Scared of Beautiful (Scared #1)(20)

“You ready to go?” he asks me, smiling.

“More than ever,” I reply, and we drive off, leaving Bryce and Morgan to have it out over his comments on the sidewalk. Truthfully, I would have loved to see Jackson dislocate Bryce’s jaw, but I notice as he drives that his knuckles are already swollen and bruising, and I care about him far too much to have him break a hand over that fool.

Megs is less than impressed when she sees Jackson’s hand and my mother’s head. After cleaning my mother up and applying some gauze, Megs gives her some tea and aspirin and tells her to lie down. She can barely look at me when she exits to the bedroom. Jackson and I are about to leave when Megs stops us. “Not so fast. You sit. I need to talk to you.” Megs sounds angry. She’s not a nice woman to piss off to, so I’m a little scared.

“I’ll wait outside,” Jackson offers.

“Stay,” I say, my eyes pleading with him not to leave. He’s been introduced to the very worst parts of my life, all at once. The fact that he’s still here at all says something.

“I assume by the look on your face, Maia, that your mother told you some kind of truth, which was it?” she asks.

What, the fact that my father is not my real father is only one of the lies? I explain the events at the apartment to Megs, and she’s quiet as she listens. When the story ends, she looks up and grabs my hands.

“I’m sorry honey, sorry about all of that and all of it before. But I’m glad you know. Your real father was a waste of oxygen, true story. He was a fool, who ran around doing all kinds of wrong shit. Your mother worked as a secretary for your grandfather’s firm. The man who has been your father all these years took an interest in her on the first day she started there. He was doing an internship, learning the ropes. He treated her nice. She lived with us from the time she was fifteen, and she was determined not to stay here forever. Why she got the job in Manhattan to begin with.” Megs sips her tea and continues. “By the time she met him, she was already pregnant. She didn’t want to lie, wanted him to know the truth. I talked her out of it. Told her that it was too good a chance to pass up. He loved her. And he did, he wasn’t always an *. When he took over his father’s firm, the money and the power went to his head. By that time she was in too deep. You were five before he showed his true colors.”

Megs looks up at me with a stern expression. “But she stayed for you. Took every single damned beating for your sake. And you act like you couldn’t give a damn whether she lives or dies. I see her dialing your number over and over. I know you see those calls. Like it or not, that woman is your mother, so you better start acting right or so help me. You’ll have to answer to me. She needs you to get through this. You think it’s easy to leave over 20 years behind?”

Tears sting my eyes. I hate the fact that she’s right. I was behaving like the spoiled bitch I always refused to be. It was selfish of me to leave my mother behind, just because I needed to escape. Jackson puts his hand around my shoulder as if on cue. “I should talk to her,” I say, standing.

Megs puts a hand on my shoulder. “No, not now, she needs rest. I need to talk to her and you need to sleep on it. When she calls you tomorrow, answer your phone.”

I reach for my bag and open my wallet, handing Megs my spare bankcard. “Whatever you need, please,” I say handing it to her. She shakes her head and I look at her pleadingly. I lay the card onto the side table and scribble the access number on a piece of paper, before Jackson and I leave.

“Dinner?” I ask Jackson as we leave the Bronx.

“Sure,” he replies, “but can we stop for some Gatorade? Cold Gatorade, I need it for my hand.”

He winces, and I notice that the bruising on his knuckles is darkening. After the day we’ve had, I plan on buying him several beers. I think a drink may be a great idea. I don’t drink often, but given that Jackson deserves some kind of an explanation, a few drinks to loosen up before I have to start talking may not be a bad thing.





Chapter 10




Jackson

Talk about a damn crazy day. I have to admit that I now understand why Maia keeps her past so closely locked away. Those people are f-ucking bananas. Although Maia is nothing like them, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s trying her damnedest not to be. My parents fought a little when I went off the rails a few years back, but nothing that involved violence like that. I hope to God that that’s not what Maia grew up with, or so help me I’ll find that * who I punched and likely finish the job.

Maia directs me through the city and out to Cedar Beach, to a quiet seafood place on the wharf. I try to put on a brave face against the pain, but my hand hurts like a motherf*cker, and I’m quite sure that at the very least I fractured something. Maia keeps glancing over at me hesitantly, as if she’s waiting for me to ask her about what happened today. I gather that the worthless bastard was her kind-of father, and I presume that the greasy looking fool on the street was her ex and his new, um, pet. She’s not overly close to her mother, but has a lot of respect for her Aunt Megs, who, judging by her dark complexion, is not a real aunt. That’s all I got. For that whole eight hours. But I don’t think I’ll push it, she’ll talk when she wants to.

Being that I’m driving, I opt for a light beer, and Maia orders an expensive scotch and dry. I took her for a long stemmed wine glass kind of chick, but scotch? Kind of gangster, I have to say. I smile at how the little things she does impress me. We order a seafood platter and take in the candlelit ambience of the small restaurant. The muted candlelight hits her face just right, making her eyes glow almost iridescently. The best thing about Maia is that she has absolutely no idea how f-ucking hot she is, how as she looks up at me expectantly, half her face is hidden behind a curtain of long, dark hair. My mind trails off in various directions, imagining the obscene things we could do on this table, if we were alone. My jeans pull with the rising pressure the thought is causing me. Thank f-uck for long tablecloths.