Just Jack

by Meredith Russell

  There was no strength to Leo’s words as he protested against the further accusation. “I slipped on some ice.”

  “Fine. Ice. But why do I get the impression there’s something you’re not telling me?”

  Leo did his best to keep his head held high under such scrutiny. He just couldn’t.

  “I knew it.” Nathan folded his arms.

  “It’s not what you think.” He looked at Nathan, then finally relented. “Fine. I went to his place and…”

  Nathan raised an eyebrow expectantly.

  “He was with someone. Another guy.”

  The anger on Nathan’s face briefly changed to sympathy. “Oh, man. I’m sorry.” He came and sat on the edge of the desk.

  “I feel like such an idiot. I swear this was nothing more than my stupid ass falling over on the sidewalk. I guess I was in a hurry to get out of there.”

  There was a brief silence until Nathan decided to fill it with awkward questions. “Was it someone you knew?”

  Leo shook his head. “I have no idea who he was. Just some guy.”

  Nathan gave a slow nod. “So, what now? Are you going to forgive him this time?”

  Embarrassment tightened in Leo’s chest. He’d never told anyone about the other men, though he knew the office gossips had speculated.

  “Because he has done this before, right?”

  There was no point in lying. “Yes.”

  “That intern last summer?” Nathan tensed his jaw.

  “You listen to too much gossip.” If he was being honest, gossip was how he’d found out about the affair. An overheard conversation in the bathroom. For three months Mac had been going with the intern behind his back.

  Nathan snorted a laugh. “I was the gossip once upon a time.” Before they were a thing, Nathan and Ruby had been suspected of having an affair. They hadn’t, and it wasn’t until months after leaving her first husband the two of them finally got together.

  “Yeah, and you also know what damage it can do.” It had only been a matter of time before the freely thrown around assumptions about Nathan and Ruby made their way beyond the office.

  Nathan breathed in deeply. “I also know it can lead to good things, too.”

  Good things? “He put her in hospital.”

  “Sure and that was probably the worst day of my life seeing her lying there. But it was also the best, for her. She got him out of her life for good.”

  Leo appreciated the sentiment, but he couldn’t compare his and Ruby’s situations. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I left him. I told him we were over.” Shit, he’d said it out loud to someone other than Mac. And the gorgeous stranger.

  “Really?” Nathan sounded incredulous. “Because from what I remember, you can’t even stick to a decision about what takeout to order.”

  Leo gave a soft laugh and lowered his head. Then his laughter faded. “I meant it.” He raised his head and met Nathan’s eyes.

  “You’re really packing up your toothbrush and leaving?”

  Leo sighed. He guessed he was.

  The door opening to the office made them both jump, and Leo turned to find Ruby casting her gaze between the pair of them.

  “Okay. What did I miss?”

  He wasn’t sure he had the energy to make the declaration a second time so was grateful when Nathan offered an edited version.

  “Leo is a klutz who shouldn’t be allowed out by himself, and”—he stood up—“he dumped Mac.” He circled his arm around his wife’s waist and kissed her. A look passed between them, something that must have allayed her fears about how Leo had been hurt.

  Sure Leo and Mac argued like most couples and had done in front of Ruby, but a few harsh words were as heated as things had ever gotten. Leo chewed on his lip. He guessed what Ruby had been through must have started somewhere, though, so he did appreciate her concern.

  Ruby looked relieved as she slipped from her husband’s hold. “I brought you this,” she said. She held out a can of lemonade.

  Smiling, Leo took the offered drink. “Thanks.”

  “Do you want a hand with the presentation?” she asked. “I’ve nothing urgent to deal with so can free up the rest of today.” She glanced toward her husband.

  “Sadly, I can’t do the same.” Nathan looked apologetic. “I have a massive pile of submissions to get through for the Junior Design competition.”

  Leo nodded. He’d ended up in charge of the annual competition a couple of years ago. Kids came up with the strangest ideas. Teddy bears with laserbeam eyes to protect kids from the monsters under their beds was one of his personal favorites.

