Not wanting to be alone in the house any longer, I locked the front door behind me and headed down the drive towards my little car. I was going to go in search of Jax in the hope that I might be able to persuade him to listen to me – to perhaps watch some of those secret recordings. I would drive by his house first; see if his car was on the drive. I pressed the key fob and the sidelights flashed orange in the darkness. Once again I was reminded of Jax and how he had repaired one of those lights for me. And as I climbed into my car, I thought of my friend Heather and how I had arranged for her to visit Jax at the auto shop on the pretence that she too needed her car to be fixed. That now seemed like a really stupid idea, and if Jax were ever to find out, then I would certainly lose any chance of ever convincing him that I wasn’t some kind of bunny boiler. But had Heather even made it to the auto shop? I had no way of knowing, as she hadn’t been answering her phone. Had the flu got to her before she had gotten to Jax? I now hoped so. I no longer wanted to set that trap for Jax, but how could I stop it?

Turning the key in the ignition, I sped off the drive and headed across town to Heather’s house.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jax

I rumbled to a stop in front of a small gas station with a decent sized mini-store in it. I grabbed a six-pack of beer and took it to the counter. My eyes raked over the selection of cigarettes and I felt a little twitchy thinking about how good it would feel to let a lungful of menthol course through my body. After showing the clerk ID for the beer, I asked her to fetch me a pack of the most expensive menthols they had, knowing it would probably be my only pack for a while, as I had no intention of making a habit out of this. Well, at least I hoped it wouldn’t be a habit, but we all knew what the road to hell was paved with.

I paid for the stuff and got out to my bike and swore. It was going to be an awkward ride home trying to fit a six-pack of beer on the bike. I briefly contemplated drinking two of them and putting the other four in my pockets but then that would make me no better than my old man, and decided a DUI would not be in my best interest. I had enough problems.

Somehow managing to get the beer on my bike without fear of it slipping off, I skidded out of the parking lot of the gas station and headed home. My head was still a little fuzzy from the whiskey but I needed to go home and get my shit together. I parked my bike next to my truck and went into the house, putting five beers in the fridge and popping the top off the sixth. I went to the dining room table and unloaded my pockets, setting my phone, some loose change, my wallet, and that business card with hot bikini-clad Heather on the front. She was staring up at me from the card, taunting me. If I stared at it hard enough, I could probably see her mouthing, “Call me.”

I shook my head and went to sit on the sofa and stared at a blank TV. I raised the beer can to my lips and flipped the still-sealed blue cigarette pack over and over and over between my fingers. I thought about Mina again, wondered how someone could be so brazen as to film someone like that and think it was okay. Didn’t she know she could be sued for something like that? Maybe she didn’t. She wasn’t from here after all.

I started to unravel the plastic from the pack of smokes when I heard the front door open. I looked over my shoulder and saw Austin come in.

“Hi,” he said, smiling at me.

“What’s up, man?”

He came around to the other sofa to sit. His smile dropped and he looked at the cigarettes in my hand. “Um, you’re not going to smoke those in the house, are you?”

I chuckled. “No, you already told me your parents don’t want us smoking in here. I’ll go outside or in my truck.”

He seemed to visibly breathe a sigh of relief. “Good.” Then he looked confused. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

I shook my head. “I don’t, not usually, but today’s been an awful day.”

He looked at the now-empty beer can next to me. “I see that. What happened?”

“Do you want a beer?” I asked him as he looked at my can. “There’s more in the fridge.”

“No thanks. I have a test tomorrow, I probably shouldn’t drink.”

I smiled, sort of wanted to laugh, but knew better. Why couldn’t I be more like Austin? Straight-laced, good student, responsible, took care of himself, ate healthy, didn’t drink. He came from a good family… and I didn’t. That’s why.

But how long could I use that excuse? It wasn’t that my family wasn’t good, they just weren’t there. I was an adult, I shouldn’t need them, but I did. I wished my dad were here so I could talk to him. I wished I could ask my mom for advice on this girl stuff. Austin had the best set of parents. They rented this house to us for next to nothing, as long as we followed their rules, and they helped him pay for college and his car. That’s how parents should be. Helping their kids out, and in return, the kids follow the rules. Even into adulthood. But instead, I was on my own in the world.

