Page 12 of Final Verdict
Opening my door, he reaches for my hand, and his second touch sends an even stronger jolt of heat through my body than the first one.
For a moment, from the look in his eyes, I wonder if he can feel it, too. If he’s ever felt anything like this before with someone he’s just met.
“Thank you for the ride, Jameson,” I manage. “I appreciate it.”
“You should.” He glances at the building, then back at me. “When do you plan to start walking to the door?”
Welp. Maybe it’s just me…
I turn away and head inside the lobby, moving behind the heavy purple drapes that cover the windows. I peek through the gap, waiting until Jameson’s car is long gone.
I count down from fifty—just in case he circles the block—and then I exit the building and walk down three more blocks to where I actually live.
Hudson University’s art campus welcomes me back with open arms, and when I make it back to my dorm room, fresh letters are stuffed under my door.
Multiple ‘Return to Sender’ notices from Harvard’s Admissions Department, a stash of past-due stage time receipts, and my favorite—angry letters from multiple loan companies I’ve burned.
“Screwed” is no longer the proper term to define my situation.
I’m fucked…
LIABILITY (N.):
LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE’S ACTS, OMISSIONS, OR OBLIGATIONS.
SCARLETT
The following morning
My little treasure chest of lies is almost too heavy to carry for another day.
Depending on who I’m talking to or where I am, I have to mentally draft a map to determine what they know and what they don’t. Rather, what I want them to know, and what I don’t.
Worse, I have to spend the first hour of the morning preparing for everyone I might see, just in case.
And today, I missed that much-needed hour because I overslept.
All thanks to “Mr. Generous,” Jameson.
Instead of going to sleep and forgetting all about his existence, I’d lain awake in bed, sliding my fingers inside my pussy and fantasizing about all the ways our night could’ve ended differently.
In a perfect, much better world, he’d forced me into the back of his car and yanked off my panties. Then he flipped me on all fours and pulled me back by my hair, fucking me hard and fast until I apologized for derailing his night.
“I’m not interested in making you feel any pain…outside the bedroom anyway.”
Brushing away the thoughts of him—for now, I walk over to my mirror.
I make sure there are no flyaways and commit to today’s memory card, which is one of the most truthful in my possession.
Dropped out of a stuffy boring college to study at a better arts one here in New York.
I live for the stage, for the drama.
My family believes in me so much that they’re covering all the costs of my dreams.
“They are covering it...” I mutter over my makeup. “They just don’t know it.”
Okay, let’s go.
