jack happy.
No bad things have been ingrained into my brain
kind of happy."

"Yeah, no pressure there."

"Well, that kind of happiness, you can't get from another person, so you're right, no pressure."

"Did this conversation kind of take a turn off topic?"

She was quiet for a minute.

"Maybe," she whispered.

“Let me call you on FaceTime.”

“No, I look awful.”

“Come on. I’m sure you look great. Besides, I want to see your face.”

She activated the camera, and I switched mine on, too.

She looked better than I imagined and oh so hot.

“There you are.”

She giggled and I wanted to drive over to her house and hear it live.

Her faced scrunched up and I spoke before she freaked herself out even more.

"Carr, we don't have to figure the rest of our lives out tonight. I wanted to ask you out to dinner. That's all."

"Can I ask you one question?"

"Yeah, sure." My chest tightened. I rubbed it in anticipation of what she might ask.

"How did she react? Was she upset?"

"Tiffany?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you want to know?"

"I guess it would say something about how she felt about you if I knew how she reacted."

"Yeah, she was upset and sad, but not angry."

"Oh,” She paused and continued. “Were you upset?"

"It's never easy telling someone you don't want to be with them anymore."

"Yeah. You okay?"

"I'll be better if you accept my invitation."

"Okay.”

"Okay. Great. I have two days to come up with an epic first date.” I laughed and cleared my throat. I needed a drink.

“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on the NC State defense?”

“NC States defense is easy compared to you.”

“Uh, thanks, I think.”

“I mean, I’ll have them on their ass in a few plays.” I chuckled. “You might take a little more effort.”

Her cute nose crinkled up.

“I just mean, this is our first date, I want to make it special.

“No pressure?”

“Right, no pressure,” I said.

After we had hung up, I feel asleep with her sexy image ingrained in my mind and it made for some satisfying dreams.

C
arrington Olivia Butler

After hanging up with Jackson, I could not fall back asleep. Jackson was single. He dumped Tiffany.

He dumped Tiffany for me.

The idea made my stomach clench, and I had to take deep breaths to prevent myself from throwing up last night’s dinner.

It was kind of sweet, though—Jackson asking me out on a date. It somewhat took the pressure off. He broke up with Tiffany hours ago. We needed to take it slow. I wasn't convinced that I was good enough for him.

Despite breaking up with his girlfriend, Jackson was such a good man, and he had so much going for him. It didn't make sense. Although, he sounded so sweet and excited, and I loved that I was the first person he wanted to talk to about stuff.

We were great friends. Jackson was the best friend I'd ever had. But did that translate into being good together? Maybe I needed that therapy session sooner rather than later.

My therapist back home, who I quit seeing because the therapy made me more anxious than the attack itself, seemed almost giddy when I asked her for a recommendation.

She sent me the doctor’s info in a text so fast, made me think she knew I was going to call.

A couple of days later, I had my first session.

Dr. Tracy Addison’s office was on a street in a residential neighborhood, but it appeared all the houses on the street were businesses. I parked by the curb and looked up and down the street. It seemed quaint; I took my time heading up the walkway. I pressed the doorbell and a short older lady in a tracksuit opened the door.

“You must be Carrington.”

“Yes, Dr. Tracy?”

“Oh, no dear. Dr. Tracy is just finishing up his last session. I’m Helen. Please come in and have a seat.” She motioned me in and I walked into someone’s living room. I took a seat on the nearest couch and the older lady handed me a clipboard full of forms. “Please fill these out and I’ll let Dr. Tracy know you are here.”

I sunk into the couch cushion and started on form one. By the time I finished the third page, I heard my name.

“Carrington.”

“Yes.” I looked up and a tall, thin, tanned man with sun-kissed wavy blond hair and sun-damaged skin stood in front of me. “Hi, I’m Tracy.”

“Uh, okay?” I narrowed my eyes and took his outstretched hand.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee, Tea.”

“Uh, no.”

“You were expecting someone else?”

“I was expecting a ...woman,” and someone in pants and a nice shirt. Tracy looked like he had an appointment with some waves as soon as he was done with me.

“Well, yeah. The name confuses people, but I hope that won’t be a problem for you.”

“No, I mean. I don’t think so.” I watched him pour himself some coffee into a large white mug. He sat on the couch opposite me with his legs crossed and stared at me.

“Good. I spoke with Dr. James and she gave me a general overview of your past, but I wanted to hear most of it from you.”

“Okay.”

“So, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

“I’m not sure really.” He blew into his coffee cup and waited for me to continue. “So, I was involved in an incident last year where my boyfriend beat me up and almost killed me and my son.”

“You were pregnant, right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about your son.”

I had been sitting perched in the edge. I relaxed and sunk back into the couch.

“He’s amazing. He’s almost eighteen months. So smart and funny.”

“All right.”

I sat on my hands to stop myself from flashing him a hang loose hand sign.

“That’s great, Carrington. Do you feel the way your face lights up when you talk about him? You remember that, when you feeling anxious?”

“How do you know I’m anxious?”

“Well, you're clearly not depressed, and considering you moved back to the place where your attack took place, it’s natural for you to be anxious.”

I tilted my head and stared at Dr. Tracy.

“And a little confused about your emotions.”

“A little.”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. All normal. It would be weird if you didn’t have these feelings and the fact you already have one tool to deal makes my job easy.”

“Easy?”

“Well, easier, anyway.”

I felt the tension in my face increase and dissipate as I watched Dr. Tracy take notes on a legal pad balanced on his crossed knees.

“So, tell me your story.”

I found myself telling Dr. Tracy everything that’s been in my head for the last sixteen months. It was not like I hadn’t talked about it before, but something was different this time. Before my boyfriend beat me up, I wondered what it was like to get in a fight. What did it feel like to be hit with a fist? It was my secret sadistic streak rearing its ugly head and why I got involved with a controlling sociopath. I was the type of girl who gravitated toward sociopaths.

