Unforgettable You Page 10

  She felt herself flush and go tingly inside—and then the blonde leaned back to look up at him and say something, drawing his attention.

  Suddenly, it felt as though a cold draft swept through the room.

  She was losing her mind, Jada decided, desiring the one man she couldn’t have. She already had enough problems with her mother and brother.

  This time when she grabbed her purse, she forced her feet to carry her to the door and refused to allow herself to look at Maddox again.

  9

  Maddox could feel the blonde grinding her hips against his, trying to arouse him. He was hard—and he had no doubt she could tell—but as satisfied as she seemed to be with herself, his reaction had very little to do with her.

  That look on Jada’s face! It had grabbed him by the throat, made it impossible for him to look away, because he could’ve sworn he read longing there. That was the last thing he’d expected to see, but he’d been with enough women to know a casual glance from one that showed interest.

  Could he have been wrong?

  He had to be. Maybe he’d had too much to drink. Maybe tonight he saw only what he wanted to see.

  It was pretty dark in the room...

  The song ended and he managed to disengage from the clingy blonde. She told him her name, even asked for his phone so she could punch in her number. He handed it to her but was only playing along, wasn’t paying much attention. His heart was pounding as his brain fixed the memory of Jada’s expression in his mind. He knew he’d go home and examine that picture for hours.

  “Hey, now that you’ve kicked our asses in pool enough times that we know we don’t stand a chance against you, we’ve got to get back to the wives,” Eli said.

  Maddox knew Eli and his brother felt he was going to be okay on his own from here on out. They’d gotten him to the club, Jada was gone and there were plenty of women around to keep him entertained. “No problem,” he said. “Thanks for taking the time.”

  Maddox hung out a little longer. He’d planned to stay the rest of the evening, saw no reason to cut the night short. His first public encounter with Jada was now over, so he no longer had to worry about how it would go. Seeing her would never be easy, but he felt reasonably assured she wouldn’t be back tonight. He should’ve been able to relax and have a wonderful time. But the blonde wouldn’t leave him alone, and he quickly grew bored. He walked to the back and played one final game of pool but beat his opponent so easily even that didn’t generate more than a passing interest. He found himself wanting to leave...to find Jada.

  Except he knew that was the worst thing he could possibly do.

  * * *

  When Jada returned home from the Blue Suede Shoe, her mother was asleep. Light gleamed beneath her brother’s door, suggesting he wasn’t, but she couldn’t hear any noise, and she wasn’t about to knock. She wouldn’t risk waking their mother with a blistering argument. Whatever she and Atticus had to say to each other could wait until morning.

  She needed to get some sleep, but she had a mountain of work to do on her social media business, and after her encounter with Maddox at the club, she was too wound up, anyway. She put on some music to help block out any thought of him and staged one of her clients’ self-help books with a cup of coffee for a photo. Tomorrow, before she had to help at the cookie store, she’d use natural light to get some outdoor pictures, as well.

  She scheduled the book post, responded to all the comments that’d been left on yesterday’s posts for that author and moved on to her hair salon client in LA. T-hair-apy was a trendy, expensive salon in Beverly Hills, so she’d been posting regular tips on keeping one’s hair, nails and skin young and healthy and getting some good traction using Facebook ads geared to younger women in the metropolitan area who also had an interest in fashion. She usually scheduled posts two weeks out, but she’d lost that buffer almost as soon as she moved in with her mother and started helping at the store. Now she was scrambling to get content ready for the next day and, as if she didn’t already have enough to do, she’d created a Facebook and Instagram account for Sugar Mama. She thought it might help grow her mother’s business. With the way millennials relied on smartphones, she couldn’t see how any business could afford not to be on social media these days.

  She scheduled a short video she’d taken earlier using a tripod showing her in the baking process, hoping it would pique interest and get some more foot traffic into the store. Then she opened her Adobe Illustrator program. Graphic design was almost as important as photography in what she did. She’d taken a couple of classes a few years ago but wished she’d been able to take more. Fortunately, she had a natural aptitude for it.

  She finished the new Facebook and Twitter headers for her auto body client and got them loaded. Then she checked her calendar, picked a day to spend in the city and sent emails to half a dozen people to let them know she’d be stopping by. She wanted to get the owner of the salon, in particular, to do a live event. He was so eccentric and engaging; he was a big part of the reason his salon did as well as it did. She thought he could cut someone’s hair live to show how he structured his cuts to fit his clients’ facial features and bone structure—a before and after type event.

  Once she finished her emails, she ran some metrics for a referral who was interested in hiring her, so she could show the growth that’d resulted from her efforts for others, and decided to call it a night. She was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open and knew that, once her brother and mother started moving around the house, it’d be difficult to rest. It was even possible that Atticus would pretend as if nothing had happened between them and come down the hall, banging on the wall to wake her up to have breakfast with him.

  It wasn’t anyone in her family who woke her the following morning, however. And it wasn’t early. It was after ten when the quiet buzzing of her phone rattling on the nightstand finally pulled her from sleep.

