Cheap Shot (5 page)

“I know you’re being sarcastic, but he is
all of those things and more. You’d see that if you were willing to give him a
chance,” Sela said.

“Mom and Dad are willing to accept him.
That should tell you all you need to know.”

“They love Chad. What does that say about
him?”

“That he’s a kiss-ass,” Kiki said,
grinning. “But I’m willing to overlook that one little character flaw because
he’s great in the sack.”

Sela laughed. Her sister was right. Sela
needed to stop overanalyzing. “I think it’s great if Jaxon and Sabrina are a
couple. Maybe she can straighten him out.”

Kiki covered her mouth to stifle a yawn.
“God, you’re a terrible liar. Remind me to give you lessons some time.”

“I’m the big sister. I thought I was
supposed to be the one corrupting you, not the other way around.”

Kiki’s smile slipped. “If you still have
feelings for him, you have to tell him, sis.”

That comment was so unexpected, it took
Sela a minute to gather her wits enough to respond. “I don’t. How many times do
I have to tell you I’m over him?”

“Does it hurt to see him with someone
else?”

“We don’t even know that he’s
with
Sabrina,” she said, trying to avoid the question. “For all we know, they’re
just friends.”

“But if they’re not,” Kiki said, “if it’s
the start of something more, your last chance with him may be slipping away.
Are you sure you can live with that?”

Sela ignored the pain in her chest when she
stood and straightened her skirt. She couldn’t talk about it anymore. “We lost
our chance at happiness when he told me it was over. I learned how to live
without him, and I don’t ever intend to go back.” She was halfway to her
bedroom when her cell phone rang. Running back down the hall to get her purse,
she stubbed her toe on the corner of the table. “Damn it!”

“I don’t think you have to worry about
missing Sheldon’s call,” Kiki said, turning on the TV. “It’s way past his bed
time.”

“Who asked you, smart ass?” Sela was
stunned when she saw the name on the phone. It wasn’t Sheldon; it was Jaxon.
Why the hell was he calling her? She rushed down the hall and closed her
bedroom door so her sister couldn’t eavesdrop. “Hello?”

“Hey, Sela, did I catch you at a bad time?”

His deep voice still made her tingle in
places she had no business thinking about when talking to her ex. “No, I just
got in. What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you about something.
Do you have a minute?”

She could have claimed she was too tired to
talk, but curiosity got the best of her. “Sure.” She balanced the phone between
her shoulder and chin as she unbuttoned her blouse and tossed it on the chair
in the corner of her room before unzipping her skirt and stepping out of it.

“What are you doing?” He sounded tense.

“I’m getting ready for bed. Why?”

“Jesus, Sela, do you have to do that now?”

She didn’t appreciate his sharp tone.
“Given that it’s two in the morning and I’m dead on my feet, yeah, I do. If you
have a problem with that, you can call me at a decent hour… or not at all.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. Do your feet hurt
from wearing those high heels all night?”

Sela closed her eyes as a poignant memory
came flooding back. When she worked late at Joe’s, she’d often go to Jaxon’s
downtown penthouse instead of heading home. He would usually be up waiting for
her, and he’d slip off her shoes as soon as she sat down so he could rub her
feet. It was so intense, so erotic, they usually didn’t make it to the bed
before the rest of her clothes came off.

“You’re thinking about what would have
happened if you’d come to my place tonight instead of going home,” he whispered.

“No, I’m not.” She pressed her hand against
her stomach when she felt the familiar flutter of excitement only Jaxon could
elicit. God, she missed that. She thought of slipping on a nightgown but
decided against it. Her sheets were cool against her skin, making her suppress
a little moan. She needed to cool off. She was getting way too hot.

“What are you wearing, beautiful?”

She attempted to laugh at the tired line,
but the sound got lodged in her throat. There was nothing funny about where his
mind was headed. “You need new material, Jax.”

“God, I miss you so much.” His voice
sounded strained, as though pain was blocking his airway. “It hurts just
thinking about where we’d be now if I hadn’t messed everything up.”

A tear glided down her cheek when she
turned to look out the window. She spotted a star, but it was too late for her
wish to come true. “We can’t go back.” When she realized she sounded
remorseful, she forced herself to say, “I don’t want to go back.”

“Really? Are you sure about that?”

The silence was deafening as Jaxon
waited for her to respond. He was crossing the line by asking that question
before she was ready to answer, but when he saw her leave the bar at the end of
her shift, it had taken everything in him not to chase her down. He’d wanted to
take her back to his place and love her as he had hundreds of times. But when
she told him she loved him, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to roll over and fall
asleep without responding.

“Say something,” he said quietly. “Please.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Her
voice was shaky. “I missed you so much I could barely breathe the first few
weeks.” She took a deep breath. “But I got better. I stopped waiting for you to
call and tell me you’d made a huge mistake.”

“I did make a mistake, the biggest mistake
of my life, baby.”

“You don’t get to say that to me now,” she
cried. “You should have said it then, when I was dying to hear it. But I don’t
want to hear it anymore. Don’t you get that? I don’t want you to make me feel
anything!”

