Chapter 5

Chapter Five

The interview was long and tedious, but Jay felt he'd done well. They asked him all the right questions, and to his mind he gave all the right answers. The panel of three—two men and a woman—seemed keen on his ideas and nodded in all the right places. The salary they offered was way less than he had been paid at Drayton Partin, but that would only be for the first year.

The kind of work we'd be having you do for the first couple of years is at intern level with the appropriate salary point, but this is a chance to learn Deeks Hyland from the ground up.

We have a team that we could slot someone of your caliber into immediately.

You have a very impressive skill set that we feel would benefit Deeks Hyland.

Incidentally, do you have any clients you could bring with you from Drayton Partin?

Finally the interview finished. "If you could wait in the other room, we'll have a think on this and call you back in."

Jay left the room with a grin, and it stayed with him for a solid ten minutes. Okay, so he needed to make concessions, but he'd have paid employment, not to mention healthcare and other benefits.

The other door into this breakout room opened and he looked up instinctively. Mark. Ex Mark, in a dark suit, with a scarlet tie, and a grin on his face that smacked of confidence.

"Hello, Jay," Mark said quickly.

The last time they met, they'd punched each other in the face, Mark had ended up on the floor, and Jay had threatened to punch him again. Given all that, Mark's hello was kind of confident. Actually, considering the last time had ended in punches but started by Jay finding Mark with his cock in someone else's ass, Mark was fairly smug and superior. This didn't bode well. "Mark."

"How'd it go?"

"How did what go?" Jay asked, feeling a little stupid.

"The interview?"

"You knew about the interview?"

"Knew about it? I said they should snatch you up from Drayton Partin. I told them you'd been let go. Will has just been promoted, and I have a junior vacancy on my team. I told them I wanted you and you alone."

Shock hit Jay front and center. The interview wasn't because he'd sent in a beautifully formatted and detailed résumé? It was because of Mark.

Wait…. On Mark's team? Mark had a team ? He'd be reporting to Mark? No fucking way.

"Will's been promoted?" Will, the guy whose ass Mark had been using in their bedroom?

Mark had the grace to look a little uncomfortable. "Yes, but that's all water under the bridge." He pasted a cajoling smile on his face. "The three of us will make an awesome team. With your artistic vision and my skills in the bullshit, we'll be unbeatable. I can't wait until I have you back under me," Mark raised his eyebrows then winked. "I've missed your ass in my life."

The facts mixed and muddled in Jay's head. He'd be reporting to his cheating, lying, bastard ex; he'd be working with Will—was Mark still fucking Will? and who cared?—he would be taking home thousands of dollars less than he was used to, working in a position where he was starting at the bottom. Jay didn't see the win here.

"I haven't decided if I want it," he said in summary.

Mark's smile left his perfectly smooth face. "Don't be fucking stupid. Of course you want it. I set it all up for you."

Jay stood and brushed the seat of his pants to give himself time to think. He needed to handle this diplomatically. The job might not be ideal, but it was a job, right? He was twenty-nine, he had years ahead of him, and he could bite his tongue about what a complete asshole Mark was. He could even avoid Will in the office if he had to. "What's in it for you?" He stepped closer to Mark until there were only a few feet between them.

Mark moved closer too, until Jay could have reached out his hand and touched his shoulder. Having Mark this close was unsettling. The scent of him, expensive and cloyingly sweet, was so familiar. But the memories it brought back were less of love and more of feeling like he was some kind of weak-spined idiot to have stayed with him for as long as he did.

"I have missed you," Mark said quietly. Jay considered if that was the first honest thing Mark had ever said in his presence. "Things didn't really work out well with Will, and I know why. It's because he wasn't you."

Jay stared directly into Mark's eyes and quickly saw he was lying.

"Did he kick you out as well?" he asked abruptly. "Did you punch him, then tell him he was emotionally unavailable and fucking useless in bed?"

Mark frowned. "Will was nothing to me."

The door to the interview room opened.

"We're ready for you, Mr. Sullivan."

"Go," Mark encouraged.

Jay looked from the door to the room, to the exit, then to Mark. This was wrong. All wrong. He faced the interviewer standing in the doorway, who had a frown marring his face and looked a little confused, his gaze flicking from Mark to Jay and back again.

"I'm sorry to waste your time, sir," Jay said formally, then, before anyone could say a thing, he left.

What have I done? He stumbled out into the cold drizzly day and found himself surrounded by everyone who had jobs to go to—men and women with coffees and phones, the chaos and confusion of a city day parting to move around him and continue on its way. Everyone had a purpose except him.

Home. I need to go home. I need to remind myself of the responsibilities I have to my family, then I need to go back in and apologize at Deeks Hyland. Swallow my pride. I need that job.

Arriving home, he found Kirsten sitting in front of the TV with a game controller in her hand. Again. The images he had in his head of providing for his family were forgotten as he took in his niece killing zombies and cursing at the screen. She ignored his entrance, probably hadn't heard him come through the door.

"Why aren't you at school?" he asked immediately. She ignored him and concentrated on killing whoever the hell was on the screen. "Kirsten, I asked you a question."

With a huff, she paused the game and looked up at him. Her expression was mutinous. Actually, her expression was permanently rebellious these days.

"I'm ill," she said with the air of the put-upon.

"You don't look ill," Jay observed. "If you're ill, how come you can play video games?"

"It's women things," Kirsten said irritably. "It doesn't affect my hands."

When did she turn from being the niece who loved nothing more than sitting on his lap and listening to him read Harry Potter to her? What had happened to the gorgeous blonde kid who loved her uncle Jay? He closed his eyes briefly. He was in a losing battle with the whole time-of-the-month argument, and he knew it. Maybe Ashley could get her to see sense.

