Tracy Wolff - Crash Into Me

He looked shocked, and more than a little horrified. “Don’t let what happened between us chase you away, Jamison. I was an ass. I never should have gotten so upset and I sure as hell never should have grabbed you like that. I swear, it won’t happen again.”

“You think that’s why I’m upset? Because you ‘grabbed’ me?” She put the elevator back in service, then hit the button for the lobby. Ryder didn’t move even as the doors started to close.

“Say you’ll come tonight,” he said as they rode down the twenty-three floors to the lobby.

She ignored him. It wasn’t easy—rock stars didn’t get to be rock stars because it was easy to overlook them—but she managed it. At least until the elevator doors slid open and she started to exit.

He blocked her, standing in the middle and spreading his arms so there was no way out. For a second she was pressed up against all that hot, hard, male flesh. Her knees went weak despite her best intentions, but that only made her angrier—and more determined to get away from him. It was like she was an addict—the longer she was in his presence, the more she was willing to do to stay there. Her only hope of escape was to go cold turkey.

Desperate to get away before she started to cry, or gave in, she stepped on his foot. Hard. Then took advantage of his momentary distraction to twist away from him and dart from the elevator.

“Jamison!” He trailed her through the busy lobby. “I’ll leave tickets at will call—”

She kept walking. “I already told you I had plans.”

“Break them.” His voice rang through the lobby. She glanced around, realized they were attracting attention, but for once she didn’t care.

“For whom?” she demanded, whirling on him. “For you?”

He froze, an uncertain look on his face. In that moment, she knew she was—finally—looking at the real Ryder and not the rock god. The knowledge further weakened her resolve. Or it would have, if she had let it.

Silence hung in the air between them for one beat, two, as she waited for Ryder to say something. Anything. But he didn’t—of course he didn’t—so she had to. “I didn’t think so. Good-bye, Ryder.”

She turned and walked away.

“Jamison!” he called after her.

She wanted desperately to turn around, wanted desperately to run back to him and beg him to forget about Jared and his past and everything else that he thought was standing between them. But her days of begging him to notice her, to be with her, were long gone.

So she kept walking right out the spinning glass doors. And she never looked back.

Hours later, Jamison limped into her apartment building with blisters the size of silver dollars on her heels. She’d spent the day pounding the pavement, looking for a job—any kind of job—to fill the gaps until she could find work as a dessert chef. Unfortunately, all the colleges had just gotten out for summer and jobs were scarce as the students had already snapped up most of them.

Which meant she was in trouble, no doubt about it. Unless she got really lucky—something she sincerely doubted would happen—she was completely screwed. Once she got upstairs, she’d log on to the state database and file for unemployment. Then run a job search in the San Diego area—the third such search she’d run in as many days—and see if anything new popped up.

Depressed, pissed off, and more than a little scared—though she hated to admit it, even to herself—Jamison shuffled her way over to the mailboxes, trying not to lift her feet as she moved. She wasn’t sure the blisters could take it. Already, she could feel blood oozing around her heels. It was a testament to just how crappy her neighborhood, and apartment building, were that she hadn’t taken off the damn shoes the second she’d stepped off the bus. But God only knew what there was lying around to step in.

She had just opened her mailbox and reached for the letters inside of it—all bills, she was certain—when Jared’s voice sounded behind her. “Where the hell have you been?”

Spooked at the loud, angry sound, she jumped, bobbled the mail. Then winced as the whole collection of it fell onto the dirty ground beneath her feet. Great. She’d have to remember to wash her hands after she got upstairs. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, squatting down to pick up the scattered envelopes. “Don’t you have a show in a couple hours?”

“Screw the show.” Jared bent and helped her gather the envelopes. “I came here to apologize, but now I want to know what’s going on with you. And I’m not leaving until I get a straight answer.” His eyes were dark and steady on her and for a second Jamison felt like a little kid again. One who could run to her big brother and let him fix everything that was wrong. Because that was who Jared was, who he had always been.

From the time she could walk—and even before then, if their mother was to be believed—Jared was the one she’d turned to when something went wrong. He was the one who fixed her toys when they broke, who made her smile when she was sad, even the one who advised her on boys—though he’d been more than a little uncomfortable with any advice that didn’t begin with “guys are scum and you shouldn’t trust them. And you sure as hell shouldn’t get in the back of a car with any of them. Ever.” Which was more than their dad had ever told her, but still. Not what a girl wanted to hear from her big brother.

Then again, she probably would have been better off if she’d followed that advice. Especially in regard to Evan Schuller and his eight hands.

But this mess was her life. She was a big girl now and she needed to fix things on her own. No more running to her big brother and asking him to make it all better. She was twenty-three years old. It was definitely time to stand on her own two feet…or at least it would be, once she got these damn Louboutins off.

“Sorry I left so quickly this morning, but you and Ryder really pissed me off. I’m a grown-up now, Jared. I sure as hell don’t need my big brother threatening to beat up every guy I make out with.”

“Fine.” He sighed heavily. “I promise not to embarrass you again like that—if you promise to make an effort never to have a make-out fest outside my damn bedroom door again.”

She flushed. “Yeah. I can totally do that.”

