by T. Torrest
Jack turns down the radio. “Go ahead and ask. That’s what we’re here for.”
“Well, okay... Let’s start with that night on the beach, when you broke up with me.” Jack winces at the memory. “Why the sudden push to get me to tell you… you know…”
He lets out a deep breath and says, “The night before that? After my meeting with Shug, I had a gig at Mother’s, remember?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, well, Lutz brought a few of the guys from the tour to come see us play. Kind of a preliminary introduction before being stuck together for the next three months. Anyway… one of the guys was Rider MacLaine.”
I don’t know whether my face is bright red or pale white as he continues, “I’m sure you can understand why I had a chip on my shoulder when he was talking about the last time they were in Jersey, and how he had to look up the “brunette Drew Barrymore” who blew him after the show. The very night before we met.” He drums his fingers along the steering wheel, trying to pull himself together enough to continue. “It got in my head. We’d just slept together, and all of a sudden, I felt like another notch in your bedpost.”
The hurt in his words humbles me, and my eyes drop to my dress as I become fixated on a stray thread. “You knew about my past. You always said it didn’t bother you.”
“It’s one thing to know something, but it’s an entirely different thing to have it thrown in my face.” He raises an eyebrow as his lips purse together sheepishly. “I knew what we had together, but there I was, making love to you… and all you wanted to do was fuck.”
I cringe, aware that his recounting is wholly accurate. Hell, he was looking right into my eyes and telling me that he loved me, and I went and turned that night into nothing more than a depraved sex-fest. He may have been a willing participant, but I was the one that changed the direction of that entire evening.
He clears his throat and says, “I had to know for sure. I had to know if I meant more to you than the rest of them. I knew I was going to ask you about it, and I knew you were going to evade the question. I was a fucking mess, because all I could think about was losing you. It wasn’t until after when I realized how wrong I was to do that to you. I knew how you felt about me, even if you couldn’t say so right when I wanted you to. I knew we could make it work and all I needed was to learn a little patience.”
All I could think about was losing you.
I know the feeling. I lived through weeks—months—of misery because I couldn’t get past that one single thought. It took me an eternity before I was able to return my life to some sort of normalcy. And now, here he is, trying to turn me inside-out all over again with his version of events.
“Okay... But when you realized all this, why didn’t you try to tell me then?” I choose to leave out the words if you loved me so much.
“I already told you; I did try, back in August. Feebly, I admit, but I did try. By then, weeks had gone by. After leaving you like that, I had no idea how you would react to me just barging back into your life. I was going insane without you and thought maybe it wasn’t too late to tell you I was wrong. I wimped out and gave Monty a call first. That’s when he told me you were happily back with your ex. Do you have any idea what that was like for me? Thinking you were over me enough to already be ‘happy’ with somebody else?”
Oh, I think I have a good idea.
He shakes his head, reliving the memory. “It was hell, of course, but I truly believed that letting you be happy—even if it was with someone else besides me—was the best thing at the time. I looked at it like it was my penance for being stupid enough to let you go.”
Always the gentleman.
I admit, “But I wasn’t happy.”
Jack adds, “Me either. I thought I was being noble and selfless, but the truth is, I was a miserable fucking mess every goddamn minute of every goddamn day.”
“Me too.”
We catch each other’s eyes and almost laugh.
God, all that wasted time. I can’t even blame Monty for his deception. He thought he was doing a good thing at the time, keeping Jack and me from destroying each other even more than we already had. By August, I had gotten pretty good at faking contentment and looking like a normal person. Monty must have interpreted that as genuine closure. Hell, I wanted him to. I wanted everyone to.
“So all this time, you thought I was back with Mitch?”
“Yep.”
I thought about having to face Jack at the wedding, dying about having to see him there with Sadie. As a bridesmaid, I had no choice—I had to be there. Jack showed up voluntarily, thinking he was going to see me hanging all over another guy all night.
“And knowing that you were going to see me at the wedding, in love with some other guy, how were you planning on facing that?”
“Why do you think I brought Freddie?”
This time, we do laugh.
Then Jack says, “Ron ran into Freddie at The Westlake one night and threw a verbal invite his way. Once I heard that, I just RSVP’d for him on my response card as ‘Guest.’ Jeez, you should have seen the looks we got when we checked into the hotel together. I don’t know how Monty does it.”
“You’re staying at the hotel?”
“I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t have to. I only booked the room in case I crashed and burned with you tonight and decided to get completely wasted.” He throws me a confident smile. “Looks like Freddie will be taking the shuttle bus there alone.”
Dear God. I hope he’s not planning on sleeping at Monty’s. I’m not nearly ready to be under the same roof with him overnight. He breaks my thoughts on that when he asks, “Mind if I ask you a question now?”
“That’s what we’re here for.”
“Okay… because I need to know. What in the world led you to believe I was cheating on you?” He says it as if the words are actually laced with a foul odor.
