The Set Up (71 page)

STALLED

Charlotte

THE FIRST THING
I do, after I somehow manage to drive Mrs. Storm back to her house without completely freaking out, is stop at the pharmacy, buy five different tests, and go directly home.

Five plus signs are staring me in the face. I glare back at them waiting for the minus sign to appear. Some kind of false alarm to blink across the stick. None of that happens though.

My heart is beating too fast. Dangerously fast. I clench my fingers to keep from shaking. I shut my eyes tight, so I don’t have to see the counter.

How did this happen?

I missed one, maybe two pills when my toiletry bag was reprimanded in police custody the night of Eve’s murder. By that Monday, I’d gone and refilled my prescription and gotten back on track. Jasper and I hadn’t even had sex for the first time until almost a week later.

I swallow hard.

I’m begging myself not to burst into tears and I don’t think it’s working. I’m everything broken and glued back together, and not exactly secure. How can I possibly be a mother? I wouldn’t know how to be one, anyway. I never really had one.

And Jasper.

Oh, Jasper.

He is going to completely lose it.

Jake’s warning from the day I confessed my reason for coming back to Detroit pops into my mind, the one that lives in the back of my head, the one I’m so very careful to make certain I don’t cross.

Jake is standing beside me. Very much at home, he opens the refrigerator and grabs a beer bottle. There’s a snicker in his laugh as he closes the door and twists the cap. “Jasper and I tell each other everything, and I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Charlotte—you’re an anomaly.”

Insulted isn’t sufficient to describe how I feel right now. “I’m a what?”

He steps toward me. “You’re an anomaly, and the thing about anomalies is no one can figure them out, and therefore, no one likes them.”

Feeling a little crowded, I round the island and take a seat on one of the bar stools. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

Jake leans back against the cabinets. “I’m talking about you. Jasper never goes after a woman, and for some reason you have him jumping through hoops.”

My face scrunches. “That’s not true.”

“But it is. Don’t worry, though—I’m sure it won’t last long because there’s one more thing about him you should know: that as soon as a chick shows signs of being too needy or getting too attached, he’s gone. Like out the door, running far and running fast. The last thing he wants is for anyone to count on him for anything.”

Anomaly or not, the one thing that can’t be denied is that a woman pregnant with your baby who lives in your apartment and works for you is a walking, talking, billboard of need.

I’m petrified.

Not about Jasper though.

Something inside me tells me Jake is wrong about Jasper. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. He’s the one who’s been building our relationship, piece by piece, step by step, he’s the one who’s let his walls down and let me see who he really is.

He’s not the issue.

It’s me.

I can’t be a mother.

I don’t know how.

What if I’m just like her?

Running from the mountain of truth slapping me in the face, I end up in our room and toss myself on the bed and start to cry.

What am I going to do?

What am I going to do?

What am I going to do?

No answer comes to me no matter how many times I ask, but the sound of my cell phone dinging with a text message brings on an onslaught of all new questions.

Where would we put a baby—we have no spare room.

How would I be able to work?

Does Jasper even want kids?

Would he want one with me?

Will he accept the pregnancy?

Can I?

I can’t be a mother.

Look at the role model I have.

I’ll turn out just like her.

Pain. Bitterness. Anger.

That’s all I feel.

My cell beeps again and I dig in my purse for it. I can’t find it, so I dump the entire thing. Finally, I locate it. On my screen is a message from Jasper telling me something has come up that they have to take care of. It’s going to take a while. And he’ll call me tomorrow.

Somehow I manage to type a quick response. When I toss my phone back onto the pile of stuff from my purse, I see the smooth linen business card with gold scrolled font.

My mother’s business card.

I pick it up.

I read it. It has her name as Allison Lane. Not Worth. She’s a realtor with Sun County Reality. And she lives in Leamington, Canada. The only two things I know about Leamington are that it used to be where the Heinz Ketchup Factory was located, and that it is on the water.

It has her business address on the front. I flip it over to find her residential address hand written across it.

I hoist myself off the bed.

My heart fails for a moment when I decide I’m really doing this.

I’m going to see my mother.

NO PASSING ZONE

Jasper

WHAT HAPPENS IN
Vegas—stays in Vegas.

Or that’s what they say.

Jake spent the first nine years of his life living there until his father was arrested for molesting a young girl and sent away. He pleaded innocence. That’s all Jake ever knew. His mother took Jake and fled shortly after that, and somehow ended up in Cass Corridor.

To get out of town, we follow the signs to Barstow and pick up Interstate 15 through the mountains that border LA. It’s not long before the palm-treed oasis that is Los Angeles gives way to the desert.

Damn, it’s hot out here.

Not quite two hours later we’re making a pit stop at an In-N-Out Burger and are back on the open road within ten minutes. The long stretch of highway looks the same mile after mile. Will’s moving pretty fast, and at this pace, we should be there in well under the four hour trip time.

Everyone is eating, even Jake who has yet to eat a morsel of food since dinner last night, but no one is talking. We all have a lot on our minds.

