The Jezebel Read online

  “Why couldn’t you just pretend you didn’t see me?” he seethes through clenched teeth. His eyes shimmer with unshed tears.

  Guilt and compassion replace my annoyance. He’s just a scared kid and I don’t want to add to that already overflowing bucket. “I didn’t really call, okay?” I put the phone down and lift my empty hands so he can see I’m as defenseless as he is. “Now, tell me who you’re hiding from.”

  His eyes widen just enough for me to know I hit that nail on its head before he narrows them angrily. “No one,” he insists.

  “You can trust me,” I coax softly. Instead of the reassurance I hoped to inspire, his bottom lip trembles and his throat moves convulsively. I reach across the counter, my palm open in invitation.

  He stares at my hand with wide, wary eyes before he lifts his gaze to my face. The bleak, haunted look in his eyes makes my breath hitch.

  “I won’t let them hurt you again.”

  “You can’t do anything,” he snarls then turns to make a run for the door.

  I sprint to get ahead of him, stop short, and pivot with my arms open to catch him. He may be small, but he packs the punch of a freight train and his momentum sends us crashing to the floor.

  I roll over and wrap him in a bear hug. The press of his too-prominent rib cage against my arms and the thud of his sprinting heart and against my torso firms my resolve to find out what happened to him.

  “Let me go,” he screeches and bucks against me. His head flails between my breasts and I crane my neck to move my face out of harm’s way.

  My wildly beating heart is lodged in my throat and my arms ache but I hold on tight.

  He’s scared and so alone that he’s managed to find his way here on a school night without triggering an Amber Alert.

  “You’re safe with me.” I whisper.

  “Please, please let me go.” His voice is still colored by anger, but it breaks at the end of his sentence and he starts to cry. His hot tears dampen the front of my shirt.

  I rest my cheek atop his head. The touch seems to startle him and instantly, but for his heaving chest, he goes completely still. After a few seconds of this, I risk loosening my hold and move my hand to caress circles in the center of his back. He stiffens and then our embrace changes.

  His fisted hands were trapped between us. Now, they slide around my ribcage, his small hands press into my back. He holds me so tightly it’s uncomfortable and cries like his entire heart is broken.

  I recognize the grief that’s pouring out of him. It’s the keening, festering kind that comes knowing that with losing something you’ll never get back. Whoever said you can’t miss what you’ve never had was selling a pipe dream.

  My father died before I was old enough to have a single memory of him. But I’ve felt his absence so keenly at times, I was sure my grief would swallow me whole.

  What always saved me from those emotional hurricanes was having a safe place – usually my grandfather’s arms – to see the storm through. He didn’t insult me with platitudes and promises he couldn’t keep. He’d let me get it out, chuck me under the chin, and send me on my way.

  “Whatever you’ve lost, is gone. But you’re still here, and you deserve to be happy.” I repeat one of my favorite meditations in a soothing cadence. He’s just a kid, but so was I the first time I heard it.

  His sobs soften. But his hold on me, doesn’t. Pity squeezes my heart. My family isn’t perfect, but I’ve never not had a place to go when I was this low.

  We lay there silent, the buzz and hum of the appliances and overhead lights mingling with our breaths and heartbeats.

  After a few minutes, his arms slacken and a half sigh, half snore confirms that he’s fallen asleep.

  I press a kiss to the top of his head and close my eyes as the familiar scent of Johnson’s baby shampoo assails me. Oh God, he’s so young.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket and I remember Weston.

  Shit. I stifle a groan and chew the inside of my lip while I consider the child asleep in my arms. I need to figure out who he is and how to get him back to school.

  The time I’d set aside to get some of my work done ahead of Weston’s arrival is gone. I may be brazen enough to sneak him in here, but I’m not crazy. This work has to get done and on time, too.

  I reach for my phone, moving gingerly to not wake him and read Weston’s text.

  “OMW”

  I make a snap decision and type back a response.

