Nova 05 Ruin Me (3 page)

“Thanks for tonight,” she whispers then ducks in and closes the door.

A hint of a smile touches my lips as I round the back of the car. I hop in, rev up the engine, and then maneuver past the cars toward the road.

Clara retrieves her phone from her pocket. “I just need to text my ride and tell them I’m going home with someone else,” she explains as her fingers hammer against the buttons.

“Dana?” I wonder as I drive toward the one ice cream parlor in town that’s open this late.

She shakes her head. “No… Lyle gave me a ride here from work.”

“Oh.” I frown, feeling more jealous than I probably should. She’s not mine. She can ride with whomever she wants.

“Don’t be like that. Lyle and I are just friends.” She reads me like an open book. “He had the same shift as me tonight and offered me a ride so I didn’t have to take the bus.”

“
We’re
just friends.” As soon as I say it, I wince, wanting to retract the words. “Sorry, can we just pretend I didn’t say that?”

“As long as you’ll stop being a weirdo about me getting a ride with Lyle. I don’t think of him like that. I don’t even find him attractive.”

“But you find me attractive.” I waggle my brows at her. “In fact, you find me so attractive that you’re going to buy me cookie dough ice cream.”

She sets her phone down on the dash. “How on earth does that prove I’m attracted to you?”

I shrug as I turn into the parking lot of the dimly lit ice cream store. “It doesn’t, but I want you to buy me ice cream so I won’t feel so cheap and used after the dirty stuff you did to me tonight.” I flash her a lopsided grin as I park the car.

“After all the dirty stuff
I
did to you tonight?” She opens the door to get out. “Yeah, because you played no part in it.”

I elevate my hands in front of me. “I was just lying there on the desk when you reached around and grabbed my ass.”

“Jax,” she hisses as a group of guys stroll by, “not so loud.”

“Why? You shouldn’t be embarrassed. Any guy would love for you to grab—”

She leans over the console and covers my mouth with her hand. The guys outside have stopped to listen, their attention causing Clara to boil with irritation. “You don’t need to tell the whole world.”

“Why? No one cares.” My lips brush against her palm as I speak. “You don’t know those guys over there, so what does it matter?” I don’t want to fight with her. I only want her to say it, whatever it is that’s stopping her from admitting she likes me.

“Because it does.” An exhale eases from her lips then she lowers her hand from my mouth. “Now, can we please, pretty please, go get some ice cream? My treat. I’ll even have them put extra cookie dough on yours.”

I briefly consider refusing to get out of the car until she confesses her secret, but then a silent plea floods her eyes. It’s the same look that got me into this situation to begin with—where I’m her friend/fuck buddy when really I want to be her friend turned lover.

“Fine,” I surrender, opening the door. “But I’m only getting out for the extra cookie dough.”

She smiles, then jumps out of the Jeep, and shuts the door. We cross the parking lot and stroll into the store. My phone starts vibrating as I’m scanning the menu, so I fish it out of my pocket. Tapping a few buttons, I open my texts while breathing in the sugary smelling air. Man, there’s something about ice cream after sex that makes my mouth salivate.

Clara moves up to the counter to order while I check my texts. I quickly realize I have a new voicemail not a text. Strange, since I didn’t even hear my phone ring.

The call was from an unknown number, but I don’t think too much about it until I play the message and hear
her
voice.

“Hey, Jax, baby,” my mother says in the high-pitched tone she uses whenever she’s stoned. Even after not speaking to her for over two years, I still tense at the sound of her voice. “I was just calling to see how you were… see how stuff was going in North Carolina…” I hear rustling in the background then the bang of a door shutting.

“Okay, look.” Her voice rings with panic. “I need you to come home. I’ve gotten myself into a bit of trouble with the wrong people and if I don’t give them money, things are going to end badly. Jax, please pick up the phone. I know I’ve been a really shitty mother, but I’m still your mother and I—” Shouting cuts her off. “Jax help me. Marcus is going to k—.” It’s the last thing she says before the line goes dead.

I move the phone away from my ear and gape at the screen. Even with all the messes my mother has gotten herself into over the years, I’ve never heard her that worried. I don’t want to care about what’s going on, but I find my mind racing with different scenarios. All centered around one main thought, based on the last thing she said. She didn’t fully get out what she was going to say, but my mind fills in the blanks.

Marcus is going to kill me.

Jax

For the next several seconds, time passes by in slow motion. I have no clue who Marcus is, but my bet is he’s a drug dealer my mom pissed off, maybe enough to kill her.

As Clara’s paying for the ice cream, I manage to snap out of my trance and dial back the number my mother made the call from. My pulse quickens when the operator announces the line has been disconnected.

“What the hell?” I mutter, checking the time and date of the missed call.

Yesterday morning. God dammit! I really need to stop ignoring my phone so much.

