Jailbait Read Online Free Page A

words are like a punch to the gut. “But you look so…so normal,” I blurt, then feel like an ass.  
    “The cancer has spread but hasn’t taken hold of anything yet.” He speaks matter-of-factly, like he’s stating something mundane like the weather. Denial, maybe? “It’s only a matter of time before that happens. Now,” he says and jerks his arm out of my grasp, “if you’ll be so kind as to get back to the job I’m paying you to do. I have to go and start getting my affairs in order.”  
    “Then you’ll tell her, right?” I take a step back to avoid being hit by the closing Mercedes door. “You’ll tell her you’re sick.”  
    The door slams shut and Alcott backs out of the parking space without another look at me.  
    “Fucking asshole,” I mutter and roll a loose piece of pavement under my boot. I shake my head and go to my Harley, foregoing the helmet because of the heat.
    If he won’t tell Pepper, I will. She deserves to know. Yeah, telling her will void whatever contract Alcott and I have going, but it’s not about the money. It’s never been about the money, not when it comes to Pepper.  
    It’s always been her. It will always be her.  

    *

    I wipe sweat from my forehead and walk around my bike, holding my hand over my eyes to shield the sun. The thing is pristine, better than the day I took it home. The bike is five years old, but doesn’t look like it. I rode it damn near every day it was in my possession. Two and a half of those five years, the poor bike sat covered in the back of an auto shop. The same one I work at.
    Worked.  
    My whole life I’ve had a job, scraping by paycheck to paycheck. Now I have more money than I know what to do with, and a house with a garage. An attached garage. Plus, loads of spare time. I never in a million years thought I’d have complaints about getting paid a shit ton of money for doing little work, but dammit, I’m bored. The highlights of my day are the little glimpses of Pepper that I get as she walks from house to car, car to building, and back. She goes to expensive restaurants, does a lot of shopping, and spends most of her spare time with a strawberry blonde woman named Savannah Lenox.  
    A quick Google search told me that Savannah’s father owns a pharmaceutical company worth billions, and Savannah has an on-and-off relationship with a movie director. Savannah’s a smart girl, having gotten into the MD Program at the Geisel School of Medicine. She never finished her degree, and I’m sure if I kept digging I could find out why, but honestly I don’t give a shit, and with her inheritance she doesn’t need to work a day in her life.  
    The last four Thursdays, Pepper went to a church in a rundown part of town to serve food at a soup kitchen. Two of her daddy’s hired guards went with her. I did a Google search on Pepper as well, and nothing came up about her volunteering. Because that’s how Pepper is. She does it to help people, not to look good in the eyes of the media. She doesn’t post about it, doesn’t brag. She just quietly goes in to help.  
    I flick water off my hands and pick up a microfiber towel, running it over the black metal on my Harley to be sure I didn’t miss any water. Water spots on a black bike stick out, and I can’t have that. Twenty minutes later, the sun is killing me and I have nothing left to clean. I move my motorcycle into the two-car garage, parking it next to that damn car Alcott insists I drive when I’m tailing Pepper, and go into the house.  
    It was fully furnished when I got there, décor included. It’s nothing spectacular; it’s something a normal middle-class family would live in. I presume at least. I don’t have much experience with normal, or middle class. It’s better than anything I’ve had before, and it’s unnerving, making me constantly battle the sinking feeling that this offer is to good to be true, that no one really gets a clean slate even though I think I really