by Lila James
Laurence sat next to Mom on a plush couch, draping his arm behind her while gesturing for Jackson and me to sit opposite them. I looked nervously at the tiny love seat that Jackson lowered his long frame into.
“I can just pull up a chair. I don’t want to crowd Jackson,” I said, looking around the cavernous living room for a chair.
“I’m not contagious, Lexley,” Jackson said, laughing and patting the seat next to him.
I sat down next to him on the love seat, as far over from him as I could get away with. As Jackson readied his laptop, I rifled through my papers and took out our list of questions.
“Marilyn is a wonderful woman,” Laurence said before I could even ask the first question. “When we met in person the chemistry between us was instantaneous.”
“Some people would raise their eyebrows at your age differences,” Jackson said. “What words of advice do you have for people who are sticklers for staying in a certain age range?”
“I say that age is just a number and love can happen for anyone at any time. And the older woman, younger man thing isn’t so taboo anymore. If anything, I think it’s liberating for a beautiful woman to date whomever she chooses. Regardless of age,” Laurence replied.
I glanced at Mom, waiting for her to add something. But she just gave Laurence a gracious smile.
“Mom, do you have anything to add?”
“Oh, I think Laurence summed it up perfectly,” Mom said, never taking her eyes off Laurence’s face.
I stared at her for a moment. This was not at all like the opinionated woman I knew so well. She was acting and dressing like a sexy Stepford wife or something. The rest of the interview went this way, with Laurence jumping in and answering every single question we had. Mom merely agreed with everything he said.
When Jackson asked her a direct question, I finally saw a chink in her armor.
“As someone who’s been married, would you say it’s easier or more difficult the second time around?” Jackson asked.
Mom stiffened. For a moment I thought she wouldn’t answer.
“I’d say it’s better the second time around,” Mom said. “You learn from your mistakes. So it definitely makes it easier.”
“And that can apply to anyone,” Laurence said, not content with hogging a mere 99 percent of the interview. “I think the majority of us don’t get it right the first time around. So hopefully, it is second—or third—time’s the charm.”
“Exactly, darling,” Mom said, squeezing Laurence’s hand.
We thankfully concluded our interview, as I could hardly stand watching Mom act like a mindless drone anymore. We said our goodbyes and thanked them. I pulled Mom aside as Laurence spoke to Jackson.
“What’s gotten into you?” I demanded. “You let him do all the talking and agreed with everything he said.”
“That’s because I did agree with everything he said,” Mom said, not looking me in the eye. “What’s going on with you and Jackson? You were sitting as far away from him as possible. And you barely looked him in the eye. Did you two sleep together or something?”
“Absolutely not!” I hissed, flushing. God, I really was transparent. “I was just weirded out by how you were acting.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mom sarcastically murmured.
“Ready, Adrian?” Jackson asked, managing to extricate himself from Laurence.
“Yes,” I said, forcing myself to look him in the eye and give him a casual smile. I turned back to Mom and Laurence. “Thanks for the interview. I’ll let you know when we have a publication date.”
“Please do. It was our pleasure,” Laurence said, approaching Mom and taking her hand. I attempted to decode their behavior, but I came up empty.
“She’s not like that,” I told Jackson as we emerged from the apartment building and he hailed a cab. “She was acting like a mindless robot.”
“She seemed pretty in sync with him to me,” Jackson said, shrugging as a cab pulled to a stop in front of us.
“No, she was trying to adapt herself to him. Turn herself into someone he’d be interested in,” I said, figuring it out. I slid in, pretending not to notice that Jackson had situated himself all the way across the cab from me. “That’s why she was wearing an outfit suitable for a sixteen-year-old.”
Jackson only chuckled. He turned in his seat, scrutinizing me for a moment.
“What?” I asked. If he attempted to kiss me again, I didn’t know what I would do.
“I owe you an apology. I know I ignored you at the dinner party. I just don’t want things to be awkward between us because of that kiss. But I shouldn’t have ignored you like that. Things between me and Katerina are getting pretty serious.”
I didn’t want to hear any more about Katerina. “You really don’t have to—”
“No, let me finish,” Jackson interrupted. “You have Douglas and I have Katerina. I just want us to put that whole kiss thing behind us. It shouldn’t have happened. It won’t happen again.”
“And it’s not like we’re going to see each other again,” I said, trying to sound light as unexpected pain twisted my heart. There was no need to correct him about Douglas. I needed something to salve my ego. I felt like I had just been dumped. Again. Marcus, Liz, now Jackson. I was on a roll.
“Right,” Jackson said, holding out his hand. “Friends?”
“Of course,” I replied, taking his hand. A rush of heat went through me as our hands met. What was wrong with me?
I could barely concentrate as we found a coffee shop and prepared to hammer out the final details of the article. Jackson did most of the talking as he tapped away on his laptop, and I would nod every so often, wondering if this was indeed the last time I’d see him and hating myself for caring so much.
“Adrian.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t be freaked out or anything, but there’s a woman on the street staring at you.”
I stole a casual glance to my left, where Janet stood outside on the street, squinting into the coffee shop.