“Is everything okay?” Clara asks as she hands me a heaping cup of cookie dough ice cream. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I distractedly take the ice cream from her, still clutching my phone. “Heard from one is more like it.”

Her gaze falls to my phone. “Who was it?”

I look from my phone to the ice cream then at her. Her expression carries compassion, her lips are slightly swollen from our kissing, and her hair is tangled from me running my fingers through the strands. I want to focus on her and forget about the call. Want to live in the present, not the past. But my mother’s fearful voice is making it difficult to think about anything else.

Jax, help me.

“It was my mom,” the words slip from my lips.

Clara’s eyes pop wide. “Your
mom
was just on the phone? The mom you haven’t spoken to since you moved here?”

“Well, it was only a voicemail, but yeah.” Not knowing what else to do, I shovel a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.

Clara absentmindedly stirs her ice cream as she studies me. “What did she want?”

The cashier is eavesdropping on the conversation as he refills the sprinkles, so I take Clara by the elbow and steer her toward the door. Once we’re outside, I let go of her and jerk my fingers through my hair.

“She said she needed help. That she’s in trouble with some guy named Marcus. That he’s going to kill her. Then the line went dead.” I blow out a stressed breath. “I know I shouldn’t be worried—she doesn’t deserve my worry—but I am.”

“Jax, she’s your mom, and you’re a good person, so of course you’re going to worry.” She pauses. “Do you care if I listen to the message? Or is that too personal?”

I easily hand over the phone. I trust her, despite the fact that she doesn’t trust me yet. She puts the phone up to her ear, and her skin pales as she listens to the message.

“I think you should call the cops,” she says as she hands me back the phone.

“And tell them what?” I start across the parking lot toward my car. “I’m not even sure what happened exactly. I tried to call my mom back but the line’s been disconnected. That’s normal, though. When I was growing up, I hardly ever had phone service because she’d spend the bill money on drugs.”

“Couldn’t you call someone back home to go check on her?”

“I don’t talk to anyone back at home anymore.”

“You could always file a missing person’s report. Then the police at least have to go look at the house, especially if someone is after her.” She stuffs a spoonful of gooey ice cream into her mouth.

“I doubt they’ll check on her, even with the voicemail.” I pat my pockets for my keys then open the door for Clara. “Not just because she’s an adult and there’s a certain amount of time she has to be missing, but because the police are way too aware that she pulls this kind of shit all the time.”

My mother has made it habit of vanishing over the years. Avery and I used to file reports when she was missing for more than a few days, but when I reached the age of about sixteen, I realized it was pointless. The police had stopped putting effort into finding a woman who had countless misdemeanors, including drug possession, prostitution, and assault.   Besides, she always came back eventually.

She’ll come back again.

She always does.

But she sounded so scared. My mother rarely sounds terrified since she can’t usually feel fear through the heavy amount of drugs in her system.

“I have an aunt that lives in the same town,” I tell Clara as she slides into the torn leather seat of the Jeep. “I haven’t talked to her in forever and she absolutely hates my mother, but maybe I could call her and convince her to go check on things.”

“I still think you should call the police first and see if they’ll do it.” She straps the seatbelt over her shoulder. “After that message, it’d be better for the police to check up on her.”

I sigh heavily. I’ve already falsely reported her missing over a dozen times. Worried or not, the idea of calling the police is embarrassing. Still, after hearing her message, I’d be a shitty son if I didn’t. “Fine, I’ll give it a try.”

“Do it as soon as you can.” Clara smoothes her thumb between my brows, erasing the worry lines. “So you don’t have to worry.” Her eyes widen at the awareness of her intimate gesture and she hastily withdraws her hand.  “I should get home. It’s getting late.”

Nodding, I close the door.

We make the short drive to her house eating our ice cream and listening to Coldplay, and don’t really speak much until we’re pulling up to the two-story apartment complex she lives in.

Like every other night when I drop her off, her muscles wind into knots when she reaches for the door to get out.

“Thanks for tonight.” Even though the cab is dark, I can feel her blushing. “I had fun.”

“Anytime.” I force a light tone, despite the worry jostling around inside me.

“Call me if you need anything.” She pushes open the door, then swings her feet to the curb and slides out.  She starts to shut the door, but pauses. “You know what? Call me tomorrow and let me know what happens. I want to know you’re okay.” She closes the door and hurries up the sidewalk toward the entrance doors of the complex.

Elation swells inside my chest, but it quickly deflates as I start the drive to my house, wondering what to do about my mother. What if she’s already dead? Do I really care? Guilt forms a big, old, air-restricting lump in my throat. Whether I love or hate my mother, I still need to find out what happened to her.

As soon as I make it home, I call the police department. I use the house phone so I can play the officer the message. He tells me they’ll check up on it, but only out of obligation.