  “Not alone. Can’t meet. Sorry! Call you 2morrow.”

  His reply comes right away, “Cool. L8r”.

  It stings my pride that he didn’t even pretend to care. The scowl forming on my face softens when I look down at the sleeping, bruised face pressed to my chest. Weston can wait a few days, but I’m not sure that he can.

  I manage to lift and carry him into the bakery’s restaurant. I lay him on one of the plush sofas, rush back to the workroom, and grab the pashmina in my bag to drape over him. It covers him completely and makes him look impossibly vulnerable. I need to know who hurt him. When he wakes up, I’ll coax it out of him with some milk and scones.

  Then, I’m going to make sure the person who did this and the adults who let it happen make things right for him.

  I engage the deadbolt so he can’t leave through the front door. Then, I get back to work.

  The butter I’d taken out has softened too much to be used in my scone recipe, so I pop it into the freezer. I set a timer for twenty minutes, pop in my Love Jones soundtrack CD and get to work zesting lemons and ginger. I’m only on the second lemon when the sound of shattering glass from the restaurant splinters my focus.

  I drop everything, grab the chef’s knife off the wall, and run. Images of him bleeding, or in the clutches of whatever villain broke that glass make me dizzy with fear.

  With my arm raised to strike, I take a fortifying breath and burst through the swinging doors with a primal scream that nearly chokes me when I take in the scene.

  He’s gone. An entire pane of glass is missing from the store front window. And one of the small silver footstools my mother handpicked lays sprawled on the sidewalk in a sea of fractured glass.

  What an idiot I am. I bet he wasn’t even really asleep.

  I run to the window, stick my head out of the gaping hole he made and look each way down the deserted street. He could have gone anywhere, and I don’t have time to go looking for him now.

  I need a really good story that explains how that window got broken. Otherwise, my whole plan is shot to hell and I can forget this sliver of freedom I carved out. I glower at the yawning hole in the glass and curse the little delinquent and my irrational instinct to protect him. As angry as I am with him, it’s clear that the kid has enough problems without adding Owen Wilde to them.

  That little shit may have escaped my grandfather's wrath, but he won’t escape mine.

  I Want To Fight

  Regan

  "Come on, gimme a kiss, Regan. You used to like it, remember?” Billy, aka Mr. Boring Enough to Make my Mother Happy, leans across the center console of my car with his eyes closed.

  I roll my eyes skyward and lean as far away as the small interior of my Ford Mustang will allow. I don’t remember if I liked kissing him or not, and I have no intention of refreshing my memory.

  In the distance, a bell rings and I put a hand on Billy’s chest and imbue my voice with regret. His eyes pop open and confusion creases his brow.

  “I don’t want to make you late.” I glance at my watch meaningfully.

  “That was just the warning bell, we’ve got time. If you want that schedule, it’ll cost you.” His smile is smarmy, his voice heavy with entitlement as he grabs my wrist and tugs me forward to close the space between us.

  His eyes drift closed, and I let him draw me closer while I keep my eyes on the piece of paper he’s holding as ransom. He should have been holding it out of my reach.

  I snatch the paper from his distracted, slack grasp and yank my wr
ist free.

  “What the fuck?” he snaps, shoving away from me with a huff of disgruntled annoyance.

  “I’ll just take this and skip the kiss,” I say with a tight smile.

  “Aren’t you even going to say thank you?” he asks, peevish resignation in his voice.

  Even though I didn’t engage them when he got in, I hit the switch on the door locks for the sound effect. “Thank you,” I deadpan, and eye him impatiently.

  His expression crumbles and he pouts. That little kid has more backbone than him. “Aww, come on, Regan. At least let me see your titties.”

  I level him with a disgusted glare. “Get out of my car before you piss me off and force me to tell Tyson about this.”

  He pales and draws away. “For fuck’s sake, I was just kidding.”

  With a churlish flash of his middle finger, he climbs out of my car.

