Page 9 of Needing Your Love
“Been missing having him around, have you?”
“More than you could imagine.”
Babs nodded, knowing eyes looking over my pristine uniform. “You did a damned fine job raising him on your own after she left. I’m proud of the both of you.”
I couldn’t keep my mind from turning toward the boy who’d had everything going against him.
“What’s the frown for?”
Erasing the furrow between my eyebrows, I tried for a grin. “Just…tired.”
Babs raised an eyebrow, calling me out on my bullshit. “Go grab a Snickers,” she suggested, and I huffed a non-happy laugh while turning toward my office, my heart aching the slightest bit.
The candy bar had become my favorite after sharing countless ones with Jimmy, and I still had a weakness for the satisfying sweetness.
Kind of like my weakness for the kid himself.
“It was a good thing Jimmy left when he did,” I muttered to myself while eyeing the phone on my desk and the blinking light that indicated a waiting voicemail that would doubtless be a woe-is-me story about the latest mess my ex-wife had gotten herself into.
Sure enough, Darla sobbed more than she managed to get words out. Something about her partner? Husband? Taking out his anger on her for their financial troubles in ways I wouldn’t usually condone.
No doubt, she’d lied to him.
Manipulated his ass in order to get what she wanted.
And now she was broke and had no place to go.
She probably lied about his abuse in order to draw on my protective instincts too.
I deleted her message, my stomach churning, jaw clenched. Stretching my neck side to side, I attempted to rid my body of tension, needing to think on anything but her.
The Snickers atop my desk called out to me, and I ripped the wrapper open, allowing my mind to fixate on the boy-turned-man who had caused me to question my sexuality.
“The shit out of his mouth was no different than hers,” I reminded myself so my walls wouldn’t crumble.
Who knew what the hell kind of trouble Jimmy would have dragged me into had he stayed and become a gorgeous man right in front of my eyes and lonely heart.
Chapter 4
Jimmy
Quitting my job at Elite Escorts and driving north on a Friday afternoon might have been the greatest mistake I’d ever made.
Or the most rewarding.
Time would tell if the urge to try to fulfill my pipe dream again held any happiness for me.
I had plenty of money stashed away in the bank thanks to my job as a sex worker and my ability to live somewhat frugally. I’d even gotten my GED since I’d left the backwoods of New Hampshire before graduation.
Boston no longer offered the glitz and distraction I’d enjoyed since arriving as a pimply-faced barely adult who’d had less than a hundred bucks to his name. Working at the consignment and gift shop from when I’d turned fourteen until the day I’d left Pippen Creek had allowed me to save enough for an old piece-of-shit Chevy. The junker had gotten me into Massachusetts and the city in one piece.
Barely.
And I was broken down, literally bleeding and crawling through gutters for years until landing the job that had changed my life.
Windows open on my brand new red BMW, the one thing I’d splurged on for my twenty-seventh birthday in January, I breathed in the country air while speeding up Route 16 toward a wide-open future that led to who the fuck knew where. I’d ignored responsibilities that should have been seen to three years ago, which was my excuse for the unplanned jaunt northward.
I’d attempted to leave Pippen Creek behind after I’d been denied what I’d wanted more than oxygen, but a piece of my heart—or two, rather—had remained back in that shithole town.
