Pleasure

Chapter Thirty-Six

Jacob

I want to chase after her. I want to tell her everything but it's just too soon. Courtney isn't going to stop messing with Aria, and I don't want anyone messing with her. But I can't tell Aria everything yet. I just need more time. I just need her to understand that. She's slipping away, I feel like, and I can't do anything about it.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I groan silently and pull it out.

"Hello?" I answer as the warning bell for class sounds.

"Yeah," Donny replies. "I need you for a minute." I roll my rolls knowing a minute won't be just a minute.

"Are you fucking serious? I'm in school." I complain. I hear his gum popping loudly through the other end.

"Does school get you fucking paid? No. Get your ass over here." He barks. Before I can object, he hangs up the phone. I clench my jaw, staring down at the ground. I can't say no to this, but I know I should go. The sooner I leave, the faster I can get back to Aria.

I go to my car and throw my backpack in the trunk. Once I'm inside, I put the car in reverse and back out of my parking spot. I speed down the street to the old, busted down, familiar house.

"I can't believe the nerve of fucking people!" Don screams with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the morning. He has no time limit to when he shoves alcohol into his system, it stopped surprising me a long time ago. I stand against the wall with my hands in my pockets, listening to him complain.

"You know," he turns to me and starts, "I was actually gonna let this guy go. He doesn't make half as much business as me. He's a fucking joke. But then he runs up on my guys? What does he expect to fucking happen now?!"

"I don't know." I respond, only half paying attention.

"We're going to pay him a visit, that's what." Donny threatens before washing his mouth with alcohol. He searches through his drawers before finding a gun.

"Wait what?" I inquire, not fully understanding where he's going with this.

"Let's go, we're gonna go pay him and his buddies a visit." He repeats, slipping a jacket on. "Grab a gun, kid."

"Don, I can't."

"Why the fuck not?" He snaps. I instantly think about Aria. I think about her innocence and her soft eyes and her lips. I think about the truth and how she would despise me if she knew what I did. I think about how Courtney is truly right and I can't keep my secrets from her for forever. I don't want to do this. I should've stayed at school. I should've stayed with Aria.

"Jacob." Don grabs my shoulders and pierces his thumb into my skin, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Grab. A. Fucking. Gun. I don't need you playing pussy right now. You've got a job to do, and I'm telling you to do it." I don't want to, but I know it will end so much worse if I don't listen.

I climb in the backseat of the black SUV with Donny and two other men, gripping a gun tightly in my hand with the finger off the trigger.

Aria

I step outside into the warm air and call Jacob once more but he doesn't pick up. I looked for him around school, but I haven't seen him since this morning. I start to think he's not answering because he's mad at me. I feel bad about how we left off. His face when I walked away was so sad. A little part of me is hoping he'll pull up in his familiar car and walk to me and hug me, but I know that all of those things are just fantasies.

The warning bell rings for the next class to start and I'm forced to go back inside. I wave goodbye to Natalie and watch as she walks down the hall alone. Lucas hasn't really been around since the day I saw him. I don't have hard feelings for him, what I said was all in the moment. I hope he doesn't hate me for that. He was a good friend, and he only told me those things to protect me.

I walk to my locker and put in my combination before opening it. A small white envelope falls out and on the ground, on top of my feet. I dip down and pick up the envelope. My name is written in cursive. I scrunch my eyebrows and run my fingers across the letters. I flip it over, but it doesn't say who wrote it. I begin to wonder if Jacob slipped it in here in between classes.

My excited fingers fumble to open the letter as a smile slowly creeps onto my face. My mind is getting ahead of myself and I imagine what he left me. Or if he left me anything in the first place.

I pull out a small picture. At first it's unclear but as my eyes begin to scan, I notice that it's a boy's head laying on a girl's chest. I furrow my eyebrows and pinch my face as my mind questions what I'm looking at. I flip the picture over and see small words written in the top right corner.

It was his favorite position to lay in with me.

I look back at the front of the picture and scan the boy's head. I dig in the envelope and notice another photo. In the same setting, I see the two people kissing.

I unwillingly let the picture fall to the ground. It stings, strangely enough. My mind catches it before my heart does. It's like the wind is knocked out of my lungs and my heart has been shot and ran over by an 18 wheeler. It only hurts so much because I know what it is right away. I can't wipe it away or unsee it. It's here, in clear picture, and I'm staring dead at it. I want it to be a lie, but it's here.

Now the image of Jacob and Courtney kissing is embedded in my brain and I can't get it to leave.