Jackson: A Sexy Bastard Novel (4 page)

“
T
his first course
is a blistered sunchoke, served with honey yogurt and rosemary salt.”

The waiter turns our plates just so. Maggie looks down with interest, and I inspect the food again.

It looks like a fucking tumor.

Correction: it looks like a fucking burst tumor that is leaking puss all over my plate.

I don’t usually order these fancy bullshit tasting menus for exactly this reason. Even though the waiter has identified what is on our plates, I don’t actually know what a sunchoke is. I’d assumed it was a vegetable, but now that it’s sitting here in front of me, I’m not so sure; it looks like it could be a gnarled little hunk of meat, or maybe some sort of giant nut.

Maggie, however, wanted to do the tasting menu. And, so, here we are.

“Mmm, this is delicious.” She’s way ahead of me, already having sliced off a bite and is now chewing contentedly.

At least with her, I got exactly what I ordered: twenty-eight and classy, with deep brown hair that falls in waves to her shoulders and a refined beauty that doesn’t try too hard. She owns an art gallery in Castleberry Hill called Wisp Gallery, which I’ve heard of but never visited, and she claims to like a lot of the same movies as I do, which is probably how E-motion matched us up in the first place. She also professes to love good food and wine, which is how we ended up at 97 Park, one of nicer establishments in Buckhead.

I know it’s pricey
, she texted, after suggesting it,
but I’ve wanted to try it ever since it opened, and I’ve never had anyone to try it with!
My friends don’t have the time.

“Are you going to try it?” Maggie is pointing her fork at my fully intact sunchoke, still sitting in its undisturbed pool of honey yogurt.

“Yeah. Of course.”

I slice off a little knob, dip it in the white sauce, and tentatively place it on my tongue. It’s . . . edible.

“So, it
is
a vegetable.” I slice off another bite, and Maggie laughs. She has perfectly straight white teeth and a big broad mouth that reminds me a little bit of Julia Roberts.

“So, you’re not a foodie, huh?” Her eyes glimmer as she raises her wineglass to her lips. “Why in the world did you let me drag you to this place, then?”

I shrug and eat my last bite. “I don’t mind trying new things. I’ve heard of this place, and wanted to try it out.”

She shakes her head, setting her wineglass out of the way as the waiter returns to remove our plates. “We could have gone somewhere more practical. I just thought . . . I don’t know. I guess I thought an architect would like this sort of thing.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “You were so clean-cut online, and dressed really nicely, so I just assumed you like nice things.”

“Who says I don’t?”

She starts to look slightly embarrassed, and I smile to let her know I’m kidding.

“So, tell me about what is going on at work,” I say, trying to redirect the conversation. “Tell me about what you’re showing in your art gallery.”

Her eyes light up, and she launches into the story behind her current exhibition, an artist she discovered from Guatemala who apparently does something incredible with different types of textured cloth. She is obviously extremely passionate about her work, which I can certainly respect. She’s found her passion, worked hard at her craft, and is now reaping the benefits. Really, she’s a lot like me.

It’s almost like…like being on a date with myself.

And that right there is a total boner killer if there ever was one.

The waiter returns with the next course.

“Here we have our mini potato-and-egg taco. On the bottom is a charred green chili crepe, topped with crispy fried potato, egg yolk, and a few dabs of cilantro pudding.”

He lays down fresh forks, straightens our wine glasses, and walks away.

I stare at the concoction before me. It looks slightly more normal than the last dish, although the phrase “cilantro pudding” doesn’t do much for my appetite. Plus, the thing’s about two bites’ worth of food. I already know I’ll be hungry the moment we step outside the restaurant.

“Bon appetit!” Maggie says, raising her knife and fork. She licks her lips.

My mind immediately flashes back to the tacos I ate last week, sitting in the driver’s seat of my car with spicy orange grease dripping down my wrist. Skylar would never come to a place like this.

“You aren’t one to dive right in, are you?” Maggie is looking at me, half of her food already gone.

I reach for the glass of wine.

“Just inspecting my food. Before I ruin the artistry.”

