The Anatomy of Jane (28 page)

She sighed deeply. “If this is the case and all of this just happened, then why are you here?”

“Because I don’t want to be pushed to the side by Max. That’s why I left and that’s one of the reasons I brought her. I want him to know what it would be like for me to sit on the sidelines and watch them together in public. I want him to be the odd man out for a little bit.”

“Wes, I don’t know what to say.”

I stared into her green eyes. “Don’t say anything. Just support me. Support us. Support my choice to love two people at once. Please, Mum, we have enough people against us as it is.”

She put her hand on my cheek. “Okay.”

“Your moms are hilarious.” I sighed, falling on top of his bed before staring at the night blue sky painted on his ceiling. His whole room was covered in books; not just comics, but the complete works of authors like Plato and Aristotle and also Edgar Allen Poe and Shakespeare.

“That’s one word for it.” He lay down beside me. “I knew they’d like you, though.”

Really?
I smiled. “I like them, too, though Brenda really dug deep. I swear, one second longer and she’d know my social security number and blood type.”

“Don’t be surprised if she makes you into a character in her next crime novel.”

“It’s so cool that she writes crime.”

“That’s one word for it,” he repeated.

I stood up and dropped some of the pillows onto the floor beside me.

“What are you doing?” he frowned, shifting onto his side.

“Sleeping on the floor.”

“Why?”

I had a lot of reasons…well, really just one. “Max. He’s not here.”

“So you want to sleep on the floor?”

“No…I…”
Urgh.
Running my hands through my hair, I thought about how to say it.

“Jane?”

“You whisked me away to England in less than twelve hours.” He didn’t understand what that was like for me; even I hadn’t really thought about it. “Three months ago, I never thought I’d even leave Boston. I went to Mexico with Allen once, yeah, but that was just right over the border. We saved for months and rented this beat-up old Chevy. It was this once in a lifetime thing for me. And in less than twelve hours, you’ve brought me to England, in first class, and I’m in a castle by the sea, even though you won’t admit it’s a damn castle. But this is amazing, Wes! I’m so excited and happy. I want to kiss you. Kissing you right now will lead to other things, and then I’d feel bad going back knowing we just cut out Max as if he was nothing.”

There, I said it.

He stared at me for a long time. His face was emotionless.

“Wes?”

“I’ll sleep on the floor.” He got up and walked to his closet to pull out a knitted blanket. He dropped it on the pillows I had put on the floor. Before lying down, he kissed the side of my head.

“Wes?”

“Jane don’t say more, please. You’ll make it even harder for me.” I thought I’d screwed up by bringing up Max. However, I saw the raging erection he had in his jeans.

“Night,” I whispered.

“Night.”

She had no clue the effect she had on me.

How I wanted her more because she also cared for Max.

Adjusting on the ground, I looked at my bed.

“You knew I was going to offer to take the floor, didn’t you?”

She pretended to snore loudly. Smiling to myself, I closed my eyes.

Chapter Eighteen

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Reaching to the nightstand, I grabbed my phone. “What?”

“Where are you?” Scarlet hollered in my ear so loudly I had to pull the phone from my ear. “You’re late.”

“For…?”

“Maxwell! The meeting!”

“The meeting is at 9—”

“Which is why I’m calling you at 8:57 a.m. wondering where the hell you are!”

8:57a.m.?
I pulled my phone away and stared in shock as the time went from 8:57 a.m. to 8:58 a.m. I had never overslept, not in the last four years at least. Wes always got up early, which in turn got me up, too. Rolling over, I sat up, looking around me room…my very empty room.

“Max?”

“I’m on my way.” Hanging up on her, I got up.

I’m not sure why I walked out of my room, as if I really needed to check that they both weren’t there. I stood at the door for a while until I felt my phone vibrate again. Lifting it up, I saw I had a few missed messages from Jane.

‘Max we just got here. Just thought you’d want to know.’

‘I know you’re upset…both of you are upset but…just…I don’t know.’

‘
I hope you’re all right. We both miss you, goodnight. -Jane.’

Her most recent message read, ‘
I know you’re already up, so good morning. Sorry I didn’t text earlier. Pippa and Brenda took me into town today. I got a wool sweater from a real life sheep! I met her. Her name is Tabitha. She has her coat back and I think we look like twins.’

Attached to her message was a picture of her and Tabitha. Smiling, I shook my head. Only she could grin like that because of a sheep.

