Goin' to Jackson { Jackson Wang Series }

Chapter 1

"Wéi," Jen answered her phone.

"Hey, this is Jackson...Wang."

"Yeah, I know. You're the only Jackson who would be calling me. Actually, you are the only man who would be calling me," Jen replied. She immediately regretted the revelation. She had broken her cardinal rule which was to never reveal unsolicited information.

Jackson laughed quietly, but not derisively. He was just nervous and tended to laugh in these kinds of situations. "So, how have you been?"

"OK, I guess," Jen replied hesitantly. She wasn't sure to what she owed the honor of his call. It had been a few months since she had last seen him after a fan sign event. Her lips tingled with the memory of their first kiss, but she immediately straightened her back against the onslaught of emotions that came over her every time she thought about him. She understood why they hadn't kept in touch. He was touring Asia with Got7 and she was sure that he barely had time to eat. Still, she had hoped that kiss had meant as much to him as it had to her. When his calls and texts had dropped off, she had assumed that maybe it hadn't stuck with him the way it had with her.

"Um, the other night, I was going to listen to your radio show, and I was surprised to find it wasn't on. What's up with that?"

"Oh, yeah, the show got canceled due to some financing issues at the station," she explained. She made it sound like it was no big deal, but the truth was that she was unemployed and not sure what her next move would be. She didn't want to have to go back home yet. It wasn't that she didn't miss her family, but she had been hoping to get a few more years in Asia before she settled down and started "adulting."

"Oh, man, that sucks," Jackson commiserated. "I listened to your show on the nights I didn't have concerts." Jen was a little surprised to hear that he had been listening to her show, but she made no reply. "So, do you have any plans going forward?" he asked to fill the silence.

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. I have some training in TESOL, so I might try to find an English teaching job," she answered.

"Oh, yeah, that would be cool." There was a pause in the conversation, during which Jen bit her lip and waited for him to continue. He wasn't saying anything. Again, she wondered why he was calling after months of silence on his end.

As if hearing her thoughts, Jackson spoke again. "I'm really sorry we lost touch. It's my fault. When I stopped getting texts from you, I thought maybe you didn't want to hear from me. So, I stopped texting too. I just wasn't sure what you wanted," he said hesitantly.

Jen was puzzled. Had she stopped texting him? She thought it was the other way around. But then again, she reasoned, it was sometimes hard to keep track of who stopped a texting conversation. Maybe she had left one of his texts unanswered. She couldn't remember having done that, but she may have thought it was a text that didn't require an answer. It hit her that he had been thinking the same thing during all this time. He had thought that she had abandoned him.

"But when I didn't find your show on anymore, I started to worry that you might have gone home or something," he explained.

"Nope, still here," she said, sounding more flippant than she had intended.

"Good...good. So, listen, I was thinking if you are looking for work, you could come and join the tour. You could be in a consulting role or something."

"Consulting?" she questioned.

"Yeah, like, because you know about teaching English and you have lots of experience in Asia, I thought you might be an asset to the team."

"Uh-huh," Jen said. "And have you run this by your company yet because I'm not so sure that they would be interested in paying some random girl to join your tour for a supposed consulting role? It sounds sketchy to me," she concluded.

"Yeah, well, my company wouldn't be the one hiring you. It would be me who would hire you to come along with us," Jackson admitted.

"Oh, so, you want to pay me out of your own pocket to follow you around on tour like some kind of personal assistant?"

Jackson could hear her frustration. There was nothing in her words that was technically untrue, but it definitely sounded different when he heard her say it out loud.

"I mean, I just miss you and I was hoping you could come out on the tour since you didn't have work in Taipei anymore." He tried to sound nonchalant, but he could feel his throat tightening up.

"So, since I'm unemployed, you want me to be your emotional support animal while you're on tour?" Jen questioned pointedly.

"Oh, boy," breathed Jackson. "I guess it doesn't sound very good when I hear it out loud. I just miss you and I thought this arrangement might help us both."

When Jen heard the emotion in his voice, she felt her body go limp. Why does he have this ability to melt me? Jen thought. He says one word, I get all squishy, she chided herself. She waited to speak until she had confidence that her voice wouldn't sell her out.

"Yeah, I get it. I mean, I miss you too," she admitted. "I just don't accept money from guys, as a matter of principle. I think it's a slippery slope that leads to being overly dependent on a man." She wasn't sure she was explaining her position well, but she didn't know exactly how else to say it. In that moment, she was reminded of her favorite badass woman, Frida Kahlo. She wondered internally, What would Frida do? She knew that Frida was a fiercely independent woman who often said she was her own muse and that her goal was to know herself. However, she was also the same woman who said, "Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic." She still remembered Jackson's eyes after they had kissed. He looked stunned, like he had seen some divine creature and lived to tell about it. Thinking of those deep brown eyes made her feel that maybe she was being too rigid. He was offering her a job, which she desperately needed. However, he was offering her something else as well. And she wasn't sure that the two things mixed well together.

"Are you still there?" questioned Jackson.

"Yeah, I'm here," Jen said quietly. "I guess I could think about it. I'm not sure how I feel about all this but let me allow it to percolate in my brain for a while."

"Sure, take your time. Think about it," he responded.

"I'll let you know when I've made a decision," she said, her voice losing its previous firmness. "I just don't want to make a mistake that would hurt us both."

"Yeah, of course. I get it," said Jackson. Jen wondered if it was really possible for him to "get it" because he had never been on the losing end of a power dynamic. He was rich, gorgeous, talented, and famous. In her mind, she was the one who stood to lose something if this went South.

"Well, thanks for calling," Jen said, wanting to get off the phone so she could be alone with her thoughts. "I'll be sure to let you know when I figure out what I'm doing."

"OK, cool," said Jackson, not knowing how to end the call. Should he tell her again that he missed her? He knew he'd better not tell her he loved her. Play it cool, Jackson, he reminded himself. "Yeah, OK, so, we'll talk soon. Take care," he said, even though better, more intimate words lingered on the tip of his tongue.