“Good. Because I’m dying for one.”
Zach put in our order to go, and we carried the Styrofoam containers and the beer bottles behind the restaurant, to the small beach. We sat in the sand. A bar at the back of the building opened to the ocean, and someone played Christmas songs on a steel drum.
I dipped my first conch gingerly into the dressing. Zach was giving me some serious side-eye, and I was feeling the pressure to like these. Fish was a little touch-and-go for me, so I’d either love this or give it to Zach. I closed my eyes and put it in my mouth…
“Mmmm.” Delicious.
“Heaven, isn’t it?” He took a sip of his beer. “Makes me wonder why I don’t do this every day.”
“Because…” He did make an excellent point. It was hard to come up with a reason why we shouldn’t. “We need jobs and stuff like that.”
He motioned toward the restaurant. “We can work there. For conch.”
“Where would we live?”
“Here.” This wasn’t the first time he’d thought about this.
“What about clothes?”
“We don’t need them.”
“It’s good to have goals, Zach.” I giggled before I took my next bite. “It’s not that far from Miami. We can come any time we want. When we don’t have a rehearsal dinner to go to.”
He groaned. “You’re right. And we will come back.”
Once we were done, I took the containers and brought them to the trash, but Zach didn’t get up to follow me back to the lot. The ocean was magnetic. It had a pull down here. Though we were close to home, we were a million miles away. Telling him we should get going felt foolish, so I knelt into the sand and snuggled up against him. He didn’t say anything when he wrapped his arm around me.
I was glad I let Zach choose what we did today. Whether he meant to our not, he’d taken me on our first real date.
* * *
“Am I doing the right thing?” Leah checked her pink lipstick in the visor mirror as we drove to the beach. She looked gorgeous. Raven had curled her mother’s bobbed blonde hair, and everything about her was round and full of promise, thanks to the baby. The visor snapped into place, and she sighed like she was questioning herself.
“You’ve got about four minutes to change your mind. And if you do, you’re still connected to Jagger for the next eighteen years.” Kari was in the driver’s seat. “You know I’ll get you a good deal on the child support, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t marry him.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” I added, always feeling a little intimidated around Kari. She was a super powerful lawyer, and she had something to say about everything. She was Leah’s best friend, but I never got comfortable around her. And the Zach thing… It hadn’t been weird since she showed up with her own date, who as far as I knew, she hadn’t paid for.
“I never expected to get married again. Or have another baby.” She turned around in her seat and looked back at me. “I’m so glad you’re here. That you’re not afraid to go on this crazy journey with me.”
“There’s no place I’d rather be.” And if things worked out for Leah and Jagger, there was a chance they’d work out for me and Zach. I put my hand over my pendant. This time it was cold from the air conditioning blasting in the SUV.
“How are you and Zach?” She slid a sly smile in my direction. “You showed up awfully late yesterday, grinning at each other like the rest of us weren’t there. I’m thinking I wasted my money on that extra hotel room.”
“No, you didn’t. We plan on making use of both.” Last night we stayed in mine, and I was almost late meeting the ladies because he made good on his shower sex promise. It was way better than my solo session at his house. Tonight, we’d stay in his room.
“Zach’s a great guy.” Kari glanced in the rearview mirror, and met my gaze.
I waited for the inevitable but. Her date, Reno, sat next to me in the back seat and I hoped to hell she’d keep her mouth shut.
“I can give you a couple tips. You know—things he excels in. You’ve probably already had the pleasure of experiencing them, but if not, you should.”
“That won’t be necessary.” No such luck. I caught sight of myself in the rearview mirror, and my flush had nothing to do with yesterday’s trip to the beach. Leah and Kari talked about sex like it was the highlights from last night’s game. Which, technically, it was. But I wasn’t comfortable with the play-by-play, like those two were. And especially when it came to my boyfriend. I hadn’t gotten over the giddiness of calling him that. I was not ready to go down sex memory lane with Kari. I didn’t even like her all that much.
