Hate Me Today (Save Me #3) (11 page)

Vanessa

I curl myself into Jason even though it probably isn’t the best idea. Who cares though, half the ideas I have could wreck me somehow. I know I need to slow this down though. Everything
has been on the fast forward since we hashed it all out this morning and as much as I don’t want to think about it, our past isn’t the best way to start whatever is going on here.

I breathe deep, inhaling whatever it is Jason smells like. It’s unique and I can’t quite put my finger on what it is but it makes me want to keep breathing him in.

“Why is it that no matter what I seem to do, you’re just willing to forgive me?”

I shift back so I can see his face, thinking for a minute while he watches me. “A few reasons I guess. One, you saved me from Zach even though you hated me. That could have gone a totally different way and I wouldn’t be here today. Two,” I say, holding my fingers up, “since you haven’t spent all your time trying to piss me off and make me quit, touring and working has been great. And three
, if there’s something I’ve learned from being sick, it’s that life’s too short to be unhappy. So you have to take chances and not hold grudges or it’s going to bite you in the ass.”

“You think it’s that simple? Just let it go and everything will be fine?” Based on the look on his face he thinks I’m feeding him a line of bullshit.

“Yeah, I do actually. Could I be a bitch and tell you to go fuck yourself because of everything you’ve ever said or done? Yeah, probably, but I won’t. I know it takes a stronger person to forgive and forget than to hold that grudge and push back. That just ends up making everyone unhappy.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t think it could be that easy. As much as I just want to forget every bad thing that’s ever happened to me or every shitty thing I’ve ever done, I just don’t think I can.”

“You never know unless you try.”

Jason laughs, his head falling back and I can’t do anything but stare at him. “You sound like my third grade teacher. You just think that if we forget everything I ever did to you, it’ll just go away? Just like that?”

“Kind of, yeah. I think that if we start off as friends, build something off of that, we might stand a chance at overcoming everything that’s happened between us.”

“Friends?” He asks, the look in his eyes tells me he’s not so sure. I nod, standing up from his lap.

I bite my lip and hold my hand out for him to shake, waiting until he takes my hand to speak. “Friends. As much as I would like to just jump back into bed with you, I think it’s the only way we’re going to get through this tour without killing each other.”

Jason narrow’s his eyes, smirking
, “As much as you just want to jump back into bed with me?”

Shit, I said that out loud didn’t I?
I straighten my back and own my words.

“It’s sex
, Jason. Usually sex is good, sex with you… was fucking great. But, I think we need to try this first.”

He stands,
stalks to where I’m standing and backs me against the wall. My breath hitches, my body trembling and I know he can tell. There’s not a damn thing I can do to change how much he affects me and the closer he gets, the harder it is to resist him.

“Fucking great? I can agree with that but I don’t remember a bed anywhere when I slid inside you. I don’t remember a bed when you screamed my name as your pussy tightened like a vice around my cock.” His lips get closer to mine with every word. I want to kiss him, to get a repeat performance of everything he’s saying but I just got done saying how we should be friends.

“You think this is going to work?” I clear my throat, pushing him back a few inches.

He smirks
, “I bet if I said anything else, like how wet and tight your pussy was or how it felt like heaven when I was buried inside you, you’d be forgetting about the friends shit pretty quick.”

I slip out around him before I let it get any further. The ache between my thighs is begging me to go back, to let him take whatever he wants from me, making me feel good. I don’t because I know I will regret that more in the end. Instead
, I tell him to get out of my room so I can finish my wine in peace.

Vanessa

I rest my hands above my head and arch my back, stretching the sore muscles from all the jumping around I did at last night’s show. I feel the hem of my shirt rise up my stomach and Jason clears his throat from the booth directly across the bus from the couch I'm on. I lift my head, meeting Jason's intense, heat filled gaze after his eyes rake over me.
The more I tell myself I can do this just friends shit, the more I know I am totally lying to myself.

I grab the bottom of my shi
rt, tugging it down as fast as I can and sit up before either one of us has a chance to do anything stupid. I pull my knees up to my chest and start stuffing pretzels into my mouth, making myself look as unappealing as I possibly can.

Jason chuckles but drops his head back to the notepad in front of him. I'm just about to ask him what he's working on when the door to the bus opens and Tuesday and Payton, Ironsound’s lawyer, climb the stairs. The look on their faces tells me they are livid but it’s nothing compared to Jason's when an older man steps up behind them.

"Mr. Jackson," the older man sneers at Jason, running his hand over his expensive looking but way too tight black suit.

Jason growls, actually growls at the man
, and pushes out of the booth. The sound does something funny to me but I can't dwell on it because the look on his face kind of scares the hell out of me. Two steps toward him and Tuesday intervenes, pressing her hands against his chest and telling him to sit his ass back down.

"Whatever they said I did this time, I didn't."
Jason's words catch me off guard and I'm no longer wondering if that's the same sound he would make if I was riding him.

"Stop!" Tuesday yells. She points to the guy in the suit, and points at the chair at the other end of the couch. "You sit there, and Jason if you move I will hurt you."