  “I’d appreciate the help,” he told Ruby.

  Ruby smiled sweetly and fished a hair tie out of the pocket of her suit jacket. “Let’s get cracking, then.” She tied back her blonde hair and looked serious.

  Laughing, Leo met her eyes. This was what he needed right then. His friends.

  * * * * *

  “What time do you call this?” Abe looked over his shoulder from where he was sitting at the bar.

  Jack pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and sat on the edge of the stool beside Abe. “Sorry. Got distracted.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Jack frowned. “What?”

  “The weather,” Abe pointed out. “Kate came in complainin’ it was havin’ some kind of mental breakdown. Sunny blue skies one minute, mini blizzards the next.” Abe raised an eyebrow. “I assumed you were off havin’ fun with the mere mortals.”

  “It’s not all my fault. Mother Nature has her moments too.” Except for maybe the oldest and most powerful Frosts, there was no going against the natural order of the seasons. Jack had met some tricksters in his years and could only imagine what they might get up to if they had the power to call on the cold anytime they liked—snow in a heat wave, ice on the beaches, and shivering sunbathers.

  Abe stirred his drink and then tapped the stirrer on the rim of the glass. “Jack Frosts and Mother Nature… One day the wrong person’s goin’ to be listenin’ in and the men in white coats are gonna turn up to take me away.”

  “Just don’t start talking about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny again, or I’ll help them escort you out of the building.”

  Abe laughed before taking a sip of his drink. He grimaced and licked his lips at the tart flavor of what looked like a mixture of fruit juices and syrup.

  “Too much pineapple,” he declared. “Anyway, how am I supposed to know what is and isn’t real? You can make it snow inside, kind of blurrin’ the lines on my reality here.”

  Jack smiled to himself. Though he wasn’t clued up on every elemental being, he knew of some and had managed to piss a fair few of them off too with his icy fun and tricks, including the sylphs, spirits of the air who sang to him on the wind; water sprites, guardians of streams and lakes, the ill-tempered perpetrators of stormy seas; and the green men and faerie folk of the forests, encouraging new blooms and offering what protection they could from the encroaching human populace into their territories.

  “All I’ll say is never get on the wrong side of a pixie.” He shifted to sit on the stool properly and rested his arms against the edge of the bar.

  Abe opened his mouth and just as quickly closed it again. He shook his head. “I’m not even gonna ask.”

  Laughing, Jack leaned forward. He eyed the fridges behind the bar. They had already been restocked since last night. “So what needs doing?”

  Abe took another drink, his eyelid twitching as the mixture of fruit juices hit his tongue. “Kate’s doing a stock check so the next order will need doin’ when she’s done. Also, I need to talk to you about the Silverstorm gig.”

  “When is it?”

  “Wednesday. Will that be a problem?”

  Shaking his head, Jack considered the most popular of his ice carvings. “Don’t tell me. Swans. They want swans, don’t they?” Everybody seemed to want swans. Large, beautiful, winged pieces of art carved from ice as the centerpiece to their parties.
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  Abe shook his head. “Not this time.”

  “Angels?” Jack guessed.

  Abe reached forward and pulled a sheet of paper from his overstuffed planner sitting on the bar in front of him. “Have a look.”

  Jack unfolded the page. He smiled as he deciphered Abe’s scrawled note of the request for a selection of ice sculptures in the shape of toys and fairground rides. “Who is this for again? Sounds like a kids’ party.”

  Chuckling, Abe took back the order. “I’m told adults, bein’ as they ordered champagne cocktails and a vodka ice luge, which reminds me I need to arrange for someone to cover that on the night.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “The execs of some company on Free Street. Boozin’ and schmoozin’, the usual.”

  They fell into a short silence as Abe finished his drink.

  Jack ran his fingers over the smooth shiny black surface of the bar as his mind drifted to earlier and what he thought he’d felt. He wasn’t sure what had made him stop this time, why he’d decided to turn back and help the man who had slipped in the wake of his icy footsteps. Jack never stopped.