“I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.” She laughed as she pulled down the bumpy, narrow road. Leave it to Jagger to find a spot in the middle of nowhere.
Leah’s parents followed behind us, and the guys had gone together ahead of us, but there were two cars in the lot when we arrived. As far as I knew, the wedding party consisted of three cars.
“Holy shit.” Leah slapped her hand over mouth. “They came.”
“Who—?” I asked, but she slammed the door shut before I had a chance to finish my question.
“That man looks like Jagger. Holy shit.” Kari slid her sunglasses down her nose. “Jacob’s here?”
“Who’s Jacob?” I was so confused.
“Jagger’s son,” she said and left me in the car with Reno, who shrugged.
I had no idea Jagger had a son. It was kind of weird that I spent about forty hours a week with Leah and Jagger, and neither ever mentioned this kid. He looked to be about ten and as confused as I was. Any question of Jagger’s parents was swept under the rug, almost like they’d done something shameful. But there was an older couple standing with the kid, and the man looked like Jagger with thirty years on him and shorter, gray hair. Their profiles were identical.
There was lots of hugging and introductions going on. I hung back, because whatever was happening was unscripted and emotional. Leah and I had planned everything down to the minute, and this had the potential of blowing everything to bits. I tried to catch Zach’s eye, but he stared straight ahead, his arms crossed over his chest. He hadn’t been in on the surprise, either.
Jagger, Leah, Jacob, and Raven headed up the path to the beach, hand in hand. Jagger and Leah’s parents followed, along with Kari and Reno. But Zach stayed still. I wasn’t sure if he saw me when I walked over to him. I put my hand on his arm. “What just happened?”
He jumped. “I have no fucking idea.”
The others had disappeared, and I turned to head up the path, but it only took a few steps to realize Zach wasn’t following. “What’s wrong?”
He put his hand on my back and shook his head, but it did nothing to erase the grimace. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Throughout the ceremony, I kept looking to Zach for a clue of what could be affecting him like this. It could’ve been the shock of seeing his best friend with a full-fledged family, after they’d bonded over the fact that neither of them had one. But he seemed over it when we left Miami. The last couple of days, I’d been the one with the doubts. The apprehension about coming to the wedding. He’d been happy. He wasn’t alone anymore. But it wasn’t enough to make those feelings go away.
Maybe that was all it was. Nothing a little sex in this very spot later couldn’t fix. Or shower sex. I’d fix this with sex.
We piled into different cars leaving the beach, since it wasn’t bad luck for Jagger and Leah to be together anymore. Jacob and Raven went with them. Zach and I got in the back seat of Leah’s SUV with Kari and Reno.
Not awkward at all.
I leaned in to kiss him. “Feeling better?”
He shook his head. I’d try again when we got back to the hotel and we were alone.
The party was low key— Christmas dinner in a private room in a local restaurant. Jacob sat next to Jagger, who couldn’t stop grinning. The kid had big, hazel eyes like his dad but he didn’t seem at ease. Maybe it was
because he was in a room full of adults he didn’t know. I couldn’t work up the courage to ask. I couldn’t overcome the feeling that I’d be the one looking bad if I did.
Once we walked through the door, Zach morphed back into his regular self, laughing and joking with everyone, and he even gave the toast.
“To my best friend, who showed me dreams come true with enough hard work. It hasn’t always been easy, but that’s what makes it good. Congrats, man. On everything.” Zach gave Jagger a long hug, but the sadness hadn’t faded from his eyes.
It took everything I had not to get drunk.
“How much sand do you have in your sneakers?” Zach asked when we got back to his room.
I grabbed the tiny trashcan and tipped my shoe upside down. “Approximately half the beach. Now are you going to tell me what the hell happened before I showed up?”
He landed next to me on the bed with a heavy sigh. “Nothing you didn’t see. I had no fucking idea that Jag had a son. He lied to me, Shannon.”
