InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Sorry ( Chapter 7 )

"Here."

Jessa blinked but caught the device that Ashur tossed to her, turning it over in her hands as she frowned.  "A phone?"

He nodded.  "You don't have one, do you?  I assume you were made to leave yours behind."

She shot him a cursory glance, as though it surprised her that he'd realized as much.  "They didn't let me take anything," she admitted.  "I . . . I had to steal Da's coat . . ."

For some reason, he hadn't thought about that, but it made perfect sense.  Given what Myrna had told him, it wasn't surprising at all; not really.  "The one you were wearing when you got here," he mused.  "I see . . . Do you—does your family—have an attorney?  Someone who's looking into all of this for you?"

She didn't look like she wanted to answer as she gathered up the orange peel from the fruit that had comprised her breakfast and hurried over to throw it away, but left the phone on the table.  "I don't know," she admitted.  "I'm sure that Da had one, but . . ."

He nodded slowly, watching her over the rim of his coffee cup as Kells stabbed at his French toast—Ashur's version of it—while making battle sounds the entire time.  "We can look into finding one for you.  As your parents' only child, you should have automatically been named sole heir.  I'll make a few calls, see what I can come up with for you if you want."

He could tell from the expression on her face that her stubborn pride was about to kick in, and he spoke again to forestall the argument that didn't need to happen.  "I have a bit of experience in this kind of thing," he admitted tightly.  "It's not a problem."

"I can—"

The cup thumped against the tabletop as he sat back and scowled at her.  "Stop that," he stated flatly.  She gathered her hair in one hand over her shoulder, wrapping her other arm over her stomach in a wholly protective kind of way.  "I'm not your enemy, Jessa . . ." He sighed.  "I apologize for what I said the morning after you arrived.  It was thoughtless of me, and I'm sorry that I disparaged your father, especially when you so recently lost him."

She shot him a quick glance, her cheeks pinking slightly, though he had a feeling it had more to do with irritation than actual anger.  "But you're not sorry you thought it."

He didn't deny it.  "Truce?"

She nodded once, but made no move to come back to the table, which was good enough, as far as Ashur was concerned.  He stood up to refill his coffee cup, but Jessa was faster, grabbing the carafe and stepping around the counter to fill his cup and then hers.

"Me, too!" Kells garbled around a mouthful of food.

Intercepting the raised-eyebrow-ed look from the girl, Ashur rolled his eyes.  "Mostly milk," he said.  "I'll do it."

"I've got it," she insisted, grabbing Kells' sippy cup and hurrying over to the refrigerator to refill it.  Kells watched intently as she poured just a little coffee into the milk in the cup and snapped the lid back on.  "Here," she said, setting the cup on the table near the boy before ruffling his hair and sinking back into the chair she'd vacated earlier.

"Fank you," Kells said as he grabbed the cup and sucked half of it down in one gulp.  "Daddy!  Can we go to the zoo today?"

"Absolutely not, Kells," he replied, reaching for the newspaper that he read every morning.
"But I promise I won't let the cougars out of the cage no more!"

He didn’t look up from the front-page headlines.  "Any more, and no."

Kells made a face.

“That reminds me,” Jessa said, pouring just a touch of cream into her cup.  “He said that you told him you’d take him to the zoo when everyone there was—and I quote—dead or on fire.”

Ashur snorted.  “That’s not what I said,” he scoffed, setting aside that section of the paper and shaking open the next one.

Jessa peered at him as she set the spoon she’d stirred her coffee with, upside down on the saucer.  “I didn’t think so,” she admitted.  “But—”

“I said that they had to be either dead or fired,” he clarified, as though it made all the difference in the world.

She shook her head, as though she figured that it just wasn’t worth the discussion in the end.  "I could take you to the park if you want," Jessa offered, changing the subject and turning her full attention to Kells instead.  She hesitated with her cup of coffee about halfway to her lips.  "If it's all right with your da, that is . . ."

