Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
What is wrong with me?
Why am I like this?
Why can’t I just be happy about what is happening between Jameson and me?
I glance at my phone to check the time. It’s almost 1:30 a.m. Eliza should be getting home soon. In fact, just as I’m setting it aside so I can go back to staring at the ceiling and pondering on whether or not I’m going crazy, it starts vibrating in my hand.
Eliza, the caller ID reads. But just as I pickup to answer, the call stops. Moments later, I hear the front door and the unmistakable sound of her steps coming down the hall.
The bedroom door bursts open, and she enters like a whirlwind, still in heels and lingerie, with only a coat over her, that she instantly takes off and tosses aside. With a single, triumphant motion, she tosses a massive stack of bills into the air. It rains down all around us as she leaps onto the bed beside me.
“Thought you might have gone home already,” she says.
“Pretty successful night?” I ask with a smile.
“Mm-hmm,” she replies, nodding. “So many suckers there tonight, you should have seen it. Boy did you pick the wrong day to quit.”
“Did I really quit if I never even started?”
Eliza’s eyes flick back and forth in her head as she ponders this a moment, then she nods and taps me on the arm. “You know what? True. So what’s with your mom? Was she really that messed up that you couldn’t even stay at your place earlier? We have got to get you your own apartment–”
“We’ve talked about this, Eliza,” I groan. “Someone has to look after her, and right now that’s me.”
“She needs rehab,” Eliza replies.
“We’ve talked about this. She has to want to go. I can’t force her to.”
“You can’t spend your entire life taking care of her either,” she says. “You’re her daughter. Not her caretaker.”
I groan and bury my face in the pillow. We’ve had this conversation so many times, and I still don’t have any answers for her. I don’t have any answers for myself.
“Yeah, you’re right, Eliza. You are. That doesn’t change anything for me right now though, does it?”
To my surprise, Eliza doesn’t respond right away. In fact, it takes her so long that I actually look up and see her staring at me, a knowing look on her face.
“What?” I ask.
“Come on, spill it,” she says.
“What?” I feel myself starting to blush. She knows something.
“Why are you really here, Iris, and not over at Jameson’s mansion?” Sometimes I wish Eliza wasn’t as perceptive as she is when it comes to me. “Even if he’s working, his house is big enough that you wouldn’t bother him. What does he do, by the way?”
Again, I sigh. This time I sit up and lean against the wall. I guess it’s time to come clean.
“Do you really think I’m a manhater, Eliza?”
“Oh, without question!”
“Come on!” I protest. “Be serious!”
Eliza laughs. “I am being serious! You know you’re not a fan of the guys, Iris.”
“Oh, and you are? What do you call them? Cash cows?”
“Well that’s just the ones at the club,” she chuckles. “I don’t hate all guys like you seem to.”
“Okay, you’re just messing with me right now.”
“Iris, do you not remember when we first met at the supermarket?” she asks. “You were always going on about how guys are all scumbags and they will abandon you when you need them most.”
“Yeah.” I cringe. “I do remember that…”
“That’s why I was so surprised to see you getting along so well with Jameson. Very unlike you. You mostly avoid talking to guys. Aside from that Chad asshole. I never understood why you got anywhere near that prick in the first place.”
I groan and collapse onto my back again. She’s right as always.
“Well, Jameson is different,” I explain.
“Thank God.”
“He was there for me after my dad left, but then–”
“Then he vanished and abandoned you and made you hate all men. I remember what you told me about him.”
“Stop!” I protest, again covering my face with a pillow.
“Look, the guy is obviously rich,” Eliza goes on. “Just get him to be your sugar-daddy or something. He clearly wouldn’t mind.”
“No, I can’t do that to him. Even though he did say he would pay for my college tuition if I wanted to go.”
“He what!?”
Eliza laughs. I pull the pillow from my face and glare at her.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re gonna need to toughen up, girl. If you can’t see when a man wants to take care of you, then you are going to have a hard time moving up in this world.”
“Look, it’s not that, okay!?” I blurt out. “I don’t want to treat Jameson like a sugar-daddy! There may be…more going on between us.”
Thank God Eliza is here to talk things out with. The more I keep running my mouth, the more it seems like I am starting to understand my own feelings and why I ran away from him earlier in the first place.