Page 143 of Poison Aches

Again, I pause. My mind starts buzzing.

“I told you about that?”

“Yeah, you’ve been nervous about that for a while.”

“Oh, yeah.” I smile, but already I can feel the goosebumps forming at the back of my neck.

What am I going to say to this man?

Am I going to ask him why he never looked for me?

Is he going to mention my mother?

“Hey, everything will be okay,” Jackson suddenly says with a huge smile as if he’s in on a secret I don’t know. “You got this.”

“I’d like to borrow your confidence then.”

“Oh, I can loan it to you, so long as you pay back with interest.”

Another burst of laughter escapes me.

I was on alert for no reason. This is the Jackson I know.

The Jackson that makes me laugh. I don’t know why I was feeling apprehensive.

“I can’t wait to get to know you better,” I say.

“Oh, you will,” he says, and then he winks.

New York City, you are about to be my entire future!

CHAPTER 19

Ivy

It’s not until the car drives up to the front of a huge, elegant-looking mansion in upstate New York that the nerves kick in with a vengeance.

I almost snap my neck as I sit in the back, craning my neck to see the splendor in front of me.

Outside the gate, there are huge, tall trees that surround the property.

It’s so beautiful here, the early evening air blowing so gently that I’m a bit unnerved.

This is the fancy, wealthy people type of neighborhood.

The quiet kind that screams money, though that doesn’t really faze me.

I’ve been around real, silently outrageous wealth my entire life, but somehow, I feel intimidated.

Seeing this house, an image of who my father is, is starting to materialize from fantasy to reality.

“Good evening, ma’am. Are you on the list?”

At some point when I was gawking, the car stops.

The window is rolled down by the driver so when I look up, I come face to face with a frowning security guy in a suit.

“Um, what list?”

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