“Oh, that’s just my Dad’s fiancée,” I said, waving her in.
Janet came in, apologizing profusely for staring. She told us that she’d been looking at florist shops in the area when she’d spotted me. I introduced her to Jackson, and she fell all over herself gushing about how much Dad (!) loved his book. She told me the wedding preparations were all but complete, and she was just working on finding a singer to surprise Dad with at the reception.
“My girlfriend’s a singer,” Jackson offered, and my heart sank with dread. “If I told her it was for a friend of mine, I’m sure she’d be happy to sing at your wedding.”
“Really?” Janet asked. “Oh, that would be wonderful. I would love to meet with her.”
“I’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll get your info from Adrian and put you two in contact.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you. And if she ends up singing at our wedding, of course you have to come. Why don’t you come regardless? We’d love to have a celebrity author at our wedding.”
I stared at Janet in disbelief. The thought of Jackson and Just Katerina at Dad’s wedding while I attended solo was mortifying.
“I’m sure Jackson is busy,” I interjected.
“Not at all. I’d love to come,” Jackson said, keeping his gaze trained on Janet’s elated face.
“Terrific! I’ll have Adrian pass along your info, and we’ll send you an invite,” Janet said, beaming. She leaned down and pecked me on the cheek. “I’m so glad I ran into you, Adrian! I’ll see you soon.”
Janet walked out, completely oblivious to the fact that she had made a nightmare of mine come true. I glared across the table at Jackson.
“You pretty much invited yourself, you know. And Katerina might not want to do it if she knows it’s my father’s wedding. She hates me, remember?”
“She’ll do it if I ask. And I’d love to go. I love weddings,” Jackson said without a trace of cynicism. “Now we get to se
e each other again. I know you’re thrilled.”
We finished up and left the coffee shop. Outside, Jackson turned to me with a smile.
“So this is it. Other than some final edits, it’s not really necessary to meet.”
“Good,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “I guess I’ll see you at my father’s wedding.”
“Guess so,” he returned.
He stepped forward, and I instinctively stepped back. He frowned and an expression that I could not read flickered past his eyes. But the look disappeared instantly and was replaced by a casual lopsided grin.
“I just want to give you a hug. Is that all right?”
“That’s fine,” I said crisply, but my heart was hammering in my chest. If a kiss from him could make my entire perspective tilt on its axis, how would I react to another hug?
Jackson stepped forward to embrace me, and I could have sworn I felt his lips brush against my hair. I stood stiffly for a moment before letting myself relax, allowing my arms to fit around his broad shoulders as I returned the hug.
We stood there for a long moment. I felt that familiar warmth spread throughout my system and knew I had to step back before I made a big mistake.
I moved back to get out of his arms, looking up at him, and for a split second I just wanted to throw caution to the wind and press my lips to his, albeit briefly, just to feel the whirlwind of emotions I hadn’t felt in a long time. But common sense won out, and I stepped back, looking down.
“See you, Adrian.”
I stood there, watching him walk away until he turned the corner. I headed back to Liz’s in a haze, deciding that I would keep walking for a bit just to clear my head.
I tried to look on the bright side of things. I had barely thought about Marcus lately, and it was probably a good sign that I was over one man if all I could do was fantasize about the lips of another. But I also noted that as many steps as there were for me to take to get over someone, there really weren’t many steps I could take to prevent myself from falling for someone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Real Wedding
OK, so maybe there were steps I could take to not fall for Jackson. Like keeping myself busy. If I was busy, there’d be no time to analyze my growing feelings for Jackson.
Luckily, I still had some work to do on completing the article, though it was minimal. Jackson and I only communicated via e-mail twice with final comments and tweaks throughout the next week. Once we were both satisfied with the piece, I sent the article to Jean.
As opposed to the sense of accomplishment I usually felt when I finished something, a strange desolation swept through me once I sent the article. Jackson Taylor was no longer in my life. This is a good thing, I rationalized.
In any case, I kept myself busy and threw myself into moving: I went out of my way to buy boxes, even though I didn’t need many. I organized and reorganized some things I needed to pack. I color coded boxes with multicolored markers. I organized Excel spreadsheets detailing where everything would go once I packed and unpacked. I found an online program outlining how to decorate a studio apartment. I obsessively watched home improvement shows to figure out what color to paint my walls and what shade of curtains to hang. I bought more shoes so my closet wouldn’t seem too empty. I called the moving company several times to make sure they had the date and time correct to come and move my things. (The fourth time I called, they warned me they’d cancel if I bugged them again.) I updated all my correspondence to my new address. I updated my Excel spreadsheet. I bought more shoes.
But none of this helped. All I thought about was Jackson and how any physical contact with me seemed to not affect him at all while sending me into a tailspin. I wondered if he would marry Katerina. I pictured him in bed with Katerina. I wondered how long they would be engaged. I wondered how many kids they would have, and if they would have Marcus and his Amazon over for dinner. (I knew this wasn’t likely since they didn’t even know each other, but in paranoid fantasies, anything is possible.)
“Have you seen or heard from Adrian lately?” Marcus would ask Jackson at one of their many dinner parties.
