Yasmin.
If Hugo ever found out his precious daughter had been banging the Bitar half-breed on and off for the last year he’d die of shame.
Jai kept his expression blank as Yasmin spun around, unbuttoning her blouse. She had the same look in her eye she always did. She thought she was using Jai. She thought somehow she had power here because he continued to be with her despite how she treated him in public. But he was using her .
He was using her to get back at them all.
It wasn’t something he was proud of.
It was dishonorable and the one thing Jai had always counted on was his honor.
But then Yasmin wasn’t a sweet innocent girl who needed to be protected. She was a manipulative, powerful female Ginnaye who believed he was worthless. Strike that. She was attracted to him so he had worth as a ‘playmate’. But she’d rather die than let anyone else know that.
Jai sighed, reaching to grasp her hands and stop her from undressing. He’d been waiting for a moment to end it. Dumping her was part of the whole revenge thing but there had never been an opportune time. Heading off for his big assignment meant he’d be gone for gods knew how long. It was perfect timing.
He chuckled inwardly. He was going to enjoy this.
“Stop.” He pulled back, watching her beautiful face darken. “It’s not going to happen, sweetheart.”
“What are you talking about?” she hissed angrily, frantically trying to re-button her blouse.
“I got a big assignment.” He shrugged. “Don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“So what has that got to do with anything?”
Jai narrowed his eyes on her and he watched the pulse jump in her throat. He couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that he had such an effect on her. “What was it you called me at that meeting with Hugo and my father two weeks ago? A useless piece of dog crap with poison for blood?”
She shrugged, her dark eyes flashing. “It was a joke.”
“Oh yeah, it felt like one.”
“What’s this about, Jai? You’ve never been pissed off before.”
“I’m not pissed off. I don’t do pissed off.” He ran a hand down her neck, watching her shiver. “I don’t care enough about you to do pissed off.” Exhaling heavily, he stood back, placing a mocking regretful look on his face. “It’s been nice, sweetheart, but I’m moving up and on. Time for you to hitch a ride back to your full-bloods.”
It was hilarious, watching her jaw drop. Yasmin was not the kind of girl a guy broke up with. “Are you dumping me?”
“How can I dump someone I was never with?”
“You a**hole!” she screeched, pushing him out of the way. “Wait until I—”
“Until you what, Yasmin?” he laughed now, eyeing her evilly. Yasmin was still that spoiled little girl who ran to her daddy when things didn’t go her way. Hugo had threatened a number of boyfriends in the past. “Tell your daddy on me?” He shook his head, making a tutting noise. “You can’t tell Hugo, sweetheart, ‘cause then he’d know just how naughty you’ve been this year.”
Jai didn’t think her face could grow any redder with rage. “I was right about you. You are nothing. You are worthless, Jai! No one wants you. Not for anything real.”
He shrugged, not letting her see her words had affected him. “You really think I care?”
With a growl of rage, the air shimmered around her telling Jai she was about to use the Peripatos . Yasmin exploded into flames at the same time the vase on his phone table screamed, shattering into a million flying shards all directed at him. Jai cursed, wiping hand across the air in front of him. The shards sliced into his enchantment, turning into grains of sand before they could hit and cut him.
He grunted, leaning down to scoop at the sand on his carpet. The rug was one of the few splashes of color and comfort in his condo and was a genuine Moroccan Berber. Handmade. Expensive. Irreplaceable. It would take him forever to get the sand out without damaging the wool. “Should have dumped the crazy bitch weeks ago.”
~3~
Push and Pull Too Much, My Heart Will Fall Right Out
The delicious, tingling impact of forceful sprays of hot water from her shower head woke Ari up in more ways than one. She frowned at herself, lathering coconut scented shampoo into her hair, her fingers digging into her scalp with frustration. She was not a negative, pessimistic person. She was… well… not exactly an optimist but she was not the depressed, ‘bemoaning her fate’ kind of girl she’d been projecting lately. No. She was a ‘quit whining and do something about it’ kind of girl. So OK, sure she didn’t know if she had made the right choice about college, but since she hadn’t a clue what she really wanted to do with her life, getting a degree seemed like the practical thing to do. So what if she wasn’t looking forward to it? Ari was not going to lounge around all summer being pissy. No. She had a task to complete. Operation Save Charlie. A whole summer stretched ahead of them and Ari was dedicating this summer to pulling Charlie back from whatever hell he had dug himself into. He could be alright. Ari had to believe that someone as smart and kind and funny as Charlie still had a long, bright future ahead of him.
