Now or Never (12 page)

He
plowed through the remainder of his shift with a single minded focus. The minute he got home, he headed straight for the phone. Jay gritted his teeth, staring down at the deceptively innocent looking thing, and then forced himself to input the familiar number.

“Hello?”

“Leave her alone.”

“Julian. How nice to hear from you. I assume Em received my . . . gift?”

“Leave Em alone, you bastard!”

“Or what?”

“Go near her again and I swear—”

“What, Julian? What will you do about it?
”

Rip him apart. Beat him until he was as bruised and broken on the outside as he’d made her on the inside. Tear his friggin’ head off. Break every bone in his goddamn body. End him
. There was a lengthy pause where Jay strained to put the thoughts racing through his head into words, but found himself too weak to do it.

“Did you know about her parents? They died in horrible accident. There are some pretty graphic pictures if you know where to—”

“Please.” The pain he felt pouring off of her small body as it shook in his arms flowed through him, bringing him to his knees. “
Please
, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll get the money. Just . . . please leave her alone.”

“Begging, Julian? I’ve always know you were weak, but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you beg before. It’s
pathetic
. Have my next payment ready by next week. And I better be more impressed than last time.”

Jay sat crumpled on the kitchen tiles, leaning against the cabinet for support as the line went dead. Em may very well be his weakness—he sure as hell felt weak now—but she was a
lso his strength. His hope. She’d be his strength now, too, and he would find a way to do this. For her.

Chapter Twenty-two

Em

Spaz attack was just about the only accurate description of Ashlyn’s near hysteric response to the concert idea when Em told her the name of the band Mason had mentioned. She’d called them both out of work for the entire weekend in order to ‘get ready’. Why getting ready would take two days, Em was almost afraid to find out, but she was thankful for the distraction.

Ever since that letter had arrived, Em had done everything possible to stay out of her own head. To stop thinking about Tori and what she must have gone through. Must still be going through. Nothing worked.

There were no pictures of her in any of the articles Em had obsessed over since she was a minor. So, like her name, Em could only draw it from memory. She didn’t have many of the girl next door. They’d been five years apart in age and never close. In fact, Em couldn’t recall ever even speaking to her. But there was one that stood out of a little blonde girl—maybe eight years old—swinging on her swings in the back yard. It was about a year after her uncle had started abusing her and she remembered watching Tori and trying to recall what it felt like to be that free. But Tori wasn’t free anymore. She was a prisoner to
his
perverted acts, same as Em now. And it was all her fault.

Nights spent lying awake in Ashlyn’s guestroom,
Em wondered if her envy had somehow caused this. If she’d secretly wished this on that poor girl. But it wasn’t true. She wouldn’t wish this on her worst enemy. She’d simply failed to stop it from happening, which didn’t make it any less her fault. Her
fault. Her fault
. . .

Not seeing Jay for the whole weekend was actually an unexpected bonus. Since her impromptu meltdown in his truck, things had gotten even tenser between them. They were
both toying with this invisible ‘friendship’ line, but it didn’t seem either of them really knew where exactly it was. What was acceptable and what wasn’t. There was a lot of murky, gray area lying between them that they both hesitated to set foot in.

It seemed the only time she talked to him anymore was when she was in tears, and Em felt guilty about that, too.
She couldn’t help herself, though. He was Jay. He was the only person she could truly be honest with emotionally. Not always struggling to maintain those walls she used to hide from everyone else. Even Ashlyn couldn’t break through the barriers to those raw emotions that Jay’s presence alone allowed her to feel safe enough to release. She needed that. The awkwardness and careful avoidance it led to, however, was slowly driving her mad.

Em had even gone
so far as to try and find a few shifts she could trade where she could work alone, afraid Jay might distract her right into unemployment, but found no luck. His name covered almost every available shift on the schedule. Whether it was bartending, waiting, or busing, he was scheduled to work all but one day over the next two straight weeks. And most of them were double—sometimes even triple—shifts. What the hell was he trying to do?

“Everyone copes
in their own way.” That was Ash’s grand explanation. “Jay has work . . . and we are going to rock our faces off!”