Ashur shrugged, frowning thoughtfully at the city section.  "You want to take him?"

Her response was pretty much the same.  "I don't mind," she said.  "I think I'd like to see some more of the city."

He scowled.  "Maybe, but just wandering alone or even with a small child in the city when you don't know the different areas is just begging for trouble.  If you'd like, however, I can show you around a little after I make a few phone calls."

"That's not necessary," she murmured, scowling at the table top directly in front of her.  "It's not that far from here . . ."

"Daddy has to come!" Kells argued.  "Daddy's got the monies for the ice creams, and Daddy buys the pellets for the duckies, and Daddy pushes the swings really high!"

He almost smiled at Kells' reasoning, but he didn't.  "Don't forget the guy with the balloons."

Kells gasped, turning wide eyes on Jessa—the pleading look that Ashur was a little too familiar with.  "And the bawoon guy!  So I can get a bawoon!  Oh, oh, oh!  And the picture wady that draws the pictures!"

She rolled her eyes but smiled, and Ashur blinked.  Deep, deep dimples, the added sparkle in her eyes . . . The heightened pinkness in her cheeks . . . "All right, you win," she said.  Her smile dimmed as she slowly, hesitantly shifted her gaze to meet his, biting her bottom lip, her teeth leeching the color from it, only to flood back twice as dark as it slipped from between her teeth.  "If . . . If you really don't mind . . .?"

All he could do was give a shake of the head.  Maybe.  At least, he thought he did.  The weirdest sensation surged through him, almost like he was falling or riding a roller coaster or something like that . . . It was hard to explain.  It was even harder to make sense of, and in the end, he looked away, cleared his throat as he abruptly got to his feet.  "I'll make those calls now," he muttered.  "Kells, put something on that matches, will you?"

The boy laughed as though Ashur had made a great joke, and he hurried out of the room, frowning at his own odd reaction, he shook his head.

'Come on, Kyouhei, you know damn well what that was, don't you?'

He snorted and closed the office door behind himself.  'Indigestion.  That's what it was.'

'All right.  Be stubborn if you've a mind to . . . But don't say that I didn't warn you.'

'Warn me?  Go away, won’t you?'

The youkai-voice sighed.  'Yeah, sure . . . Fine, I'll leave you alone, if that's what you want, but one word of advice?'

'What?'

'If you stopped glaring at her all the time, maybe she wouldn't say no every time you offer to do something for her or to take her somewhere . . .'

'I don't glare—'

'And you don't breathe, either,' his youkai scoffed.  'You do.  You do it all the time, whether you realize it or not, and doing that?  To her?  Just . . . Just try not to, okay?'

"Higher, Daddy!" Kells screamed happily as he kicked his legs on the swing.  Ashur obliged him, and Jessa grimaced, hoping to God that the boy was holding on tight.  A voice deep down told her that surely Ashur wouldn't endanger his own son, but even so, it looked too scary for a child Kells' age . . .

The late March breeze was warm—warmer than usual, if Carol was to be believed.  She'd mentioned as much, as had Charity when she'd taken Jessa shopping.  It was warm enough that Jessa regretted wearing the light sweater she'd chosen for the day.  Carefully refolding the jacket that Kells had tossed at her before dashing off toward the swings, she couldn't help the trace worry that settled in the pit of her stomach as the boy's head rose up higher than the top bar of the swing set as Ashur stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest as he calmly watched his son.

"He wouldn't do anything mad, like try to jump off of that," she asked, wandering over to Ashur's side.

"He probably will," Ashur remarked, sounding just a little too calm about the entire affair.  "I give him another two—three minutes before he gets bored and drags me off to do something else."

"But that's so dangerous!" she insisted, frowning at his cavalier attitude.

"He's tougher than he looks," Ashur said, entirely missing the expression on her face as he watched his son, soaring back and forth.

"Ugh, he's going to break an arm or a leg—or his neck," she muttered.

