Loving Jessie

by Dallas Schulze

  “Matt—” Jessie started toward him, one hand reaching out as if to touch him. His eyes shifted to her, and their expression was enough to stop her in her tracks. Rage. Ice-cold and burning at the same time. She swallowed and let her hand drop, relieved when his gaze shifted back to Reilly.

  “I think it’s time you went home,” he said, stepping out of the doorway, leaving the exit clear.

  Reilly turned and set his coffee cup on the counter. He stared at his damp hand for a moment, and Jessie moved automatically to get a towel, but he was already wiping the moisture on the leg of his jeans before picking up his jacket from the back of the chair where he’d draped it earlier. He hesitated, his fingers curling into the soft leather as he looked from Matt to Jessie and back again, his expression a mixture of guilt and regret and concern.

  “Matt, don’t…do anything you’ll regret, man.”

  Heat flared in Matt’s eyes, burning away that icy calm. He took a quick step forward, and Jessie felt her heart stop. He was going to hit Reilly. Oh God, he was going to hit him. She moved without thinking, stepping between the two men, putting both hands out as if to physically stop Matt. His eyes dropped to her face, the anger flaring bright blue and hot as a furnace.

  “Protecting him?”

  “Protecting both of you,” she told him steadily. “If you hit him, it will only make it worse.”

  “Hard to imagine that, Jess,” he said, his smile sharp enough to cut. But he stepped back, leaving a clear path to the door. He jerked his head at Reilly. “Get out.”

  When Reilly hesitated, Matt bared his teeth in a feral smile. “Afraid I’m going to hit her, McKinnon? Like father, like son? You don’t have to worry. I’m not the one who has trouble with impulse control.”

  Jessie heard Reilly’s breath leave him in a sharp hiss, as if Matt’s words had the power to draw blood. She had no idea what Matt meant, but it was obvious that Reilly did, and that the comment had hurt, just as Matt had intended it to.

  “Please go, Reilly.” She wanted him gone before someone said something that couldn’t be forgotten, did something that couldn’t be forgiven. She needed to talk to Matt, to explain to him, though she wasn’t sure how she could explain it to him when she didn’t understand it herself. Still, she had to try, and it was obvious that he wasn’t going to listen to her as long as Reilly was there.

  Reilly looked from her to Matt and then nodded. “I’ll talk to you later, Jessie.” He stopped in the doorway and spoke without turning. “Don’t be a dumbshit, Matt.”

  Matt didn’t respond, and after a moment Reilly shook his head a little and continued out of the room.

  He left behind a silence thick enough to taste. Jessie waited for Matt to speak, waited for his anger to spill out. He had a right to be angry, she thought, nearly choking on her guilt. She’d been kissing another man. There was no excuse she could offer, no real explanation. She could hardly explain that kissing Reilly had really been a good thing because it had made her realize that maybe she wasn’t in love with him after all. Oh yeah, that would certainly smooth things over.

  She swallowed the hysterical urge to giggle and risked a glance at Matt. He was standing in the same place, just inside the door, so still that he hardly seemed to be breathing.

  “Matt, it wasn’t what—” He turned his head to look at her, and she stopped, the words caught in her throat. She couldn’t tell him that it wasn’t what it looked like, because it had been exactly what it looked like. She’d been standing right here in the kitchen—their kitchen—kissing Reilly. She swallowed and tried to find the right words, the words that would make everything all right again. “It didn’t mean anything. It was just because…we’re friends.” As explanations went, it ranked right up there with the dog ate my homework, she thought, despairing.

  “Funny, Reilly and I have been friends for almost thirty years, and I don’t think he’s ever felt the urge to stick his tongue down my throat.”

  He said it with such icy civility that it took a moment for the words to register.

  “He didn’t have his— It wasn’t like that,” she stammered. “Matt, I swear, it wasn’t like that.” She closed the distance between them, ignoring the anger this time, desperate to make him listen. “He just…we kissed, but it wasn’t like that. We didn’t… It wouldn’t have gone any further.”