"What are you doing here, Tim?" Jason bites out.

The Tim guy starts to respond with a snide tone in his voice but Tuesday cuts him off.

"There were three things I specifically said not to do when you guys were on tour and they all involved me having to drag Payton away from her family to deal with you guys."

My eyes drift to Payton. She leans back in the chair, crossing her long legs before pulling her gorgeous blonde hair to one side of her neck. Her eyes never leave Tuesday's lips as she tries to keep up with what is being said.

If it weren't for the fact that she has to be looking at your mouth while you're talking, you would probably never realize Payton was deaf. I couldn't figure it out the first day I met her, stupidly I just figured she had a speech impediment but Abby set me straight when Payton wasn't looking at us.

Tuesday snaps her fingers at me, regaining my attention.
"No jail time, no pregnancy scares, no bar fights.” She counts off on her fingers. “That's all I asked for. I honestly don't understand how you guys couldn't just do those simple things for me. Behave, wrap your junk and don't start shit. But no, here where are. Do you think I like scolding you like children? Because I don't! But it seems like every time I turn around I'm smacking one of you upside the head. Whether it's for acting like an ass to each other or something like this.”

“Something like what? What the hell did I do this time?” Jason crosses his arms over his chest and scowls while he waits for an answer.

Tim leans forward, drawing a wad of papers from his inside suit pocket and rests his forearms on his knees. “You haven’t done anything, this time. She has though.” He tosses the papers on the couch by my feet. “Vanessa Knox. You’ve been served.”

What. The. Fuck?

He doesn’t even wait for my reaction before he bolts off the bus. I pull my feet closer to my chest, as far away from the papers as possible. Like they might burn me if I touch them. My mind races a mile a minute trying to figure out what the hell I could have possibly done to get sued.

“Motherfucker!” Jason roars, his fist pounding off the table. “What the hell are my parents suing Vanessa for?”

“Assault,” Payton chimes in while I continue to just sit there like an idiot.

“What! Who the fuck did she assault?”

Thankfully, Payton grabs the papers and moves them away from me. I finally manage to untangle myself and stand up, pacing the short hallway while she reads off whatever is written on the summons in her hands.

She talks and talks but the only thing I pick up on are the facts that I’m being sued by Jason’s mother for causing her all this harm when I “assaulted” her. I whip my head around when I hear Jason tell her to give him the papers and he curses.

“Vanessa, come here,” he demands, his voice hitting something deep inside me. I don’t hesitate and walk over to him. He pulls me down between his thighs, framing me with his arms while he holds the papers in front of me.

I try to pay attention to what they are talking about, I really do
. But my mind wanders to the last time Jason had his arms wrapped around me and how I gave up the chance at anything with him. How fucking stupid was I to think I could actually make this work? I can feel Tuesday and Payton staring at us but he doesn’t budge and I don’t dare to move because the heat from his body is the only thing keeping me calm right now. Jason shifts my hair out of his way so he can see the papers and photos in front of me, letting his breath hitting the skin on my neck.

“Jason’s mother is claiming you assaulted her and that those were the extent of her injuries,” Payton says as she slides into the seat across from us.

I grab the stack of pictures from Jason’s hands and spread them across the small table. His mother’s face and body fill every one. Bruises and cuts cover her body.

“What the fuck,” I mutter to myself. “I slapped her, her face barely even turned red. I may have thought about doing this shit to her when she was talking shit about her kids and me
, but I swear all I did was slap her when she got in my face at the hospital.”

“I watched it,” Jason chimes in, “my mother walked out of the hospital right after it happened with none of that shit. Sorry, she was escorted out.”

Payton pulls her notepad from her bag and starts jotting stuff down, never taking her eyes off of us.

“When did this happen?” she inquires.

“The day we got back for the last week long break. When Abby had to cancel our appearances for two days.” I talk absentmindedly, trying to figure out what the hell is happening right now.

“And you guys haven’t seen her since?”

I shake my head no and Jason says something about him never seeing her. A part of me feels bad for him because he has parents like that but the other part knows he’s better off without them. I don’t have the best relationship with my parents but at least I know they mean well. Well, most of the time.

“What can I do?” I whisper. “How can I make this go away?”

Jason pushes against me, telling me to get out the seat. He mutters something about taking care of shit as he storms off the bus, leaving me there wondering what the hell he’s going to do and what the hell I’m going to do to keep myself in check around him.

Jason

I hit the ground outside the bus, coming off the steps with such force I'm really surprised I didn't break something. With my phone in my hand I slam the door behind me and start dialing. The first ten or eleven tries ring through to voicemail on their own. I know she's sitting there staring at her phone in disgust when my number flashes.
I also know that it's just my number. The mutual hate we have for each other keeps us from putting each other into the contacts but her number is burned into my brain. I used to think I could make things better with my family but came to realize that there is no use trying to fix something this fucked up. I keep redialing, knowing sooner or later my mother will get sick of the phone ringing and answer. If not, I'll just start calling the house.  Calls twelve through twenty three ring once and then get sent to voicemail.