“Good. Now, why don’t you take me upstairs and get me a drink? I’ve been waiting down here for more than two hours. And in the meantime, you can explain to me exactly where you’ve been all day.”

But that was the problem. She couldn’t tell him she’d spent the day looking for a job. He’d freak out and try to hand her a big check to tide her over. She didn’t want to be the baby of the family anymore, the one Jared always felt like he had to protect even when she didn’t want or need his protection. He might think of it as his job as her big brother, but she sure as hell didn’t. Not anymore.

She leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek—breaking eye contact as she did. Lying was hard enough for her. Doing it while she was looking straight into her brother’s eyes so wasn’t going to happen.

“I’ve been working. I had some new recipes I needed to try out.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jared stepped back, quirked an eyebrow. “What kind of recipes were they?”

“A couple new cakes,” she told him. “I want to try something new, but not too different--”

He sighed heavily. “I went by the restaurant, Jamison. They told me they had to downsize—right after they tried to get me to take a photo with the owner and chef.”

“Shit. I’m sorry. I—”

“You think I give a damn about the photo request? I want to know whyyou didn’t tell me you got laid off.”

She shrugged, tried to blow it off. “It’s no big deal. With the recession, people aren’t eating out as much—especially at fancy restaurants. They had to downsize and since I was the last employee hired, I was the first fired. You know how it goes. At least they gave me a good , recommendation. It shouldn’t be that hard to find another job.” As long as she didn’t mind asking customers if they wanted fries with their burger, anyway.

“Do you have enough money to get by?” Jared asked as he followed her up the stairs to her third-floor apartment.

“Yeah, of course. I’m fine.”

He snorted, but didn’t say anything else as he waited for her to open her front door. Once they were inside her apartment—which she liked to think was furnished in shabby chic, but in all actuality was really just shabby—he sprawled across her couch and asked, “What happened to your car?”

She closed her eyes, blew out a long breath. She’d really been hoping he hadn’t seen her getting off the bus. “I was in a wreck earlier this week.”

“A wreck?” He jumped off the couch, crossed to her. “How bad was it?” he demanded, his eyes moving over every visible inch of her body, searching for damage.

“I’m fine. It wasn’t a big deal. But my car’s not drivable right now.” Which technically wasn’t a lie, she told herself, since the stupid thing would never be drivable again.

Jared looked more than a little suspicious of her answer, but he didn’t call her on it.

Determined to get him off his line of questioning, she gave him a hug, then laid her head on his shoulder. “I appreciate your concern, I really do. But did you seriously come all this way to talk about my car?”

“No. But now I think we’d better.” He glanced at the clock on her wall. “Where’s Charles? I thought you had plans with him tonight?”

“No, not with him.” She waved a hand dismissively. “We broke up. It’s no big deal—it was brewing for a while.”

“Really?” Jared’s eyes narrowed. “What did he do?”

She sighed, exasperated now. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

But as usual he wasn’t listening—or paying any attention to the back-off signals she was throwing out all over the place. “The jerk just happened to dump you the same week you lost your job and your car? When she didn’t answer, he ground out, “That bastard.” Jared pushed past her, walked into her postage stamp sized kitchen. Opened the fridge and stared at the dismal contents before slamming the door shut and turning back to her. “When were you going to tell me all this?”

“I wasn’t, actually. It’s none of your business.”

“None of my business? My baby sister is stuck in San Diego with no job, no car, and no boyfriend to help her out. Does that about cover the situation?”

“I don’t need a man to help me out! I’m not an imbecile, you know.”

Jared rolled his eyes. “I was talking about him giving you a ride every once in a while. This isn’t exactly a public-transportation-friendly town.”

Didn’t she know it? She’d been on four buses and the trolley today, and that was just what it had taken her to get home. “I’m fine. I—”

He cut her off with a downward slice of his hand. “You are patently not fine, sweetheart.”

His words cut right through her—even though she knew they were true. Her carefully organized life had spun completely out of her control and she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do about it. She tried to hide her discomfort, but Jared must have figured out how much he’d hurt her because he started backpedalling. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that you have such a hard time accepting help. You always have, ever since Mom left. But, Jelly Bean, there’s nothing wrong with needing someone sometimes. I can help you. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help!”

This time he was the one who winced. “Has it ever occurred to you that sometimes I need to help you? You’re my sister. I know you can do whatever you set your mind to. But I love you and I worry about you and I can’t just walk away and leave you here in this ridiculous apartment, with no job, no car, and no money.”

“I have some money. Besides, I don’t want to take advantage of the fact that —”

“What? That I’m a rock star? Give me a break. I have more money than I know what to do with. Let me give you some—”

“I’m not doing this with you, Jared.” She crossed to the door, opened it. “You need to go or you’ll be late for the concert.”

“I’ll leave when you come with me.”

“That’s not going to happen. I need to look for a job.”

“Here?”

“Where else?”

“I don’t know. Back home maybe? You moved here because of that job at that damn restaurant. Now what’s the point of staying?”

“I have a lease. I have a life here.” And absolutely no desire to run back home with her tail tucked between her legs. She’d left Austin with big plans. She wasn’t—she refused to be—her mother’s daughter, running home at the first sign of failure.