Another gentle squeeze to my knee and he pulls his hand out from under mine.
“The restaurant we’re going to is new to me,” he says. “You been?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“A first for both of us, then.” He reaches over again but this time takes my hand and links our fingers together, resting our hands on my leg. The move is comfortable and familiar. “You look beautiful tonight, Jackie.”
“Thank you.” Swoon.
“They’re going to love you. And you don’t have to pretend we’re anything that we’re not. Just be you.”
I’m inexplicably happy to hear that. My shoulders inch away from my ears. I don’t have to put on an act for the Carsons. I don’t have to pretend to be anything I’m not. I bite my lip in consideration as Vince exits the interstate and enters downtown. I’m not exactly sure what we are. Not boyfriend/girlfriend, but we’re definitely dating. Or “hooking up,” as my friends are fond of calling it. I’m old-fashioned, I guess, because that term doesn’t sound the least bit appealing.
Rather than turn over questions that have no clear answers, I focus on Vince’s bigger, warmer hand resting on my lap. When I do that, it’s not hard at all to see what we are. We’re friends. We’re lovers. And we’re together.
What more do I need to know?
Chapter 24
Jacqueline
The restaurant is cute.
No, really. That’s the best word for it. Toile wallpaper, doilies, and antique brass lamps on side tables lend a homey feel to the space. The chairs and tables for guests are mahogany and several woven rugs cover an abused real wood floor. It’s too classy to be considered rustic but a far cry from a suave city atmosphere.
Much like the eclectic decor, the menu boasts a range of options. Foie gras as well as traditional beef and egg noodles. We’re off the map.
“I’m so excited to eat, I can’t pick,” I say as I turn the page on a menu. “How do you choose between rib eye and mushrooms or chicken and homemade dumplings?”
“You don’t. You each get one and share.” Cathy Carson smiles over at me, her eyes twinkling. For all my doubts that she’d accept a woman at Vince’s side who wasn’t Leslie, she seems to like me. I told Vince I was good with parents and I wasn’t lying. I’m the girl you take home to Mom.
“Jackie would impale me with her steak knife if I tried to take food off her plate,” Vince says. He’s sitting to my right and winks at me.
It’s not true. We share food more often than we don’t share food. I take it he doesn’t want to do the intimate eating-off-each-other’s-plates dance in front of his parents, so I don’t argue. It goes against what Vince told me about not pretending to be anyone other than who we are, but I’m going to respect this particular boundary. Parents are dicey.
“I’m decisive,” I say. “I can commit.”
“A lovely quality for any woman dating our son,” Cathy says.
My smile freezes in place. A chill wafts off Vince even before he offers a verbal warning. “Mom. Please.”
She holds her hands up in front of her and Jon Carson takes hold of his whiskey sour. They served his drink in a proper rocks glass, even though ice water for the table was brought in glass Mason jars. The more details I notice, the more I like this place.
“Jacqueline, is it?” Jon asks.
“It is. But most people call me Jackie. Vince calls me Butler.”
“Vincent!” Cathy reprimands.
“No, it’s fine,” I pipe up. “I don’t mind. We’ve worked together much longer than we’ve…um…dated, so it feels natural and familiar to me.”
Vince slides me a look, probably because I stated in no uncertain terms that we’re dating. Obviously his parents assumed this was a date, but now they know. He doesn’t appear happy about it.
“Jacqueline, what is it that you do at Brookdale?” asks Jon, going with the work topic, as Vince predicted.
“I’m co–vice president. Vince and I share the title.”
“Yet not your dinner plates,” Cathy murmurs, pretending to study the menu. Vince lets that one go.
“Do you have aspirations for president someday?” Jon sips his drink and watches me over the rim. He looks like Vince—or rather Vince looks like him. Stylish, fit, and terribly attractive. A glance over at Cathy shows where Vince inherited his dark hair and cheekbones, but in speaking with both his parents I’m unsure where Vince’s sense of humor and charm came from. Dad is hard to read and Mom is…Well, she’s hard to read too.