“No. She got really fat, to be honest,” Jackson would say, raising Katerina’s hand to his lips.
“I know. Remember when she got stuck trying to get into that size two? Hilarious,” Marcus would say, shaking his head in amusement.
“I wrote a book about her,” Jackson would add, gazing adoringly into Katerina’s eyes. “A cautionary tale.”
Maybe I was being a bit obsessive. But Liz was still not talking to me and I didn’t have anyone else to vent to, so my anxiety just kept building up. I even tried to think more about Marcus to stop thinking so much about Jackson. At least that was normal. I mean, I had actually been in a relationship with Marcus. But even at the height of our passion, Marcus’s kisses didn’t even compare to Jackson’s. I tried to think about Douglas, but I only felt guilty about how aloof I’d ultimately been toward him. I reasoned that all my obsessive thoughts about Jackson would cease once I had no contact with him whatsoever, and I would eventually be forced to forget all about him.
I was at work that Monday, trying not to think about Jackson, when Jean appeared at my desk out of nowhere.
“Jean, how hard is it to say ‘excuse me’ to alert me to your presence?” I grumbled.
“I know you’re not working, darling. I’ve been standing here for a good five minutes,” Jean said, plopping down into a chair opposite me. “This article is great, great, great. We love it. I only have some minor edits to make. You and Jackson make a great team.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, pretending to be entrenched in what I was typing (which was gibberish). “Have you heard from Jackson or anything?”
“I spoke to him this morning to tell him how much I enjoyed the article,” Jean said.
“Good,” I said, typing more gibberish onto my Word document. Did I really expect Jackson to ask about me? Why would he do that, anyway? He was probably constantly in bed with Just Katerina.
“You OK, Adrian? I can see you’re just typing gibberish.”
“I always start my articles by writing gibberish. It gets the juices going,” I said defensively, not looking at him.
“You’re still not upset about Marcus, are you?” Jean asked. “Honey, I really think it’s time to move on.”
“No, it’s not Marcus. He’s not the one I—” I started but stopped myself. Jean’s eyebrows rose to the top of his forehead and he leaned forward.
“So there is someone. Someone who’s not Marcus,” Jean pressed.
I needed to backpedal fast before he figured out it was Jackson.
“I broke up with a guy I was seeing a few days ago. I’m kind of upset about it,” I said, hoping that I sounded earnest enough. Jean stared at me for a long moment, as if trying to discern my honestly. Finally, he got to his feet with a shrug.
“Sorry to hear that, darling. I am glad you’ve dated someone since Marcus. Everyone needs a good rebound. I have to admit I kind of thought something would happen between you and Jackson.”
“What? Why? Why would you think that? What did Jackson say to you?” I asked in a rush.
“Ah-ha! It is Jackson!” Jean said triumphantly, sitting back down. “I just wanted to test your reaction. What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing. I was telling the truth,” I said, looking away from Jean’s perceptive gaze. “Believe me, I’m glad I won’t be seeing him again. The man’s arrogance knows no bounds. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t tell you any lies about me or anything.”
“Right,” Jean replied, not looking at all convinced. He started to get to his feet but hesitated, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I know I may seem nosy. But I’ve known you for a while, kid. I just want to see you happy.”
I looked up at Jean, touched. Despite his nosiness and gossipy tendencies, he was a great guy. I placed my hand on top of his, squeezing it. He smiled down at me for a moment before heading back to h
is office.
I took the next day off from work to spend the day moving. As the movers took my color-coded and numerically organized boxes out, Liz and I bumped into each other as she was leaving for work.
“So I’m finally getting the hell out of here,” I said, forcing a smile.
“OK,” Liz replied, not looking at me.
“Is there anything else?” one of the movers asked, poking his head back into the apartment.
“No. That’s it. I’ll meet you guys over there,” I said. “So. Um, we’ll talk?”
“Yes. We will,” Liz said. “And Adrian—”
Liz started to say something but stopped herself.
“See ya,” she whispered.
I stared at her for a long moment. I decided to take a leap of faith. I missed my best friend.
“I was overly judgmental with you. I see that now. I miss you,” I said, blinking back a stray tear. “I hope we can talk soon. I really do.”
“Me too,” Liz whispered. She stepped forward and gave me a hug before heading out. I watched her go, hoping that things would be back to normal for us sooner rather than later.
Moving in to my new apartment was actually enjoyable, notwithstanding the fact that I kept stubbing my toe on my closet door that opened at a weird angle. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t notice it before. I sat down on what would be my bedroom floor (the bed was being delivered the next day) and celebrated my new independence with a glass of wine. I probably should have moved in to a new place right after the “wedding.” A new place of my own felt like an actual fresh start.
Unfortunately, whenever I drank the slightest bit of alcohol, I had the overwhelming urge to start calling people. To my relief, I had no desire to call Marcus. We had pretty much said all there was to say. The person whom I really wanted to call was Jackson. I wanted to tell him that I was fine with the fact that he was going to marry Katerina, and things would be a whole lot better now that we weren’t going to be working together. I could even tell a little white lie and say that Douglas and I were getting serious.