Earning Edie (Espinoza Boys #1)
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Authors: D.J. Jamison
Earning Edie
Copyright 2016 DJ Jamison
Published by DJ Jamison – Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Table of Contents
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Stepping off the ledge and onto the blank page can be a scary prospect. This book is a long time coming, and I couldn’t have done it without the support of my husband, the many reassurances from other writers and the great insights from my beta readers.
EDIE
Well, my parents did it again.
They managed to turn what should be a happy occasion into another crapfest.
Sitting on a folding chair under the glaring sun, my hideous yellow gown soaking up enough heat to power a small village, I couldn’t muster much excitement about high school graduation. It was a stepping stone to our future, a milestone in our lives,
blah blah blah
.
To my right, Jessica Mallick flirted with Brian Morris while handling dueling text messages from her friends. Apparently, she’d made out with someone last night and was now strategizing about how to “catch” him.
Considering at least half the senior class would be leaving town when summer was over, I didn’t see the point. But when it came to high school girls, I was usually the exception, rather than the rule. I hadn’t had a boyfriend yet. And no, I wasn’t a lesbian, even though my cousin Daisy insisted on asking me that question every other year when I saw her for Christmas.
Still, I admired Jessica’s multi-tasking. Sitting directly under the sun on Ashe High’s football field, I was too miserable to focus on anything, much less two-way texting and one-way flirting.
I sweltered under the polyester gown, my skin growing sticky with humidity. Lifting my thick brown hair from my neck to get a little air moving, I snuck another peek at her phone to pass the time.
Another text message: “Doesnt he have gfriend”
“Not 4 long,” Jessica sent back.
Charming.
The phone chimed with a return text. “You take Carlos; I get Jaime.” Followed by a winky face.
I knew those names.
Carlos Espinoza and Jaime Harris ran with the popular jock circle, pretty far from my more academic group of friends. My closest friend, Lily Brown, sort of surfed between the two circles, making friends with everyone, and she’d been obsessed with Carlos all four years of high school.
Watching him run through girls like soda pop while my awesome friend pined after him made me instinctively dislike him, but Lily had already promised I was going to his graduation party tonight, even if she had to drag me screaming. Lily’s promises often came across more like threats, but I was used to it.
“Lily!” I called across three rows so she could hear me where she sat with the other B names.
She turned, her blue eyes squinted against the bright sunlight.
“I don’t see them,” I said, hoping she’d take my meaning.
Her mouth dropped into a grimace, and she craned her neck to scan the crowd gathering in the football bleachers.
I watched her, rather than the crowd, tired of scouring the bleachers for some sign of my absentee family.
My parents had never been what you’d call good at the parenting thing. They were divorced, which you’d think would mean double the presents and birthday parties. Not so much. Instead, they each shoved parenting responsibilities at each other, and no one picked up the slack.
Instead of two presents, I often got no presents.
They hadn’t attended parent-teacher conferences in ages, which wasn’t that big of a deal. I made good grades anyway.
They’d also skipped my high school band concerts, which was a little harder to swallow. I’d eventually given up the clarinet, so it hardly mattered now. Only I sometimes wondered if I might have kept playing if I’d had someone take an interest. I suspected musical genius wasn’t in my genes, even with an enthusiastic parent in the crowd, but I’d never know for sure.
They’d even forgotten my birthday one hectic year.
But skipping my high school graduation.
Really
?
A smile lit up Lily’s face and she waved wildly to the crowd. I jerked my head around, hope surging.
My eyes landed on Lily’s brothers and sisters, who waved enthusiastically from the crowd, and my heart settled back into its steadier, if disappointed, rhythm.
Figures.
She had a ginormous family, and they were all there. Her parents; her two older brothers in college; and her three sisters still in junior high and high school. It made me wonder where the heck they were all sleeping this summer.
Lily got annoyed by her huge family, but I envied her. There would be plenty of cheers when she crossed the stage.
I’d give anything to have someone in my corner like that.
Thirty minutes later, I shuffled off the stage — after a rousing speech about how we were all persevering like our mascot the Pioneers and the added of humiliation of being called
Eddie
Mason – to find someone had shown up for me after all.
“Look!” Lily pointed into the flow of people that now swarmed the graduates with congratulations.
Tequila shoved her way to us through the crowd, grinning widely. That girl could rival Lily for the best smile ever. It stretched across her face bursting with uncontained joy.
“You did it, Eeds!” she squealed and pulled me into a hug.
Somehow, I ended up squealing and bouncing up and down with the 13-year-old I mentored. I was supposed to be a model for at-risk youth, but sometimes it seemed like Tequila was the one teaching me about life. My parents hadn’t made it, but Tequila made the effort when it was anything but convenient for her.
“You didn’t have to come. How did you get here?”
Tequila shrugged her bare shoulders above her tube top and said “bus” before popping her bubble gum. She’d paired the bright purple tube top with tight white shorts.
“And what are you wearing? Are you trying to get knocked up?”
Tequila rolled her eyes, used to my mother hen act.
“For real, Edie? I know enough about sex to know you don’t get knocked up just because you look good.” She turned to Lil and gave her a hip bump. “Am I, right? Hmm?”
Lily laughed. “You’re right,” she said, earning a glare from me. “So, you want a ride home, Vodka?”
“Har-har,” Tequila said, used to Lily’s joke of calling her by every liquor except her actual name. “It never gets old.”
Lily gave Tequila a ride home and dropped my at my job, Jumpin’ for Joy, before heading home.
