Illicit: A Forbidden Romance (10 page)

“
M
om
?” I turned to stone in Jake’s arms, too shocked to move.

My mother, too, was frozen in place. “What is going on here?” she asked, her voice barely audible over the running water.

Jake reached behind him and turned off the shower, then grabbed a towel from the hook. “Joss,” he whispered, wrapping the towel around my shoulders even as I dug my nails in his back. “We have to get out.”

I managed to move my head side to side. “I… I can’t.”

“You two have to come out of there some time,” Mom said, the anger in her voice a gathering storm.

Jake gave my arm a squeeze and exited the shower. After wrapping a towel around his waist, he turned to my mother.

“Don’t you dare tell me this is not what it looks like,” Mom said, her chin lifted, her lips taut.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Jake replied.

The danger in Mom’s gaze was unmistakable; I had never seen her look so furious. She tried to look over Jake’s shoulder but he tried his best to shield me.

“My own daughter, Jake?” she asked. “She’s nine years younger than you, you fucking asshole!” She slipped off one shoe and hurled it at Jake, catching him hard in the chest.

He didn’t even flinch. He only picked up her shoe and set it up on the counter. “I’m sorry,” he said, approaching her with his palms up. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

Mom bit her lips together, her nostrils flaring. “How long?” she demanded. “How long have you been fucking my daughter behind my back?”

It was then I realized I was acting like a frightened child, huddled in that shower while Jake fought for the both of us. Only then did it occur to me to do the same.

I wrapped the towel around me and straightened, and even if it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, I opened the glass door and stepped out. I pressed a hand to Jake’s back, letting him know I was there with him, that I was ready to stand beside him even if it meant going against my own mother.

I hoped to hell I was making the right choice.

“Right after my birthday,” I said, forcing the words out.

Mom looked at me and the hurt in her eyes shredded me into ribbons.

“I didn’t expect it to happen. It just developed. He wanted to break up with you first but you didn’t answer the phone,” I said quickly, throwing out reasons and excuses in hopes that one stuck.

“And what? If I’d answered the phone, he wouldn’t have put his dick inside you?”

Beside me, I felt Jake’s breath catch.

“He would have broken up with you before he and I did anything,” I added.

Jake leaned the slightest so that his arm was touching mine in a small show of solidarity. Or maybe he was asking me to stop.

Mom tried to keep her composure but her face crumbled. And so did mine. “So what, that’s supposed to be better? That instead of cheating on me, my boyfriend breaks up with me to be with you?” she asked, a tear streaking down her face. “My own daughter?”

I took a step forward as my own tears fell. “I never wanted to hurt you, Mom. I love you more than anything in the world.”

“Not more than Jake.”

“Mom…” I watched helplessly as she turned and stalked out of the room, eventually kicking off the second shoe down the hall.

Jake placed a hand on my shoulder and I spun into him, pressing my face into his chest and letting the flood of tears loose.

I
went to work
. I probably should have called in sick and stayed to talk to my mom, but the truth was I didn’t want another confrontation. I was afraid of what she would say, afraid that it would guilt me into breaking it off with Jake.

And, God, after all this heartache, the last thing I wanted was to end it with him. Not after I’d finally had a taste of what real passion felt like.

When my shift ended a few hours later, I walked around the outdoor mall to procrastinate. But eventually I made my way back home.

As soon as I walked in the front door I heard my mom’s voice from her office. I peeked around the corner and saw Jake standing in the middle of the room, my mom in front of him with her arms folded.

“You never even told her, did you?” she asked.

“No,” he said with a defeated sigh. “I didn’t tell her you were never pregnant.”

I bit back a gasp.

Mom shook her head. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t want her to think that you wanted me to stay so badly, you convinced yourself you were pregnant.”

My mother’s hand flew up to his face, the slap loud and sharp. “You really are an asshole, Jake, you know that? You with all your big talk about doing the right thing.”

“I meant every word,” he said, ignoring the red welt on his cheek.

“Until you didn’t.”

“Despite what you may think, I really did love you.”

“
Did
,” she said.

There was a long, terrible silence, when I was sure everyone in the house could hear my heart thudding.

Jake was first to break the silence. “So what now?”

“What now? You get your stuff and leave me and my daughter the hell alone. What did you think? That you could stay here and move into her room?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you really think you two could be together?” Mom asked, the anger in her voice now laced with curiosity. “That there’d be a chance I would ever be okay with your relationship?”