Jaxon was encouraged by the fact he could
still make her feel something. “I’m sorry, you’re right.” He had to back off
unless he wanted her to tell him where he could shove his job. “I have no right
to walk back into your life like I didn’t turn it upside down.”

“You’re right. You don’t. If you ever cared
about me, you’d be happy that I’m happy.”

In theory, she was right, but she was
asking the impossible. No way could he be happy that she’d found another man to
love her. “Are you happy with him, or are you just pretending to be?”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “If that’s
what you called to ask me, I’m hanging up now.”

“It’s not. This is about Sabrina.”

A beat of silence passed before she asked,
“What about her?”

“I’d like to bring her to your sister’s
wedding… as my date.” He hated himself for trying to make her believe Sabrina
would ever be more than his friend. “I was wondering if you’d be okay with
that?”

“I don’t even understand why you want to
come,” she said, sounding frustrated.

“I spent a lot of time with Chad and Kiki
when we were together. We were close, and I’d love to see them take their vows.
Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“Maybe because you always claimed you
thought weddings were a waste of time? You said you didn’t understand why
people felt the need to stand in front of their friends and family and recite a
bunch of meaningless words when half the time it ended in front of a judge
deciding who would get the china and bread maker.”

Jaxon winced. He remembered saying those
words, but more importantly, he remembered the flash of hurt in her eyes when
she realized they’d never walk down the aisle together. “I really was a cynical
bastard, wasn’t I?”

“People don’t change that much in the span
of a year.”

“Maybe most people don’t, but I did.”

“Oh yeah? What caused this epiphany?”

“I don’t want to end up like my mother:
bitter, alone, and hateful.”

“How is your mother?” she asked gently.

“I just told you how she is.” It was still
hard to think of his mother confined to a home, no matter how luxurious it was.
She’d been a free-spirit who loved to live life, especially when it was on his
dime.

“You’re the one who sounds bitter and
resentful now.”

“Maybe I am. I realize now how much she
took from me, all the years she spent making me feel guilty and indebted to
her.” He hadn’t talked to Sela about his childhood when they were together,
mainly because he was ashamed, but opening up to her would help prove that he
wasn’t the same man. “Whether she meant to or not, she made me feel responsible
for my father’s death.”

“That’s terrible,” Sela whispered. “She
didn’t actually say that, did she?”

“She didn’t have to. She implied it all the
time.”

“How?”

Jaxon closed his eyes as he remembered her
nasally voice reprimanding him for doing all the things kids do, like playing
with a ball in the house or forgetting his homework at school. “She’d tell me
how much my father used to hate it when I did this or that. She’d say maybe if
I’d tried harder, behaved better, he’d still be with us.”

Sela gasped. “She did not say that.”

“Yeah, she did.” He didn’t want Sela to
feel sorry for him; he just wanted her to understand how he’d grown into a man
who would force an amazing woman like her out of his life. “When I ended things
with you, I began to realize something.”

“What’s that?”

“I let what happened when I was a kid
define me.” He stared at the ceiling, admiring the crystal light fixture that
had cost more than most people earned in six months. He thought about how
little he cared about his material possessions. “I was afraid of becoming my
father, someone who took the easy way out when things got hard.”

“So you toughened up and refused to let
anyone get the best of you.”

“I was still letting my mother get the best
of me though.” He rolled onto his side. He wondered how Sela would feel if she
knew he kept a framed picture of her on his nightstand. “Until I lost you.
That’s when everything started to change. I realized I’d given her a hell of a
lot more than she deserved, and it was time to take my life back.”

“But you still go to see her, don’t you?”

Jaxon wasn’t surprised by her question.
Sela was one of the most compassionate women he’d ever known, and she’d hate
the thought of his ill mother living the rest of her life in confinement and
alone. His last visit to see his mother ran through his mind, and he wondered
why he still made the effort. She didn’t even know who he was anymore, and she
was so filled with rage that she lashed out at anyone within a few feet of her.
“Sure, I do. She’s still my mother.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” She sighed.
“Regardless of what you say, I know you’d never be able to live with yourself
if you abandoned her when she needed you most.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Jaxon?” she asked, sounding hesitant.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“Why did you abandon me when I needed you?”

That innocent question tore through him,
leaving his heart open and exposed. “I’m so sorry I did that, Sela. If there’s
one single thing in my life I could take back, it would be that.”

“I have to go now,” she said, as though
rehashing the past was too emotionally taxing. “I have to get some sleep.”

“About the wedding—”

“Of course you can bring Sabrina. For what
it’s worth, I think she’s a great girl, Jaxon.”

He wanted to say that as beautiful and
smart as Sabrina was, she paled in comparison to Sela, but if he did, his
reason for attending the wedding would be painfully obvious. “Yeah, I think so
too. Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For talking to me tonight. For listening.”
It had been a long time since he’d opened up to anyone about his family. There
was more he hadn’t told her, but he hoped he could fill in the missing puzzle
pieces later, when they were closer to finding their way back to each other.
“It helped a lot.”