“I didn’t know, either.” Not that it softened the blow. I’d known Jagger for approximately five minutes, compared to Zach, and nowhere near in the same capacity. “Did Jagger know about him?”
Zach pressed his lips together, and a storm was brewing in those dark eyes. “He knew who he was when he got out of the car.”
And Kari had known about him. There was something off about this. Instead of feeling like I was a part of the wedding—I helped Leah plan the damn thing—I felt like I learned about it second hand. Like looking at the vacation photos of someone I didn’t know.
This Christmas was supposed to feel different. I was supposed to feel like I belonged somewhere. I thought I did.
“When I asked if Jagger’s parents were coming, the question got waved off like I should’ve known better than to ask.” I tried to make sense of the whole thing. Of why this had been such a big secret or why I’d been left out. Again. I’d intended to make Zach feel better, but I had fallen down the rabbit hole, too. And there was no one to rescue us.
“Jag and his old man haven’t seen eye to eye in years. They were sort of in the picture when I met him. He’d dropped out of college—he did porn, did you know that?” He paused when I jerked my head back. It was no more shocking than escorting. Possibly tamer in some respects, because movies were scripted and real life wasn’t.
“I hooked him up with Barry. At least if he was gonna get paid to fuck, he’d be treated right. His folks were pissed he wasn’t following in the family footsteps, doing something meaningful with his life. But then he stopped talking about them. That’s what we do. I didn’t push him about it, because I know what it’s like to have a shitty family life. But I wonder what else he lied to me about.”
If he understood what it was like to have a shitty family life, he was being harsh on Jagger. It blew my mind that Jagger had a son who wasn’t part of his life. I never met my dad, and I would kill to have a day like Jacob did today, even if it was the only one. Jagger and Leah showered attention on the boy during dinner, but I wondered what would happen tomorrow, when everyone went back to their regularly scheduled lives. Jagger lavished love on Leah, and he was so excited about the baby. I couldn’t imagine he’d ignore his son without a damn good reason. But my mother had done it to me, and I didn’t consider her reasons very valid. “Did he lie, or did he not tell you?”
“What’s the difference? Either way, I don’t know if I can trust him.” Zach lay down on the bed with his arm shielding his eyes.
I settled beside him, not surprised when he didn’t move. I tried not to absorb the sting. I’d been afraid the wedding would drag up some bad shit for me, but I never thought it would be about my childhood. Trust had been used as a currency early on in my life. It had been stolen from me many times. It was something that cost too much, when I could come by it. And I didn’t give it easily.
Zach had everything ripped away from him, too. Maybe I was being too hard on him, expecting him to suck it up when Jagger betrayed him.
“I don’t think he did it to hurt you.”
“Of course not, but it makes me question every fucking thing.” Zach rolled to his side, facing me. He picked up the pendant and ran his thumb over the cameo. “Promise me one thing—you’ll always tell me the truth, no matter how bad you think it is.”
I leaned in to kiss his forehead, and he put his hand on the back of my head, trapping me in place.
“I can do that,” I said, “as long as you do the same for me.”
“I’ll never lie to you, Shannon. Even when it’s shit you don’t want to hear.” He closed his eyes, and for the first time since I arrived at the beach, the tension faded from his body. The wall came crumbling down. He looked lost.
I traced his cheekbone with my fingers, dipping down to the stubble that appeared at the end of day.
He jerked away like I’d sliced open one of those rough edges.
“Sorry,” I muttered. I hated feeling like the scared little girl I tried so hard not to be. The one who couldn’t make her mother give a shit about her. I hated that she still had the power to bring me back into that black hole. And that the people who I thought were so different from her helped her do it. I hated that the most. “I was trying to make you feel better.”
Zach kissed me. He’d be the one to pull me out of this, because he knew what it was like to hit rock bottom. “You are making me feel better. You’re the only thing in my world that makes sense.”