  “We’ll never know, will we?” he asked, looking down at her with those cold, cold eyes, his expression frozen, distant.

  “Yes, we do know.” Jessie grabbed his arm, feeling the knotted tension in the muscles under her fingers. “I know. It was a stupid thing to do, and I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t, and it… Matt, please, talk to me. Yell at me. You’re angry, and you’ve got every right to be. Just don’t shut me out like this.”

  Shut her out? Matt stared down at her. He was the one being shut out. On the outside looking in. Looking in and seeing her in Reilly’s arms, seeing Reilly’s mouth on hers, her face turned up to his, eyes closed, body curved into his. Standing in the doorway, watching them, he’d felt his whole world shiver around him. The feeling had been so distinct, so physical, that, for a moment, he’d wondered if there was an earthquake, but it wasn’t the house tumbling around him. It was just his life.

  “Matt?” Jessie’s fingers dug into his arm. He could see them there, but he couldn’t feel them. She was holding him, clinging to him, her eyes dark with worry. What did she want him to say. It’s okay? No, of course I don’t mind you swapping spit with my best friend? Sorry I interrupted?

  He took a careful step back, forcing her to release her grip on his arm. Hurt flared in her eyes, and some distant part of his mind regretted that. But another part of him was glad. Why should he be the only one in pain? He drew a shallow breath, grabbing for the splintering threads of his self-control.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” he said carefully. His fingers knotted in the soft denim of his jacket. “I can’t talk about this right now.”

  “So you’re going to leave?” Jessie’s chin came up, and anger flared beneath the hurt. “I thought we agreed that that wasn’t the right way to handle things between us.”

  It took him a moment to realize that she was talking about the night she’d pushed him about inviting his mother for the holiday, the night he’d blown up and walked out. But this wasn’t anything like that. She’d touched a raw nerve that night, set off his temper, touched on fears he hadn’t even known he had.

  “Talk to me, dammit,” she demanded.

  “Not now. Not tonight.” She opened her mouth to argue and he cut her off with a sharp gesture of his hand. “No. I am not going to stand here and listen to you explain why you felt the need to explore Reilly’s dental work.”

  “We weren’t—”

  “Stop it!” He felt his temper snap, and, as if from outside his body, he saw his hand shoot out, long fingers closing around her wrist in a hold that stopped just short of being painful. “I don’t want to hear the details of exactly what the two of you were doing. You were kissing him. He was kissing you.” He laughed abruptly, a harsh sound that made her flinch. “Jesus, my wife and my best friend. If it wasn’t so fucking pathetic, it would be a joke.”

  “Matt, please.”

  “Please what, Jessie?” He used the grip on her arm to haul her closer, until only inches separated them. “Please tell you it’s okay? Please tell you I don’t mind? It’s not okay, and I do mind.”

  “I’m not asking you to say it’s okay.” Her voice shook, but her eyes met his steadily. “I’m asking you to talk to me, to try and work things out.”

  Matt grabbed for the shredded threads of his temper. She wanted to work things out. That was a good thing, right? That was the mature thing to do. Only he didn’t feel mature. He felt hollowed out, empty. And he didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to hear excuses or explanations or apologies. Later. They could talk later. He would listen later. They would work things out later. Even with anger painting a red h
aze around everything, he knew he wanted that, wanted to work things out. But not right now.

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now.” He released his hold on her wrist and stepped back. “This is not the time to talk, Jessie.”

  “Then when?” She put up her chin.

  “You want to make an appointment?” The silky sarcasm brought color flooding into her pale cheeks. “Shall I check my calendar and pencil you in? Tuesday, one o’clock, discuss wife and best friend kissing in the kitchen?”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “You don’t want to talk. You don’t want to hear an apology. You want to go off and lick your wounds in manly solitude, you go ahead and do it, but I’m still going to be here when you get back, and we’ll still have to talk about it.”