“Thank you for confiding in me. It helped
me understand why you were the way you were when we were together. I think I
needed that closure. For so long, I thought there was something wrong with me,
and that’s why you couldn’t love me. Now I know you weren’t capable of loving
anyone back then.”

Closure?
What
the hell was she talking about? He was trying to repair the rift he’d caused,
not give her the closure to move on with her life. “Uh, listen, maybe we could
grab a drink when you get off work tomorrow night? I’d love to hear about what
you’ve been up to, and your plans for when you finish school.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think
that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

She sighed. “Have you forgotten I have a
boyfriend?”

How could he forget? “So you’re not allowed
to have male friends?”

She laughed. “We both know it’s not a good
idea to get too friendly with someone you used to sleep with. Good night,
Jaxon.”

“Good night.” He wanted to say more, to try
to change her mind about spending time with him, but before he could, the line
went dead. “I love you, Sela.”

*   *   *

“Are you listening to this, Sela? Your
sister has lost her mind!”

Sela forced her attention back to her
mother’s rant about which flowers should be attached to the pews. She was being
forced to endure another wedding lunch with her mother and sister before her
late afternoon shift at High Rollers. Sela took a sip of her sparkling water.
She was tired of being the peace-maker between her head-strong mother and
sister. For all Sela cared, they could attach hot pink balloons to the church pews.
“I’m sure it will be lovely either way.”

“Why do you seem so distracted today?”
Andrea Richards asked as she smoothed a hand over her coiffed silver bob, or as
Kiki liked to call it,
The Helmet
. “I hope you and Sheldon aren’t having
problems?”

“The problem is that Jaxon’s back in the
picture.” Kiki looked positively gleeful as their mother’s face transformed
from annoyance to shock and dismay.

Andrea’s jaw dropped, but she snapped it
shut when she saw their waiter approaching. Before he could offer to refill
their drinks, Andrea waved him away. “You can’t be serious. Why would you want
anything to do with that dreadful man after what he did to you?”

Her parents had never been Jaxon’s biggest
fans, but since he broke her heart, he was at the top of their hit list.

“People make mistakes, Mother.” Sela was
surprised to find herself repeating Jaxon’s claim. She never thought she’d be
able to forgive him, but she had sensed genuine sincerity in his words last
night. Maybe he had changed. Or maybe she was just a sentimental fool looking
for something that wasn’t there.

“Don’t tell me he’s trying to con you into
giving him another chance.” Andrea tossed her white linen napkin over her
half-eaten chicken salad. “I can’t believe you’d be foolish enough to fall for
his lies again. Didn’t you learn anything the first time? That man can’t be
trusted. He’ll hurt you again if you let him get too close.”

“I guess that means you didn’t tell Mama
about your new job,” Kiki said, smiling sweetly as she reached for her diet soda.

Sela was going to kill her little sister.
Sela had hoped to keep her parents in the dark about her job at High Rollers,
since it was only a temporary arrangement. “I haven’t had a chance yet.”

“What new job?” Andrea looked from one
daughter to the other. “What happened to Joe’s?”

“He had to let me go,” Sela said, trying
not to feel ashamed that she’d been fired from what her mother considered a
menial job that was so far beneath her it was laughable. “Things were kind of
slow, and the full-timers needed the hours.”

“So what’s this about a new job?” Andrea
asked. “Where are you working, and why are your father and I the last ones to
know about it?”

“Dylan offered me a job at High Rollers as
a hostess in their V.I.P. lounge,” Sela said, feeling the need to inform her
mother the offer hadn’t come directly from Jaxon.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Andrea said,
pressing her fingertips to her temple. Her mother had a flair for dramatics,
especially when she had a captive audience.

“Please, it’s not like I told you I’m
working as a stripper.”

Kiki laughed out loud, slapping her palm
against the table. “That’s a good one, Sela.”

Andrea looked around the upscale country
club to determine if anyone had witnessed her younger daughter’s outburst.
“Kindly keep your voice down, young lady. You’re not in one of those classless
sports bars now.”

“High Rollers is not a classless sports
bar,” Sela said through clenched teeth. “Quite the opposite. A lot of very
famous, very powerful people frequent their establishment.”

“Athletes,” Andrea said with disdain. “You
know how I feel about people who make an obscene amount of money for throwing a
ball around.”

Andrea was on the board of dozens of local
charities. While she claimed she loved giving back to the community, Sela and
Kiki knew she did it because she enjoyed organizing black-tie fundraisers.

Sela reached for her water glass. “Careful,
Mother. A lot of those athletes donate a lot of money to your causes.”

Andrea adjusted the cuffs of her white silk
blouse, fixating on the way the diamonds decorating her hand caught the light.
“I never said they were worthless. I just said they’re overpaid.”

“Kind of like Jaxon?” Kiki asked, tongue in
cheek. “Can you imagine how huge his dividend checks are now? How many bars do
they have, sis? Fifty? Sixty?”

Sela glared at Kiki. “I really don’t know.
Why don’t you ask Jaxon when you see him at the wedding?” It was time for Kiki
to get a taste of her own medicine.