Again, just to make it clear, I waited until the last moment. To use her, I mean.
I waited until I had no other choice. I waited until Ledger had the ball and he was about to score. And there was no other way to steal the ball — and in turn the win — except using his sister against him.
Besides, as I told her that night, I did her a favor.
Yeah, I remember what I told her that night. Even though I was massively drunk, I remember.
I also remember that she was knitting me sweaters, for God’s sake. She was lying to her brothers to be with me. She was getting way too involved. And it needed to be stopped.
I’m not the kind of guy who dates or does relationships, and I’d already told her that, didn’t I?
But she didn’t listen, apparently, and I had to take matters into my own hands.
But none of that matters anymore: the championship win, the stupid rivalry, the fact that I broke her heart for it all. Because I ended up at the same place.
I ended up where I never wanted to be. In Bardstown.
Inside my father’s study, back in our house.
It’s been two years since I’ve been inside this room. Two years since I’ve seen these leather couches; these polished hardwood floors and the wall-to-wall mahogany bookcase with all the shiny books that my dad never reads, since he’s not into books or education.
He’s into money. And according to my dad, good education doesn’t always mean good money.
Look at him for example, he’s a high school dropout who helped his dad start a construction company when he was only eighteen. That went on to become this multi-million-dollar empire that he presides over today.
But anyway, I haven’t been inside this room for a long time and I’d forgotten how suffocating this space is. How it feels like something is wrapped around my throat, a phantom noose of some sort, and my father’s evil fingers are tightening it and tightening it.
Until I can’t breathe.
Yeah, I’ve never been able to breathe around my father.
But that’s not the problem right now, my suffocation.
The problem is that there’s this woman, standing just inside my father’s study, who’s currently running her left hand down my arm.
She has long, blood red nails.
That she probably pays a lot for. For the upkeep, I mean.
My father would want nothing less.
Nothing less than pretty manicured nails to scratch his old, shriveled-up balls.
The fact that I can think about my father in those terms without throwing up all over these hardwood floors is a testament to how far I’ve come.
I think I also deserve credit for not throwing up on her shoes. What’s her name again? Cindy, Sydney? Stephanie?
I don’t know. She’s new here. I think.
All my father’s secretaries look the same to me. They’re always young and pretty and blonde. They’re always very eager to please.
Him and also me for some reason.
To that effect, this new one smiles at me, her lips as red as her nails. “Good night, Mr. Jackson.”
“Reed,” I push out somehow. “Just Reed.”
Her smile widens as she looks up at me. “Reed.”
All right, that was a bad idea I think. Asking her to call me by my name. It makes me want to throw up even more. But then I hate to be called by my father’s name so really it’s a toss-up.
“Were you on your way out?” I ask her in my most polite voice.
She must be; it’s definitely not normal office hours and I almost crashed into her as soon as I entered my father’s study.
Smiling, she peers at me through her lashes. “Yes. I was leaving. I was just… helping your dad with something.”
“I bet you were,” I murmur. “What a hard-working employee you are.”
“I try my best.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Her smile knows no bounds, and then something occurs to me. Something extremely disturbing given the fact that she’s still touching me.
“Are you a lefty?” I ask.
She looks slightly taken aback by my question but whatever. If she refuses to take her hand off me, then I need to know.
She glances down at her fingers on my arm. “Uh, yeah. Why?”
Fantastic.
I was afraid of that.
I was afraid that her hand might’ve touched other things — things like those shriveled-up balls that I was talking about — before it touched me.
Aaand there you go. The bile is up to my teeth now.
“You look like one,” I reply, clearing my throat. “Well, allow me to get out of your way and let you leave.”
I step to the side and thankfully her hand falls away.
She gives me a heated look before nodding. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Yeah, not a fucking chance in hell.
The moment I see her at the office tomorrow, I’m turning around and walking out of the building.