I give a shrug. “I didn’t know what to believe, Jack. I just put the puzzle pieces together with what little information I had available to me at the time. We had our big stand-off on the beach, and then a week later you were engaged to someone else. I just thought you were using me for a last fling.”
“How could you think that? After everything I said? Or did?”
“I was scared, Jack. I’d never felt that way about anyone before. I couldn’t acknowledge how hard I’d fallen. But after we broke up, I started second-guessing myself like crazy, coming to the realization that of course I knew all along, but that I was just too stupid to see it. I couldn’t wait to tell you; I was busting with it. I was working up the nerve to find you somehow, when I found out you hadn’t even left at all. Two days later, I received that horrid little card in the mail.”
“But I had nothing to do with that.”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
He gnaws on his lip for a minute. “But… I mean, why wouldn’t you have just seen through that? Isn’t it obvious that she just sent that thing to get you out of the picture?”
“It’s obvious now.”
“But why not then?”
“Three reasons.” I take a breath and almost smile as I start counting off the talking points on my fingers. “One: The announcements were professionally printed! You can’t just buy one of those things. She would have had to order a minimum of like fifty of them. Who would be that calculated?”
“My ex-girlfriend.”
“I didn’t know her as well as you did.” He smirks—that trademarked upturn of his delectable lips—as I continue, “Two: It takes a couple weeks to get them done. A few more days for the mail to be delivered. At the time, I thought that meant you had to have been engaged while we were still together.” I watch the muscle pulsing in his jaw as I add, “And three: If we were still speaking when I received it, I could have just asked you about it, we would have cleared everything up in about one minute, and then we would’ve shared a good laugh at her expense. But we were already separated when that thing landed in my mailb
ox. Pretty coincidental timing, don’t you think?”
Jack runs a hand down his face. “Uh… There’s nothing coincidental about it. She knew we were on the rocks.”
“What? How?”
“I told her.”
Before the seethe can set in, he explains. “When I said The Osprey was the last time I saw her, that was the truth. But she still called every now and again. I didn’t spend more time talking to her than it took to get off the phone.” He shakes his head and continues, “But that weekend after we broke up? I ran into your father. It was too much. I went on one hell of a bender after that. She called right in the middle of it, twisting the knife about my ‘new girlfriend’ this and my ‘new girlfriend’ that… I don’t know, I just blurted out that we weren’t together anymore.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Yeah. Exactly. But how could I have predicted she’d do something like what she did to you?”
“You couldn’t,” I willingly concede.
“She really tried working me over after that. Called every few hours, for chrissakes. I couldn’t even change my number because I was still hoping you would call.” He shoots me a smirk before continuing. “After about a week of that, I finally told her in no uncertain terms to stop calling, it’s never going to happen, I was still in love with you. She just went ballistic, and that turned out to be the last time I ever spoke to her.”
“But the announcement cards…”
“Her sister works at a printing place.”
There’s a pause between us as we try and make sense of all the new revelations.
I’ll have to check with the guys, but I’m guessing I’m the only one who received the lovely little piece of mail. Unbelievable.
While I’m silently contemplating the right way to launch an apology, he asks, “You’re not going to boil my bunny now, are you?”
The question is so unexpected that I find myself cracking right the hell up. Before I can pull myself together, he says, “Oh, hey! I saw your article in the Ledger! It was really, really great. About time the world recognized your talents.”
“Ha! Thanks. It’s going well. Getting more business every day.”
“I gotta say, opening the paper that Sunday morning almost stopped my fucking heart. There I was, settling in for a nice cup of coffee, thumbing through the Lifestyle section, and BAM! There’s your face smiling up at me. Nearly killed me, I swear.”
“Nice to know I still have that effect on you.”
Whoops! I guess I let down my guard.
One night with Jack and suddenly I’ve fallen right back into our flirtatious banter. I don’t feel too weird about it, however. After a year of self-doubt and heartbreak, it’s nice to accept that maybe being here with him isn’t so dangerous anymore. It’s a little scary, but mostly uplifting to allow myself some hope again. For the second time tonight, I start to believe that maybe this can really happen.
But there’s one thing I just still can’t get past.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something that we’re kinda brushing under the rug here.” I steal a look at him and catch him gritting his teeth. He knows what’s coming.
“The fact is, you did break up with me. If you loved me so much, how could you just let me go like that?”
Jack swallows every bit of what I throw on his plate. He pulls off the road and comes to a slow stop before putting the car in park and turning to me.
He takes my hand before answering, “Livia, my God. At the time, all I was thinking about was getting burned. I was really hoping you’d say it back. When you didn’t, I thought I could force you to admit it.” He runs a hand through his hair and continues. “I should have been more understanding, given you more time. But I was hurt and I was leaving and I didn’t know what else to do. I just figured the tour was a good enough excuse to draw a line in the sand.”
“I thought you were going to ask me to come along.”
“I know you did. I was.”
I want to ask him how the tour went, but it’s not really the most pressing subject at the moment. “So, when you left without me…That must have been hard.”
