Read Online Escalation Clause by Liz Crowe - Free Book Online Page B

are…working through that.”
    She sensed his frustration and anger through the phone lines. “Mo, listen, I truly want you to be happy. I just don’t think he is the guy to do it. Go to college this fall. Find a guy in class, at the Union, at a party. But let Brandis go.”
    “I’m going now, Jack. And I will be with Brandis. All weekend.” She hung up then, not even really sure why she said that. But her hands shook so uncontrollably she had to clench them in her lap to get it under control. His words — “you are another notch in his bedpost”—burned a hole in her psyche. She had heard the two of them banter for so many years about girls, about their utter disdain for how quickly women yielded to the one-two punch of the Jack-Brandis tag team in high school and beyond. A sudden rise of panic at her own stupid behavior over the last few weeks made her rush to the bathroom where she stopped and stared at herself in the mirror. Her long black hair fell in waves over her tanned shoulders; her deep blue eyes sparkled with something she knew damn good and well was pure lust.
    She needed this. Needed him. She would not let her stupid over-protective brother convince her otherwise. She heard the phone ring again, but let her mind wander and her body follow, and the slow buzz of sweet anticipation made her smile.
    “Mo!” Dr. Taylor hollered up the stairwell. “Phone for you. It’s Brandis.”
    “Hey,” she answered, still smiling.
    “Hey uh, listen, something’s come up.”
    She blinked, trying to process what he was telling her.
    “Mo, I’m sorry. I…can’t get away this weekend.”
    “But,” anger replaced the slow coiling desire in her brain. “We…I mean, um…,” words failed her as she started pacing the bedroom.
    “I know, baby.” There was something in his voice she couldn’t place. Something at once familiar and strange. “You know, I just have a lot going on right now and…,”
    “Hold on a second.” She stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re doing more than cancelling our weekend aren’t you?”
    The silence was deadly. She dropped into the conversational hole and let the fury that had been building speak first. “Jack was right,” she spit out. “You are nothing but a player, a bedpost notcher, and an asshole.” She slammed the phone down and let the tears that threatened run down her hot face. “Damn you,” she whispered, as she clutched her shaking hands together. “Damn you both.”
    Curling up on the bed and crying seemed like a very good idea and before she knew she’d fallen into a restless sleep. Her eyes jerked open when she heard the Taylors yell up the stairwell that they were leaving for a faculty dinner party. A bright flare of anger spurred her to action. She called Jack first. The distinct sounds of a party were behind him. She glanced at her watch. “Stay the hell out of my business, Jack,” she yelled twice before he responded. The party sounds died down. She pictured him out on the back porch of the Church Street house, phone cord stretching from the kitchen.
    “Listen to me, Mo. If you could see him right now, you would know I’m right.”
    Her eyes burned but she kept going. “You do not get to decide what is best for us.”
    “He is not good for you, Mo, don’t you get that? Jesus, he’s the one who planned this damn party. Here, now, where he has just gone upstairs with not one but two girls?”
    “God will you just stop it?” She winced at herself yelling. “You put him up to this. You guilted him out of taking me away for the weekend I know you did. Don’t deny it.”
    “Well, we did talk. And he made the right choice. Now you should just let him go. I mean it.”
    “You are a controlling jerk, you know that?”
    “When it comes to you, I may be. But so help me I’m only looking out for your best interests.”
    She hung up without saying another word. Lying back on the bed, cradling the phone to her chest she made a decision. She would