When We Fall (Take the Fall, #2)(6)
While my experience with men is very limited, I’d have to be completely na?ve not to realize Jase is attracted to me. I can see the lust blazing in his eyes when he looks at me, but that doesn’t really mean anything. He’s rather indiscriminate when it comes to dating. If he actually dates…though to be fair, he and Giselle were together for a long time. The entire time he was in prison, in fact—well, if you don’t count the times she cheated on him, which was every chance she had.
She even cheated on him with a man my mother wants me to date. Mark Williams—the mayor’s son—who tried to pick a fight with Jase at Jase’s own homecoming party.
Mark is always nice to me, but then again, most people are. It’s hard to be mean to someone who never rocks the boat, never voices an opinion…only nods and smiles. Most days, I feel like wallpaper—there for only decoration. There to look pretty and inoffensive.
Unlike Jase.
He’s vibrant, from his golden hair, dark blue eyes, and multicolored tattoos. You can’t help but notice him. I can’t help but notice him. I’m drawn to him, to the vibrancy that surrounds him. The way he talks and moves. He’s so animated. The opposite of wallpaper. He’s the painting in the room. The piece that everyone comes to see and marvel over.
Maybe that screams puppy love to some, but to me, it doesn’t matter that I fell in love with Jase Simmons at the age of fourteen. I was an overweight, shy teenager with a slight stutter and a bad case of asthma, and I wore thick-framed glasses, yet he never pretended not to see me, the way my father did. Never said unkind things like the boys I knew in high school, the way my mother did.
Jase always took the time to talk to me, asked me how things were going…gave me a special nickname. Quite simply, for the first time in my life, I felt special. Important.
When he went to prison, I didn’t have that anymore, and the only person who came close to giving me that same feeling of importance was his sister, Rowan.
Don’t misunderstand me, I love Rowan. Over the years, she became the sister I never had. When Jase and Seth went to prison, we became inseparable. In fact, I didn’t go away to the private women’s college in New Hampshire like Mother had planned. Instead, I stayed here and went to UNC Charlotte.
After becoming friends with Rowan, that was my second and last act of rebellion.
Until I moved out of my parents’ home, that is. And now, I’ve gone from the frying pan and into the fire by moving in with Jase.
Be bold, I remind myself. Jase likes bold women. Women who know what they want and aren’t afraid of going after it. Women who are the complete opposite of me…Ugh. I’m doomed to fail.
My phone rings. I move to the bed, searching my upended purse for it. In Jase’s hurry to help me, he’d scattered my things everywhere. Finally, I find it halfway under the pillow and grab it.
Glancing at the screen, I frown. My mother is calling, for what I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her or my father in months.
Actually, I do have somewhat of a clue. Before I moved out of my house, I had signed up for a dating site that catered to the rich and famous. Which brings me back to Mark Williams. According to my mother and the woman who owns the company, Leslie, Mark is my perfect match. Therefore, in their eyes, I should accept the inevitable and date him. Get engaged and then marry. Have two kids and a perfect house in The Oaks.
I’ll transform from wallpaper into a trophy wife.
My stomach flips.
I let the phone ring again and again, until guilt squeezes at my heart and my thumb hovers over the answer button.
What if something happened and I never got the chance to talk to my parents again? What if they thought I hated them?
Be strong, I remind myself. If it were an emergency, a police car driven by a new recruit would be parked outside.
My parents, my mother especially, is a master manipulator. A character flaw that is good for fundraisers, charity functions, and making your only child do your every bidding.
I shake my head and ignore the call, slipping my phone inside my purse before grabbing my keys off the top of the dresser. Gazing at the banister that I want to slide down one day, I force myself to walk down the stairs and outside to my car. In less than an hour, I have an appointment with a financial aid counselor to go over my obligations for the upcoming semester.
The day of Rowan and Seth’s surprise engagement party had been a win and a loss for me. A win because Jase had not only agreed to allow me to move in with him but had given me a job as well. A loss because later that afternoon I had received my tuition bill.
If I can’t find a way to pay for classes, then I’ll have to postpone my first year of graduate school. But if that’s what I have to do in order to become independent from my parents, then that’s what I’ll do.
The irony of driving a car that they gave me as a twenty-first-birthday present doesn’t escape my notice. But until they either ask or take it back, I’ll keep driving it. I doubt my parents even notice the bills—their accountant pays everything for them.
Besides, a car is nothing in comparison to housing and tuition, or credit card payments. Yes, they had canceled those as well. Plus, image is everything. I can’t be seen driving something other than this BMW without people asking questions. The only time my parents like questions is when they are the ones doing the asking.
My phone rings for the second time that day and I press the Bluetooth button on my steering wheel.