“I had hoped—”

“Then you’re a complete idiot,” she broke in. “You want to do the right thing, Jake? Then leave Joss alone. She doesn’t need someone like you in her life.”

“Someone like me?”

“An opportunist who only thinks with his dick.”

“If that were the case, I wouldn’t still be here, trying to make things right.”

“Really? That’s what this is? How?”

“I don’t know. But I love Joss. I want…” He paused, blinking fast. “I want to be with her. To give her the life she deserves.”

“She deserves a life without complications,” Mom said with resignation in her voice. “She deserves to graduate from school, start her first job, move out on her own. She has so much more living to do, free from you. If you were being completely honest with yourself, you’d know I’m right.”

I left right then, too scared to hear Jake’s answer because, in my hearts of hearts, I knew he’d agree.

I
stayed
in my room and read a book with headphones on, waiting for Jake to knock on my door, sit on my bed, and say the inevitable goodbye. But he never came.

It was near midnight by the time I gathered enough courage to venture outside. The house was already dark by then, all the doors locked and curtains pulled close. Listening out for my mother, I passed through the dark hallway to the garage but Jake was not in there. And I realized with dread that some of his larger tools were missing, the space they once occupied outlined by sawdust. I took a deep breath and hit the garage door button, holding my breath as the metal doors squeaked to life, rising, climbing, and ultimately revealing the empty spot on the driveway where his truck used to sit.

T
he garage was
empty by the time I got back from classes the next day, the floors swept clean. With a thundering heart, I ran into the house, dropping my book bag somewhere along the way. I ran to the master bedroom and straight in to the closet, finding nothing but bare hangers and half-opened drawers on Jake’s side.

Tears stung my eyes. Last night I’d known he was leaving. Now I knew he meant to do it without saying goodbye.

“Jocelyn?”

I spun on a heel at the sound of the voice, smacking my arm into a bunch of hangers and sending them spilling to the floor. I kicked them aside and ran out, colliding with a tall, hard body.

Jake grabbed my arms and steadied me like only he could. His warm breath fanned across my face as he said my name.

“I thought you left without saying goodbye.”

“I almost did,” he said, his words bringing tears to my eyes. “But I couldn’t.”

The air rushed out of me in relief and I leaned into him before I could even think.

“Joss,” he said, pulling me away. “We have to talk.” He walked me to the bed and sat me down, tipping his head down at me.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I said, swallowing back the tears. “You’re leaving, both this house and my life.”

He crossed his arms across his chest, his jaw hardening. “I’m sorry. It has to be this way.”

“Does it?”

He kept up with the hard façade, but even I could see how much it hurt. “You know it does.”

“So that’s it? You come in here, wreak havoc in our lives, and then leave? You’re not even going to stick around to help clean up the mess?”

“Joss…”

“No, I know. You want me to live a normal life, one where I spend my life wading through bad relationships, looking for the right guy,” I said. “Only…”

“Don’t say it,” he pleaded through his teeth.

“Only I’ve already found the right guy,” I said anyway. “So you’re just condemning me to a life of disappointment and heartache?”

He dropped down to his knees before me, hanging his head. When next he looked up, his eyes were dark and dismal. “I
know
you, know how much you love your mom. If you chose me over her, you’d never forgive yourself.”

My shoulders sagged as all the air seeped out of me. I stared into his blue eyes and realized with heartbreaking clarity that this was it. This was the end for us.

My voice was quiet, almost unrecognizable in its despair, when I said, “I guess we don’t get that happily ever after.”

He let out a breath, setting his hands on my knees. “This doesn’t change the fact that I love you.”

“But you love me enough to let me go,” I whispered.

“Please try to understand.”

I nodded. I understood it all too well. I knew why he was choosing to leave me now, to give me the life he thought I needed to live. But understanding it didn’t make it hurt any less.

I bent down and touched my forehead to his, squeezing my eyes shut. “I love you too, Jake. So fucking much it hurts.”

He crushed his lips to mine, grabbing the back of my head and deepening the kiss before I could get my words out. He kissed me hard, almost desperately, ripping every thought out of my head. I didn’t know how I could do it, how I could live without another kiss like this, but one thing was for certain: I would wait my whole life until I could taste it again.

“Bye, Jocelyn Blake. I wish we could have met at a different time in our lives.”