It was that distraction alone, and Ash’s contagious excitement
,
that got Em through the week without giving in to the desire to confront Jay about his apparent desire to work himself to death.

Em sat on the couch listening to Ash shout something about the need to go shopping from inside her closet and groaned. She hated the mall pretty much any day of the week, but Saturday’s were particularly awful.
No parking, people everywhere, lines out the door. Why would anyone want to go through all of that?

“Come on. Let’s go.” Ash tugged her off the couch on her way by and tossed
Em her coat from the entryway closet.

She owed Ashlyn big time for everything she’d done. Em sighed and tugged on the warm
, wool lined coat Jay had gotten her, figuring that tagging along for a shopping trip was the least she could do.

As expected, parking took roughly ten and a half years, and when they finally found a spot she had to squeeze out thanks to the jackass parked halfway over the line. As they strolled the concourse, Em was quickly reminded why she avoided crowded areas as a rule. Each bump, each accidental brush sent her pulse racing. Christ, she couldn’t even window shop without fear of stroking out.

Had she sentenced Tori to the same kind of pathetic existence? Had her cowardice ruined yet another life? How would she ever forgive herself for—?

“Ohh, look at that!” Ashlyn
’s ear-splitting screech saved Em from drowning in blame while, simultaneously, deafening her. She jumped up and down a little while pointing to a dress hanging on a mannequin. “That would look perfect on you!”

It
was
a really pretty—
Wait
. “Me?”

“Yeah. With your body and that cut, you’ll be beating them off with a stick.”

Besides the fact that having to beat anyone off with a stick was about as far from one of Em’s goals as it could possibly be . . . “I thought we were shopping for you?”

“Well, considering we’ve been sharing clothes. We’re shopping for both of us. I’m getting two new dresses today and you are wearing one of them tomorrow night.”

“Ash, I—”

“Come on, Em.” Ash put
on her best pout coupled with those puppy dog eyes she knew how to work so well. It was completely unfair. “I’ve never seen you in a dress.”

That’s because Em didn’t wear dresses. Ever. “There’s a reason for that, Ash.”

The excitement drained from Ash’s face, leaving behind a tired sadness. “You can’t keep hiding forever, Em. You’re beautiful. No matter what you wear, people will notice. Don’t let
him
take that away from you.”

Em took a steadying breath. Ash was right. This was exactly the kind of thing she had to work on if she was ever going to overcome what her uncle had done to her. Each time she gave into the fear, the shame, she was giving
him
another victory over her. She was sick and tired of letting
him
win.

“Okay.” She swallowed hard. “Let’s do it.”

“That’s my girl. It’s your body, Em. Own it.
Flaunt
it.” Ashlyn disappeared into the store with a wink and a giggle that made Em feel slightly less nauseous as she followed her inside.

Ashlyn had great taste. The
shimmering green dress looked amazing with her dark hair as Em twirled around the dressing room. It was what lay underneath that was the problem. The spaghetti straps and low plunging neck line showed an awful lot of skin. An awful lot of
her
.

“So what do you think?” Ash’s voice carried easily through the thin dressing curtain.

“It’s beautiful. I just . . .” The thought of taking a single step outside that dressing room, having stranger’s eyes on her like that, made her feel alarmingly exposed. Vulnerable. “I can’t, Ash.”

“Why not?”

“It’s . . . it’s too,” Em dropped her voice to a whisper, embarrassed to have anyone else overhear, “revealing.”

Ash was quiet and Em was afraid she’d hurt her friend feelings.

“Ash?”

No answer.

“Ash, I didn’t—”

“Try this.” A flurry of
material came flying over the top of the curtain scaring the bejesus out of Em.

Startled, she had to scoop the
article off the floor and shake it out. A mini cream colored sweater that fell to just above her waist. With the sweater buttoned up, she was completely covered while the dress still clung in all the right places, accentuating her curves nicely. Em smiled at her reflection. It was a compromise she could live with.

Shoes came next. Apparently, her sneakers wouldn’t cut it. Em eyed the peep toed heels dangling from Ashlyn’s fingers with no small amount of doubt. Not only was she likely to break her neck in those things, but they were going to a concert . . . where they’d have to
stand
most of the night. It suddenly felt more like Ash was trying to torture her than dress her.