  “What were you doin’?”

  Abe’s voice disturbed Jack from his scrutiny of his actions, and he glanced at his friend. “When?”

  “Earlier? When I called.”

  Jack pressed his mouth in a line and shrugged, shaking his head as he feigned ignorance. “Nothing. Something.” He sniffed a laugh. “The same as always.”

  “You just seemed distracted. Still do.”

  Tensing, Jack looked at Abe. His friend shuddered, and Jack noted the white clouds of breath falling from between Abe’s parted lips.

  “Sorry.” He blinked and sat upright.

  “Jeez.” Abe shook away the cold and rested his hands over the cover of his planner. “I guess that’s code for you don’t want to talk about it.” He gave an awkward laugh, then slid from his seat. “I’m gonna check in with Kate. You okay with the orders?”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  Abe hugged his planner to his chest. “We’ll catch up later, yeah?”

  “Sure.” Jack stared at his hand and he listened to the sound of the swinging doors as Abe headed out back. Curling his fingers, Jack slowly drew back his hand and watched the frosty fractal patterns left behind from his touch. White and cold. This was his reality.

  * * * * *

  “Oh my God.” Ruby dragged her fingers down over her face, leaving red marks across her cheeks. “How did he expect you to get this done by yourself?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be by myself,” Leo reminded her. He should have been here with Mac, not Ruby. Mac at least wouldn’t have had to ask if he was doing it right or if things were in the right place every five minutes. Mac had a vision of what he wanted and where he was going. That certainty and determination was what had drawn Leo to him in the first place. Mac knew what he wanted, or rather, Leo had thought he did. Seemed Mac didn’t have the same focus for their relationship that he had for business.

  Ruby pursed her lips and leaned back against the filing cabinet. She stared at the boards spread out across the floor in front of her. “Video games, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  With popularity of apps for smartphones and tablets and, of course, games for the big games consoles, Mac felt it was time for Harding’s to move with the times, to take a chance on something outside their comfort zone of baby dolls and train sets.

  With a sigh, Ruby leaned forward. “I know shit all about video games.” She laughed and looked apologetically at Leo.

  “You think I do?” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “The only time I was really interested in consoles was when Sonic the Hedgehog was doing his thing on the Genesis.” He glanced at Ruby who stared back at him blankly. “Now it’s all teaming up online and Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, or Grand Theft Auto Eighty-Nine or something…” He breathed in and shrugged. As much as he appreciated Mac bringing him in on this, he didn’t know the first thing about the development or branding of a game.

  When Ruby chuckled, he did too. He’d had enough for one day. “You know what? I’m about done. My brain is fried.”

  Ruby lifted her hips to pull out her phone. “It’s nearly four.”

  “Sounds like quitting time to me.” He hit Save on the presentation and shut the lid of the laptop. Stretching out his legs, he rested the computer on the floor and leaned back against the side of Mac’s desk. “There’s a couple of hours tomorrow morning to check things over with Mac.”

  “More than he deserves.” Ruby tensed her jaw and did the weird lip curl she’d adopted whenever either of them had said Mac’s name in the last three hours.

  “As hard as it’s going to be, I’m not bringing it into the office. We’re both professionals.” Leo hoped Mac wasn’t going to be a dick about what had happened. It wasn’t like it was Leo’s fault Mac couldn’t keep it in his pants.

  Ruby didn’t seem convinced as she quirked an eyebrow. “I hope that’s true. For your sake.”

  “It’s not like he can fire me. He’s the one that screwed around.”

  Ruby pursed her lips. “Hmm.”

  Leo folded his arms across his chest and stared at the shadows of people on the other side of the frosted glass windows. “I won’t let him chase me out of here. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Ruby rested her hand on his ankle. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Of course he wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t. HR would kick his ass.”

  The seed of doubt Ruby had planted took root, though. “Yeah. He’s an adult.” Mac an adult? Fuck. Leo was so screwed.