21
Zach
“What the fuck?” It had been a couple days since we came back to Miami after the wedding, but I hadn’t cooled down yet. My rage bubbled under the surface since Jacob got out of the car, and I hadn’t had a chance to get dear old Dad alone to ask him about it. “When were you going to tell me you had a kid?”
“I have three now. Raven, Jacob, and Violet.” Jagger smirked. Smug bastard. After the wedding, we made plans to meet up at the gym. Like everything was normal. But I could play the game, too. I’d been trying to introduce him to Brandon for weeks, but Jag had been too busy with the wedding to meet the guy who was taking his old job.
I told Brandon to come later, because Jag and I had business to take care of. Now I hoped I didn’t tell Jagger to go fuck himself before Brandon showed up.
“When were you going to tell me about Jacob?” I asked.
“Probably never.” Jag ran his hand through his hair, his wedding ring shining in the light. “I didn’t know he was coming.”
“But you knew he existed.” I shook my head. “What the fuck, Jag? What else haven’t you told me?”
“Nothing. I didn’t tell you because that was the first time I saw him. His mother’s a crazy bitch. She took off before she had him and never let me be a part of his life. I’m not even listed on his birth certificate. But she’d call me every so often and taunt me with enough details so I knew it was true, but not enough that I could track her down. Once I did, I demanded a paternity test. Didn’t matter what it said. She decided I wasn’t worthy of being my own kid’s father. So no, I didn’t broadcast it to the world. What if she was right? That I didn’t deserve to be a part of his life? I told Leah only because she was pregnant and I got freaked out that history would repeat itself.”
That was pretty rough, but I wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily. “Then how did he wind up at the wedding? With your folks?” It was like a stranger stood in front of me.
“Leah.” His face lit up as he sat on the weight bench. “She tracked down Jake. My parents have been in his life for a few years. Kim, his mother, had convinced them I didn’t want anything to do with him. Leah encouraged me to call my folks. You know how that’s gone in the past. Not good. My mother picked a fight with me as soon as I said hello. After that call, I never expected them to show up. No one was more shocked than me that they did.”
So there was unrest in the kingdom of Jagger. “What happens now?”
He grimaced and shook his head. “I’m trying to work s
omething out so I get to see him. I’m not dealing with rational people, but he’s old enough to have an opinion now. He needs a dad. Even if it’s me.”
“He’s lucky to have you,” I said quietly. My parents had been awful to each other when they were alive, and that trickled down to me. Never once had I thought they wanted something different. I didn’t envy Jacob. He had to be really fucking confused. “You could’ve told me.”
“I know.” Jagger turned toward the weight rack. “But I didn’t.”
“How much weight do you want?” It was so long since we worked out together, I didn’t remember.
“Let’s try one-fifty. I haven’t lifted heavy in a while. No one to spot me.”
“I’ve been here.” I set the weight in the holder and looked down at him while he adjusted himself to lift. “I don’t even know you anymore, Jag. Married, an army of kids, now you’re this serious artiste who’s got exhibits all over the country.”
The weight rattled in the holder when he let go of it. “Nothing fucking changed, besides the fact that I’m happy.”
“Everything changed.” And I looked like an asshole for bring it up.
“Okay, if you insist. Yeah, it did. You’re hanging on to things that don’t exist anymore. I’m proud of you for trying to bring the agency back. I get it. If I hadn’t met Leah, I’d be right there with you. But it’s gonna be different this time. Stop fighting change. Don’t blame this guy you hired if he can’t carry the agency right away. It’s gonna take time. Let it ride.” Jag grunted as he got to the end of his set. I hadn’t seen him struggle with weights like this in years. “What are you afraid of, Zach?”
Leave it to Jag to turn this around on me. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’re going to choose the business over Shannon.” Leave it to him to walk out of my life and still think he was an authority on it. “You acted weird the whole time we were in Islamorada. Don’t blame it on me. She knew what she was getting herself into when she got involved with you. Figure out a way to make it work. It’s about time you were happy, too.”
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