Maggie smiles. “You’re staring.”

You’re staring.
Skylar’s voice is in my head. I give myself a shake and focus on Maggie, a woman who is clearly in the market for a future that includes a house and a kid and maybe a dog. And I couldn’t be less interested.

Shelby would tell me to try harder.

I eat half the taco in one gulp.

“It’s delicious,” I tell her as I lick the yellow stuff—which the waiter identified as egg yolk—off the tines of my fork.

And it really is. But try as it might, it just doesn’t compare to middle-of-the-night food truck fish tacos. It doesn’t even come close.

* * *

F
ive courses later
, we’re presented with the finale: “Salted Caramel Cremeux, with Black Cocoa Sorbet.”

“This looks divine.” Maggie says to the waiter as she lifts her spoon. Meanwhile, I stare at the slowly melting concoction, trying to decide if 9:30 pm is too early to take her home.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Suddenly, my phone buzzes. The screen shows a 404 number, but there’s no name attached. I’m about to put it back in my pocket, yet my mind takes me back to that fateful night—the night when I got the call about my parent’s accident. As much as I would like to let these kinds of calls go to my voice mail, I always worry that it might be a real emergency that I can’t miss. Another life-changing emergency that could change everything all over again.

“Excuse me.” I push back my chair, holding the vibrating phone. “I have to get this.”

I make it to the corridor by the bathrooms and am just about to push Accept when the phone stops ringing. Dammit. Now I have to decide: do I call back? Normally I’d just let it go to voicemail, but the idea that Shelby might be in trouble nags at me. What if she’s hurt? And I know Knox isn’t with her . . . .

I hit redial.

F
uck fuck fuck
. He didn’t pick up. Who else can I possibly call?

But then my phone vibrates. He’s calling me back!

“Hello?” As if I don’t know who it is.

“Ruby, is that you?”

Who the fuck is Ruby? “Um, no. Hi Jackson. It’s Skylar.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

There’s a pause. I rush to fill the silence.

“Look, I’m really sorry to be calling and bothering you. You’re probably out, so if you’re busy, it’s totally fine—”

“Whoa, slow down. Everything’s fine. You’re not bothering me.”

“Oh. Ok. I mean, I was going to text you, but then I felt like that was kind of impersonal . . . especially based on what I have to ask you.”

“Which is?”

“Do you know how to change a flat tire?”

There’s a pause, and then he chuckles. “Sure, I know how to change a flat tire.”

“Okay, so that means you know where the spare tire is kept, then.”

“Yeah . . . It’s usually pretty obvious. Somewhere in the trunk.”

“That’s what I thought, but for some reason, I’m not finding it. And also, the tire iron thing, to prop up the car. That’s missing, too.”

“Do you mean the car jack?”

“Right. That.”

I feel like I ought to be embarrassed right now, but his voice is so calm and reassuring on the other end of the line, I mostly just feel relief.

“Look, where are you?”

“Right off I 285. Exit . . . um . . .” I climb out of the car, crane my neck, and squint toward the highway. “Exit 24.”

“Okay. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

The phone clicks, and I look down at the screen in wonder. No irritation, no questions—he’s just going to drop whatever he was doing. This guy, who I’ve met a grand total of two times and who didn’t even recognize my phone number, is going to help me change a flat tire.

Life is so weird.

Then again, what
was
he doing that he can just drop everything and come help me out? Shouldn’t he be out with his friends? Or on a date?

My stomach drops a little at that last possibility, but if I’m honest with myself, he
does
seem like the girlfriend type—and I know exactly where that leads. He’ll want to get serious way too fast, and then I’ll feel suffocated, if I’m not bored by then . . . basically the story of my whole life.

Skylar the heartbreaker.

Of course, that’s not quite how things went with Cory. But then again, Cory’s the whole reason I don’t do the relationship thing anymore.

God, he was fun. And to be fair, he’s exactly what I needed at that point in my life. Fresh out of Julliard, I was dancing my heart out. Morning, noon, and night were a whirlwind of ballet shoes and high heels, auditions and basement clubs. Manhattan was my stage. The world was at my feet.

