“I don’t need a thank you, Jason. Just make sure you come back to us.” She hesitated, only for half a second, then pulled me down and kissed my cheeks. “Make sure you take care of yourself.” One last look in my eyes, and she let me go.
I wished she wouldn’t.
“Son,” Logan said as he gave me a quick, unexpected hug. “You heard what Emily said, this is your home too. And you always come back to your home. Don’t forget that. We will miss you.”
It seemed like I wasn’t capable of doing anything other than nod that day.
I glanced at Olive and despite my situation, my lips tipped up.
“Cat got your tongue, too, huh?” She just stared at me with those sad, sad eyes. Olive Taylor always had something to say—always. “You’ve got nothing to say, little one?” I asked, chuckling, the sound completely wrong and rough.
“I’m really sorry about your mom, but I hope you’ll be happy in LA.”
The cold tone and what I was seeing in her eyes didn’t match, but before I could say anything, Dylan got up from the steps he was sitting on and Olive hugged her dad’s waist, shutting me out.
Even so, I reached out and gently touched her soft hair, tugging it gently before letting it go for the last time.
“I hope so too. And thank you, little one, I will never forget you.”
A tear slid down from her eye, and before I knew what I was doing, I reached out to capture it with my fingertip.
She closed her eyes and hugged her dad tighter when I touched her, but didn’t say anything.
I looked at the teardrop that rested on my fingertip for a long time and felt a tug on my heartstrings.
“Man,” Dylan said, saving me from my confusing thoughts.
I released a big breath and dropped my finger.
“This sucks,” he said.
I chuckled. “You’re tellin me.”
“I want you to come back the first chance you get, and you are keeping in touch.”
I snapped a sharp salute, causing his mouth to twitch.
Hitting my chin with his knuckles, he groaned. “Oh, man. I can’t believe I’m gonna miss seeing your shitty face every day.”
“Dylan!” Emily admonished.
“Sorry, Mom.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Dylan looked at me sheepishly. “We’ll talk?”
“We’ll talk,” I promised.
“Jason,” my father called out from the car waiting across the street.
“I better go,” I said, taking a few steps back.
Giving Dylan a quick hug and a slap on his back, I said, “Take care of your family, man.”
“You make sure you take care of yourself, too.”
My chest heavy, I looked at all of them one last time and walked away. I wasn’t strong enough to stride away from them without turning back. In the time it took me to cross the street, I looked back three times.
Did it make me a bad person to be happy to see them sad? Happy because I felt loved? Loved and welcome as I’d never been before?
How they stood together as a family was burned into my mind as a happy memory, and then I got into the car and disappeared from their life.
Chapter Four
Olive
My emotions waging a war inside me, I clung to my dad and watched Jason get into the black Mercedes. The image of him turning to look at us with a dimpled smile before he got into the car would be burned into my mind as a sad memory for years to come.
Then like every other fleeting moment in life, my first love slowly faded into time.
Chapter Five
Jason
Eight years later…
Pushing the private back door of the nightclub open with my shoulder, I dragged the giggling mess out with me. Since she was busy pawing at me with those claw-like fingers, she tripped over her own feet, righting herself at the last moment, her giggling getting even louder. Gripping her waist to make sure she didn’t face plant in those spiky-heeled shoes, I checked the alley to make sure we were alone. As soon as the door closed and the heavy bass of the music drifted away to a buzz, I took Jenna’s hand off my dick and slammed her back against the concrete wall, eating up her moan in a hungry kiss.
Wait, is her name Gemma?
“Take me home, Jason,” she said, her words slightly slurring. She wasn’t drunk—if she were, I wouldn’t do this with her—but for some reason she chose to act like she was. I didn’t care for her games. “Take me home and I’ll show you a few new tricks.”
More giggling.
Jamie maybe?
Fuck!
“This is better, babe. Don’t you feel the thrill?” I asked in a low voice as my lips ghosted over her skin against her throat. “Anyone can walk out on us. Doesn’t that excite you?”
What the hell is her name again? She hadn’t had a big role in the movie, but we’d shared the same set for about a month. She twirled and skipped around me whenever she found me alone in a corner, watching the crew work. She whispered dirty, dirty things in my ear—at least dirty for a girl her age—when no one was around. At last, after countless ‘fuck me eyes’ had been thrown my way at the wrap party that night, little brunette beauty Jessie (???) was about to get the fuck of her life against a concrete wall in the back alley of a club. Looking at her flushed skin and already dazed eyes, I could see that it wasn’t bothering her in the slightest that she was about to get fucked like a cheap hooker, out in the open.
That was all she would be for me, and most likely for the others that would come after me—producers, agents, etc.
“Aww, you can’t wait to slide your dick into my pussy, can you? I can’t wait either. I knew you were crazy about me Jason,” she whispered into my ear right before she licked it, trying to kill my ear with the stabbing motions of her tongue.
Christ!
I pushed her face away.
Her high-pitched voice buzzed around in my head, making me too aware of the alcohol I had consumed.
Ignoring her words, I lifted Jenna’s skintight silver dress up and over her hips, making sure to caress her toned thighs as she moaned against my neck, her heart racing.
She kept mumbling in between sloppy kisses, but I tuned her out and let myself get lost in her body.
At that point, I wasn’t feeling much, just some sort of house music pounding in my head making it too hard to think clearly. My dick was definitely feeling something as it strained against my jeans, dying to get into her tight pussy.
“You knew you were gonna get fucked tonight, didn’t you…babe?”
Damn it! I still couldn’t remember her name.
“Yes. Yes. I knew you couldn’t stay away.” She gasped as my fingers found their way to her…butterfly? What the hell? Normally I wouldn’t care, but, well, sue me, I was a curious bastard.
I took a step back from her octopus arms and looked down to find a sparkling butterfly holding two flimsy straps around it wings. Her pussy was open for all to see in her crotchless panties—if you could even call them panties, that is.
“Huh,” I muttered. “I guess that makes my job easier.”
My dick was still roaring to get into action so I shrugged her hands off my shoulders and took out a condom from my back pocket, pulling it on pretty quickly considering my buzzed state.