“I wouldn’t turn down the title, but I really like what I do,” I answer smoothly.
“I imagine it’d be difficult to compete with your close friend, if you were offered the position and so was Vince.”
Vince’s dad’s words smother my response for a full beat before I manage, “I’m sure if that were to happen, the best man or woman would win.”
“And you could accept that?”
“Dad?” Vince’s tone is more questioning than scolding. “What’s with the third degree?”
“No third degree. Just being conversational.” Jon smiles but his smile lacks warmth.
“How long have you worked at Brookdale?” Cathy asks, lifting her wineglass.
“Three years.”
“Three years,” she repeats, her slim brows rising. “So you knew Vince when he was married to Leslie.”
Uh-oh. I’ve stepped on a land mine, and now I’m afraid to lift my foot.
“Yes,” I admit. “But Vince and I didn’t become close until after he and Leslie split. That’s when I started spending more time with him, anyway.”
Cathy does not approve. She tips her head back and studies me down her nose.
“I’m divorced,” I blurt. “I knew what he was going through. It’s lonely at first.”
“She didn’t keep Leslie and me from getting back together,” Vince says, and Cathy fixes her frown on him.
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to,” Vince says. There’s a tense silence at the table where no one says anything. “We should go. Jackie has to get home.”
“Don’t upset your mother,” Jon warns as my skin prickles from adrenaline. I don’t love being in the middle of a family battle. My parents rarely argue, whereas Lex’s parents participated in an all-out war at every holiday meal. It always made me uncomfortable.
In this case, however, Vince is overreacting just a touch. I can stick it out.
“I don’t have to leave.” I put my hand on Vince’s arm as he wads his cloth napkin in one hand. “I don’t have to be home for a while.”
In an expression that resembles his father, Vince purses his lips and watches me.
“So.” I release Vince’s arm and send his mother a confident smile. “Tell me what you do for a living, Mrs. Carson.”
—
Vince steers the car with a clenched fist attached to a locked elbow.
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing and look out the window. It’s a beautiful night. One I thought might end with espressos and desserts and walking around Bicentennial Park while Vince’s parents told stories about Vince when he was younger.
No such luck.
We ordered dinner and discussed bland topics like home decor and the latest restaurant trends like pork belly and Moscow mules. It wasn’t tense so much as careful. Vince and his mother exchanged a number of silent glares, while Jon and I were more interested in carrying the conversation for the table. It was exhausting. I stifle a yawn as fatigue sets in.
“I’m sorry.”
Vince’s voice startles me. I must’ve started dozing off as I watched looked at the scenery. I’m not surprised. I drank an extra glass of wine to make up for the fact that I was uncomfortable and it made me sleepy.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
He pulls into my apartment complex and parks in an open guest spot. One hand on the wheel, he turns to face me. “I shouldn’t have brought you.”
&nb
sp; “I insisted.”
“I should’ve said no.”
I press my lips together against the sting of his words. No one likes to feel unwanted. I mutter “Okay” and open the car door, shutting it behind me as he calls my name. I dig my keys from my purse and hear his car door shut. He tries again.
“Jackie.” It’s not a shout. Just him saying my name. He catches up with me as I unlock my door.
“Thank you for dinner,” I say, not inviting him in as I wedge my door open.
He’s pushing on the door as I step in, making room for himself on the threshold. “You want me to leave?”
“I think that’s best, don’t you? I’m tired.”
“You’re lying.”
This infuriates me. Maybe because I’m telling the truth about being tired and he was the one of us who lied at dinner.
“Good night, Vince.”
I push on the door, but he doesn’t let me close him out.
“Can I come in for two seconds?” he asks, halfway inside already.
“Whatever.” I give up, leaving him to do whatever he wants. In the kitchen I toss my purse and keys on the table and open the refrigerator. There’s half a bottle of chardonnay in there and I decide another glass is a good idea.
