Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз. Страница 33

“He gets away with shit all the time. He’s a fucking soul-sucking life-wrecker. Who the hell does he think he is?” Jakes entire body trembled slightly with fury.

“Don’t,” I urged. “Don’t even worry about him. Soon we’ll be home, and we can forget about him and all his shitty, selfish behavior. Okay?”

I led him to the dining room, where there were people suddenly coming out of the woodwork. Where the hell they’d been twenty minutes ago, I’d have loved to know, but I was just happy to be part of a big group where I didn’t have to worry about Gerald’s lechery. Jake slid his eyes over to me a few times during dinner, then looked at Gerald, but he didn’t say anything else about the whole thing.

When Mama D and my mother came in late, Jake stood and walked to my mom without bothering to tell me what was going on. He took her hand and led her away, to the open balcony doors. In a minute, my mother rushed over to me, her eyes shooting daggers at Jake’s dad.

They pulled me out, and the other people in the dining room attempted a hush so they could overhear, but Mama D, with her eyes on us the whole time, wouldn’t allow it. She talked loudly and must have said something funny, because everyone laughed hard, and I could hear conversation pick up just after we left.

“Brenna.” Mom’s eyes, twilight-sky blue and watery with unshed tears, zeroed in on me. “What happened?” Her voice jerked and wobbled.

“Nothing,” I said, almost automatically. “He was just being…weird I guess. He told me that he and I were alike because we both liked rebels or whatever. And he grabbed my arm really hard and told me that Jake would be meeting a lot of new people, then he rubbed my shoulders and said something about first love.” I was trying to tone it down for my mother, but my head was spinning a little.

Jake’s nostrils flared. The tears that had been a threat in my mom’s eyes slid out of the corners and down her cheeks. Like a reflex, I felt my own eyes brim full of prickly tears.

“That fucking bastard,” my mother hissed, and I laughed a little with relief while she crushed her arms around me.

She was busy comforting me.

I was busy being comforted.

Jake marched back into the dining room.

I would always kind of regret that I didn’t get to see what actually happened. Later on, Saxon would say the exact same thing.

As the story goes, Jake tapped Gerald on the shoulder, stepped back so his father could stand, then punched him so hard he fell into the roasted whatever that was in the middle of the table.

Mama D screamed, which was apparently pretty weird for her. Jake’s father actually blacked out from a combination of way too much alcohol and the impact of Jake’s fist. A few aunts got hysterical. A few uncles stood and screamed at Jake. Mom and I had already rushed to the arched doorway that led to the dining room and stood, completely shocked, as chaos unfolded in front of our eyes.

Jake walked away from the whole thing, kissed me right in front of my mother, and turned to her and said, “Mrs. Blixen, I’m sorry to cut your stay short, but I’d like to go home now. Would you and Brenna mind coming along?”

At this point my mother had the great luck of an entire audience of snobs for her reply.

“We’d love to join you Jake. I’m getting tired of all the trash around here,” my mom said.

We went upstairs, packed our bags, and drove straight home. It seemed surreal, leaving so fast, the pines whipping by us, the enormous cloistered houses all shacked up on the shore of the gigantic lake like one big, strange dream.

When Jake dropped us home, I only spent a minute on the porch with him. He kissed me and told me that he had to have a long talk with his stepfather, and that he would call me in the morning.

I walked into my house, our house, devoid of any priceless antiques, with average windows and sticky doors, and a slightly musty smell whenever we left it shut up for more than three days. There was no big lake or dock or garage filled with a fleet of boats. But I had never, ever seen anything as beautiful as my own house. Mom and I sat at the dining room table quietly. She made us a pot of coffee, and once we started talking, we just couldn’t stop.

I realized that Mom thought that I was having the time of my life, and I thought she was having the time of hers, and really we both felt lost and out of place and too polite to say enough.

“It was kind of a godsend that Jake punched that drunk asshole and got us kicked out,” Mom said, then sipped her coffee politely.

I laughed, first a little, then loud and long. “Yeah. Jake has issues with punching people over me.”

Mom raised her eyebrows. “He’s done this before?”

“Um, yeah.” I paused, unsure what to do, but since I had gone this far, I figured I could tell her the rest. “Saxon? He and Jake got in a fight over me months ago, and Jake knocked him out.”

Mom pursed her lips in clear disapproval, then her brow furrowed for a few long minutes. “You know, Jake Kelly is a good guy. He knows his own mind, and he doesn’t get swayed easily. And he obviously cares about you.”

I was holding my breath. This is what I had waited for my mother to say for so long, it felt strange that she would just be saying it now, as if it weren’t what I had been dying to hear for almost an entire year.

“He does really care.” I poked at the handle of my coffee mug and watched the creamy brown liquid slosh dangerously near the edge. “I’m glad he got to see his real family. And I’m glad I got to see him around them. It just shows that he doesn’t get hung up on what other people think of him or expect from him.”

“He has a good, strong character. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s very good-looking.” My mom winked, then yawned, this cute, big-mouthed yawn. “Oh, Bren, I have to get to bed. Mmm, how nice to sleep in my own bed! Thorsten will be surprised that we’re home so early.” She kissed my head and put her coffee cup in the sink. Before she went up the stairs she stopped. “Bren?”

“Yeah, Mom?” I asked as I put my cup in the sink.

“Are you and Jake having sex?”

The question sat heavy in the room for a few long seconds.

“No, Mom,” I said without whining or sounding irritated. It was a fair question on her part. Really fair, in fact. “He wants to wait.”

She shook her head. “He’s a good guy, Bren.”

I went to my bedroom with a light heart. Mom approved of Jake! It didn’t matter that his entire snooty family had pretty much ostracized me; my smart mom had figured it all out and seen Jake’s innate awesomeness.

And it did feel amazing to be in my own bed. I stretched over the cover and let out a long, girly moan of pure happiness. I felt tired, but not sleepy at all. I planned to call Evan and tell her everything, but first I popped open my computer and saw that I had four messages in my email. From Saxon.

I opened the first one.

Blix,

I’m in deep here. Lots of shit going down. How does your cell get reception in Europe, but not in Buttfuck, NY? Give me a holler when you get this.

Sax

The next three were variations of the first, all vague and whiny and kind of desperate. For Saxon. I picked up my cell. It was almost midnight. Saxon had always been a night owl, but he was a working man now. What if this wasn’t a good time?

I figured he probably set his phone to vibrate when he didn’t want it to ring, so I took the plunge and called.

His voice coiled in my ears, as sexy and smoky as always. “Hey, Gorgeous,” he practically crooned into the phone. “Where have you been all my life?”

I sighed, thoughts of his infamous sex-phone debacle still buried deep in my brain. “Saxon are you drinking again? God, you get sappy when you’re drunk.”

“Shut up and go with it, Blix,” he hissed. Louder he said, “That sounds sweet. So when are you coming down to this hole to see me?”