And then I broke.

Two weeks into rehearsals with the American Ballet Theater, I tore my ACL. I will never forget that sound: I could actually hear the ligament ripping inside my body. And then I was on the floor. They didn’t need to tell me what had happened; we’ve all seen it happen to someone else.

Now, I was that someone else.

I must have fallen hard, because when I woke up in the ER not only did I have a torn ACL, but a concussion as well. That’s where I met Cory. If God has a sense of humor, Cory is the biggest, cruelest joke he’s ever played. He was my savior and my distraction, sneaking me extra pain meds and then duct taping my leg to the back of his motorcycle to get me home.

Once my leg healed, we high tailed it out of Manhattan on our own crazy South American adventure tour. Ziplining in Puerto Rico. Skydiving in Bermuda. And drinking. So much drinking. Rum and tequila at the clubs, and then Adderall to stay up until the sun rose, spinning and swimming and feeling everything—fully alive.

We acted like we were invincible, because that’s what we thought. A torn ACL, a life transferred from the stage to the audience—those were small deaths, sure, but they weren’t death itself. That’s what Cory helped me discover, and I loved him for it.

The asshole.

“Skylar?”

I look up from my reverie to see Jackson softly tapping at the driver’s side window. I roll it down—manually, because it’s that kind of car—lean one arm out, and greet him with a smile.

“Hey there, stranger,” I say, my voice almost a growl. An intentionally sexy tone. My smile widens at his expression. He has no idea how to handle this: the fact of my having called him, of him being here. He probably spent the entire drive asking himself what this means, if it means anything at all. Well, good. He should wonder.

“Feel like doing a little man-work tonight?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Great.”

I open the car door and step out, only to get a full look at him and stop short. He’s wearing a navy blue blazer with lapels so sharp I could probably slice my palms open on them. Underneath is a light blue dress shirt, with the top two buttons undone, revealing a few finger’s worth of strong, flat chest. His pants are perfectly pressed, creased right down to shoes that gleam at me under the streetlight.

“Shit, did I interrupt something?” I ask him, wide-eyed. He shakes his head.

“Nah, it’s fine.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down at the tire. I blink at him.

“Oh my god, you were on a date, weren’t you?”

He shifts from foot to foot, and I can tell he wants to lie. But he won’t. Feeling a sudden rush of gratitude, I step forward, I place a hand against his chest. The moment I touch him, I feel his heartbeat straight through my palm.

“Never mind. That was completely rude of me. I don’t care where you were. You’re here now, right?”

He nods mutely, and I let my hand drop.

“Okay, well come on.” I lead him toward the trunk of the car. “Let’s see your man skills.”

“
W
ow
, it’s really not there.”

I slam the trunk and put my hands on my hips. “Where did you say you got this car?”

“A friend.” Skylar folds her arms and leans up against the car. “Now what? Do I have to call a tow truck?”

I shake my head and pull out my wallet. “I have AAA.”

“My savior!” She leaps forward and throws her arms around my neck, in what I’m sure she is meant to be a mockery of the situation, but both of our bodies tense on contact. Her skin is amazingly warm, radiating through my shirt. And that lavender smell is back, with just the slightest hint of cigarette smoke. She peers up at me through pale eyelashes, her eyes a field of green.

“It’s nothing.” I pull away before she can feel me getting hard. This is ridiculous. I just cut a date short to help Skylar change a flat tire.

Skylar, a taco-eating, apparently cigarette-smoking exotic dancer. A conundrum at best. I met her last week and haven’t stopped thinking about her ever since. All the woman did was touch me on my chest and I am ready to fuck her. I don’t even like smokers. I have to calm down.

I shake my head and dial, working to steady my breathing.

“Hello? This is Jackson Masters. Eight, three, five, nine, eight, eight, six, two.” I wait as the automated menu sets up the next set of prompts. “Roadside assistance.”

