Page 32 of Love Set Free

“Er…yeah. So…the job is… The job’s still available, then?” I ask.

“Yeppers, it sure as shining is,” Jones answers cheerfully. Then his voice turns more businesslike as he says, “We’re confident all the information you need to know about the job is listed, but is there any other information you’d like before we start going through getting all of your information?”

Is there…is there any other information I’d like? What the fuck? Is he kidding? The ad has almost no information on it. Not much useful information, anyway. Not the sort of information I’m sure most people would want before applying for and taking a job, especially for people they don’t know and have never met before. For fuck’s sake, all I know about the people who madethe ad is that one of them goes by the name of Jones, and that’s not very much fucking information at all.

“Oh, um, well…the ad said ‘multi-week’ but it didn’t, uh, it didn’t exactly say when those weeks would be,” I say. Not that the when of the thing will matter to me a whole lot. In fact, if I actually go through with taking this job, assuming they go through with offering it to me, the sooner it happens, the better.

“No, yeah, and so it didn’t. That’s because the timing of the trip you’d be accompanying this individual on is still a bit up in the air,” Jones states. My heart sinks and my stomach, which I’m convinced doesn’t even know what it feels like anymore to not be constantly rumbling with hunger, feels even more empty. But then Jones continues, “However, there’s no reason not to hire you and have you start working for us right away. There’s some…uh…training we could have you go through,” Jones trips over his words. “While we’re waiting for the trip to kick off.”

The rush of relief at what he said nearly makes me stumble from lightheadedness. Of course, some of that could be the cold, the wind, the sudden shock of losing my car, the after-effect of too much alcohol on a perennially undernourished stomach…anything, really. But it feels like the disorientation of relief. Something I’m not too familiar with, but that I’m certainly not going to deny.

That relief is only strengthened when Jones adds, “You’ll be paid, of course. Say…ten bucks an hour while you’re, um, training? On top of the ten grand, naturally; that’s just what you’ll be paid for accompanying the individual on his trip.”

Jesus. Fuck.

If I weren’t worried it could cost me the shot at this impossible, most-definitely-must-be-illegal job, I’d totally start laughing hysterically. Ten dollars an hour? That’s decently above minimum wage for these parts. And on top of the $10,000 payday?

But a job’s a job, right? Right. I don’t care that the whole thing feels a million shades of shady. I don’t care what I’ll have to do for this too-good-to-be-true amount of money they’re offering. I can’t care. I can’t afford to care.

So, I won’t.

What’s the worst that can happen?

“Yeah, yes. Yeah, shit. I’ll…I’ll take the job,” I hurriedly say, before Jones has the chance to snatch it away. “I can start whenever. Tomorrow. Now. Whenever.” It doesn’t even matter to me that Jones now has to know how desperate I am to have this job.

“Wonderful.” And Jones actually sounds as though it is wonderful that I want the job. “Oh, I do just have one question for you before you tell me all about yourself and I let you know where and when to report to for your first training session.”

I’ve been mindlessly plodding my way onward to the garage station while Jones and I have been talking on the phone. The sound of slow-moving cars slogging their way through the snow and slush in the street, now that I’ve reached a busier section of town and have almost reached my destination, joins the still-present swoosh of the wind in filling the air as Jones pauses.

“Are you familiar with the name…Phoenix Wilding?”

Now, I might be poor. I might have just barely graduated high school, thanks to teachers who weren’t paid enough to give a shit that I had little comprehension of what they were teaching and administrators who wanted my ass out of a desk that could seat some other kid in an overcrowded school system. And I might have, so far, spent my adult years bouncing from shit, dead-end job to shit, dead-end job. But I have not been living under a fucking rock.

Phoenix Wilding might as well be royalty. American royalty. His folks are loaded. He’s loaded. The sort of money that’s like stars in the sky—impossible to count or comprehend. He’sgot the sort of slick, generational good looks that means he’s photographed at parties and galas and…all the other sort of shit that richer-than-rich people go to. His name is splashed across magazines and tabloids andTMZ.

Still… Moments of desperation will lead a man to do really, really stupid things.

“Nope,” I lie. “Never heard of the guy. Should I have?”

It’s just a job.Phoenix Wildingwill just be a job.

Chapter Twenty-One

Jackson

Back to the present, in a hotel suite in Rio de Janeiro…

It’s been so long since I’ve experienced normal. While nothing about the things I’m feeling and experiencing as I wake up feel “normal”, I can honestly say that I feel good. Andthat’ssomething I haven’t felt in even longer than normal.

The room I’m in is dim; the curtains I pulled closed across the huge window last night are still closed and only a faint amount of sunlight is bleeding through the gauzy, lightweight material. I’m not that surprised by that while the fabric appears sheer and wispy, the curtains are clearly made up of several layers and designed to provide privacy and seclusion for those staying in this hotel.

I’m not sure how long Phoenix was in the room with me last night before I became aware of it. All I know is one minute he wasn’t there, and it was only me curled up on top of the bed with the blanket pulled over my head and wrapped tight around me, and the next he was, his lean arms banded around me, feeling stronger than they looked, while his husky voice crooned soothing nonsense at me through my cotton cocoon.

I’d spent so long in darkness that it seems illogical to me that, all too quickly, I’d sought comfort and security within the embrace of darkness again. But visually blocking out reality had let me pretend that Phoenix hadn’t left. That he hadn’t left me alone, with nothing but fear, uncertainty, and unwanted memories to keep me company.

Now that Phoenix has come back to me though, I’m relieved that the fabric barrier I’d swaddled myself in got pushed down at some point during the night. Scarcely draped across the lower portions of our legs, the blanket does nothing to conceal the way Phoenix’s and my legs are twined together, or the way there’s barely room for a shadow to pass between where our bodies are pressed close together, my back to Phoenix’s front.

I only wish that I’d had the chance to change out of my dirty and revolting clothing before my panic swamped me. I can smell the clean scent of Phoenix in bed with me—the fresh odor of new clothes, the lush, exotic fragrance of body soap and shampoo, and a hint of crisp spiciness from a cologne or aftershave—and it doesn’t seem right or fair that all of his clean goodness is being tainted by my unwashed disgustingness.

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