My blood is boiling more and more every time I have to hit the end and send button over again. I'm just about to hang up again when the call connects.

"Calling me repeatedly is just going to make things worse and I will bring up the harassment with my lawyer."

"Who'd you get to beat you up this time mom? Was it dad this time too? Or are you finally bring
ing Nate in on the scam you've used more than once." I'm met with silence on the other end. I pull the phone back just to make sure she hadn't hung up. "Didn't think I remembered that? Drop the charges."

"I don't need this shit. I'm not going to drop anything. That little bitch assaulted me-"

"No," I cut her off, "she slapped you. She defended your children even though she didn't have to and you started it by making her feel threatened."

I hear her bustl
ing around on the other end of the line. "I have one child. Nate. I don't claim you or the other one anymore. You're both such disappointments, you doing what you did and him being..." she trails off and I know it's because she doesn't want to admit the truth.

"Say it. Say Carter is gay. Your son is gay and that's something you can't handle but you need to learn how to. Me
, on the other hand, I am a piece of shit. I deserve every bad thing I have coming and I know it. I don't want to be claimed as your son."

I stare out over the parking lot while she bitches about what a piece of shit I am. It's nothing new and I agree with every single thing she says. I am shit. I did do something horrible when I was a teenager and I am an asshole that deserves to be unhappy for the rest of my life. I just happened to fall into this life and make something out of myself. I don't deserve it though. I pull the flask out of my back pocket and tip the contents into my mouth.

"You know most people would just want their children to be happy. That's it. No expectations other than that, but not you guys. I bet if Carter had succeeded with killing himself, you wouldn't have even gone to his funeral."

"You've got that right," she laughs. She fucking laughs and it takes all my will power not to throw the phone and smash it.

"You are the biggest piece of shit that I have ever met. Maybe even bigger than me and you know how hard it is to be worse than me. Here's the way this is going to fucking work. You are going to drop every fucking charge you filed against Vanessa right now. You will hang up, you will call that piece of shit lawyer and you will drop them. Do you understand me?"

"Or what? What do you think you could possible do to make me do that?" my mother quips through the phone.

I take another drink before answering her. "I'll will find a way to unseal my juvenile record and leak it to the press myself. Everyone knows I'm your son even if you don't admit to it. I will make sure that every single person knows what I did and I know how much you don't want to tarnish your golden reputation. I will make a public announcement about it and make sure that I drop your name and the fact that it was your alcohol stash that caused it."

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, I would. And on top of that, I'll go find Darryl Huff and get him to press charges against you for false accusations." I pause, listening to her stammer over words as she tries to come up with something to say. "You didn't think I knew about that, did you? Clearly you underestimate me. Don't ever underestimate me."

"You can't do this to me," she cries, her voice is barely a whisper. "You can't do this to your father or your brother. It will ruin us."

"Drop. The. Charges." I bite out. "Or I go public."

It doesn't even take her a second to get the words out that she will call her scumbag lawyer and have everything dropped. It's good to know that her reputation means more to her and my father than her children do.
I hang up the phone and slide it back into my pocket before I do something stupid to it just to get some aggression out.

"What all that about?"

I spin around when Vanessa's voice pops up behind me and I can't help but wonder how much of that she caught. I don't want her to know about my past. I don't want her to realize just how much of a piece of shit I am. She's the only person other than Carter to make me feel like I am better than my past even after all the shit I did to her.

I shake my head and try to force a smile. "Nothing to worry about."

Vanessa steps up to me and crosses her arms over her chest. We're close enough that if I were to bend forward I could kiss her. Shit, why can't I just think about her like I think about Tuesday and Abby?

"Don't lie to me. I've seen you worked up, I've seen you pissed off but I could actually
feel
your anger when you jumped off the bus and it's only gotten worse."

Her hand comes up to rest on my bicep and I can't help myself
; I push her back a few steps until her back hits the side of the bus. The word "friends" repeats itself in my head again and again even though all I want to do is touch her. This shit is harder than I thought it would be.

"It's nothing. I promise. I just did what needed to be done to get those stupid charges dropped. I bet if you go inside Payton should be getting a phone call any second to tell her they're gone."
Vanessa's eyes drop to my mouth and her tongue flicks out over her bottom lip. I can't help but wonder if she's having as hard of a time with this as I am. I step back just as the bus door opens again, Payton and Tuesday step off and start toward us.

“Everything al
l right now?” I ask without taking my eyes off of Vanessa.

“Yeah,” Tuesday chuckles. I see her out of the corner of my eye watching us like hawks. “Sorry I went off on you guys, we’ll just leave you to do whatever you were doing before we barged onto the bus.”

Tuesday leans up, kissing my cheek and whispering in my ear that I better fill her in later. I finally turn away from Vanessa so I can say goodbye and shake Payton’s hand, thanking her for coming all the way out here for nothing. By the time they’re gone, so is Vanessa.

Well I guess I don’t have to worry about taking things too far now.