Dawn of Forever (Jack & Jill #3) (25 page)

Sunny

Sunny and Mickey
gave each other their virginities. They promised to be each other’s first and last. They loved hard and fought even harder. Mickey felt like Sunny deliberately applied to the colleges with the worst sports teams just to postpone marrying him until after college. The difference between them was she cared about her parents’ opinions. He did not.

“I can’t wait any longer, Sunny. I’ve been offered scholarships to six different colleges and I need to decide.
You
need to decide.”

She sat up in bed and slipped on his T-shirt as he scooted back against the wall. Sunny’s closet was bigger than his bedroom, with a squeaky twin bed and an old metal trunk. He had three shirts he deemed worthy of having on hangers, which hung from his curtain rod because he didn’t have an actual closet: his basketball jersey, football jersey, and the only dress shirt he owned.

“I’m not deciding on your future, Mickey. That’s not fair of you to even ask.”

“My future? Are you kidding? You are my future. Four years. College is four years of my fucking life. It’s nothing. Football is nothing. You…” he gathered her long auburn hair in his hand, exposing her neck to his lips “…are
everything
. I love you, Sunny.”

She pulled away. “Love won’t pay rent. It won’t get you a job. It won’t buy you a car that you don’t have to jump start every morning. It won’t get you out of Oakland. You need to play football to pay for college. I need to not piss my parents off so they’ll pay for college. They like you Mickey, but they’ll hate you if you propose to me the minute we cross the stage. Then they’ll disown me for saying yes. We’ll be broke, homeless, and what? In love?”

“What did you say?” He grabbed her arm.

Sunny tried to pull away, a scowl stealing her perfect features.

“I said we’ll be broke and homeless.”

“No, before that.” His strength was no match for hers. He pulled her into his arms, pouty lip and all.

“What?”

“You said your parents would disown you for saying yes.”

“They would.”

“But would you?”

She sighed. “Would I what?”

“Say yes?”

With a single finger he lifted her chin, waiting for her to look at him. When she did, he knew the answer.

“Yes, Mickey. Of course I’d say yes. My heart will always be tethered to yours. I choose you today. I choose you always.”

He grinned.

She pinched his cheeks together until it hurt. “Don’t you dare smile. Just because I’m hopelessly—stupidly—in love with you, doesn’t mean I’m not still mad as hell that you’re being such a selfish jerk. If four years is ‘nothing,’ then I don’t see the big deal in waiting until we’re done with school,
and
if you love me the way I love you, it won’t matter if we’re at the same college.”

She broke free of his hold and searched for her clothes. “Would it kill you to pick up your room? Your dad is going to go apeshit if he sees this mess.”

“So let me just be clear on this … you will say yes no matter when I ask you to marry me?”

“Dammit, Knox! Your dad will be home any minute, and I don’t want to be naked when he gets here.”

Knox
meant business. Sunny rarely called him by his given name, except for when she was ready to explode at him. She’d give him one warning. Saying it twice meant a week or more of jacking off in the shower—no sex, no kisses, rarely even a phone call.

“Here are your clothes.” He lifted his pillow. They were wadded under it. “See, I’m much more organized than you give me credit for.” His grin just begged to be wiped off his face.

Sunny grabbed her clothes, pulling them on with fire-drill speed. “I’m going home and picking the college with the worst football team ever, you big stubborn ass.”

Knox chuckled. “Good idea. They probably need me the most.”

She rifled through the clothes and school books covering his floor, searching for her shoes. He could hear her mind cursing at him for being so damn messy and herself for falling in love with a walking disaster. The thought made his smile double because she did—Sunny loved him and it was a miracle.

“I can’t live like this, Mickey. I’ll divorce you within a month of marrying you if you don’t pick up your crap.” She tugged on her boots, hopping from one foot to the other. Her nose scrunched as she pulled off her right boot “Mickey! Yuck!”

With frighteningly-accurate precision, she whipped the boot at his head. He ducked and it
thunked
against the wall.

“What?” He grabbed it off the bed. “Oh.” His life depended on him not grinning; he nearly lost it. “Sorry, Sun.” Biting his lips together, he retrieved the used condom from the inside of her boot. “I just tossed it.”

“That’s my point. Who just tosses used condoms on their bedroom floor? I don’t toss my tampons on the bathroom floor. It’s disgusting.” Sunny snatched her boot from him and stomped out of the room without putting it on.

“Don’t be mad—” The intimidating waste of space that was his father, stopped him in the hallway.

Nicotine and liquor filled his nostrils. The man bathed on a need-to basis, usually when he vomited on himself or had to wash the blood off his hands from beating the shit out of Knox or his mother.

Sunny turned at the top of the stairs. Thankfully, his father let her pass. The evil in his eyes said Knox wouldn’t be as lucky.

“Go home, young lady.” His father didn’t turn to look at her, but he knew she was watching.

“Mickey.”

“He’s not a fucking cartoon character. His name is Knox. You best remember that.”

“Go, Sunny. I’ll call you later.” Knox packed as much confidence into his words as he could.

He risked a glance over his father’s shoulder, but he shouldn’t have. The fear in her eyes that day stayed with him forever.

“Mr. McGraw—”

“I said go the fuck home!” He whipped around.

Knox grabbed at him but not before the back of his father’s hand connected with Sunny’s face.

“No!” Knox yelled, watching arms, legs, and a mess of red hair tumble down the stairs.

“You fucker!” Pain shot in bolts of lightning from his knuckles, clear to his elbow, as he busted his dad’s nose.

His father stumbled back, blood running down his face. Knox moved toward the stairs, his heart refusing to beat again until he got to Sunny.

“You’re dead, boy.”

