Duskwood: Love's Beginning

22 - Jayna

After staying up most of the night dealing with Lilly, I was exhausted and missed Jake even more. I scrolled through his last texts at work during my break, tears running down my face. Lia walked in to get coffee and caught me. Without a word, she sat next to me and hugged me while I once again cried in her arms.

After a while, she asked me tentatively, "Is this about that video?"

I gasped and looked at her, terrified and embarrassed. "You saw that? Lia, I..."

She made a cutting motion with her hands. "If you were going to say that you had nothing to do with a kidnapping that girl, there's no need. I know that already. But even though that video was taken down, it's still out there. People downloaded it before it was deleted, and there are some misinformed morons that have made it their mission to repost it along with yours and Jake's information."

My mouth hung open. That was why I was still getting harassing texts! I hadn't thought about that.

She smiled grimly at me. "So, this Jake. He's your guy, right? The one you told me about?" I flushed and nodded, looking away from her. To my shock, she laughed. "Damn, girl! When you commit to a trope, you really go all in, eh?"

I squinted at her. "What trope?"

"Well, let's see. First of all, you do all kinds of stuff here that is, shall we say, not exactly government-approved. Then you become this kind of rogue detective trying to help complete strangers. And then as the cherry on top, you fall for the bad boy hero wanted by the law." She chuckled. "We need to get you a cape or something."

I flushed even redder and covered my face. "Oh my God, I'm that girl," I said from behind my hands. All this time, I thought I was such a goody-two-shoes. Turned out I was a vigilante who had a thing for dark and mysterious men.

"Are you OK, though?" Lia asked, sobering up. "I mean, that video could have some legal consequences. Have you spoken to an attorney, just to be safe?"

I shook my head. "I'm just a nobody. I doubt they care about what I'm doing. I'm more worried about Jake. He–" I gulp. "Jake had to go away for a bit because of that video, and I don't know if he's OK."

"Oh, sweetie." Lia put a hand on my shoulder. "Look, I know some good attorneys. Some of them might even want to take on Jake as a client, too. If you need any help with that, just say the word, OK?"

I smiled and hugged Lia briefly. "Thank you, so much. I may take you up on that later." Lia patted my back and walked out, leaving me feeling emotionally drained. Time to refocus. I still had about 20 minutes, so I decided to do a little more detective work before my break was done.

Next, I had my chat with Phil after discovering him on the phone list. He recognized my number, which was weird. Was it because he saw the video or some other reason? Why was it saved to his phone?

His use of smiley faces threw me off, but I tried to focus on the questions I needed to ask him. There was no way that he was Jake. His tone, his vibe, and overall personality were far too different. Plus, it wouldn't make sense, right? Jake would have told me that was his number, with or without an explanation for why it was there, and we would have skipped trying to call it.

Phil was surprisingly pleasant and forthcoming and had a sense of humor about me asking questions rather than being annoyed. It was refreshing because I was used to everyone getting annoyed when I asked questions. He also seemed to be quite the flirt. I was used to guys flirting with me in person. I was naturally thin and athletic but still had some nice curves where it counted. People would frequently call me cute or beautiful, sometimes sexy. It was embarrassing, honestly, because I didn't think of myself that way at all.