"Nothing will happen to him," Ashur replied dryly.  "He's charmed."

"Charmed?" she echoed, shaking her head in confusion at the almost fanciful way that Ashur had said that.

He shrugged, letting his gaze drop as he unbuttoned the cuffs of the stark white dress shirt and rolled them up a couple of times.  "From the day he was born," he said.  "I knew that day . . ." Trailing off as he shook his head, she watched as the pensive expression on his face gave way to an almost calculated blankness.  "Nothing will ever hurt him," he stated once more, this time, with far more conviction.

"Was it an arranged mating?" she asked, trying for a casual tone as she carefully kept her gaze on the boy, who, thankfully, was slowing down just a little bit.

"Wh-What?" Ashur stammered.  "Uh . . . N-No.  Nothing like that."

She grimaced, shot him an apologetic glance.  "Sorry," she said.  "I wasn't trying to pry.  I just wondered . . ." Suddenly, she shook her head, hating the flood of color that exploded in her cheeks.  "I guess I just . . . That was a really personal question, and I had no right to ask . . . I don't know what I was thinking.  Please, forgive me."

He cleared his throat.  "No, it's, uh . . . It's fine.  It's just a . . . really long story . . ."

"Daddy!  Watch!" Kells hollered, drawing both of their attention.  Jessa gasped loudly when the boy launched himself out of the swing, only to land in a somersault in the pea gravel.  He landed on his bottom, legs kicked out straight, laughing like mad as he shook bits of gravel out of his hair and hopped up, grabbing the waistband of his jeans and yanking them up as he darted over to them again.  "I flew! Did you see, Jessa?  Did you?"

She was still trying to get her racing heart under control, the late fear that he was going to end up, hurting himself, still far too close.  "You . . . You did," she murmured as he grabbed her hand.

"C'mon!" he insisted, giving her hand a good tug.  "Cotton candy, Daddy!"

"Good God, no," Ashur snorted as he fell into step beside her.  "Ice cream is pushing it, but a bag full of sugared air?  I don't think so."

"There's no bags, Daddy," Kells insisted.  "It's a stick!"

Ashur grunted.  "And you're totally missing the point, Kells."

Kells giggled, latching onto Ashur's little finger, content to hold onto the both of them.  "Can I paint my face?"

Ashur shot Jessa a longsuffering look over Kells' head as he tugged them toward the right—toward the girl who was set up to paint cute little designs on children's faces.  Jessa almost smiled.

"Daddy wants a happy face!" Kells told the girl, looking entirely too pleased with his own machinations.

Ashur blinked in surprise.  "I do?"

"Yeah!"

Ashur shook his head.  "I really . . . don't . . ."

Jessa leaned toward him.  "It'd make him really happy, I think."

Ashur leaned toward her.  "He's happy enough, I think."

"Uh uh," she replied.

He made a face and turned back to the girl again.  "And she'd like a unicorn on hers."

"Yay!" Kells hollered, hopping up and down and pinning Jessa with the single most hopeful expression she'd ever seen on anyone's face, ever.

Narrowing her eyes just slightly at Ashur, she let Kells drag her forward and sat down on the small stool made for someone a whole lot shorter than she was.

It didn't take the girl long to paint a small unicorn's head on her left cheek, complete with a few sprinkles of adhesive glitter to add to the overall effect.  By the time she was done, Kells was hopping again, only this time, he dragged Ashur over and demanded that he sit down, too.

Jessa could only assume that Ashur looked at least marginally funnier than she did, trying to sit on that stool. Knees jammed up nearly to his chest, he sat still, with an entirely bored expression on his face as the girl painted the smiley face on his cheek, and she had to wonder just how often this particular scenario had played out before.  He went along with Kells' antics, which was probably one of the sweetest things she'd ever seen, and she couldn't help the little smile that quirked the corners of her lips as Ashur heaved a sigh and stood up so that Kells could get his face painted, too.

