Chapter 3
1327 Words
3
Jagger
Sometimes I amaze even myself.
The fact that the girl—well, she’s all woman now. The fact that Quinn, whose heart I purposely broke all those years ago, is lying upstairs is un-f*****g-believable. After all the time that has passed, all the regrets that I’ve had over the years, all the times she’s come to mind and I resisted the urge to look her up… she’s here, in L.A.
She’s not waiting for me half naked though—she’s half dead. Touching her ass was a jackass move, but it was instinctive. Even after all these years, she’s still like a magnet, drawing me to her.
I run my fingers through my hair, my ass on her couch, booting up my laptop while sipping on a beer from the fridge. Twenty new emails populate my inbox, along with the fifteen voice messages on my phone. At least there are no huge fires to put out this morning. No cheaters banging hookers, no drunken brawls, no paparazzi knock-outs that need to be hidden. The kind of morning I would’ve preferred to spend riding waves and eating tacos, not cleaning up vomit and washing floors.
A soft knock sounds on the front door and I jump up, my gaze veering toward the stairway. I open the door of the matchbox-sized house to find a brown paper bag shoved into my chest.
“This is not my job.”
I grab the bag and my assistant Victoria walks in past me, her heels echoing on the hardwood floors.
“Take off the heels,” I demand, and she whips around, narrowing her brown eyes at me.
“I’m not into kinky shit.” As usual her curt words are all bark, no bite, because she slips off her heels, placing them by the door.
I bypass her and head to the kitchen with the bag. She inspects the small family room for a minute then follows me.
“I’ve been looking for a place like this. It’s quaint. Neighborhood seems great. The old restored fireplace, the bookshelves. It’s like a cozy cottage in the middle of L.A.” She pushes herself up to sit on the counter, her navy-blue pantsuit hiding her curves and legs.
“It’s obviously taken.” I pull the orange juice out of the bag, followed by the soup and the cold medicine. “Thanks for this.”
“Where is Sleeping Beauty?” she asks, looking around.
“She’s upstairs, so lower your voice.”
Victoria rolls her eyes and then locks in on me again, her gaze not wavering.
“What?” I ask.
“Why are you here?” She lowers her voice, leaning in like I hold the secret government files on alien abductions.
I glance quickly at her and then transfer my attention to putting the orange juice in the fridge, where yogurt and takeout containers look like they’ve been spawning and reproducing. They’re the only things that fill the fridge. Pulling out a container, I open it up, smell it and then dump it in the trashcan under the kitchen sink.
“No wonder she’s sick.” Sparing my nostrils and my stomach, I chuck the rest of the takeout containers.
“What are you doing? That’s not yours to throw away.” Victoria hops off the counter, picking up containers and putting them back in the fridge.
“They’re probably growing mold.”
She grabs the carton from my hand, opens it, smells it. “It’s fine.” And she shoves it back on the shelf.
“I’m taking it all out.”
She blows out a long breath and walks back to the counter, springing up like a damn cat. Fitting since her personality is like a cat—moody and unpredictable. “Whoever she is, she’s going to be mad.” Her voice is singsong now, suggesting she warned me of my future.
“I’ll buy her fresh food,” I say, filling the garbage up with the containers once again.
“That’s always your solution. Why don’t you just write a check? Or better yet, go to the bank and come back here and spread hundred-dollar bills across the counter.”
I peer at her over my shoulder. “I just cleaned her whole house—the downstairs at least. Give me some credit.”
A wicked laugh rises out of her and she claps her hands slowly. “Did you do that for Marisol or mystery girl?”
“Hey.” I shut the fridge. “Thanks for the groceries, the door is that way.”
She laughs, as always forgetting that I’m the authority figure here. When I don’t lower my outstretched arm that’s pointing to the door, she holds her hands up in the air.
“Sorry.” Her small shoulders rise. “I’ll leave, but tell me one thing.”
“What?” I say, pulling up the garbage bag from the container.
“Where did you learn all this domestic stuff?” She swipes her finger along the counter like she’s giving it the white glove test. “I’d hire you.”
I smile and wink.
She rolls her eyes.
“On the days that I’d be frustrated with school, sports or my father, Marisol would hand me a bucket and tell me to do the bathrooms. It was a stress reliever for me.”
She laughs, and I shoot her a look of warning. I don’t want her waking up Quinn.
She sucks in her lips, silencing her amusement. “I give it to Marisol, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
I round her to throw away the trash bag, opening the back door. “I always go above and beyond.”
Her smile falters. “You do at work. No argument there. But I’m sure if I called you because I was sick, you wouldn’t clean my house and get me groceries.”
I leave her for a second and throw out the trash bag, then return and close the door quietly behind me. “How could I get you groceries? You’d be sick, so you wouldn’t be able to deliver them.” She balks and I shove her in the shoulder playfully as I pass. “I’m kidding. The girl was barely coherent and threw up in the sink. As much of an asshole as I can be at times, I do have a heart.”
“Of course. You’re standing, aren’t you? Everyone has one, I just assumed yours was blackened and the same size as a shrew’s.” She leans back on her palms, her eyebrows raised in question.
“I’m going to assume that a shrew’s heart isn’t big?” I spray the cleaning solution, wiping down the outside of the fridge.
“I knew everyone was wrong when they said you weren’t all that bright.”
I glance over my shoulder, finding a wide smile on her face. She razzes me on a consistent basis and it might be the reason I’ve kept her as my assistant this long. Not that I’d tell her that. “They must’ve missed the Stanford business degree on my wall.”
“That’s what you get for being the boss’s son. Don’t you know? No one likes the boss’s son.”
“Speaking of, aren’t you worried about your job?” She should be back at the office by now.
“No, instead of managing my boss’s office, he’s requested to me to grocery-shop for some mysterious woman he says is upstairs sick.”
I throw the paper towel in the trashcan, grab the bucket, and place it at her feet. “He could ask you to clean the bathrooms.”
She sits up straight, holding her hands up in the air. “I’m out.”
“Even if it could cost you your job?”
She jumps down from the counter, shaking her head. “If you fired me you’d only be proving those doubters right about the not-so-bright comments.”
“You think I need you that bad?”
She swivels around, backing out of the door. “Should I list all the reasons you need me?” Her feet halt and her pointer finger shoots up.
“No. Go back to the office and make sure no one misses me.”
“I’ll be sure to use my sugar-sweet voice to soothe all those entitled actors’ and actresses’ tempers.” She smiles and turns back around, her footsteps halting, her body freezing.
“How come I’m always finding you with another woman?” Quinn stands in the doorway, looking the same as she did earlier, except maybe this time she’s run a brush through her hair.
The hatred in her eyes though. That’s familiar. It’s the same look she gave me over a decade ago when I broke her heart.
- Writer
