Reject Me (Kin #5)(18)
Author: Jennifer Foor

When I stepped inside of the kitchen and saw the look on my mom’s face I could tell she was more than pissed to see Peyton in her house. She’d somehow come to blame my being with Peyton with me going to jail.

Honestly, I understood how a parent would want to place the blame on someone else. The thing was, I got myself into that situation, because I’d been stupid. It was my fault that Peyton and I broke up, and my fault that I’d landed in jail.

Through it all I knew that I’d hurt them both. Somehow I was going to have to get them to see that they were the most important people in my life and they’d have to get along. Plus we still had her family to face. If my mother couldn’t accept Peyton and I, then her family sure as hell wasn’t going to give it a single thought.

I knew who was in the back of that truck. Just imagining Peyton’s face when she saw Ang get out was going to ruin our day together. It was like no matter how hard I was trying to include her and change my ways, something was preventing it from going easy.

I drove behind my friends contemplating turning around the whole time. I guess I should have thought out the decision to include her, but in my defense I hadn’t seen Ang in a long time. It had been even longer than that since we’d hooked up. Sure, I could have f**ked her while I was with Peyton this last time around, but I hadn’t and that had to count for something.

It still didn’t make me feel any better about what was going to happen when Peyton saw that a chick was with us. I had to keep my cool and act like it wasn’t a big deal. If she got wind of me having history with Ang everything I’d done to get her back would turn to shit.

I turned to look over at Peyton in the seat next to me. Her long blonde hair blew as the breeze came in from the window. The hair stood up on my arms when I thought about the night we’d shared together. Having her back in bed was only half of my battle. I had to be a better man; one that was willing to admit that I wanted a relationship. I needed to be considerate of her feelings, and put her first before anyone else. Inevitably I’d known all along that it would come to this. Peyton had always been different for me. I think I only fought with her about it because I didn’t want to admit it to myself.

Like my brother, the bad-boy image was something I tried to live up to. I’d watched him toss chicks to the side without regret. It wasn’t until he met Lacey that everything changed for him. At first I thought he was crazy for falling for her. I mean, he had a perfect life. Then, all of a sudden, he was messed up in the head and miserable.

It wasn’t until they got back together that I saw the difference.

He was happy; happier than I’d ever seen him. My mother was proud, and for the first time I understood why.

Then I fought with myself over it.

Did I really want to admit that I was wrong?

Of course not.

Losing Peyton was like losing control of my life. The more I tried to move forward the further toward the downward spiral I got. I squeezed her hand to half remind myself that she was really in the vehicle next to me. “You look sexy.”

She giggled and looked away, out the window. “Stop it. I didn’t even have time to wash my face. My hair is a knotted up mess of a ponytail, and I’m wearin’ your clothes.”

“You couldn’t look like shit if you tried. Have you seen yourself in the mirror? Damn, the only thing that kept me straight while I was locked up was bein’ able to think about you the whole time.”

Peyton turned to face me. “You thought about me that much?”

Seeing that she was intrigued, I knew my answer meant a ton. “Yeah, I did. Didn’t you think about me?”

She shrugged. “Well, yeah. Honestly, I was trying to get over you. You hurt me, and I knew I had to move forward.”

It was a punch to the gut. “Damn don’t get all honest on me now. You know how to bruise an ego, that’s for sure.”

She nestled her head against the side of my arm. “It’s not because it’s what I wanted, Jamey. You gave me no choice. We were headed down a terrible road. One of us had to be adult about it.”

“True, but you could have missed me a little more.”

“I missed you a lot,” she admitted. “I thought about you all the time, and worried. The last thing I wanted was for you to go to jail. I felt like it was all my fault, especially how we left things.”

I shook my head while still looking forward. “It wasn’t your fault, Pey. I was f**ked up. You had me all messed up. I was a fool for not bein’ a better boyfriend. You have to understand that I don’t know the first thing about relationships. Well, I know how to f**k them up, obviously, but that’s it.”

“We need to start over, if that’s even possible.”

“What’s that mean?” Right away I was worried.

“We need a clean slate, Jamey. Dwellin’ on the past ain’t goin’ to get us anywhere. We have to get past everything that happened, because if we can’t do that, than neither will our families. Seriously, if we want this to work, we’ve got to try harder and pretend that it’s a whole new relationship. We’ve got to promise to get over the past.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Nobody is goin’ to take us seriously unless we can prove without a doubt that we’ve changed.”

She hugged my arm tighter. “Have we changed?”

“I’d like to think we have.”

“So no more lies?” She asked.

“None. I promise. You know everything.”

“Then we’re off to a new start.”

Even though I knew Peyton meant what she was saying a part of me knew that it wasn’t going to last forever. That’s why when we pulled up behind my buddy’s truck I hesitated before getting out.

The moment I saw Ang jump out, I turned all of my attention to Peyton. She couldn’t see me freaking out. At first Peyton was too busy getting out and tending to me. She disliked my friends enough to not care what they were doing just feet from us.

I walked up to the trailer and began to unfasten my four-wheeler. With my focus on getting my ATV off the trailer before anyone else, I wasn’t looking around to see where Ang was. I should have been prepared for them to see one another. Call me a coward, but I ignored the fact that I could hear Ang talking to me.

I sighed and looked toward the sound of her voice.

“Who’s this, Jamey?”

I stood up and looked over at Peyton, standing there wondering the same thing about the girl with the Jersey accent. “This is my girlfriend, Peyton.”