“Butler, I didn’t mean I shouldn’t have taken you because I didn’t want you there.”
“No, you just”—I grunt, wrestling with the cork I wedged in there a little too tightly—“want me to be the ‘myself’ you want me to be instead of just being myself.” Another futile tug and I’m shaking my hand out from cork burn, if that’s a thing.
Vince snatches the bottle from me and twists off the cork with almost no effort at all. Instead of handing the bottle back to me, he goes to my cabinet, extracts a wineglass, and pours my drink.
“I was trying to avoid making you feel uncomfortable. I know my parents, and I didn’t want them to hurt your feelings.” He puts the glass in front of me, the bottle next to it, but suddenly I’m not thirsty.
“Because they think I lured you away from Leslie? They think I’m ‘the other woman’?” Real hurt creeps into my voice.
“Yes.” Vince’s eyes warm, his innate tenderness shining through even during an argument. “I know it’s the last thing in the world you’d like to be accused of. My mom made an assumption, but she was wrong. You were offering friendship when I was in an awful, ugly place.”
He was in an awful, ugly place. Seeing him hurt like that wasn’t easy. I bite down on my lower lip, unable to tear my eyes off him. Sweet Vince.
“I was the one who started wanting you,” he says. “Right around the time you swore off men for good.”
I almost quip about his horrible timing, but I don’t want to lose the intensity of this moment. Increasing that intensity, he comes around the counter and looks down at me as I look up.
“Hi,” he says, his smile reassuring and gentle.
“Hi.”
I’m accepting a deliciously firm kiss a second later. My hand threads into his hair and my fingers graze the side of his neck when he pulls back.
“Do you think your mom’s right?” I didn’t mean to say that aloud, but there it is.
“About?” He’s flirting with a grimace. I’m flirting with killing the mood, but I can’t shut up.
“Would you and Leslie have worked things out if I wasn’t in the way? Would you have called her or gone to see her?”
“Does it matter?” He takes a step away from me.
Definitely. I’ve killed the mood.
“Kind of.”
He leans against the countertop and regards me. Waiting.
“You still loved her when she left. I loved Lex. It’s hard to let go when you aren’t the one doing the leaving. Especially since she didn’t do anything she couldn’t take back.”
Leslie could have argued to Vince that she suffered a lapse in judgment. Conversely, Lex put his penis into another woman. There’s no unringing that bell. I take a breath and say something I had no idea I believed until it’s out of my mouth.
“What if I’m a rebound from your failed marriage?”
“Ha!” But Vince’s spoken laugh holds no humor. “If anything, Butler, I’m your rebound from J.T. You were the one who came to me crying because he had a blonde in his apartment. Remember?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Don’t put this on me.” He stalks toward me and when he arrives, his hands clutch my upper arms. He holds me tight but not too tight, his eyes zeroing in on mine so I have nowhere to go. “I don’t know how to make it any clearer that I want you.”
His words wash over me, warming every part they touch.
“You know that, right? You know I want you.” His voice has dropped to a seductive timbre. “That there’s nowhere I’d rather be than standing in front of you, listening to you spout some moronic theory about what you think I’m doing.”
“I’m—”
He shuts me up with a kiss, his hands letting go of my arms to encircle my waist. I’m off the floor a second later, my butt on the counter as Vince wedges his hips between my thighs. Thumbs on either side of my mouth, he finishes the kiss and pulls back to study me.
“Raise your hand if you believe Vince knows exactly what he’s doing.” He reaches for my wrist and hoists my arm into the air with his, then drapes both my arms around his neck. “Let me take you to bed tonight, Butler.”
“I’m so tired.” I pull my arms away but he reaches up to keep them around his neck.
“All you have to do is lay there.”
“Vince.” I laugh his name.
“The giggling is a good sign.”
He knows me well.