  A silence fell between them, and Leo was glad when there was a knock on the door. The door opened, and Nathan stuck his head inside the room.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “We have officially given up.” Ruby gave a firm nod and held out her hands. Nathan stepped into the room and obligingly took her hands in his to pull her to her feet. The couple met in a brief embrace.

  “It’ll be down to Mac and his spiel tomorrow,” Ruby told Nathan.

  Nathan glanced at Leo. “He has got a way with words.”

  Mac was a charismatic bastard and could pretty much talk his way into or out of anything, depending what the situation called for.

  Stay strong. He didn’t know what would happen when he saw Mac again, but Leo wasn’t about to let him worm his way out of this one. Not again. Mac had officially used up his last chance. It was time to move forward instead of repeating the same mistakes. That was the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same shit over and over and expecting things to be different? Leo looked away when Nathan’s gaze narrowed.

  “Are you sticking around or heading off home?” Nathan asked him. “We could go for a drink or something from here.”

  Leo shrugged. He was tired, but he kind of liked the idea of being around people right then. If he went home, there would be no getting him back out of the house that evening.

  “Actually, a drink sounds good. I’ll hang around. I’ve a couple of other jobs I can make a start on.”

  “Good, that’s settled, then.” Ruby beamed happily.

  Leo returned her smile. “Thanks, guys.”

  “What are friends for if not to get tipsy and bitch about men?”

  “Hey,” Nathan complained.

  “Present company are exempt from being bitched about.” Ruby smirked and looked coyly at Nathan through her lashes. “Besides, we would never bitch about you to your face.”

  Nathan chewed on his lip as he clearly tried to decide if that was a good thing. He was quickly distracted when Ruby kissed him on the cheek.

  “Come on. Let’s give Leo some time to himself,” she said brightly and pulled on Nathan’s arm. “You know where we are if you need us.”

  Leo nodded. When the door closed, he pulled up his legs and folded his arms across his knees. Turning his head, he rested his cheek on the back of his hand and stared at the sky through t
he arched window. The sky was a perfect blue, so clear and beautiful even in the fading daylight. Gently, he pressed his fingers against his chest, massaging the low ache that spread through him as his mind drifted back to Mac and the man Leo had caught him with. Leo felt so betrayed. How had he been so stupid to put his trust in someone so blindly? Sitting back, Leo looked at the presentation boards. The temptation to mislay them battled with his better judgment of self-preservation. He wasn’t about to give Mac a real reason to fire him if it came down to that.

  With a sigh, he stretched his legs back out and picked up the laptop. He loved his job, and he wasn’t about to give anyone, not Mac or anyone else, a reason to take it from him.

  Chapter 6

  The voices of customers echoed through from the main bar to where Jack had slipped away, unnoticed, to the back room. His room. Folding his arms across his chest, he studied the closed doors of the two large refrigeration units. For thirty years he’d worked out of the back of the club, creating icy works of art, sculptures for parties and events and for the club itself. He still remembered when Abe’s father had come to him with grand ideas of how they could use Jack’s skills to their benefit. His enthusiasm had been infectious. Almost.

  Jack wasn’t sure if he’d say he enjoyed his work, but it was certainly what he needed. It was something to focus on and allowed him to vent, to release the pent-up energy within him throughout the year, without having to move around as he once had. Like he’d told Abe, Mother Nature had her rules for the most part. He knew of Frosts who traveled far into the north in search of colder climates during the summer months. Having this job meant he could settle and considered the town home.

  Closing his eyes, Jack listened to the low murmur of people talking. Shiver was made up of three main areas, the regular bar, open from early afternoon until late; Frostbite, the permanent ice bar, everything from the seats to the glasses formed from ice and kept at a cool twenty-one degrees; and the dance floor and bar on the second floor. Upstairs was open four nights a week, and tonight was the first of the long weekend.

  Thursday, he recalled. Days had a nasty habit of running together.