A
fter Jake left
, I wandered around the house and tried to find a place to catch my breath but every room, every corner, held a memory that tightened my chest. First of my mom and the happy little life we'd led before Jake had come into our lives. Then there were the memories of Jake, of our easy banter, of the casual way he'd thrown a dimpled smile my way, never realizing that he was slowly stealing under my skin.

The memories split me in half, asking me to make a choice. Staying with my mom should have been a no-brainer. Why then did my heart break at the thought of never seeing Jake again?

O
ur lives went back
to normal, or as close to normal as it could be after Hurricane Jake. Mom worked a lot and I found myself alone at home again. The nights were the worst, so quiet and lonely.

Mom refused to talk to me beyond the necessary, addressing me as if I were nothing but a stranger. And I suppose, after what she found out about me, that was true. All this time she thought she could trust her own daughter and all this time I was betraying her.

One night, I sat in the living room and waited for her to come home. I fell asleep on the couch and only awoke when I felt a blanket sliding over my shoulders.

“I'm sorry,” I said right away. I grasped her hand before she could run away. “I'm really sorry, Mom.”

She refused to look at me. “I don't want to talk about it, Joss.”

“I don't blame you for hating me.”

She pursed her lips and turned away, her chin beginning to tremble. But I held onto her, needing to speak my peace. I couldn’t live in this silent house anymore.

I sat up, still holding her hand. “I didn't do it to hurt you, Mom. I tried to stop it from happening, but I couldn't.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You mean Jake forced—”

“No,” I said quickly. “He tried to stop it from happening too. But it just...” My words died at the sight of my mom's falling face. “Didn't. We fell in love.”

She pulled her hand away from my grasp, her eyes shuttering. “I've had a long day. I'm going to go to bed.”

“Mom,” I said before she could go. I stood up and grabbed the computer printouts from the coffee table. “I found an apartment. It's east of here, in Hollywood. Not too far from Fort Lauderdale. Ashley's rooming with me.”

Mom looked down at the printed map and details of the apartment, then at the contract Ashley and I had already signed. “When do you move?” she asked in a dull voice.

“As soon as next week, if I want.”
If you want.

Her lips pursed as she handed back the papers. “I'll buy the boxes,” she said and left.

I held a fist to my cramping chest and turned in place as my vision blurred. What now? Somehow I had lost everyone I loved, and worst of all: it had been my fault from the very beginning.

My eyes landed on the bookcase and skirted along the uneven edges of my books, trying to avoid looking at the blank space that Jake left behind. It was then I noticed a book with a brown spine that I hadn’t seen before. I walked over and pulled it out, realizing it was a leather notebook with a strap that tied it shut.

My skin tingled as I untied the strap, opening the book to the first page and finding Jake’s handwriting. The next pages were his sketches of furniture, of things he'd made and things still in the planning stages. There were two pages dedicated to sketches of my bookcase, of how the ladder would fit, down to how many books it would hold. In the corner of the page was a circle and inside were words that brought a tiny smile to my face:
How many books does she have?

Several pages later was a fully-rendered drawing of a crib, complete with details on the rails and drawers underneath. I shut the book just as a sob bubbled up from my throat at the thought of Jake wanting that baby. Even if it had never existed, to know that Jake had wanted a child was like a boulder on my chest.

He was ready to take that next step and become a parent, and I… I was only beginning to discover the meaning of love and sacrifice.

A
shley
and I moved out five days later with the help of her brother and his truck. Our apartment was in an aqua blue building in Hollywood, Florida, that wasn't exactly the safest or most beautiful part of town, but it wasn't the worst either. The upside was that it was only a ten minute walk away from Downtown Hollywood, a six-block long area consisting of cafes, stores, galleries, and restaurants.

“I can't believe you brought this behemoth,” Ashley said, staring up at the bookcase that was taking up the entire living room wall.

“Me either,” Ryan said, dropping dramatically onto the tile floor. Even though the bookcase had come apart in three pieces, Ryan had still done most of the heavy lifting. It was a miracle we got it up here at all. “You can thank CrossFit,” he said, flexing his biceps for effect.

Ryan was older than Ashley by a good five years and owned his own landscaping business, but sometimes he struck me as younger. Or maybe it just felt like I’d aged a lot in the past year.