  Matt hesitated. She was right. This wasn’t going to go away. Sooner or later, they were going to have to talk about what had happened. But not now, not when he felt raw inside and out. He wasn’t ready to listen to her tell him why she’d kissed Reilly, to watch her face and wonder if she loved the other man. He couldn’t handle that tonight.

  Jessie waited, hardly breathing, willing him to stay even though she had no idea what she would say to him if he did. How could she explain what had happened with Reilly when she didn’t understand it herself?

  “Don’t wait up,” Matt said, and for the first time he didn’t sound angry or sarcastic. He just sounded tired. She opened her mouth to say something, she didn’t know what, but he didn’t wait, just turned and walked out. She stayed where she was, listening to the faint jingle of his keys as he scooped them up, then the quiet snick of the front door closing behind him. As if on cue, the oven timer buzzed, announcing that the brisket was done.

  Jessie pivoted on one heel, staring almost blindly around the kitchen. The pie cooling on the counter, the pile of washed and trimmed broccoli ready to go in the steamer basket, chopped garlic cloves and olive oil sitting next to the stove. If she took two steps to the right, she could see into the dining room, the china and silver gleaming, candles waiting for the touch of a match. The smells of roasting beef and onions mingled with the sweet scent of chocolate from the pie and the complex bite of the garlic.

  She swallowed once and then again as her stomach did a slow, ominous roll. She swallowed one more time before clapping one hand across her mouth and lunging for the nearest bathroom. What a perfect time for morning sickness to make its first appearance—at six o’clock in the evening, right after she’d just managed to single-handedly destroy her marriage.

  Dana glanced at the clock. After six. Reilly was usually home by now. She hoped he wasn’t going to work late tonight. She smoothed her hands over the textured silk of her skirt and tried to ignore the nervous flutter in her stomach. She’d spent a ridiculous amount of time picking out the black midcalf-length skirt and raspberry-colored blouse. Reilly had once said he liked the blouse, and, for the first time in a long time, she’d dressed with him in mind.

  She heard the garage door open, and her breath caught. Silly to be so nervous. It was only dinner out, unless he was too tired. It was something they used to do so often that she hadn’t given it any thought, but it had been months since they’d gone out together, months since they’d done anything together. They had to start somewhere, and a quiet dinner out seemed like as good a place to start as any.

  It was foolish to look ahead any further than that, but, all afternoon, she’d been thinking about Jessie’s comment about what a good father Reilly would be. Considering the condition of their marriage, thinking about having a child was not only ridiculous but would require a medical miracle. Still, the idea lingered. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that having a child was going to hold a marriage together, but maybe it would give them a way to reach across the chasm that lay between them. Not that she was going to mention it tonight, but it was something to keep in mind.

  Dana heard the door between the kitchen and the garage open and felt the flutter in her stomach deepen. Just dinner out, she reminded herself. No big deal. She could do this. She smiled at Reilly as he entered the living room, hoping he would be able to read something from that smile, though she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted him to see. Maybe just a simple welcome. Maybe that was enough to start.

  “Hi.”

  He looked at her without speaking, his expression tight. Dana’s smile faded, and she uncurled her feet from beneath her and stood up, the silk skirt rustling around her legs.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He sighed and shook his head. “Nothing, really. I mean, no one’s dead. Yet.”

  The last word was muttered so low that she barely heard it. Her smile flickered uncertainly. “You’re scaring me, Reilly. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I mean, it really was nothing.” Reilly ran his fingers through his hair. “I wasn’t even going to tell you, because it’s nothing.”

  “What’s nothing? What are you talking about?” Her heart was suddenly beating too hard and too fast. She could feel the pulse of it in her throat.

  “I was over at the Carlson site,” Reilly said, speaking rapidly, as if he needed to get the words out quickly. “And I decided to stop in at Matt and Jessie’s to say hi. Matt wasn’t home yet, but Jessie had coffee on, and we talked. And then I…we…”

  He looked at her, looked away, jammed his fingers through his hair again, and Dana felt her heart simply stop. She’d never truly appreciated the meaning of déjà vu before, she thought vaguely. But here it was, a textbook example, except that she knew exactly when and where she’d seen that look in her husband’s eyes, that unhappy, regretful look.