“It’s not what I wanted, no. But I couldn’t allow myself to think about it. Because it hurt too much to dwell on that.”
The hopeful look on his face is tearing my insides to shreds as the freefall starts all over again.
We were both wrong. But maybe together, we can find a way to make it right.
I look down at our hands and find that I’ve been unconsciously stroking my thumbs against his fingers. One glance at the look on Jack’s face tells me he is very conscious of what I’ve been doing.
“So what does Jack want?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
He lifts a hand to my neck, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “I want you.” He leans in and plants a soft kiss on my lips before adding, “…to kick my lying ex-girlfriend’s ass.”
I’m still laughing as he kisses me again.
CHAPTER 47
Sunday, May 26, 1996
11:47 PM
Jack’s Car
No idea. Belmar, maybe???
A new game springs up between us as Jack wends the car through some side streets, lost in our quest to find Route 35 again.
Me: “I’m sorry I said I hated you.”
Jack: “I’m sorry I yelled in your face.”
Me: “I’m sorry for hurting you so badly you felt you needed to.”
Jack: “I’m sorry for hurting you so badly that you felt you needed to.”
Me: “I’m sorry that Monty called you a horse’s ass.”
Jack: “I’m sorry for being one.”
Me: “Okay, you win.”
Jack laughs at that. It’s great to hear the sound of his laughter again. It’s great to feel great about anything again. But even through our friendly teasing, I know I’m only allowing myself to merely dip my toes in the water. I know Jack is telling me the truth, I know I’m still crazy about him, and yet I’m still a little hesitant to do a full-on cannonball just yet. My defenses took months to build. It’s going to take more than a few hours to tear them down.
Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” comes on the radio, and I start laughing hysterically.
Jack is looking at me like I’m nuts, probably wondering if I’ve lost my mind. “What’s so funny?” he asks.
“This song. I must have blasted this thing nine hundred times over the course of the past months, and now here I am listening to it with you right next to me.” He starts chuckling, so I add, “I know. Such a loser thing to do.”
“It’s not that,” he explains. He points to himself and says out the corner of his mouth, “Aretha Franklin. ‘Ain’t No Way’.”
I bite my lip to keep from cracking up, and divert the subject with a question. “Hey, buddy. Where the heck are we anyway?”
Jack doesn’t say a word as I watch him try to hide a smile.
“We’re not lost, are we.”
He’s still working the shit-eating grin. “Nope. There’s something I want to show you. In fact, close your eyes, we’re almost there.”
“Close my eyes? Are you serious?”
“C’mon, Lips. Don’t spoil this for me. I waited a long time to bring you here.”
“Fine.” I close my eyes and put my hands over them before he can accuse me of peeking. “But so help me, Jackson Tanner... If this little sidetrack brings me anywhere near a microphone... or a freezing ocean... you’re gonna pay.”
The car comes to a stop and Jack cuts the engine. “I think I’ve paid a heftier fee over this past year than any man should have to. Okay. Open your eyes.”
I remove my hands to find that we’re parked in the driveway of a beautiful, beachfront house. It’s a large yellow Victorian with a huge front porch…
“Oh. My. GOD! That’s my house! Remember? It’s almost exactly like that pink Mantoloking house I told you about, right? How did you ever find this?”
I blink back my shock and finally find some words. “You built this? You built this... from my plans? How did you… Who would have—”
“I took all that money from the tour and used it to start my own construction business. This was the first project I was hired for as an indie. C’mon. Let’s get out of the car so you can get a better look.”
I’m still in shock as Jack comes around to let me out of the car. He takes my hand as I stand in the driveway and just stare at the living, breathing manifestation of my paper dreams. I am in awe. I don’t even care that it isn’t mine.
Everything clicks for me in the seconds I gape at the sight before me. He never forgot about me. Even over the months he thought I was with someone else, he did this. To make himself remember how much he loved me.
There’s no defense against this.
I feel my walls fall away as my eyes scan over the roof eaves and the flower boxes at the warmly lit windows. I take in the side wing comprised almost completely out of glass. I notice the front porch and the paver-stoned driveway and the perfect landscaping and the lighted walkway. I can’t believe I’m looking at my house—a house built by the man, let’s face it, the man that I love.
Then I notice the man standing next to me, beaming down with unparalleled pride to see me so taken with his work.
“Jack. Wow. This is just so... amazing. It’s more beautiful than I ever even dreamed it could be. Whose house is this?”
He smiles ear to ear as if I’ve just asked the million dollar question. “I happen to be very well acquainted with the people who hired me for this job. Wanna go inside?”
“Isn’t it a little late to be dropping in for an unexpected visit?”
“Nah. What can I say? Nepotism has its privileges.”
“I’ll say.”
We walk around to the back, which Jack informs me is really the ‘front’ when referring to a beachfront home, and I take a moment to marvel at the ocean view. Nepotism may have its privileges, but money sure buys the rest.