“Jax, you know she does this stuff all the time,” Officer Del Monterlis sounds really annoyed, as if my phone call has ruined his entire night.

“I know, but I need you to at least swing by her place and check up on her. She said she was in trouble with Marcus. And it sounded like she said he was going to kill her before she got cut off.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

I sink down onto the mattress. “What else would the k stand for?”

He sighs into the receiver. “Fine, I’ll stop by and see if I can find any signs of foul play, but I’ll put money on it that the message you got was simply over the fact that she was under the influence. She’s been arrested for drug possession and driving under the influence three times over the past two months. In fact, she might have left you the message so she could stage her disappearance and avoid her trial.”

Sadly, he could be right.

“As for this Marcus guy,” he continues, “he has a rep for dealing, but that’s about it, so I’m guessing, if he did threaten her, it was an empty threat. You know how those things go when someone’s living that type of lifestyle.”

“Yeah, I know.” I thank him for his help, and then we hang up with the promise of him calling me back. I decide not to tell Avery until I hear back from him.  There’s no point in getting her all riled up if this turns out to be nothing.

By the time I lie down to go to bed, it’s after two o’clock in the morning. I fall asleep quickly but sleep like shit for most of the night, tossing and turning and constantly waking up.

When my phone rings at sunrise, I’m already up and dressed. I answer it, crossing my fingers it’s Del and he’ll have good news.

“We didn’t find her,” Del immediately tells me after I say hello. “And, other than the door being busted in, the house is about as trashed as it was the last time I was over there.”

“Why was the door busted in?” I sit down on the edge of the bed and stare out the window. The sun is shining in the clear sky, and the trees are green with leaves. So bright and cheery, yet I feel so dark inside. “That has to be suspicious, right?”

“Normally, yes, but when it comes to your mother, not really. Every time we get a call from her, the house is trashed in one way or another, usually from the people she lets into her home.”

“But what if that’s not the reason this time? What if she really is in trouble?”

“There’s still not much we can do. She’s an adult who has a habit of disappearing when she needs to.”

I massage my temples as pressure builds under my skull. “I know, but I just have this feeling that something’s wrong.”

“Something’s always wrong when it comes to her, Jax,” he replies exhaustedly. “There’s a huge file on my desk right now of the missing reports you and Avery have filed over the years.”

“I still think I should fill out a new one,” I tell him. “Just in case.”

He sighs then drones on about the details of the procedure. Twenty-four hours after I first called, I can fill one out, but there’s not a whole lot they can do because she’s an adult. I can tell he doesn’t believe anything happened to her and that he doesn’t he care. I want to be angry with him, but really, his attitude is justifiable. My mother has pulled a lot of shit over the years, gotten into a lot of trouble, pissed off a lot of people. Drugs have hardened her, and she’s not a good person. Not even a little bit.

I hang up, feeling more unsettled and frustrated than I did last night. I drag my fingers down my face. “Fuck. What am I going to do?”

Even though I don’t want to, I call my Aunt Julie, my mother’s older sister and the one relative I have contact information for. She won’t be thrilled to hear from me—she never is.

When she doesn’t answer, I leave an awkward message, telling her who I am and asking her to call me back. Then I leave my room to get some breakfast and wake up Avery so I can explain what’s going on.

Usually, Avery and Mason sleep in late on Saturday mornings, so I’m surprised when I enter the kitchen and find her in front of the stove, cooking breakfast. Pans are sizzling on the burners, and the counters are covered with eggshells, sticky yolk, and melted butter. My jaw drops at the sight because the air isn’t smoky, the fire alarms aren’t going off, and all hell isn’t breaking lose.

“Good morning,” she says without looking at me.

“Wow, that actually smells good.” I breathe in the scent of bacon and eggs. “It’s a miracle.”

At the sound of my sullen voice, she whips around and almost drops the fork in her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Who says anything’s wrong?” I feign ignorance.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” She aims the fork at me, a glob of grease dripping off it and onto the floor. “You’re using your depressed voice.”

“Yeah, I know.” I take a seat on a stool and decide to just rip off the band-aid. “It’s Mom.”

Avery grinds her teeth, “What’d she do now?”

Not knowing any better way to explain it, I turn on the speakerphone and play the voicemail message.

“I called the police to go check on her,” I explain after the message ends. “They said the door was busted in, but other than that, there’s no sign of foul play. They said we could file a missing person’s report in twenty-four hours, but I can tell they’re not going to do anything.”

“Do you really blame them? She’s brought this on herself.” She fumbles to turn off the burners, so flustered she practically rips off the nobs, and I start to regret telling her. “Who’s Marcus?”

I shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Probably her pimp,” Avery mutters. “Or her drug dealer.”

“I called Aunt Julie.” I get up and start cleaning the counters with a dishrag to distract myself.