In the corner of his eye, Knox caught the wrath of the drunken beast coming toward him. He made a fist and rammed his elbow sideways in his father’s already broken nose. In less than three seconds the course of Knox’s entire future changed forever. His father fell backward, crashing through the railing and plummeting to the first floor, smacking the weathered wood floor six feet from Sunny’s limp body.

“Sunny?” Knox skidded down the stairs and dropped to his knees. “Sunny?” He cradled her body in his arms and rocked back and forth. Tears stung his eyes and fear gripped his heart.

*

Knight

The story Knox
told Jillian felt like another world, a parallel universe. With each word she felt her mother die all over again. She hated and needed each word, each one unbearable yet necessary.

“That scar by her right temple. She said she fell down the stairs and spent three days in the hospital with a concussion and a broken arm.”

Knox nodded. “It wasn’t a lie.”

“It was. She told me she slipped on the top stair.”

“Can you blame her?”

Yes. She could blame her mom, and she did. Knox didn’t need to know that. Jillian wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her anger, her pain, her vulnerability. Instead, she sat idle, enduring a new kind of hell, the kind that came from having such sacred memories tainted and completely shattered.

Her father had secrets. It was part of his job. Keeping secrets kept people alive. Her mother raised her and Jude. She folded laundry, scrubbed the floor, made Halloween costumes, and cooked three meals a day. Every Sunday she took them to church. Jessica heard the story of her mother’s childhood a million times … all of it except Knox McGraw.

“She said she was too busy studying, cheerleading, and practicing her violin to keep a boyfriend very long.”

Jillian liked the pain in Knox’s expression. He deserved it. They shared a mutual disappointment in Sunny for not telling the truth about her past, but for different reasons.

“That day … when I thought she was dead, I hated myself for ever loving her, for ever putting her at the top of those stairs on that day … with that man.”

“Your dad?” Jillian coughed. She tasted blood, her throat painfully raw. “What happened to him?”

“He was taken out in a body bag.”

The words “I’m sorry” sat on her tongue, but she couldn’t say them, not to the man she still hated.

“My mother grieved his death for years. I have no idea why. She should have thanked me. Instead, she turned her back on me, blaming his death on my anger management issues even after Sunny backed up my account of the events to both her and the police. Rumors were everywhere and one by one, I lost my scholarship offers. By the time I graduated, I had no means to go to college … no direction. A few of my buddies decided to get their education via the armed forces, so I did too.”

“But my mom didn’t end up going to college.”

He shook his head, regret heavy in his sober expression. “Her dad, your grandfather, had a heart attack the summer after we graduated. He died on the operating table. Sunny refused to leave her mom and her sister so soon after his death, so she got a job working at the front desk of a hotel.”

“She eventually moved to a bartending position in the hotel’s restaurant.”

Knox looked up. “Yes.”

“She told me that’s how she met my father.”

His expression hardened as he nodded slowly. A few seconds later he closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Yeah, but that’s a complicated story.”

Jones

“I
’m not as
excited about Portland. I’ve been there.” Lake stared at the ceiling from the hotel bed, twirling her long dark hair around her finger while Luke typed away on his computer.

“Sorry to disrupt your travel plans. Oh, wait … you’re disrupting mine. Did I mention I’m willing and even eager to send you back to San Francisco? I bet we can still get you a flight out tonight.”

“No thanks. You want to know what I think?”

“No thanks.”

“I knew you did. I think we should talk to more of AJ’s neighbors. Maybe some of them went to the funeral and saw her there. If you don’t want to go, I’ll do it while you stay here and do … whatever it is you’re doing.”

Luke spun around in the desk chair, hands folded behind his head as he arched his back to release the tension from sitting for so long. “How kind of you.”

Lake leaned up on her elbows. “I know, right? We could be like Holmes and Watson.”

“Mmm … brilliant, my dear sister. But something tells me your little investigation has more to do with a certain football player and less to do with interviewing the residents of Peaceful Woods.”

She failed to contain her grin. “Seriously, did I mention he’s not freaked out by my leg? And he called me hot.
Hot,
Luke. He didn’t have to call me that. It’s as if he wanted me to know that…” she shrugged “…that … well, that he thinks I’m hot.”

Luke smirked.

“Don’t. Don’t ruin this for me. Just let me have this dream … this fantasy. Let me play this out in my head. Can you see it? NFL quarterback shrugs off a throng of groupies after winning the Super Bowl to get to the love of his life and wait for it … she has a prosthetic leg, but he only sees her as
perfect
. This dream might be it for me. I need more to take back to San Francisco. Thirty minutes, forty tops. Then I’ll say goodbye forever. Oh, and of course I’ll question the neighbors too.”

“I’m so happy that in the midst of my tragedy you can find your own little fantasy.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“I think Jackson’s the only one who will lead us to Jessica.”

“Then you should talk to him again.”

Luke shook his head. He didn’t really trust Jackson to contact Knox. He didn’t trust Jackson in general.

“I don’t know. If he didn’t have Ryn, I’d worry about him skipping town. They’re here under new identities for a reason and us being here probably makes him nervous. He’s easily paranoid.”

“Maybe we should stakeout his place.”

Luke nodded. “Exactly. And we could use Cage’s bathroom.”

Lake rolled her eyes. “Hardy har har. I’m serious.”

Luke spun back around in his chair. “I’m not.”

“Ugh! You drive me crazy.”

The feeling was mutual.

“Okay. I’ll make you a deal.”

“I’m listening.” He typed in his screen password.

“If you let me go ‘investigate,’ I’ll fly back to San Francisco in the morning.”

He whipped around in his chair. “Then go. Do you remember how to get there?”

“Yes.” She pulled on her boots, her smile stealing her entire face. “I’m going to find the missing clue, Sherlock.”

She wasn’t going to find any new information, but it didn’t matter. His sister would be on a plane back to safety in the morning. That’s all that mattered.