Page 73 of Priceless
Jacob had known my last name. I’d only told Jocko.
Jocko and Jacob. One and the same. Nothing else made sense of it all.
How he must have laughed when I told him the Scottish words I’d learned. He must have laughed himself silly when I said,Jocko! Holy crap! I think I just met YOU!
Multiple people literally called him Jocko, and I bought his whole“It’s an industry thing!”
I wanted to throw my phone out the window too. I wanted it as far away from me as possible. But I settled for shutting it down. I never wanted to see those messages again. Didn’t want Jacob calling when he got back from Paris. Didn’t want to even think about all the times I’d made a fool of myself.
He must think I’m an idiot for not catching on.
He wasn’t Jocko to me now. He wasn’t Jacob. He was some stranger who had played a horrible trick on me, an online sucker.
I could never, ever let Raina know any of it.
Still staring out the window, I waited for the tears to come, but they never did. I had nothing left inside me but a churning stomach and a dark, hollow cavern where my heart used to be. My hands went numb, like the rest of me, so I forced some breaths deep into my lungs.
That was all I could manage.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Iwas able to change my flight online, so there was no need to converse with anyone at the airport. A few questions from customs, and that was it. From Newark, I caught my last flight home. The man who sat beside me was as old as that drummer at the party, with big hearing aids jammed inside big ears that were covered with white whiskers. The hearing aids didn’t seem to work.
I eventually put in earphones, closed my eyes and pretended I couldn’t hear any better than he could. The rest of the flight was peaceful.
The minute I was home, I drew a bath and climbed in, accepting the painful heat as the first round of punishment for my stupidity. I pretended that, for each bubble that popped, another memory was erased, another memory cell obliterated.
I was holding my breath, soaking my head, in the middle of my tenth bath in as many days when I heard a thump. Definitely a thump!
I came up for air, pushed the bubbles away from my face, and listened.
“What in the hell is going on here?!”
Raina!“Shit!”What day is it?
“Laira!”
“I’m in here!” When her footsteps got close, I added, “I’m in the bath!”
The door flew open. She put her hands on her hips and gave me a look that was a hundred percent our deceased mother. “What in the hell is going on here?”
“You said that.”
“I didn’t get an answer.”
“I’m still formulating my response.” I waved at the door. “I’m getting cold.”
She came inside and closed it, something she would never have done before. If nothing else was sacred, we respected each other’s bathroom privacy.
She checked herself in the mirror, then sat on the lid of the toilet. “Good of you to put the garbage can on the street, what with it overflowing with pizza boxes. Looks like you missed trash day?—”
“I did?—”
“Last week.”
“Oh.” I focused on scrubbing my feet beneath the water, trying to hide my puffy face. “What day is it?”
“Sunday. The twenty-eighth.”
