Jaq With a Q (Kismet) by Jettie Woodruff Read Free Book Online

call me. Anytime you’re afraid, you can call. Don’t worry about your rent. I’ll take care of it tomorrow. Why don’t you watch a movie? I’ll order you a pizza and have Wallace bring it up. It’ll take your mind off things.”
    “I don’t want Wallace to come here, and I already watched a movie.”
    I stopped myself just before my foot entered my mouth again, ready to chastise her for her movie choice. “Yeah? What movie?”
    “Cabin fever. I’m never drinking water from a faucet again. Bottled, that’s it.”
    “I was thinking more along the lines of Will Smith, Pursuit of Happiness.”
    “I never watched that.”
    “Go to your computer. You can watch it on Netflix.”
    “I don’t get that.”
    I smiled when I watched her cautiously open the door, looking around for anyone in her apartment. There were so many questions, yet I had to be careful in asking. Jaq wasn’t like most girls her age. Jaq was like a delicate rose petal, a flower unable to bloom, afraid to blossom.
    “Don’t worry, I do. You can login under me.”
    I watched her walk to the curtain, keeping an eye on both cameras as she glanced out, fear shining in her eyes. “I don’t really cook. Just so you know.”
    She hadn’t said anything I hadn’t already figured out, but it still made me smile a little. “Let me order you a pizza. We’ll put each other on speaker phone and watch a movie together. How does that sound.”
    Jaq shrugged, pursing her lips with a good-natured tilt of the head. “Only if Wallace can bring it.”
    “Let me find out. I’ll call you right back.”
    “Peperoni and cheese. That’s it.”
    The little bastard agreed, but he also made me order three more to feed his own family.
    “Agreed, but you better not be lying to me. If this is for your gang, I’ll find a new colleague.”
    “I swear man. It’s not. I’ll meet him in front of her building.”
    I barely responded, noticing Jaq rolling a newspaper on the table. She creased one sheet, folding it into a rectangle and then wrapped a restaurant style napkin around it. I didn’t need to look through the bathroom door to know she had just made a homemade pad. “Hey, Wallace, I need you to do something else, too.”
    “What?”
    “Do you have money?”
    “I have what you gave me today. That enough?”
    “Yes, can you buy a bag of pads for Jaq?”
    “No way. Fuck that. Not doing it. Uh-uh, forget it.”
    “Come on, I just bought you three pizzas’. I’ll throw you an extra ten. That’s twenty-five bucks for walking across the road and up a flight of stairs.”
    “Man, come on. You’re killing me.”
    “Great, this is what I need you to do. Buy a few things, get her some chips, the pads, maybe some pudding cups, whatever you want. When you take the pizza up, tell her you forgot a bag earlier.”
    “Why I gotta do all that? Why can’t I just give her the pack of pads?”
    “Because, you idiot. She’ll know about the cameras. How the hell would I know she needed pads?”
    “Oh yeah. Fine, but you owe me.”
    “I’ve got your back.”
    My fingers ran through my hair, tightening at the scalp as I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into. Not that it mattered. I knew with everything in me, I wouldn’t quit. There was no way I could vacate now. Too late for that. Besides Jaq getting her pizza, Wallace got his, too, but I wasn’t really in the mood for dinner and a movie. Microsoft Word didn’t have a chance next to an old-school composition notebook. Nothing compared to that. An instant smile slid across my lips as I lined a row of blue ink pens next to the fresh paper. Excitement like this hadn’t been felt in a very long time, not since my college years.
    I dialed Jaq, holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder, my eyes darting to her, anxiously wringing her hands. The sofa was slid away from the door and she paced, back and forth, back and forth, one eye looking out the peephole with every turn back. My head shook from side to