  She tried to speak but had to clear her throat first. “Hello?” she said, her voice still gravelly. “Tiffany?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. You’re not up?”

  Jada yawned before replying. “No, but I need to be. I’m not sure how I let myself sleep this long. My mom always gets up early, and I usually hear her.”

  “You obviously needed the sleep.”

  “But I have so much to do. What about you? Didn’t you work all night? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

  “I drank too much coffee to get me through my shift and came home wired, but I’m going to crash in a minute. Since I was up anyway, I took the time to write Tobias. I was hoping to read it to you.”

  Reminded of her encounter with Maddox last night, Jada stiffened. “O-kay...”

  Tiffany hesitated since she’d drawn out the word. “I don’t have to read it if you’d rather I didn’t.”

  She was curious, even interested. “I do. I just... I saw Maddox last night.”

  “Where?”

  “The Blue Suede Shoe.”

  “What were you doing there, especially on a Monday?”

  She didn’t want to say that she’d been reluctant to go home to face her mother and brother. That sounded so childish. “I walked down to hear the music for a bit after I closed the shop.”

  “With Maddox in town? I haven’t been able to get you to step foot across the threshold!”

  “Because I could possibly bump into him, like I did last night!”

  “Did he come in alone?”

  “Hang on.” She got up to peer out of her bedroom and down the hall. It was late enough that her mother would be at the store, which opened at ten. But what about Atticus?

  She couldn’t hear anything and, when she walked out, she found his door open and his bedroom empty. Maybe he’d left so that he wouldn’t have to confront her.

  Just to be safe, when she went back into her room, she closed the door before continuing
her conversation. “He was with Eli and Gavin.”

  “Turner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They don’t show up at the club very often now that they’re both married.”

  “I’m guessing Aiyana asked them to take Maddox out. You know how she is, always trying to help and protect her boys—even those she never actually adopted.”

  “True. So...tell me about it. Did he speak to you?”

  “No. Wouldn’t even look at me.” She decided not to mention that he did eventually look her way. The memory of that moment still made her think of things she had no business contemplating. She wanted to believe she reacted that way, even though it had been years and years since they were together, because it had also been months and months since she’d been with a man. She hadn’t slept with anyone since Eric. But could that be all it was? Because she’d been to the club several times since she’d been back in Silver Springs and no one else she’d met made her fantasize about wet, openmouthed kisses and large hands touching her body in the most intimate of places.

  “Then it was okay?” Tiffany asked.

  Embarrassed, even though Tiffany had no idea where her thoughts had drifted, Jada dropped back on her bed. “I guess.”

  “Good! Maybe now I can get you to go out with me on the weekends again!”

  Considering how seeing Maddox at the club had made her feel, Jada was hesitant to make a commitment, so she steered the conversation back to the topic Tiffany had called to discuss. “What’d you write to Tobias?”

  Paper shuffled in the background before Tiffany started reading. “‘Dear Tobias, after so long this is for sure a blast from the past. I don’t know if you’ll remember me—’”

  “Of course he’ll remember you,” Jada broke in.

  “I doubt it.” Tiffany laughed. “I had such a crush on him, even though he was a year younger. But he didn’t seem to feel the same about me.”

  “He was too busy struggling with life in general.” It was true and yet Jada had been reluctant to admit that. Looking at the situation through his eyes only made what’d happened that much more difficult. She couldn’t sympathize with the man—actually, he’d been a boy at the time, which made it even worse—who’d fired that gun, because that made her feel disloyal to Atticus, her mother and even her father.

  “He was so good-looking, all the girls wanted him.”

  Jada didn’t think he was anywhere close to being as handsome as Maddox, but she didn’t say so. “They both had plenty of admirers.” Which was why she’d felt special when Maddox had chosen her—and then foolish when her brother nearly lost his life. “He was hot, no question. Go on...”

  “‘I don’t know if you’ll remember me,’” she read, starting back a bit. “‘But your brother recently accepted a job here in town, so I asked about you and he gave me your address. I hope you don’t mind. He said you’re about to be released. You’ve got to be looking forward to that. Or maybe not. It has to be scary at the same time, going in as a boy and coming out as a man who’s missed everything the rest of us did in those years. Technology alone has changed a great deal. But I wanted to let you know before the big day that I forgive you for what you did. That probably sounds funny. What business is it of mine, right? I wasn’t one of the major players. Still, I’m so protective of Jada and her family, I was hurt and angry, too. But you’ve paid a terrible price and, for me, it’s enough. More than enough. All I want is for you to be able to heal and be happy.’”

  Jada was blinking against the tears that were welling up at the thought that someone so troubled could finally find peace. Did he deserve it?

  Who could say? It wasn’t up to her, anyway. “That’s really nice.”

  “It’s okay?” Tiffany said, sounding uncertain.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” She seemed relieved.

  “That’s it?” Jada asked. “You kept it short and sweet?”