‘Which one is Tabitha?’
I asked, texting back as I headed into the bathroom.

‘Ass. Glad you finally texted back. Are you all right?’

‘I’m perfectly fine. Working is keeping me busy so you don’t have to keep texting me. Enjoy your trip.’

‘...Okay. :( But I’m going to keep texting. After all, I’m not the one paying this phone bill.’

‘Do what you want. How is Wes—’
Erasing the second sentence, I put the phone down and rubbed the back of my neck.

Ring.

Looking at the phone, her next texted pissed me off more than I could even imagine:
‘Wes says he’s glad you didn’t oversleep without him.’

‘His ego may have made him think I’m unable to live without him…he’s completely and utterly wrong. I didn’t even notice.’
I sent it before I even realized what I was saying.

Why couldn’t I ever say the things that were really going through my mind?

“We’ve got nothing and 48% of our viewers believe that you are personally attacking Governor MacDowell with no real facts,” Scarlet said as she walked around the table. “Maybe we should drop the story.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No one else is talking about this. The moment we stop applying pressure is the moment he gets off.”

“Max, we aren’t prosecutors.” She groaned, rubbing the side of her head. “The story has started to cool down. We have no cards left to play, and our only trump card to date, the interview with any of the supposed girls, vanished weeks ago. I have no idea where she is, or if she was even serious about being forced to sleep with him.”

“She could be—”

“There are no dead prostitutes or missing persons in the city either. We need to move on.” She had cut me off, and when I looked around the table, I could tell they all thought the same.

“Fine,” I muttered, rising from the desk. “We pushed it too close. That’s all.”

“Max—”

Ignoring her, I got up with my phones and walked out. I made it halfway to my desk when Dwayne Adams—who I decided must have a fetish for plaid shirts—approached me.

“Sir, we aren’t just going to drop this, are we? I really think we have something here.”

“Didn’t you hear them? We have nothing.”

“I’ll find something,” he said quickly.

“Why?” I turned to him.

“Why?”

“Why are you so committed to this story?” I asked him. I knew my personal feelings were clouding me in this, but what was in it for him?

“He’s guilty—”

“Bullshit. What’s the real reason?”

He didn’t speak, so I just left him to follow me into my office. Once inside, he closed the door.

“I want to nail this asshole to the wall,” he stated.

“I see that, but you’re still not saying why—”

“Have you heard about the BWA the Governor passed four years ago?” he asked.

“The Balanced Wellness Act.” I nodded. “What about it?”

“Since it’s been put in place, welfare for men and women has been cut by more than half. Because the governor struck down the new income increase, working people are really struggling. Some are even going to soup kitchens now. It is so bad that people want to protest, but they can’t afford to take the time off from their low-paid work. In the past, any that tried were sent to jail on trumped up charges. Governor MacDowell called them ‘throwaways’. On top of that, he slashed over a billion in spending while cutting taxes for millionaires. He claimed minorities were the reason for rising crime rates, but most of the arrests were for petty crimes like stealing food. Now that we know he’s also a fraud and a predator, we’re going to just let this man walk? I can’t! I won’t.”

For a split second, I remembered Jane’s lecture on what ten dollars meant to her. “
Have you ever been starving, Mr. Emerson? No? Have you been so hungry you feel sick and in pain? Or so poor you eat other people’s leftovers in bars?”
Her words played over in my head.

“Fine.” I nodded at him while leaning back in my chair. “Keep looking.”

“I won’t let you down,” he said, moving to the door.

“Adams?”

“Yes sir.”

“Be smart. Don’t go digging through the man’s trash or anything.” I thought for a second. “Or at least, don’t get caught.”

“Yes sir.”

When he left, I leaned back and took a deep breath. However, that was as much as I got to relax before Scarlet, the very last person I wanted to be alone with at that moment, came inside.

“I know you’re annoyed,” she said.

“You have no idea,” I muttered. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it now. “We
are
going to catch him.”

“I know that but until we get something concrete—”

“When we do, we’ll be back on top, and then you can leave the company on a high note.”

She paused before tilting her head to the side. “What do you mean leave?”

“I mean I want to fire you, but I also don’t want to make this bigger than it needs to be.”

“Max! What?”

“What?” I finally looked up at her and rose from my seat. “What did you think would happen when you tried to blackmail Jane? You didn’t even try to hide it. You confronted her openly with what thought in mind? That she’d run away and not tell me?