“Dinner's on me,” I told him, sinking down into the new IKEA couch. It had taken nearly half of my savings to buy new (but still relatively inexpensive) furniture, but it was a small price to pay for my adulthood.

“I'm surprised your mom's not here, banging on our door right now, begging you to move back home,” Ashley said from the corner of the room where she slipped new curtains onto a metal rod.

I shrugged, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest. “She's on a business trip right now. Ohio.” I conveniently left out the fact that she had scheduled the trip to coincide with my moving date.

Ashley paused, frowning. “That's weird. Are you guys fighting or something?”

I considered telling her everything but a) Ryan was around and b) I didn’t even want to speak Jake’s name in our new apartment. As far as I was concerned, this place was going to be as Jake-free as possible.

W
e walked
down to Hollywood Boulevard that night, the heart of Downtown Hollywood, which was a little more than a ten minute walk through a few shady-looking areas but nothing Ashley and I couldn’t handle on our own.

While waiting for our food at a Cuban restaurant, Ryan regaled us with stories of strange things he'd found in people’s yards while on the job. “Once, I found what I could swear was a human bone,” he said with comically large eyes.

Ashley snorted. “No way.”

“It looked like a femur of someone small, like a kid. Even the homeowner agreed.”

“And you didn't call the cops
why
?” Ashley asked.

Ryan shrugged. “What if we were wrong and it turned out to be from a dog or horse or something? I mean, it was on a ranch.”

Ashley smacked him upside the head while I laughed. “You're so full of shit,” she said.

After dinner, Ryan decided he wanted to go out dancing.

“Um, don’t you have a wife and a kid to get back to?” Ashley asked.

He shrugged with a sheepish look on his face. “Yeah. But they’re probably asleep by now. A few more hours won’t hurt.”

I didn’t even want to know what that was about; I had enough drama in my life to last me a good long while. “I think I’m just going to head home and do homework,” I said as we emerged from the restaurant.

“You want us to walk you back?” Ryan asked at the sidewalk.

I looked around. “No, I think I’ll be okay.”

Ashley frowned. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Go,” I said, waving them away. I started back to our apartment, keeping my purse tucked under my arm, trying to keep my gait casual even as I vigilantly scanned my surroundings.

Halfway home, I noticed a stout man across the street smoking by a parked car. As I walked by, I felt his eyes following me.

“Hey, baby,” he called out but I pretended not to hear him. As I passed, he threw his cigarette down and ground it with his boot before crossing the street.

My heart rate picked up to the same beat as my steps. I lengthened my stride, still trying my best to appear casual even after I heard him gaining ground. I took hold of my keys and slid them between my fingers, ready to Wolverine the hell out of his face if he attacked.

The footsteps became louder, closer. Then voices.

I chanced a look over my shoulder and saw that another guy in a hooded sweatshirt had stopped the man to ask him a question. Taking advantage of this minor miracle, I turned the corner and ran the rest of the way home.

Once inside my apartment, I locked the doors and ran to the window. When I peered through the blinds, I saw a dark hooded figure standing across the street, looking up at me. I dropped below the window, hoping he hadn’t seen me. I almost peed myself when my phone chimed with a text message.

You made it home okay?
Ashley asked.

With trembling fingers, I replied:
Yes, I’m here.

K. Goodnight.

I turned off all the lights and peeked through the blinds again but, thankfully, the man across the street was gone. With a sigh, I went into my room and surveyed the sea of boxes surrounding my bed and desk. I dropped to my knees beside the closest box, resigned to unpacking for the rest of the night.

“The glamorous life of Jocelyn Blake,” I muttered under my breath as I pulled out several books and set them on the floor. Under a few hardbacks, I unearthed Jake’s brown leather sketchbook. Afraid that my mom would have thrown it into a lake full of alligators, I had taken it with me in hopes I could give it back to its rightful owner. At the very least, it would give me reason to see him again.

I opened the sketchbook, once again going through every page and poring over every drawing. For the first time in a while, I felt almost close to him.

Once again my breath caught on the drawing of the crib but I forced myself to move on. I turned to the next page and saw a pencil sketch of a woman’s face. At first I thought Jake had drawn my mother, but I noticed the small cleft on the woman’s chin. With a gasp, I realized the woman in the picture was me.

After staring at myself for a long time, wondering what he must have been thinking, I turned to a fresh page and allowed the words to tumble out the end of my pen...