Skylar is gazing out toward the highway. Her expression is thoughtful, reflective. I try to imagine what she’s thinking. Where
was
she headed, in this car of dubious origin? Her outfit offers no clues: she’s wearing a jean miniskirt with what looks like a hundred pockets sewn all over it, and a purple cotton t-shirt. Her feathery hair flutters loosely around her shoulders. Suddenly, she turns her head toward me and I realize that I haven’t been listening to the phone prompts at all.

“Um, operator? May I please speak to an operator?”

Eventually I get someone on the phone and explain the situation.

“Where do you want them to tow the car?” I ask Skylar, holding my hand over the phone’s receiver.

“Back to my friend’s place would be ideal, but it’s kind of far.”

“Where is it?”

“Lawrenceville.”

She’s right. That is far.

I repeat the address Skylar tells me into the phone, and after a bit of haggling, they agree and we hang up.

“Is your friend going to be mad?” I ask as I lead her back toward my car and open the passenger door for her. “You know, when they wake up and find their car in the driveway with a flat tire?”

“Fuck him! He left me without a spare. That’s what he gets!”

The triple “he’s” hit me like three stray bullets.

“Skylar, is this your boyfriend’s car?”

She spins toward me so fast, her hair whips straight into her mouth.

“God no!” She coughs, spitting out strands of hair, and then starts to laugh.

“Well, if it’s not your boyfriend’s, then whose car is this?”

“Marvin’s. He’s a friend-friend, not a boyfriend; trust me, he’s got a wife and a baby.”

“And you have his car because . . .”

“It’s sort of complicated.”

The way Skylar describes Marvin, he is sort of a second-hand drug dealer: he buys weed off a guy, who buys it off a guy, who buys it off a guy, and then just sells it to his friends. So he was supposed to go pick up his stash tonight, but his wife and daughter are both sick, so he called Skylar and asked her to take his car and go get his delivery. She owed him a favor and felt sort of obligated.

“Not to mention he gave me two hundred bucks for my time.” She pats one of her many pockets. “But then the jackass sends me out in his car without a spare tire! What a jerk.”

“Okay, let me get this straight.”

I run a hand through my hair, trying to wrap my mind around everything Skylar just told me. We lean against the passenger’s side where the window is rolled down. I can see her hands—fingers long and manicured—rest on the worn vinyl paneling of the door’s interior.

“You’re basically a drug runner?”

“It’s really not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” I can’t stop staring at her pocket. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before, bulging out from her hip like that. “How much money are you carrying?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t count it.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Want to? We can pretend we’re rich.”

“No.” Instead, I grab her hand and pull her over to my car. I swing the door open, reach in and open the glove box. “Just stick it in here. Then at least you don’t have to walk around with it on you.”

“What, don’t you like my bulge?” She pats it again and then looks at my lap. “I guess you do have a slightly nicer—”

I narrow my eyes.

“No. Are you going to get in trouble for failing to . . . transport the goods?”

She shakes her head.

“Nah. Like I said, he’s not that high on the druggie food chain. I’ll just give him his money back tomorrow.”

She stuffs all of the twenties into the glove compartment and is about to close it when she pauses and then returns a wad of cash to her pocket.

“But I’m keeping my commission. Plus a small bonus for unnecessary pain and suffering.”

Watching her close the glove compartment, it’s hard for me to believe everything that’s happened tonight. An hour ago, I was sitting across the table from a woman who spoke fluently about the intersection of art history and modern architecture. Now, I’m sitting beside this reckless pixie who just stuffed god knows how much money into my glove compartment while we wait for AAA to come tow away a car that belongs to a drug dealer.

Without warning, my stomach lets out an angry growl.

“Work up an appetite from all that manly labor?”

Her grin is infectious and I can’t help but shoot her one back.

“Yes, calling a tow truck is very taxing.”

My stomach growls again.

“What kind of date was this,” she asks, “that you came away starving?”

“The portions were really tiny. It was a pretty fancy place.”

“Ah.” She nods. “Well in that case, when the tow truck gets here, let’s go get something to eat. I know a place that will fill you right up.”