  Tyson’s pain in the ass obsession with scaring my dates has finally paid off. Even though he’s four years younger than me, he’s bigger than most of the boys my age and the last boy who tried to coax a kiss out of me on our doorstep got a black eye for his trouble.

  My grandfather bought my story about throwing the stool in fright because I thought I saw a mouse. But he was still docking my pay to cover the cost of repairing it. Tracking this kid down and holding him accountable for the trouble he caused was an all- consuming compulsion when I woke up this morning.

  So, I called Billy under the guise of returning a book that a kid wearing their school uniform left in the bakery.

  As soon as I said kid, he laughed and said “What the fuck is Stone Rivers doing in Rivers Wilde? Isn’t your family like... his family’s enemy or some shit?”

  I’d been stunned silent. That little boy is Stone Rivers? But...how could the son of one of the richest and most powerful families in the entire state of Texas be beaten up, bloody nosed and have no one to turn to?

  Gripped by a burning curiosity, I threw caution into the wind and told Billy I’d meet him if he could get me his schedule. In his eagerness to agree, he didn’t even ask why I needed it.

  My gut knots as I recall that his father, Jason Rivers died recently and that Hayes, his older brother, was sent to Europe to live with an aunt. That explains his tears. But it doesn’t explain the busted lip.

  I scan his schedule. He has study hall in the library next. I hurry from my car, find the library on the campus map and walk over to wait. I perch on a bench outside of a building with the words Rivers Hall etched into the marble. I take in the perfectly manicured grassy quadrangle that is flanked by four brick buildings with a gothic façade. Their piss-poor security aside, Blackwell is one of the most elite boarding schools in the country. Only the brightest students gain admission.

  The school boasts two former presidents, a Vice President and a slew of ambassadors, CEOs, United States Senators, and visionary inventors as alumni.

  That Stone is here at the tender age of ten means he’s something more than bright. Another bell rings, and the doors of the classrooms that line the corridor arc open in near perfect unison and liberate streams of teenagers. They fill the quiet with a cacophony of shouts, laughs, and curses.

  The library is set apart from the rest of the campus and I have a good view of the students as they make their way into the big grass covered quadrangle. Nerves assail me as I start searching the crowd for my quarry. The throng clears without any sign of the tiny human who should stick out like a sore thumb.

  And then, I hear it. That raucous, collective laugher that, when made by a group of unsupervised teenage boys, is a universal signal that they’re up to no good.

  I head toward the sound, filled with an inexplicable certainty that those laughs are the reason Stone hasn’t made it here yet.

  I round the corner of a building and find myself in a service alley that’s lined with garbage dumpsters. All the way at the end of it, four boys stand in a huddle with their backs to me.

  One of them is holding Stone up against a wall, his spindly legs dangling, while the other three seem to be trying to undress him.

  He doesn’t make a sound or move. His eyes are closed, his expression devoid of emotion. Like he’s playing dead.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I call out and the outrage burning in my chest turns my voice into a menacing growl. Stone’s eyes pop open and he blinks a couple of times before he seems to believe his eyes. He stares in stupefied amazement as I prowl toward the group of boys who have all turned around. The one still holding Stone watches me over his shoulder, wide-eyed with surprise and suspicion.

  “Get your fucking hands off him,” I snarl.

  He relinquishes his quarry with a sadistic smile that I want to wipe off with my fist. Stone lands on his feet, stumbles slightly and steps away from his tormentors He straightens his uniform and keeps his eyes trained on me.

  “Are you okay, Stone?”

  Instead of returning my attempt at a friendly smile, he glowers at me like I’m the one who was holding him against the wall. “What are you doing here? And, ho- how do you know my name?”

  The boy who was holding him against the wall shakes off his fear, puts on a cocky smile and crosses his arms over his chest as he steps into my path and blocks Stone from my view.

  He’s an inch taller than me and tries to look down his nose at me. But I’m not scared of him. Bullies are the lowest hanging fruit. So pathetic and easy to take down once you recognize them for the cowards they are.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “You don’t get to ask me questions, motherfucker,” I growl.

