Broken and Screwed 2 (BS #2)(43)

“So Marissa then?”

I couldn’t confirm it. He knew. We both knew, but when he reached for his phone, I grabbed it from him. Shaking my head, I was horrified to find some tears on my cheeks. I hadn’t cried in so long. I wasn’t going to start now. “Stop.”

“She made you cry.”

I blew out a calming breath. “Stop, Jesse. Marissa didn’t mean any harm. She said a few things and old wounds opened. That’s it. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

He wavered.

I clenched his phone tighter. I knew he could grab it lightning fast.

“Fine.”

My shoulders sagged in relief.

“Just to be clear, I didn’t do anything?”

A grin broke free as I shook my head.

“And I didn’t say anything?”

“You did call me dramatic.”

“I’m sorry.”

I blinked at the automatic apology. That wasn’t a normal Jesse comment. Had he changed as well, like everyone else? I held my tongue, not wanting to get into that conversation and I asked instead, “So what’s going on that you needed to get away from your friends?”

This was the second time in two weeks. He liked to hide with those friends and bring me along. Well, this time was different. We’d been doing other things before he took me along to hide with them.

He grew still. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

The old roles clicked into place again. We were back to that. Neither of us talked about anything real in our lives. The only topic was allowed Ethan or sex. It had always been like that.

“Oh.”

His head tipped back and a deep groan escaped from him. “I’m sorry. You should know what’s been going on and why I haven’t called you that much.”

Oh.

Were the rules changing?

“This has nothing to do with my friends, but there’s a girl suing my dad. She claims that she’s his daughter, he knew about her, and he ignored her when she grew up. She’s claiming emotional damage.” He’d become a statue now. The words fell from him, his tone so cold, “She’s probably his kid. You know how he was, how he still is with a different girl every other month. Fuck. Two months after Mom died and he had some eighteen year old in the house.”

Reaching over, I slipped my hand with his. Our fingers wrapped around each other. “I’m guessing that the lawyers said you couldn’t talk about the case?” Was that why he was avoiding his friends?

Jesse sighed, “Yes and no. They told me I should warn my friends against this girl, in case she reaches out to them. The other side is trying to bring me as a character witness against my dad. I don’t even know if they can do that, but they’re claiming he’s damaged my life. I don’t want that shit out there. It’s only a matter of time before the press gets wind of this.”

The question if Malcolm Hunt had damaged his son wasn’t a question. He had. It was the reason why Jesse moved in with my family from eighth grade until his junior year. He moved out after Ethan died and lived in their huge mansion. Malcolm was rarely around by then so it was him and his housekeeper. Zala was like a second mother in some ways to him. And I knew he considered my parents as his own.

Pain swelled in my chest.

They considered Jesse like one of their own. Blinking back more tears, I remembered when my mother tried to kill herself. Jesse had been with me so he went to the hospital as well. My father hadn’t said a word to me as he embraced Jesse like a long lost son.

I wondered if they took the love they had for Ethan and myself and channeled into the son they could be proud of—Jesse?

Flicking a tear away with a thumb, I refused to think about them anymore. Except that Jesse was lucky in some ways. He still had two parents who loved him, even though they weren’t his by blood. They were still his.

Hoarsely, I asked, “Have you said anything to your friends about her?”

A bitter laugh wrung from deep in his throat. “Are you kidding? Of course not.” The laugh faded and his lips pressed into a flat line. “They think Malcolm Hunt is awesome. Cord’s the only one who remembers a little bit, but he doesn’t remember much and you and Ethan never spread it around school. I was always grateful for that.”

My hand squeezed his.

“Anyway, can we not talk about this anymore?” He tried to give me a reassuring smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I think the party moved somewhere else. We could go back there and just hang out? I’ll show you my place. You haven’t seen it yet.”

My emotional wheel of misfortune was on a constant spin. As the arrow started to fall on ‘STAY AWAY’, it went past and landed on ‘RUN AWAY RUN AWAY’, but I found myself smiling back. “Sure. That’d be nice.”

As we left my dorm, my heart sunk. I should’ve gotten out of the car and went upstairs, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew this was the beginning of the end.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jesse and I had a shaky truce going, if that’s what could it be called. I didn’t know, but I did know that I couldn’t tear myself away from him. Not anymore. And I wasn’t ready to take the plunge into an actual relationship so we did what we did. We spent the night together, not every night, and we hung out in secret. The only two people who might’ve guessed at our situation were Cord and Beth. She caught me on the curb again when Jesse drove to pick me up. Cord had been in the basement one time when we slipped through. Other than those two, I didn’t think anyone knew, except for Jamie. However, he didn’t know who the girl was.