  “Did you sleep with her?” she asked calmly.

  “No!” Reilly looked horrified. “Jesus, no. It was nothing like that. It was nothing at all, really. I just…kissed her. One time, and it was…”

  “Nothing?” Dana arched her brows in cool question, feeling the familiar walls slip into place. Yes, this was better. Better not to feel so much, better to feel nothing at all.

  “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking,” Reilly said miserably. “But it didn’t mean a damned thing. I swear it.”

  She cocked her head to one side, allowing nothing but a mild curiosity to show. “If it was nothing, then why are you telling me? I’ve seen you kiss Jessie before.”

  “Not like… I mean, it wasn’t just a kiss on the cheek,” he admitted. “It didn’t mean anything, but then Matt came in.”

  “Ah.” Dana nodded. “I take it he didn’t immediately appreciate how ‘nothing’ it was.”

  “It was nothing, dammit.”

  She nodded again, her mouth curving in something that was not really a smile. “I’ve heard a rumor that appearances can be deceiving.”

  “Dana…” Reilly reached out as if to touch her, but she slid to the side, moving away from him, moving past him. She was fine. Just fine. But she didn’t want him to touch her. Didn’t want anyone ever to touch her again. If she just built the walls high enough and thick enough, no one would ever get through.

  She was aware of Reilly hesitating a moment before following her out of the living room and up the stairs, but she didn’t look back. Moving without hurry, she went to the hall closet and pulled a black suitcase down from the top shelf. She heard Reilly suck in a startled breath, but she didn’t look at him, just carried the suitcase into their bedroom and put it on the bed. The snap of the latches opening sounded sharp in the quiet room. She tossed back the lid and straightened, giving him a look of polite inquiry.

  “Do you want to pack, or shall I?”

  “Dana.” He stood just inside the doorway, his face drained of color. “Don’t do this. We can work through this.”

  “I can go, if you’d rather,” she said, ignoring his comment.

  He crossed the distance between them in two long strides, flipping the lid of the suitcase shut with a quiet thunk. “Talk to me, dammit.”

  “About what?” She bent to open the suitcase again, keepi
ng her eyes down. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t think she could bear to look at him.

  “About this. About us.” He slammed the suitcase shut again.

  “I don’t think so.” Dana felt the force of his emotions batter at the wall, shaking it a little. She swallowed hard and opened the suitcase. “We can work out the details later, I think.”

  “Details? You mean of a divorce?” The word hit with the force of a blow, and she straightened abruptly, her eyes locking on his. “Is that what you want, Dana? A divorce?”

  Was that what she wanted? To cut the ties between them, to forget all about from ’til death do us part and sign tidy legal documents that would erase the ties between them? She rubbed her thumb over her wedding band. It was probably the logical thing to do. It wasn’t as if they’d had much of a marriage lately, anyway. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words, couldn’t bring herself to cut that last tie.

  “This isn’t about me kissing Jessie,” Reilly said, and she wondered when he’d become the quiet, controlled one, while she could feel herself starting to crumble inside. “You know damned well there’s nothing between us but friendship. Kissing her was just a stupid impulse, and if Matt hadn’t walked in, I wouldn’t even have mentioned it to you, because it didn’t mean a thing to either one of us.”

  “Getting caught in flagrante delicto does make it awkward, doesn’t it?” she asked with cutting sweetness.

  “This is about what happened a year ago,” he continued, ignoring her sarcasm. “You’ve held me at arm’s length ever since, and now you’re using this as an excuse.”

  “An excuse?” Dana heard her voice rise and stopped, drawing a deep, slow breath, pulling her control around her like a cloak, like a shield.

  “It was one time, Dana.” Reilly’s voice was pleading.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand lift, and she took a quick step back, putting herself out of reach. He couldn’t touch her now. She couldn’t bear it if he touched her now. He let his hand drop, and his voice grew flat, empty.