  One of his friends snickers and he shoots him a quelling glare before he returns his smug gaze to my face. “This is a private campus. Stone doesn’t know you, and so you better leave before we call security.”

  I laugh, but my eyes harden, and I enjoy watching his self-satisfied smirk disappear when I pull my phone out and hand it to him. “Go ahead. I can’t wait to hear you explain why you were trying to undress a boy half your size.”

  He scoffs. “Our word against his and his...nanny or are you his maid?” The boys share a round of chuckles that stop abruptly when I join in.

  “What’s fucking funny?” the ringleader barks.

  “Your joke,” I say, wide-eyed with feigned bemusement.

  “What joke?” he demands.

  “The one where the school takes your side over the one of the boy whose family’s name is on that building.” I point back to the library.

  For all the academic smarts these boys have, they’re remarkably lacking in common sense.

  He tries to stare me down, and only lasts two seconds. “Whatever. This is lame, We’re outta here. We’ll see you later, Rivers,” he tosses the thinly veiled threat over his shoulders and shoves past me.

  I grab him by the collar and drag his face to mine. “No, you fucking won’t see him later. If you look at him again, much less touch him, I’ll be back, and I won’t be alone. And what my friends will do to you, will make you wish you’d been expelled,” I warn through gritted teeth.

  His face pales he yanks his collar out of my grasp and scowls at me while he smooths it back into place. “We were just fucking with him. This is high school. If he can’t handle it, he should go back to the baby school.” He shoves past me and his friends, who I’ve named Pathetic and Predictable, follow him.

  I turn to Stone, who is standing there looking like he wants to kill someone, and I sigh.

  “Did I just make things worse for you?” I ask

  “Hello, Captain Obvious, good to see you haven’t changed.” He quips, no hint of gratitude or camaraderie on his face.

  I bark out an incredulous laugh, “Wow, is that the thanks I get for saving you?”

  “Thank you. Now, why are you here?” He adjusts his rucksack on his shoulders and taps his foot like I’m keeping him from an important appointment.

  “You broke the window last night; did you think I was going to let that go?”
I cross my arms.

  He rolls his eyes. “You shouldn’t have tried to lock me in.”

  My neck almost snaps off when I lurch backwards in surprise. This kid… “Huh? Have you forgotten that you broke into my bakery and then fell asleep after you cried all over me?”

  His cheeks flush red with embarrassment, but he doesn’t let it show anywhere else. His eyes are calm, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans, his smile the picture of devil may care. “I didn’t break in. The door was unlocked. And I only cried because I wanted to leave, and you wouldn’t let me.”

  Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “The door wasn’t unlocked.” But I allow him his pride, and don’t push back on the rest. “However, you got in, you shouldn’t have been there at all. Are you going to tell me why or are you going to force me to turn you in?”

  “You can’t prove I was there,” he pushes.

  “We have video surveillance,” I lie.

  He crosses his arms over his bird-like chest and gives me a long assessing look, like he’s trying to decide if he can trust me and then sighs in resignation, his shoulders slumping like the weight of the world just landed on them. “I study there. I don’t touch anything, and I don’t make any trouble. I won’t be back. If you tell how much the window costs, my family accountant will send you whatever you need.”I shake my head in grudging respect. He’s a little shit, but he’s braver than that group of boys combined.

  “Oh, you’re going to pay me back alright. But it’s not going to be as easy as calling Jeeves. You’re going to keep coming to the bakery. And when I’m done with my work, you’re going to clean up. You’re going to work until you’ve done enough hours to pay the insurance deductible on that window,” I inform him and wait for the outrage.

  It doesn’t come.

  Instead, his shrewd little eyes glitter with interest. “You mean, like baking?”

  “No. I mean like cleaning up, sweeping, wiping stuff down. You can study while I bake and when I’m done, you can clean up.”