Technically, I had the day off to “celebrate” my big day. I opted to stop by, and see if I could catch an extra shift. Dad had been avoiding the tuition talk, and I was getting a bad feeling about how much financial support I was going to get.
My boss Joy took one look at my face and enforced “bounce therapy,” a term she’d coined for making me go jump in the bouncy houses we managed.
“You need to bounce the blues right out of you, missy!” she scolded playfully, pushing me toward the nearest fire engine red inflatable. “Today is your day. I won’t let you work. Besides, the place is practically empty.”
She had me there. She did a brisk business on the weekends and through birthday parties, but late afternoon and evening was always slow. So, I did as ordered, and reluctantly kicked off my shoes and started jumping.
Between Tequila’s surprise visit and Joy’s enforced bouncing, I felt lighter than I had since I realized my parents weren’t going to appear at graduation. I was
almost
in the mood to celebrate.
Maybe I would go to that party with Lily.
NICK
I’ve been celibate more than a year. For a guy, that’s like,
forever
.
The reason for my celibacy? The green Prius idling in my apartment parking lot. Or rather, activities with the driver of the Prius. I like cars, but not that much.
I ducked down, my palms sweating and curse words pouring from my lips. I couldn’t handle seeing Elana right now. Or, well, anytime, if I was being honest.
My sister-in-law must have been in town for my cousin’s graduation. I’d missed the ceremonies — and a run-in with her, thankfully — because of a last-minute news meeting at work. A news meeting that was anything but
good
news.
My column was on the chopping block unless I improved my readership in the next eight weeks. And that column was
everything
to me. It was my ticket to syndication in larger newspapers, and maybe even a book someday. But only of it was a success, and I was determined it would be, whatever it took.
It was kind of stupid to think I could hide from Elana. Besides being bright orange, my 1969 Dodge Charger was a distinctive classic car, and one I’d spent countless hours working on in Elana’s garage last year. She’d be sure to recognize it.
I smashed the gas pedal to the floor.
The engine revved loudly as I sped up — a feature that usually revved my ego, but today made me cringe — and the wheels squealed as I took a corner too fast.
My cell phone rang before I’d cleared the next block.
Elana.
Grimacing, I let it go to voicemail.
I didn’t know how long Elana would hang around in the hopes of cornering me. I could go to Mama’s house, but there was always the possibility she’d show up there. Elana had gotten even closer to Mama since my brother died, which made me all kinds of nervous considering the secret we were keeping.
We’d made a stupid mistake. One that could rip out my mother’s heart.
It was every bit the cliché Jerry Springer scenario you might imagine.
My brother Gabriel had been traveling a lot for work, while I’d been spending a lot of time working on our project car in his garage. Hanging out with his wife. His
lonely
wife.
It doesn’t take much to add two and two.
Gabe and I were supposed to restore the Dodge Charger together, but like Elana, I was feeling his absence. I spent hours over there, working on the car and eating the dinners she made for me. We talked, and we drank wine, and we watched movies together.
Then it happened.
One hook-up. One impulsive fall into bed. One betrayal that couldn’t be undone.
And … hell, there were no excuses to be made. I fucked up. Big time. And there was no taking it back.
The phone stopped ringing, only to start up again.
Fuck my life.
I drove aimlessly, gritting my teeth until the phone went silent once more.
Blessed silence filled the car. Elana had given up on reaching me, for now.
I should just man up and talk to her, but what was there to say? She only reminded me of our indiscretion. Of my brother, and the fact I could never make it right with him.
Gabe died in a car accident before I could even think about coming clean and asking for forgiveness. Or at least a good ass-kicking. That might have assuaged the guilt somewhat.
With him gone, and the chance for amends gone with him, I wasn’t sure I’d ever outrun the guilt.
Still unsure of my next move, I drove aimlessly. I needed a place to settle in and work. Shoving the guilt aside, I concentrated on the revelations of today’s news meeting.
I’d been doodling in my notebook, drawing a caricature of my managing editor, Tanya Nelson, as a blowfish shouting at a bunch of distracted guppies when Sean flicked my pen.
My head had shot up to see the blowfish herself staring me down, brown eyes narrowed in annoyance. I quickly flipped my notebook to a fresh page before she spotted her caricature.
“What?”
“You’re quite the attentive reporter,” she said dryly, drawing a few quiet laughs from the staff. My mouth opened, my mind whirring through potential excuses for my distraction, but she continued on. “We’ve had to cut a reporting position.”
My mouth snapped shut, and I cast an anxious glance around the table. No one was missing. Except Shirley, but Shirley always came in late because she lived on a farm an hour from town. It had to be Shirley … Tanya wouldn’t actually lay me off in public, right?
“That means the rest of you have to shoulder some extra responsibility,” Tanya added, with a meaningful look around the table. A look that said, “Yes, I will be giving you extra work, and no, you won’t be getting any perks in return.”
A wave of relief had hit me. I still had a job. As for the reporting, who cared? My job was to write columns and meaningful features, not cover the daily grind.
“Nick, you’ll have to pick up some extra stories.”
Relief, gone
. “But my column—”
“As I was saying when you drifted into la-la land, we’re considering retiring your column, so you can report full time.”
“WHAT?”
I’d shot from my chair, heart pounding. I’d worked my ass off, done the hard sell to get the damn thing started — and they wanted to discontinue it, already?
Even though I’d argued hard for my column, Tanya hadn’t budged much, outside of giving me an eight-week window to convince her to save it.
To do that, I needed a kick-ass column each and every week for the next eight weeks, and I had until tomorrow afternoon to turn in the first one.
Gotta love being a journalist in the era of dying newspapers.