Misbehaving (Sea Breeze #6)(3)

“This is a Porsche, isn’t it? I’ve never seen one in real life.”

It was also one of my brother’s toys. I didn’t have a car here, so I just used the five he had in his garage. The house in Sea Breeze was where our parents used to make us spend our summers while Jax was juggling fame at a young age. But Jax was no longer a teenager and the house was his now. He’d turned twenty-two last month. And I’d turned twenty the month before that.

“Yes, it is a Porsche,” I replied.

“Turn here.” She pointed again toward the road ahead of us. I took the left and then came to the third house on the left. “This is it. Thank God no one is here yet. I gotta go. You need to get out of here so no one comes questioning you. But thank you so much.”

She opened the door and then glanced back at me one last time. “I’m Jess, by the way, and tonight you saved my ass.” She winked and closed the door before running off toward her front door. Her ass in those tight black jeans was worth saving. It was the nicest ass I’d ever seen.

I shifted the car into reverse and pulled back out onto the road. It was time I headed back to the private island where my brother’s house was. This night hadn’t turned out quite like I’d planned, but it’d been pretty damn entertaining.

The sound of something sliding across the seat and hitting the door startled me, and I glanced over to see the baseball bat. She’d forgotten it. I looked back at her house and smiled to myself. I’d be sure she got it back. Not tonight, but soon.

Chapter Two

JESS

I let the screen door slam behind me before I thought about it, then turned to lock it. Just in case Hank decided to take the law into his own hands. Not that I thought he was that stupid. He knew better than to screw with my momma.

“That you, Jess?” Momma called from the kitchen.

I might as well go tell her what I’d done. If the cops showed up, she needed to have her game face on. “Yeah, it’s me, and we might have some trouble,” I replied, walking through the small living room and toward into the kitchen. The five-room house I’d grown up in was cinderblock and nothing special, but the rent was affordable. No man had to help us get the bills paid. Momma had always taken care of things.

“What the hell have you done now?” Momma asked as I stepped into the kitchen. She was standing at the coffeepot with a cigarette between her red lips. Her favorite hot-pink satin robe was all she had on. She must have been getting ready for work and decided to stop and make some coffee.

I pulled out one of our vinyl-covered kitchen chairs and sat down. “I beat the shit out of Hank’s truck.”

Momma pulled the cigarette from her lips. “You did what?” she asked.

“He was at Live Bay with that whore he’s messing around with. He lied to me again. I’m done with him, and I wanted to make him hurt.”

Momma got rid of her ashes in the sink and, shaking her head, reached for a coffee cup. Her long blond hair was still pretty, but the face that had once been strikingly beautiful now showed hard lines from life. I was sure her smoking didn’t help things either. “Shit, girl. I need to go to work in an hour. What if the cops show up?”

I hadn’t thought of that. No alibi. I shrugged. “If they’re coming, maybe they’ll come before you leave.”

Momma took her coffee black and walked over to sit down across from me. “Did you at least get it good? If we have to deal with the poe poe, then you better have made it worth it. I ain’t in the mood for those bored shits tonight.”

I smiled, thinking about how good it had felt to see his pretty truck’s windows shatter. “Yeah, I think I got it good.”

Momma nodded and put her cigarette out, then took a sip of her coffee. “He’s a stupid, sorry-ass f**ker who you need to stay away from. You’ve got a life ahead of you, and I’ll be damned if you end up like me. Hank’s already knocked up one girl he ain’t gonna marry. I sure don’t want you to be his next victim. This life ain’t easy, and you know it. You got the looks to buy you a life outta this. I intend for you to do it,” Momma said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her long legs.

This was a conversation we had been having since I was old enough to understand things. Which was since I was about nine. When your momma is a stripper in town, you learn things a lot sooner than other kids. There is no time for innocence.

“I’m done with Hank for good this time. I promise,” I assured her.

Momma didn’t look like she believed me. I couldn’t blame her. This thing with Hank had been going on for years. I really needed to let him go. He was a one-way ticket to the life I’d watched my mother live. As much as I respected her for not leaning on a man to take care of us, I didn’t want that life. I knew how much she hated it.

“My escape car was a Porsche,” I told her with a grin. I still couldn’t get over that car . . . and the guy in it. Way out of my league. Way, way out of my league. He was so wealthy he reeked of it. He also looked at me like I was a strange bird he didn’t know what to do with. I had probably scared the guy to death. He wasn’t from here. He was just visiting and would have gone back to whatever mansion he hailed from.

“Don’t see many Porsches around here,” Momma replied with a skeptical look on her face.

“He wasn’t a local. I imagine he’s vacationing on the island. He looked like one of those.”