I tip my chin and kiss him. A few panting, hot minutes later our exes and his parents are the furthest thoughts from our minds.
Chapter 25
Jacqueline
I burst into Kayla’s office and shut her door behind me, a coffee in hand for each of us.
“Thought you could use a caffeine boost,” I announce as I place the Starbucks cup on her desk.
“When can’t I use a caffeine boost?” She accepts with a sip and a borderline orgasmic hum. “What is this?”
“It’s a caramel mocha latte with one pump vanilla and two pumps cinnamon.” I take a drink from my own cup and the sugar lights up my brain like a marquee. “It’s one of my greatest inventions.”
“I’ll say.” Kayla spins her chair to face me. “What gives? You never bring me coffee in the afternoon unless you want something.”
“Not true!” I argue, offended. Mostly because she guessed exactly right. I do want something.
“Jackie.” Her smile is that of a patient woman: wife and mother. And that’s exactly who I need to speak to right now.
“Okay, fine, I want something.” I drag a lightweight plastic guest chair from the wall to the corner of her desk and lean close. “Does great sex fix problems? I mean, I thought my ex-husband and I were having great sex, but then recently I had some actual great sex and learned that Lex and I were, in fact, not having great sex.” I scrunch my nose as Kayla’s eyebrows arch in curiosity. “Anyway, you and Kevin seem to have cracked the code. You have challenges, right?”
“Babe. We have challenges.” Her mouth slants to one side, suggesting I should know better.
“Of course. Yes. You can’t avoid the ‘challenges’ thing no matter what.” I pause, thinking of her son and his challenges, and how that must affect her and her husband. Kayla never lets anyone see her sweat. It’s easy to forget she has a life outside of these four walls. “Lex and I had challenges and his solution was to sleep with someone else. What is the secret to maintaining a healthy relationship when challenges come up? Does great sex hold you two together? Is it enough?”
“Similar interests help,” she says, then adds, “And some battery-operated bedroom toys.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Jackie. I’m teasing you.” Kayla sets aside her cup and puts her coffee-warmed
hand over mine. “What’s really going on? Are you falling for the hot, hunky runner guy and you don’t want to? Is that what’s happening?”
I frown in confusion when Kayla refers to J.T.
“I’m not falling for him.” I hear the slightest tremor in my voice. Because I’m referring to Vince, and falling for Vince would be…unwise.
“Well, then enjoy the great sex and move on when you’re ready,” she advises with a shrug.
“Even though I see him every day?” Not going to lie, the fact that Vince and I work closely together plagues me. Over the past year we’ve coexisted in a lot of the same spaces. Now that we’ve merged the personal time with hot and sweaty kissing time and nine-to-five time, one or both of our co-VP positions could be at risk.
“You can find something else to do for the thirty to sixty seconds when he jogs by your window, can’t you? Until then, enjoy the view.”
“You’re right.” I offer a wan smile. I can’t tell her I’m referring to Vince. “Thanks, Kayla.” I take my coffee and replace her chair, promising to bring coffee without agenda next time. As I open the door to leave, I’m blocked by a tall, lean man who smells like a pine forest and made me come so hard last night I literally saw stars.
“Girl meeting?” Vince sends a searing gander down my body and up again before gracing Kayla with a polite smile.
The air between his body and mine is warm, and beneath my dress my nipples harden. I take a deliberate step away from him.
“What’s this? You didn’t bring me one?” He takes my coffee cup, drinks, and…makes a face. “Good God, Butler, did this come with an insulin shot?”
“Girls like sugar, Vince. It’s why we’re sweet,” Kayla says from behind me, but her tone is different. I consider how intimate Vince sipping from my cup must’ve looked. Did he give us away?
“I have a real work issue for you, if you and Butler are through gossiping,” Vince says to Kayla as he slides by me. I practically flatten my back to the open door so as not to touch him. He plops into the chair I just vacated. “Door open is fine. Kay and I aren’t going to share any secrets.”
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