"Does he talk you into this kind of stuff all the time?" she asked quietly as the girl painted cougar spots all over Kells' little face.

He snorted.  "Actually, no," he confessed.  "But I figured I should be a good sport since you were humoring him, too."

She pressed her lips together in a thin line to keep from laughing outright at the entirely disgruntled look on his face.  "It's a very nice smiley face," she assured him.

"I'm going to find the nearest bathroom and wash this off," he muttered.

"He'd be sad if you do," she warned.

"It's not nearly as funny as you seem to think it is."

"Oh, but it is," she argued, digging out her new cell phone and quickly snapping a picture.

"Do me a favor and never, ever show that picture to my brother," he said.

Jessa nearly laughed.  "Tease you, will he?"

"Till the end of time."

"So . . . what else does Kells usually talk you into?"

He shrugged offhandedly, stuffing his hands into his pockets as the spring breeze lifted his bangs, tousled them like the gentle fingers of a lover.  "I made the mistake the last time of letting him have a candied apple.  That's one I won't ever repeat, not for all the tea in China."

"That bad, was it?"

He snorted again and handed the girl a fifty-dollar bill as Kells checked himself out in a small hand mirror.  "Nope," he replied evenly.  "It was so much worse than anything you're imagining . . ."

"Jessie, come in here," Stan Brock called out to Jessa as she hurried into the back room to put her jacket in the tiny locker.  Leaning back in the rickety old chair he kept at his desk in the office, it groaned and creaked under his weight.

"Yes?" she said, stepping into the office after closing her locker and snapping the padlock in place.

Stan grinned.  "It's your lucky day, cookie," he told her.  "Shelly's gone, and she ain't coming back, so I need someone to replace her on Friday and Saturday nights."

She frowned and shook her head since Shelly was one of the more popular dancers.  "I'm not interested in dancing," she said.

Stan threw his head back, wheezing out a smoke-corrupted laugh.  "We're talkin' an easy K in one night alone if the miserable mutts like what they see," he said.  "You'd be rollin' in the dough, pretty girl like you—as long as you stay off the candy, that is."  Suddenly, he sighed, slowly shook his head.  "Too many o' you girls, get caught up in that shit," he said.  "Shelly . . . She was a lot like you when she first came in.  Shy, quiet—a good girl—but she got hooked up on coke by her fucktard dealer-boyfriend.  He finds out that the fuzz was planning a sting, and up and leaves Shel with the shit.  Now she's goin' down for a long, long time, and he's gettin' off, scot free . . ."

She rubbed her hands together and nodded.  "Thanks for the offer, but I really can't," she said.  "I'm fine with just waiting tables."

He shrugged.  "You sure?  Just think about it and let me know by Friday."

She pasted on a tepid smile and hurried out of the office before he could try to talk her into it.  She had absolutely no interest in doing any such thing.  It was all she could do, some nights, just to tolerate the regular clientele.  Adding the idea that most of them would have seen her naked up on that stage was something that she simply couldn't tolerate . . . If she could even wrap her head around the idea of parading about, stark naked, to start with . . .

"That old bastard offered you Shelly's weekend spots, didn't he?" Carol muttered as she fell into step beside Jessa.

"I told him no," she replied, tying the apron around her waist.

Carol made a face.  "You don't want to do it, do you?"

She shook her head, unable to repress the complete horror in her expression as she shot Carol a disgusted glance.  "God, no!"

Carol looked relieved.  "Good!  I mean, you're just not the type—not that it's a bad thing because it isn't."  She waved her hands, as though to refute her statement.  "If you wanted to, then that'd be one thing, and sure, the money's better . . ."

Something about Carol's tone of voice made Jessa stop, stare at her, frowning at her thoughtfully as she grasped Carol's arm to stop her.  "Did he ask you?"