“I like them and technically we’re buying them for me. Go try them on.”

Em couldn’t really argue with that. Or the fact that they looked amazing. The gold coloring matched the accents in the dress perfectly. It took Ash all of about ten seconds to declare it a done deal and seal Em’s painful fate.

She did just as an amazing job picking out her own outfit and Em enjoyed sitting back and watching her friend strut her stuff around the dressing room like some kind of fashion model. Ash must have tried on fifty dresses before finally settling on a midnight blue beauty that made her hair look almost platinum and her skin glow.

More than ready to be done for the day, Em was horrified when Ashlyn dragged her into a nail salon and insisted they both needed manicures. After putting up a pathetically lame fight, she gave in with a sigh, resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t recognize herself by the time Ash was satisfied.

***

She wasn’t wrong. The following night, wearing that amazing dress, heels, matching jewelry Ash had picked out, and of course, the sweater, with her nails freshly painted, Em didn’t recognize the girl staring back at her in the mirror. Ashlyn had spent hours making sure her makeup—something Em never wore—was perfect, and finagling her hair into some kind of fancy, yet casual up-do. The whole effect was . . . transforming. The girl in the mirror looked beautiful and confident.

More than anything, Em wished J
ay could see her like that. But when the bell rang, it wasn’t Jay waiting on the other side of the door.

“Wow. You look . . . fantastic.”

Em smiled, shyly. “Thanks. Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.”

Mason was wearing his normal jeans and polo shirt and she was suddenly feeling overdressed. Until Ashlyn breezed into the room in all her breathtaking glory.

“Ready to get this party started?”

“You look beautiful, as well.”

“Why thank you, Mas. You look . . . the same.”

Mason laughed. “I’m a guy. We don’t generally dress up unless it’s for a wedding or a funeral.”

“Are those the rules?” Ash
teased as she pulled on a lightweight sweater of her own.

“It’s in the guy book,” Mason assured her, h
olding the door open.

When
they’d all piled outside, he stopped in the driveway glancing from his truck to Ashlyn’s car.

“What?” Em could understand Ashlyn’s annoyance at the delay. Mason may have his normal winter wear on, but they were freezing their butts off.

“Well . . . Downtown isn’t exactly the best area and my truck might draw a lot of attention. I thought maybe your car . . .”

“You thought my crappy car wouldn’t be worth stealing?!”

“Sort of.” Mason had the good grace to at least look sheepish over the suggestion.

Ash considered it for a second and then shrugged. “Probably. Fine, let’s take Harrison. But I’m driving.”

“No arguments here.” Mason climbed into the backseat, allowing Em to ride shotgun.

Polite, but not exactly the best arrangement when he was the only one who actually knew where
they were going. Mason had to lean over the seat to point out turns to her, half of which Ash completely ignored. The two of them bickered for a solid twenty minutes and Em could have sworn they’d passed that gas station at least twice already. She had to bite her lip not to laugh out loud as their annoyance grew with one another. They sounded like an old married couple.

“Do you hear that?” Mason hushed Ash’s latest retort.

“What?” Ashlyn flicked the radio off and Em’s ears perked up.

“Pull over. I hear something. Your car’s making a weird noise.”

“What weird noise?” Ash sounded panicked. That car was her baby. Not to mention, her dad had just paid to fix the thing and she swore he’d kill her dead if anything else happened to it.

“I don’t know. Just pull over and I’ll check it out.”

Mason pointed out spot after spot as Ashlyn passed them.

“Anywhere will do, Ash. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know! I’m just trying to find . . .” She made a flustered left and pulled into an alley, turning off the engine with a relieved sigh.

Mason glanced around the poorly lit, vacant dead-end street they’d ended up on before shooting Ashlyn and exasperated look. “Could you have found a sketchier spot to park?”

“You said pull over. I pulled over. Now go see what’s wrong with Harrison. And don’t come back until you fix it.”

Mason sighed and climbed out of the car. They watched from inside the warm interior as he did his best to check underneat
h without getting his pants dirty. He didn’t seem to be having much luck.

“Oh, for crying out loud, is he a guy or not?” Ash pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders and got out with him. “What are you doing?”