  “For the most part. Then I try to lighten it up by giving him a Release Cheat Sheet.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Basically it’s a glossary of current tech. You know, stuff like, ‘Hulu: a paid TV service where you can watch old TV series. Netflix: another paid TV service where you can get other TV shows, movies and original programming. Apple TV...’ etc. I go over paying for things with your phone, live-streaming as opposed to disks, saving files in ‘the cloud,’ Pandora and a bunch of other cool apps he might like—everything that’s new since he went in.”

  “That’s thoughtful, Tiff. And sweet and sort of funny. I bet he’ll love it.”

  “Thanks. I’m also sending him a hundred bucks to help him get a start. I can’t imagine being released from prison without having had the chance to even finish high school. He’s going to feel as if the rest of the world went into fast-forward while he was gone.”

  “Maybe he has finished high school by taking classes while doing his time.”

  “It couldn’t be the same. He’s going to feel so lost. There’s no other way he could feel.”

  “True.” Slumping against the headboard of the bed, Jada closed her eyes. “Send him two hundred dollars.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I’ll go in half with you.”

  There was a brief pause. “Are you sure, Jade? That isn’t why I read you my letter. I just wanted to see if you were okay with what I was saying, and you mentioned you might want to send a few words.”

  “I’ve decided I don’t want to send a letter.” Jada stared around her dated bedroom. Her own family needed money, but she was already doing all she could to help them, and she felt the money would make a bigger difference to someone who had nothing. All Tobias had ever really had was Maddox, and Maddox had enough to deal with when it came to his unstable mother, if Jill was even still alive. “But I’d like to help a little financially.”

  “Can I tell him half is from you? Because I’m sure that would mean the world to him.”

  Jada understood why. She’d be offering a bit of forgiveness herself. That was a big step for her. But if Tobias could recover and make something of his life, why would she ever want to stand in his way? How would it help the situation for him to go on suffering?

  Besides, she was the one who’d brought Atticus to that party against her parents’ wishes, so she had to carry her fair share of the blame. “Yeah, go ahead and tell him.”

  * * *

  When Jada heard the front door open and close, she knew Atticus was home. It couldn’t be Maya; Maya had called to let her know that Annie’s mother was going to drop them both off at the store so they could help Susan.

  As she heard further evidence that she was no longer alone, she silently cursed herself for not getting out of the house when she had the chance. It’d been a day since they’d spoken; she didn’t think another few hours so that she could focus on her work without being interrupted by a big, emotional scene would make it any worse. But she’d been on her computer, hadn’t even showered yet. The only problem with running a social media company was that there were unlimited things she could do to try to enhance engagement, and the more creative ideas often took a great deal of time.

  She tried to ignore the fact that her brother was home but ultimately felt too bad hiding out in her room. She’d meant well when she’d told him to be more productive; there was no reason for a rift between them—not if, by simply having a talk with him, she could help him understand why she’d said what she had.

  Finally setting her computer aside, she went out to find him slapping a sandwich together in the kitchen.

  “Hey.” She noted his angry, jerky movements and immediately understood that this conversation probably wasn’t going to go as smoothly as she’d hoped. “What’s going on?”

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  A trickle of foreboding ran down her spine. “About...”


  “What do you think? Why is it such a big secret? I’m not man enough to take the truth or something? You and Mom gotta protect me?”

  “You’re talking about Maddox.”

  “As I thought, you already know he’s back. Does Mom?”

  Jada hesitated, unsure whether or not she should reveal Susan’s knowledge.

  “Yep, she does,” he said, assuming the truth by her silence.

  “She only found out a day or two ago.”

  When he shot her a dirty look, Jada knew her attempt to pass it off as recent, and therefore less suspect, fell flat.

  “Why didn’t either one of you tell me? Why am I the last to learn?”

  Jada folded her arms as she leaned against the doorframe. “Mom asked me not to say anything. She wanted to break the news herself.”

  “Break the news...” He shook his head before setting his plate on his legs and rolling to the table.

  Jada sat, too. “I’m sorry. I felt you should know, but I didn’t want to step on Mom’s toes. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly her favorite child.”

  He shot her a disgruntled look. “I wish you were her favorite. Being her favorite doesn’t come free, you know. I hate the pity she feels for me.”

  Jada tried to hold back the comment that rose immediately to her lips but couldn’t help herself. “Maybe she’d quit feeling sorry for you if you quit feeling sorry for yourself.”

  He shoved his plate so hard it slid across the table and almost fell off the other side. “Damn it, Jada! Are you trying to piss me off again?”

  “No. I’m trying to help you. I love you.”

  “You have a very unique way of showing it!”

  She stood and reached over to put his plate back in front of him. Fortunately, the sandwich was still on it. “How’d you find out he was back? Don’t tell me you ran into him...” She hadn’t wanted Atticus to be blindsided, knew that would be hard on Maddox, too.

  “I haven’t seen him. Donte told me.”