Determined to begin right away, Ari pulled her wet hair into a messy bun and threw on a light summer dress. Quickly checking her reflection before she left the bedroom, she noted the dark circles under her eyes and cursed. She took a couple of seconds to find some concealer and cover those bad boys up, her eyes washing over her reflection to make sure there was nothing horribly wrong. Usually she didn’t much care but this morning she was hunting down Charlie and wanted to look at least OK. The fact was… it was kind of easy for Ari to look OK. Whoever her mom had been she had been pretty and Ari had inherited her exotic looks. Her long hair was thick and dark brown, although when the sunlight hit it, it had a reddish tint to it. Her smooth skin looked permanently tanned all year round and she had soft, pretty features, the most distinctive of which were eyes that seemed to shift colors in different light. No one was able to really pin point Ari’s actual eye color, only that they were beautiful with thick, long lashes so dark Ari never wore mascara. She was pretty. It was a fact. But unlike other girls Ari didn’t pander to the pretty. She wasn’t vain, she wasn’t egotistical; she didn’t assume things would go her way because of her face. But what she was according to Rachel was even worse. Indifferent. She didn’t care. She knew she could throw on a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt and still pass for OK and according to Rachel that was an inverse vanity that bugged the hell out of her. Ari wasn’t quite sure what that meant so she’d politely told her best friend to stick her inverse vanity up her ass.
Sure that she was presentable, Ari grabbed her school bag and hurried out of the house, foregoing breakfast, and texting Rachel to let her know she didn’t need a ride to school that morning. Ari marched down the street, her long legs eating up the sidewalk, the lactic acid in her muscles burning as she forced them into sudden and intense exercise.
She made it to the Creagh’s in record time and just in time to bump into Charlie as he slammed out of the front door. He stopped abruptly, pushing his messy hair out of his eyes, blinking at her owlishly. He took the steps two at a time and half-jogged over to her where she waited on the sidewalk. A waft of lemon danced up Ari’s nose and she noted he was wearing a freshly-washed South Park t-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt. He’d done his laundry. Surely that was a good sign. Right?
“What are you doing here?” he grumbled, shouldering past her toward the direction of school.
Ari’s heart was pounding as she took in his tired but un-dilated eyes. She brushed her hand across his arm to slow him down. “I thought we could walk to school together like old times.”
Charlie frowned, throwing her a suspicious look out of the corner of his eye. “What’s going on?”
Ari pretended to look affronted. “Does something need to be going on for me to want to hang out with you? We haven’t hung out in forever.”
“We don’t exactly run with the same crowds these days, Johnson.”
Here goes . Ari took a deep breath. “We could change that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The desire to start screaming and shouting at him that he was acting like a complete and utter douchebag bubbled under Ari’s skin as it did sometimes when she forgot what he was going through, but she shook it off, pulling on every ounce of patience she had. “It means… you could stop hanging out with those bums and start getting your life back on track.”
“I’m perfectly happy with my bums.”
The distance Charlie put between them hurt, a painful hurt that was as fresh today as it was the first day he’d spoken to her in that infuriating monotone. “You used to be perfectly happy with me.”
“Ari, don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she muttered in irritation, frustrated that their meeting was already off to a dismal start.
Charlie grinned at her then, and her heart lit up at the sight of it. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he countered teasingly.
See, why can’t he be that Charlie all the time? I love that Charlie. Giving him a soft smile, a smile meant to coax, Ari nudged him with her elbow. “How about we hang out this summer?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Back to Mr. Monotone again. Great. “I thought maybe we could take a road trip or something.”
“Yeah, whatever you want.”
“Or we could do something you want to do.”
He laughed bitterly, slamming his hands into his jean pockets and hunching over a little as they continued walking. “I wouldn’t let you do what I want to do.”
OK, maybe it was too early for patience. “What… get high? Get wasted. Sleep around with a bunch of STD-infected skanks.”
“Ari,” he moaned. “It’s too early for this shit.”
“Yeah well it’s never too early to catch a disease,” she snapped, attempting to conceal her jealousy and hurt that he slept with anything with br**sts and yet treated her like an asexual house plant. “Have you even been to a clinic?”
“Two weeks ago.” He tilted his chin arrogantly, narrowing his eyes to a smolder that should have annoyed her rather than cause the funny flutter in her lower abdomen. “Just because I’m eye-candy doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“Oh, ha-ha, funny.”
“I’ll have you know lots of girls find me attractive.”
“Yeah and you don’t turn down any of them do you?”
“That sounds suspiciously like you’re calling me a manwhore.”
“I am calling you a manwhore.”
“Ouch. I’m hurt.”
“Yeah I can really see you’re cut up about it.”
Charlie grinned, his dark eyes glittering. “I miss you, Johnson.”
Ari’s heart stopped, a painful halt in beat that made her almost trip. She smiled sadly. “I miss you too.”