"Where's your mom?" Jay hadn't seen his sister before leaving for the interview this morning. They needed to talk about Kirsten and the time missing school. If Kirsten really was ill, why were her eyes ringed in the customary thick black liner, her lips a pouty scarlet and her dark pink hair straightened like she was going out clubbing?

"In bed. She says she's ill too, a migraine I think 'cause she's lying in the dark. It's okay, though, I got Josh ready for school." She looked at Jay expectantly, as if her getting Josh ready for school negated the fact that she had decided not to go in herself. Jay fought the instinct to say thank you. If Ashley was ill and he wasn't in the house, Kirsten taking the initiative was a mark in the plus column, but he was still pissed at the fact she was skipping another school day. When Jay said nothing, she sighed loudly. "What are you doing here anyway? I thought you had an interview?" she asked.

It sounded like an accusation and she narrowed her gaze at him.

Jay was immediately on the defensive. "I turned it down," he lied. Who knew if they were actually going to offer him the damn position anyway. "I'm researching from home." He indicated the dining table that straddled the space between the open kitchen and their small living area. At the moment it was covered in homework and reading books and some kind of half-finished art project that Josh demanded be left where it was.

"Well, I'm playing games," she said quickly. "I was here first."

Jay opened his mouth to argue, but shut it again. He used to be so close to Kirsten, but recently the fifteen-year-old had become hostile and belligerent, prone to quick temper and quicker cutting sarcasm. He couldn't face a fight today, not with the headache that banded his skull.

"Turn it down and we'll be okay," he said instead.

She huffed again and restarted the game, turned the sound down one notch. The jarring noise of guns and engines and screams was serving to make Jay's headache worse.

He made coffee and drank a whole cup before he poked his head around the corner of Ashley's door. He needed the caffeine to give him a bit of a high before he admitted to her what had happened. They'd spoken with hope about this interview today, like it was the answer to every problem they had. If he got the job, Kirsten might be happy overnight. If he got the job, Josh might not show signs of dyslexia. If he got the job, maybe Ashley could get counseling and set up her freelance cake-decorating service as she wanted. Hell, if Jay got the job, maybe he could spend time away from everything here and get a touch of a life of his own.

Guilt consumed him. That was not what he thought at all. He wanted to provide for his small, dysfunctional family as much as the next guy.

"Hey, sis," he said softly into the gloom.

The curtains were drawn, but there was enough faint light to see that Ashley appeared to be sitting upright in bed with her arms around her knees. He made out that much, but couldn't see her face clearly. "Kirsten said you weren't well."

"I'm fine," Ashley said. "Go away, Jay."

Jay ignored her. He was good at that. She might be older than him by three years, with a teenage daughter and a young son, but she was not strong enough for him to feel like he needed to follow her orders. He crossed to the drapes and pulled them open, letting light into the room.

"Jesus Christ, Jay," she shouted hoarsely.

He turned abruptly to face her and inhaled sharply.

"What the fuck, Ash?" He crossed to her side and clambered onto the wide double bed before gripping her hands and pulling them from where she was attempting to hide her face.

She winced and let out a yelp of pain. A dark mark marred her cheekbone and mascara ran from wet eyes. She wriggled free of his hold, and he let her go.

"What the hell happened?"

"Leave me alone," she sobbed.

"Tell me. Who did this to you?"

"Lewis," she said brokenly.

Jay couldn't believe what she was saying. Lewis Kaplan, her ex, had done this? "What the hell, Ashley? He's still serving time, isn't he?"

"He got out last week," she replied woodenly. "Early release."

"How did I not know this? Why didn't you tell me? Jeez, did you go to see him? Ash? Talk to me!"

"I had to! He's Josh's dad, he wanted to talk custody?—"

"The fucking bastard lost that chance when we won in court. He abused you and scared Josh." Jay shook his sister and she yelped. He immediately let her go. Why didn't she see what she was doing? "Why did you see him without me?"

"I knew you'd be angry with me. I make everyone angry," she sobbed. "I told him not to worry about Josh, that when he was in prison you looked after us, that you were like Josh's dad, and he said some disgusting stuff about you and slapped me. I told you… I made him angry." She raised her gaze to his and scrubbed furiously at the tears.

Deflated, Jay sat back and away. He could only focus on one of the things she'd said. "Why would you say something like that?" His sister had gone from one bad relationship to another. Pregnant at fifteen, she'd been through a succession of losers. Jay couldn't be there all the time, but he thought they'd put Lewis behind them. "You didn't make him angry."

The counseling she'd done some time ago had begun to help her, and Jay felt helpless that she'd somehow drifted back into connecting with her ex.

"Was this the date you told me you had last night?" He'd babysat for Josh and watched twelve Tom and Jerry cartoons back-to-back with his nephew. And all that time Ashley was meeting the man who had nearly destroyed her?

Ashley placed a hand square on his chest, and he winced at the touch. "He was so nice to me, Jay. Bought me dinner, told me he was sorry, that he wanted to try again…. Why did this happen?"

Jay couldn't decipher what his sister was asking. Was she railing at the world, asking why everything in her life had happened? Or was she asking him to explain why Lewis was an asshole who abused women? He didn't have an answer to either. Instead, he pulled her into a close hug and held her gently. She cried into his shirt.

At least he had his mind made up.

Montana was thousands of miles away, but the words that Marcus Allen had said had been filed away in Jay's head: a new start —for him and Ashley, for Kirsten and Josh. There had to be good schools there.

"Jesus, fuck." He rested his head on hers.

Now things were different, now it was Montana 1, New York 1.