I can’t stop thinking about Charlotte. She’s done something to me. Something terrifying and completely right at the same time.

It’s like my world is tilting.

Changing.

I can’t control it.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

In fact, I’m okay with it.

Images of life and work are no longer the same images—my work isn’t my life.

Those mounds of curly blond hair keep flashing before my eyes. The way I love to run my fingers through it and even get lost in it for hours, days, weeks, years . . . a lifetime. The scent of her skin. So intoxicating. The sweet taste of her lips. How much I yearn for it. And that body, the way she moves, how she doesn’t even know what she does to me.

How is that possible?

The thought makes me smile, then makes me want to laugh, then makes me want to cry.

It’s because she doesn’t think anyone can love her.

That’s why! It’s not so much the fear of people leaving her like she told me, she doesn’t think she can be loved. I want to bang my head against the window right now. How had I not figured it out before now?

Time to man up, asshole, and just tell her. What are you afraid of? Being rejected. Fuck that. Think about her, not yourself. Prove to her you’re not going anywhere.

Exhaustion and adrenaline are a dangerous combination for anyone left in their own head too long. And my mind won’t shut down. I hate that I didn’t just do it when I started to say it.

Slurping the last of my soda down, I finish my fries and then resume staring out the window thinking of the best way to prove to her I’m hers. She’s mine. That those two kids who lived next door to each are meant to be together.

Bring flowers.

Take her out to eat.

Make love to her.

Is there a fucking rule book for this kind of thing?

I’m out of my league here.

An hour and a half passes with my mind flipping between different ideas and still the landscape hasn’t changed. The three-lane highway that gives way for us to move faster is the only thing I like about any of this.

Will is really moving now. Weaving in and out of tractor-trailers and passing mini vans. And then, out of nowhere, billboards start popping up. More and more still, closer together with each passing minute. And then bam, just like that, high rises can be seen in the distance.

Traffic is stop and go for the next couple of miles and then the strip comes into view, as all of the casinos pop up to my right, but then we pass by them and veer left onto I-95.

The GPS tells us to exit. The sprawling flatland of the residential area looks run down. Populated mainly by low-slung, ranch-style homes and aging apartment buildings. Soon enough, we’re headed into the mountain range.

Our rental car is climbing steadily at twenty miles an hour, and the slow pace is beginning to agitate me.

“Where the hell are we going?” I ask, but not to anyone in particular.

“Take a right up here,” Jake mutters.

“The GPS says not to turn right for another two miles.”

“Trust me, just do it.”

Will does it.

The paved road is in disrepair. Every pothole we hit makes me wonder if this is the right way.

“Take a left up here,” Jake instructs.

We ascend gradually, rounding a blind curve, and then we come to a fork in the road.

“Stop the car!” Jake yells.

Will jerks over to the side and Jake jumps out.

I follow him, as do Drew and Will.

He drops to his knees in the dirt and loses his entire lunch.

“Hey, what can I do?” I ask.

Twisting around, Jake plops himself down and wipes his mouth. “I remember everything.”

Huh, okay.
“What are you talking about?”

His face clouds over. “That night. I never told anyone, not even my mother, but I remember every single thing that happened.”

I frown, dropping down beside him. We’re all a little unsure—Drew leaning against the car with his arms crossed and Will standing across from me with his hands in his pockets—a true sign we’re fucking clueless about what to say.

Kicking at a stone with my dress shoes, I finally break the ice. “Want to talk about it?”

Jake nods his head toward the fork that leads to the right. “We lived there, at the top of the hill in a doublewide mobile home.”

Practically buzzing with disbelief, my entire body shakes. “He lives in the same place you grew up?”

Jake shakes his head in his own zone of disbelief. “Yeah, I can’t fucking believe it. The entire drive I hadn’t picked up on it. The fucking address didn’t even register. But that dirt road. That fucking dirt road, I took it down to the bus and back up every single day.”

I hold my breath and nod. Sure, we told each other everything, but there were some things we all knew were just taboo. I never talked about my father, Will never talked about his mother being a prostitute, Drew never spoke about where he came from or who his father was, and Jake never talked about why his mother left his father. Sure we all knew these things about each other, but, like I said, we never talked about them. They were forbidden topics since the beginning of our friendship.

Jake frowns and wipes at his mouth again. “That night he raped that girl. She was my babysitter. My mother had gotten called into work. She worked at one of the casinos on the outskirts of town. My old man hadn’t worked in months, but was never around. She called the neighbor,” he points to the left side of the fork in the road, “who had a twelve-year-old daughter and asked if Becca could babysit.”

I pick up one the stones and roll it around between my fingers in order to keep the raging hostility I’m feeling for Jake’s father at bay.

Jake draws in a breath. “He thought I was asleep when he came home. He opened up the door and called my name, but I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to talk to him. The only time he talked to me was when it was to tell me what to do. Becca was watching TV on the couch and I remember the volume getting louder. He said something to her. She answered him. I had no idea what was being said. Then I thought my father had knocked something over until I heard her faint cries.”