Finding Us

1

What is that god awful sound?

Beep, Buzz, Beep, Buzz, Beep, Buzz.

Groaning, I roll over and throw my pillow at my best friend, Summer.

“Make it stop!” I whine.

Summer reaches over to my bedside table and switches on the lamp as I turn and shield my eyes from the light. I keep saying to myself that I’m going to replace that light bulb with a dimmer one but when I’m out I never remember and the one I have now lights up the room like Fort Knox.

It’s sometime on Saturday morning, maybe. Moaning, I think back to how much we drank last night. Summer and I were having a great time. A flash of last night comes into my mind, Summer shaking her ass all over the club and causing too much unwanted attention for us. I like being in the shadows, Summer though, she loves the spotlight. Her motto is ‘Shake what your mama gave ya for all the world to see.’ and that’s exactly what she was doing last night. We are in the city that never sleeps and we live up to it pretty much every weekend. Summer and I moved to New York City a few months ago to hide from them. By moving here I knew they would have a hard time finding me.

I despise the existence of my parents! Michael and Vivian Jennings. Repeat after me, Michael and Vivian Jennings. Just saying their names makes me want to throw up. They’d had control over me until I graduated college and that was the last damn day that I would ever answer to them. I was given access to my trust fund when I turned twenty-two, which just so happened to be the same day I graduated. Before the service began, I had my bags packed in my car and I had no intentions of giving them or my old life a second thought. I swore to myself that I would never let them control me again, and I’m doing a damn good job of it so far.

Dad is loaded. He was handed down the business from my grandfather. Dad is the owner of a huge investment firm back in New Jersey. He’s a straight forward, condescending ass**le. People look up to him and want to be him. Who the hell would ever want to be him is beside me. When Dad spoke, people listened. If they didn’t agree with him, Michael Jennings would make them.

Mom is the queen of charity. She’s always working on getting some kind of contribution. Shit, I think the charity came before me most of the time. Vivian’s always proper, one of those ‘never a hair out of place’ kind of people who looked down on everyone around her. Not many people know that she has a drinking problem, she hides it pretty well. I’ve found her a few times passed out drunk in the sitting room with an empty bottle of vodka tucked next to her chair. When Marie, our housekeeper, got sick a few years ago, I was helping her out and was taking the recycling up to the corner and almost the entire can was filled with empty vodka bottles. That’s when I really knew she had a problem. Honestly, I think that’s the only way she can manage to stay with dad.

Thank heavens for Marie, our housekeeper and my nanny. She’s the one who took care of me and understood me better than my own parents. She lived with us since I was born. At least that was the one good thing my parents did for me, they hired someone to take care of me so they didn’t have to. They only needed me when it was convenient for them. I was forced to go to charity auctions and act like the doting daughter. Mom entered me into beauty pageants because other women in her circle of fake friends had entered their daughters. She enrolled me in proper etiquette classes so I wouldn’t taint the family name. I was also hired a personal trainer that worked with me from the time I was thirteen until I left for college. Marie would always be there for me though, whether I just needed to cry on her shoulder or yell about how much I hated my parents.

“Rise and shine!” Summer says entirely too loud, shaking me from my unpleasant memories of them. My head is pounding and I feel like I have cotton shoved in my mouth.

I pull the covers down off my head, “What time is it?” I ask while yawning.

“Almost noon, Rex will be here soon.” Summer replies.

Summer and I met Rex at Club Two Twelve when we first moved into town a few months ago. He and his brother owned the place. He’s a good looking guy but not my type. He’s what I would label a ‘pretty boy’ - messy, dark brown hair, about six feet tall, lean and muscular but not cut. Rex is always clean shaven which makes him have more of a baby face and appear younger than his twenty-one years of age, and he has these long eyelashes that make his blue eyes pop. Rex has a cosmic smile and a great personality, which made becoming friends with him so easy.

“Why did we tell him to meet us for lunch again?” I whine, pulling the blanket back over my head.

Summer walks around and pulls the covers off me. She’s all business when she does that. “He takes us to lunch every Saturday, brat. Now get your ass out of bed, Jasmine Jennings, and into the shower.” She throws the covers on the floor at the foot of my bed and leaves the room.

Summer and I found a great two bedroom apartment with a doorman for a decent amount a month. Living in New York is expensive as hell but we wanted to live somewhere with a doorman for extra security. We thought it was a sensible idea seeing as it was just the two of us girls and we didn’t know anyone in this big city.

Summer strolls back in a minute later, “Make it a fast shower so I have hot water too.”

I salute her as she walks back out. “Hey, what the hell were you doing sleeping in my bed last night?”

She starts laughing from somewhere in the apartment, “I have no damn clue.”

“Nice.” I mutter under my breath. What would we do without Rex taking care of our drunken asses?

I’m going to have to grab a quick lunch because I have an afternoon dance class to instruct. If they ever found out I was teaching at a place like East Side Dance Studio they would have coronary, which is another reason why I’m doing it. Along with teaching at the dance studio, I also manage the coffee shop in our apartment building, part time. I don’t really need to work thanks to my inheritance but it’s something that keeps me busy and in shape.

Once I finish getting ready I take a seat on the couch and pick up my book that I’d left on the table yesterday morning, hoping to finish up the last few chapters. Only a few minutes later our doorman, Henry, calls and notifies us that Rex is here and I give him permission to let him up. Rex is on the approved list but Henry still likes to let us know that he’s here.

Rex knocks three times before walking in, looking delightful. White Nike hat flipped backwards, tight white T-shirt, faded blue jeans and white Nike Airmax, something as simple as this makes him appear sexy.