Say So




THE STORY CONTINUES

 

He can have me?”  The words were enough to pull Keesha Ward away from A.J.’s side.  “Where the hell do you get the nerve to think that you have the right to give me away?”

Jason stared impassively at the irate woman.  “You belong to me,” he replied evenly.

Keesha poked a manicured nail directly in the center of Jason’s muscled chest.  “I don’t belong to anyone, you arrogant jackass!”

Her declaration ended in a shriek as Jason swept Keesha up across his left shoulder.  “Yeah, you do.”  He turned around and carried her – kicking and struggling – back toward her car.

“Hey!” A.J. cried, “You can’t just-”

Jason spun around and sucker-punched A.J. in the mouth.  Caught off guard by the unexpected action, the other man went flying back against the stone wall.

Resolutely Jason continued on to the car.  He opened the door and unceremoniously dumped Keesha onto the front seat.  Neither her protests nor the blows she aimed his way seemed to register with Jason.

It also did not register that he sat behind the wheel of a speeding automobile.  During his short existence, Jason Morgan had never driven a car.  Some after-effect of the accident that took Jason Quartermaine’s memory and simultaneously created Jason Morgan was enough to deter him from steering anything other than his motorcycle.

“Stop this, Jason!”

Keesha was thrown against the car door as Jason wrenched the wheel and sent the car flying into a nearby parking lot.  The sound of squealing rubber filled the air as he stamped on the brakes and brought the car to a shuddering stop.

“He took my life!”  Jason’s brilliant blue eyes burned with anger.  “A.J. took my life…I’m not gonna let him take anything else.”

The angry words were the first true sign of emotion that Keesha had ever seen from Jason Morgan.  He was normally so stoic and impassive that Keesha had fallen into the same trap that others who encountered him had.  She had forgotten he was only human.

“What are you saying, Jason?”  Keesha was genuinely curious.  She rightfully suspected that this might be her lone opportunity to interact with the man so successfully hidden behind Jason Morgan’s unemotional façade.

“The divorce is final in three months,” Jason replied, turning back toward the steering wheel.  “Just stay away from A.J. that long.”

“Please.”

That single word hit Keesha with the force of a blow.  It was the last thing she had ever expected to issue forth from the mouth of Jason Morgan.

As the young woman pondered his request, she felt a strange sympathy for the man seated so rigidly beside her.  The confusion and raw emotion of sorting out the legalities of her life with this new Jason had been hell for her.  And throughout it all, she had not stopped once to think of what it might have been for him.

“Three months…”  It wasn’t too much to ask, Keesha acknowledged.  “Alright.  Three months.”

Jason gave Keesha the second shock in as many minutes.  “Thank you,” he replied quietly.

He started up the car and turned it toward the apartment complex where Keesha lived. They rode in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Keesha could not help but notice that an atmosphere that should have been awkward and angry between them now somehow felt comfortable and right.  She risked a quick glance over at Jason Morgan and wondered if he had noticed that fact as well.

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