Page 10 of Bully's Second Chance
From then on, I kept seeing him everywhere. He’d come by to visit, claiming he was meeting up with his wife to have lunch, pick her up after a meeting, or some shit like that. His wife, Guadalupe, did some volunteer work at the college back when I was still there, but we both acted like he was going to see her instead of him always coming to see me. He helped me decorate my room. He bought me a couple of little trinkets for my nightstand. He even helped me choose the right minor to pair with my business major to give me the best start possible.
Then, he employed me part-time at his spa so I could work the closing shift after I was done with all my classes.
He took care of me the way my drunken asshole of a father never had, and I wanted to make him proud. I also wanted to pay him back for all of the help he had given me over the years. And that was enough to pick up my cell phone and punch in Jax’s personal cell number.
But, I simply couldn’t press the green button to call him.
Jax and I were adults now. We could get through this. We could put our past behind us and progress forward in a healthy manner. I knew we had it in us. I just couldn’t call him, though. Maybe if I had been calling his work cell or his office, it might have been different. However, calling him on his cell phone in the middle of dinnertime seemed a little too…
I don’t know. It just didn’t sit right.
“I’ll sleep on it. That sounds like a good idea,” I murmured.
A yawn came bursting forth from between my lips, and I set an alarm for six-thirty. If my alarm went off and I didn’t feel like going in, I wouldn’t take the job. Morning me always knew what was best for me before I pumped myself full of caffeine and ran on the adrenaline high. And if morning me weren’t feeling this job one bit, then I’d simply shoot him a text and thank him for his offer.
So, that’s exactly what I did.
I tossed and turned most of the night until my alarm finally went off, and the second I sat upright in bed, I scooped up my phone and dialed Jax’s personal phone. I groaned as I swung my feet off the edge of my bed, padding into my bathroom while the dial tone ding-a-linged in my ear for what seemed like an eternity.
And when Jax finally picked up, I felt my heart skip a beat with excitement.
But, when he spoke—his voice heavy and gravelly with sleep—I felt my knees weaken a bit. “This who I think it is?” he asked.
I smiled as I turned on my shower. “I’ll see you at eight under two conditions.”
He yawned. “Shoot.”
“If I work weekends—which I know you don’t, but if something does happen—I’m paid overtime.”
“That’s company policy.”
Oh.“And secondly, I want one more week of vacation. It can be unpaid, if necessary, but I want one more.”
He groaned with his stretching. “And what does someone like you need all of that vacation time for?”
I clicked my tongue. “Well, contrary to what you might believe about the rest of the world, our lives don’t revolve around you.”
“Shame. The world might be better off if it did.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know why I bothered. Have a good—”
“I agree to any and all terms you might come up with between now and the time it takes you to get to work. Okay?”
I blinked. “Pretty dangerous territory.”
“And if there’s anything I know about you, Lily DeMarcus, it’s that you don’t have it in you to take advantage of someone. You know your worth, and you know you deserve to be paid for it, but it isn’t possible for you to take advantage of people. Trust me, I’m not worried.”
I paused before I started shedding my clothes. “I’ll see you in an hour and a half.”
“Great. See you then. And come ready to fill out a ton of paperwork.”
And with that, he hung up the phone call and I slipped into the shower in order to get ready.
* * *
“Here’sthe desk you’ll be stationed at. It’s right in front of my office door so we can easily access each other, and I already went through the painstaking work last night of syncing up your work-phone calendar with your laptop calendar that is now synced to my phone and laptop calendar.”
I placed my purse on top of my desk. “So, that means I can see your schedule as well?”