But wasn’t Mina alone in the world, too? I guessed I had finally got to the bottom of what Mina had been hiding. I just never thought it would be something like this. I thought maybe she had another boyfriend back in England or maybe she did drugs or something when I wasn’t around. I would have never in a million years thought it would be a secret fetish with filming me and taking my picture. She was a stalker, plain and simple. I shivered at the thought. Not out of fear – Mina didn’t scare me on a personal safety level – but out of the thought of how fast and hard I’d fallen for her. That had never happened to me before. I shuddered again, wondering how in the hell I was going to get over her and move past the thoughts of her beautiful face and body flitting through my damaged brain every five seconds.

“Jax, are you even listening to me?”

I blinked twice and looked back up at Austin. He looked concerned. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

He sighed. “I was just saying I had a bad day, too.”

“I’m sorry, man. Tell me again.” I felt like such a crap-bag friend now for daydreaming while he was talking. Austin rarely said more than a few words, and here he was, telling me about his day and I couldn’t pay attention for two minutes. I sucked.

He smiled sadly. “It’s okay, it was nothing. Tell me what happened to you today.”

I leveled him with a long stare, debating on telling him about Mina. He didn’t seem to have much experience with girls, but maybe that would make him more objective. I shrugged, and started from the very beginning, from the day I met her, to the end of tonight. I did leave out a few dirty details I didn’t think he needed to know, but for the most part, I regurgitated the entire sordid tale. And incredibly, I actually felt better when I was done.

Austin had his hand to his mouth and he was staring off in space, his auburn hair catching the faint light from the dining room table across the room. He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked up at me. “So you never found out why she was filming you?”

I shook my head. “Nope, but I don’t know how a person can justify that. She’s obviously some chick who’s been stalking me for months, and I fell for her trap, hook, line, and sinker.” I used my dad’s old fishing cliché and frowned when it reminded me of him again.

Austin nodded. “It would sure seem that way. She didn’t even offer an excuse as to why?”

I barked out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well she tried, but I just took off, man. I didn’t want to hear her mouth or any more lies that were about to come out of it.”

Austin got up and patted me on the shoulder. “I’m only going to say this because I’ve never seen one of your girlfriends more than once, but Mina seems to be more than a notch on your bedpost. I think you should let her explain one time, and if her excuse is weak and pathetic, then kick her to the curb.”

I laughed at his attempt at slang and thanked him. He grabbed his backpack and wandered into his room, probably to study.

I stared at his retreating figure and started to think about what I wanted to do. I was too restless to sit here and watch TV. Then I had an idea.

I got up to throw away the empty beer can and grabbed my keys off the table. I lit the cigarette on my way out to my truck. As I got in and headed toward Heather’s house, I wondered if I was making the right decision. I hit a stoplight and blew smoke out the window, then flicked the cigarette out, which was no more than a stub at this point. I didn’t realize I had smoked it so fast. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel and wondered if Heather was going to think I was some stalker. That was the last thing I wanted. Yes, I had pulled her address from the form she had filled out at the shop, and yes I should have called or texted before coming over, but I just needed to talk to her.I knew Heather would think I was going over there for a bootie call but I wasn’t really, I just needed to talk to her. I wondered if I could get her to tell me the real reason she came into the shop, because I wasn’t buying the story about Trent telling her to see me. Trent had told me he didn’t send her over, and something about her ‘story’ was not sitting right with me. Plus it was a good distraction to keep my mind off of Mina. I couldn’t deal with that right now.

I rounded the corner to the small cul-de-sac she lived on and found her address easily, as there were only four houses on her street. As I pulled up, I saw a familiar little Mitsubishi parked out front next to the gold Lexus and swore.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mina

I pulled into Heather’s street and killed the engine. Was I doing the right thing or not by coming by her house? My need to speak to her and find out whether Jax had called her or not was eating away at my insides. But why was it so important now? He was never going to want to see me again. Not after discovering that I had been secretly taking photos and filming him. He wouldn’t want anything more to do with someone he thought was a psychotic freak with stalker issues. But we’d made love and that counted for something. It did to me, anyhow. So even if Jax never did want to speak to me again, I would still like to know if what had happened between us was real, or if it had just been a lie like it had been with John. The only way I would ever find out was if I spoke to Heather. At least then I would know if Jax had really liked me, or if I was just another one of those girls he so often snuck back to his house.