Carol snorted.  "Of course, he did," she replied, pretty face scrunching up in an irritated kind of way.  "I didn't want it, either." Then she rolled her eyes and laughed.  "Fifty bucks says that Faye marches in there and demands Shelly's spot as soon as she gets in here," she said.

Jessa pulled her hair up and back, catching it in a black cloth-covered rubber band that she'd had around her wrist.  Considering Faye, the black haired beauty of Asian descent, tended to think that she was just that much above every other girl in the place?  "Yeah, you're probably right," she allowed.

Carol made a face.  "That'd be fine by me . . . Get her off of the floor, the hag . . ."

There was no love lost between the two: Carol and Faye.  Some of the other girls had maintained that they had no real idea just why Faye tended to openly despise Carol, and, by extension, Jessa, too.  Jessa, however, had met far too many girls like Faye over the years—usually at boarding school—those girls that hated her for no good reason . . .

"Get out of my way," Faye demanded as she strode down the hallway.

"Speak of the damn devil," Carol muttered, crossed her arms over her chest and refused to yield her position.  If anything, she stepped further into Faye's path.  "Where you going, Faye?" she asked, inflicting enough sweetness into her tone to choke a horse.

Faye smiled insincerely.  "I need to talk to Stan, so move it, Carol."

"Why's that?  You want Shelly's spot, do you?" she countered.

"Maybe," Faye replied, narrowing her eyes on Carol.

"Of course, you want it," Carol went on, just as sweetly as before.  "It's still available.  Jessa and I already turned it down."

Faye's eyes flared at that, and she cast Jessa a condescending glower.  "You?  You can't even dance—Jessie, was it?" she scoffed.

Carol laughed.  "Are you kidding?  She's taken dance classes for years, Faye.  Granted, probably not street grind crap like you do every night with whatever random John you take home with you, huh?"

Faye snorted, shoving Carol to the side, roughly bumping Jessa with her shoulder as she hurried past.

Carol pivoted on the heel of her patent leather boot to grin as she watched Faye's haughty departure.  "Ah, I love fucking with her . . ."

Jessa made a face.  "Ugh, if my ma knew that all those years of dance class could be used for something like this . . ." Then she giggled.

"It would almost be worth it to take Shelly's spot," Carol mused, "just to mess with her a little more . . ."

Jessa opened her mouth to reply, but the chime of her cell phone caught her attention, and she pulled it out of the apron pocket.  It was Myrna.  Apparently, Ashur had given her Jessa's number, and she was just checking in, she said, to see if things were going all right.  She fired back a quick message and started to drop the device into her pocket once more, but Carol grabbed it.

"I thought you didn't have a phone," she said, opening up the contacts menu to add her number to it.

"I just got it today," she admitted.

"Good!  When you get a minute, text me so I can add you to mine," she replied.  Clicking out of the menu, she fiddled around with it for another minute.  "Then I can . . . Oh . . . Oh, my . . . Who's the hottie?"

Glancing around Carol's arm, Jessa grimaced at the picture she had opened—the one she'd taken of Ashur with the smiley face on his cheek.  He wasn't smiling, but he did look somewhat amused, bright blue eyes sparkling in the early afternoon sunshine as his clubbed-back, sun-streaked blonde hair fell over his shoulder.

"He's a, uh, family friend," she muttered, hoping that it would be enough to get Carol to drop it.

"A family friend?  Have you fucked him?"

She grimaced inwardly.  "It's not like that," she grumbled, unable to staunch the flow of blood into her cheeks as she grabbed the phone back and shoved it into her pocket.

"It should be like that," Carol insisted.

"Get moving!" Rock hollered, leaning around the corner as he frowned at them.  "The other girls are complaining because you're taking your sweet time!"

"Yeah, yeah, okay, okay," Carol replied, shaking her head as she adjusted her breasts in her black push-up bra.  "You're not off the hook, you know.  You're going to tell me more about that guy," she insisted, grabbing Jessa's arm to hurry her down the hallway.