I never felt good enough. Didn't get enough attention at home. I had self-esteem issues, though by society’s standards, I was attractive. I traced these characteristics back to my first real boyfriend in high school who wanted me to stand out more. He criticized the way I talked, the way I dressed, and everything else he could think of to make me feel less than special.

I came to FSU with the idea of reinventing myself and shining, so that was why I sought out the attention of the guy whose name was on a building.

“So, my therapist back home said that I am a victim of my ingrained personality traits, and I needed to make a conscious effort to overcome them.”

“Did she use the whole,
we might all be sociopaths and psychopaths, but our environment and the way we process information leads us to behave bad or good. A person’s behavior is all about choice. We can choose to live in the past or we can choose to move on and be who we want to be.”

I nodded my head.

“Yeah, that’s bullshit. We make choices every day. Neither good nor bad, they just are what they are. I’d rather we concentrate on what keeps you from letting go of the choice you conceive as bad.”

#

J
ackson left me a text Friday morning.

Jackson: Meet me at the library at six.

He handled NC State with ease. The team got back late last night. I knew he would be tired. I figured dinner and an early night. I was wrong on both accounts.

I sat on the steps of the library waiting and watched him walk across campus with a duffle bag in his hand and a grin on his face. He wore blue jeans and a dark long sleeve shirt. A silver metal chain hung around his neck. His face was flush and his hair wet from a recent shower. My eyes traveled up his body when I reached his face, he tilted his head and squinted his eyes and chuckled. I looked away. My mind was starting this date all wrong.

"Hello, Carrington."

"Hello, Jackson."

He leaned over and kissed my cheek but didn't touch me. He didn't need to touch me. My nerve endings were on full alert from his crisp and clean smell. Jackson walked past me and up the steps toward the library.

"You coming?" He held the library door in his hand.

"Where are we going?"

"On our date."

"In the library? I didn't bring my books."

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret."

"What?"

"The library has books."

I hit him on the sleeve.

"Come on," he said. "You're going to love this."

I followed him down the center aisle of the library. A couple of students were huddled near the end of one of the twenty rows of tables that lined the entire first floor. The walls were covered with those big, dusty research books that no one ever used. The real books were on the other four floors.

When Jackson reached the last row of tables, he cut between two stacks of books, and I knew where he was going.

It was the room in the library where we first met.

I found this room my first night of studying in the library. Jackson was the only other person I ever saw in here.

The room had a door, but it was supposed to remain open. When we approached, the door was closed.

Jackson knocked and someone I couldn't see opened the door and took the duffle back.  Jackson turned to me.

"Can you hang out here for like two minutes?" he asked. "I'll come and get you when I'm ready."

"Ready for what?" I tried to look over his shoulder, but the door had closed.

"Go find a book or something. Two minutes."

He didn't give me a chance to answer before he turned and slid through the door. I headed back out to the main floor and flipped through one of those big dusty books. It was sitting on a pedestal. The leather-bound book had the look of being ancient, but a machine did the binding, and perfect page cuts. The book was about the history of Florida. It was opened to a page about Florida State University. I flipped a few pages, and it had an old portrait of seven women, standing in dark dresses with collars up to their necks. I read the names underneath the photo and my eyes zeroed in on a familiar name, Louise Parker Griffin.

Josh held a certain amount of pride when he spoke about his family’s history. A Griffin was in the first graduating class as FSU. I smiled; Louise Parker Griffin was related to my son, too.

I needed to remind Mr. Griffin to share these kinds of stories with Jack and keep the crazy Griffin stories to a minimum.

“Hey.”

I jumped and turned. I had to clutch my chest to calm down.

"Shh," Jackson said as he peeked around the corner. "This is a library."

"What are we doing here?"

"Follow me." He held his hand out, and I took it, lacing my fingers in his. It felt way too familiar, way too quick, but I didn't have time to worry about it.

Jackson opened the door and stood to the side, I walked in. The room was oval shaped with two rows of long dark wood tables and eight chairs on each side. Each table had about four lamps on them, but tonight the lamps were turned off. A large round candle sat at one end of the front table. Next to the table was a banquet of flowers in a vase, garnet-colored roses. The table was set for dinner. I walked further into the room and saw a familiar face standing in the corner.

"Welcome," Jeff said. He was dressed in a suit and tie.

"Jeff."

"Madam, tonight I am your waiter...Jeff."

"Have a seat." Jackson placed his hand on my lower back pushed me toward the table. He pulled out a seat for me. As he sat down, he leaned over and kissed my cheek.

"You look amazing tonight," he whispered and placed a kiss below my earlobe. My insides turned to jelly, and I found it hard to breathe. I closed my eyes and shook my head.

So much for not moving too fast.

#

J
ackson Latre Mitchell

I had this idea about creating this cool first date in the place we met. It didn't take much effort, either. After five years, I wasn't used to the idea that all I had to do was ask, and I could get whatever I wanted. I guess it came with the territory of being a star college football player. Why couldn't the rest of my life work out so easy?

"I can't believe you did this," she said.

"I thought the venue was pretty perfect." I was aware of Jeff hovering in the corner and didn't feel comfortable speaking to her how I normally would if it were only the two of us. It was his idea to help serve the food so I could concentrate on Carrington. He had a voyeuristic streak in him. I tried to ignore he was there.

"The first time we laid eyes on each other."

"Yeah, I thought you were the cutest girl I'd ever seen." I sat at the head of the table and grabbed her hand. "Probably why I was so nervous around you."

"Nervous. Mr. Football star was nervous talking to little ol’ me." She spoke in a made up Southern accent that was sexy as hell.