by S. E. Harmon
“Burning effigies in my name,” he said with a crooked grin. “But they’ll have to get over it.”
Jackson taking a long pull from an Evian water bottle next to his side of the bed snapped me out of my funk pretty quickly.
I scowled. “Where’d you get that?”
“Irene,” he said smugly. “You missed her turndown service. I ate your mint, by the way.”
I swatted his arm. “I’ll remember this.”
“Hey, I was doing you a favor. I got her out of here before you came back.” He raised an eyebrow. “Seeing as how you don’t seem to like her all that much.”
If there was a competition for picking things I’d like to least talk about, Jackson would have won, hands down. “I like Irene just fine,” I said shortly.
He snorted and shook his head.
Yeah, well. Maybe I wasn’t happy with her, but I still liked her. Dinner had been a stilted affair. Despite the best of my intentions, after their little announcement, I had been quiet. Too quiet. My good mood had evaporated like cotton in a rainstorm—the pieces were still there, but every time I gathered them and tried again, there was less to put back together.
Lane and Art hadn’t been much better. My dad had been his normal non-talkative self, and Irene, Rick, and Jackson had tried to pick up the slack for us all. They had talked and I had tuned them out, wondering why their upcoming nuptials bothered me so damned much.
I sighed and pulled my purse on the bed with me. I began digging through the oversized Burberry bag for my moisturizer. I might have been down, but that was no reason for dry, cracked skin, dammit.
“You want to talk about it?” Jackson was clearly not familiar with the phrase or concept of “leaving well enough alone.”
“Not really.”
“Let me guess. You’re the type to hold everything inside until you finally go crazy and explode?”
“Something like that.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s not healthy, you know.”
“Neither are ninety percent of the things that make my life worth living.” I ticked off some prime examples. “Chocolate. Butter. Bacon.”
“I don’t know. Your father and Irene seem like they’re in love.”
The divorce lawyer? Defending love? I glanced over at him to find him frowning down at his computer screen like he wasn’t even seeing it. It was like he wanted me to believe in love even though he was through with it.
“Love is a fallacy,” I finally said. Unable to find the tiny bottle of moisturizer, I began pulling items out. Wallet, ChapStick, aspirin, first-aid kit, two Nutrigrain bars…if I ever got lost in the wilderness with nothing but my purse, I had a pretty good chance of making it out alive.
“Your parents weren’t in love?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “And now he’s in love with someone else. That’s the way it goes.” I found a handful of mints and popped one in my mouth, forgetting that I’d brushed my teeth.
“That’s a bit fatalistic.”
“Negative? Perhaps. But no less true. Besides, I don’t see you offering up any examples to the contrary.”
He chuckled. “I would if I could. Trust me, I would love to belay your smug little argument. But you know how I feel about it. And my parents weren’t exactly pillars of commitment.”
“What do you mean by that? Jules told me they were married for twenty-three years.”
“Married yes. Faithful?” His mouth twisted. “Not exactly.”
“Jules never said anything,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“He never said because he didn’t know. What’s the point in telling him something that doesn’t matter anymore? I didn’t find out until after they died. I was going through my father’s office and I found…things.” He huffed out a breath. “Letters. Pictures. Gifts. Pictures.”
The fact that he’d said it twice let me know exactly what kind of pictures they’d been. I winced. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I wanted our father to still be the man that Jules thought he was.” He paused. “The man I thought he was.”
I wanted to hug him in sympathy, but I didn’t know what my reception would be. Judging from the set of his jaw, I thought he might confuse my sympathy with pity. I floundered for something appropriate to say, and in the end, settled on the only thing I could say. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s the past.”
“What does that have to do with my sorry?”
“It means that I’m over it.” But his whitened knuckles gripping the edges of his laptop told me differently. I reached over and pried it from his hands gently, and he looked at me, startled. Then his eyes got soft and rueful. “I’m starting to get over it.”
“Sometimes that’s as good as it gets.” I closed the laptop to send it into hibernation and sat it on the nightstand. I also gave up on moisturized skin and began repacking my survival bag…er, purse.
“Family is…difficult,” Jackson agreed. “Rewarding. But difficult. Like everything that really matters, I suppose.”
“You miss them,” I said, hearing the sadness in his voice. It wasn’t a question. He disappointed you, he left you…maybe even broke you a little. And you still miss him like the dickens.
He just gave me a half smile and turned off the light on his side of the bed. He moved down further in the bed, shaking the thing like crazy until all empathy had dissipated and I was tempted to belt him one. He finally settled down on his pillow with a sigh.
“Let me guess,” I said dryly. “You’re a restless sleeper.”
“I sleep better with the light off,” he said pointedly. “What’re you looking for, anyway?”
“I was looking for moisturizer, if you must know. But don’t worry, I’ll have alligator skin so that you can have your precious beauty sleep. You look like you need it.”
He chuckled. “There’s lotion on the nightstand.”
I glanced over. “I have bottled water, several toothbrushes, and a spare tube of toothpaste.”
“This side.” Jackson pointed. “And shampoo, conditioner, and a bowl of green grapes. Part of Irene’s guest services program, I think.”
“She’s edging out the Marriot,” I had to admit. “I’ll make sure and review her on Yelp.”
“So?”
I finished repacking my purse and sat it on the floor. “So what?”
“Do you want the lotion or not?”
“Not.” I flipped off the light on my side and enveloped the room in darkness. I snuggled down in the covers and smelled Downy. Irene went up another star. “I don’t want lotion, I want my moisturizer.”
“What is the big whoop about this moisturizer?” Jackson’s voice was amused. “With all of this talk about it, it had better be made of diamonds and pearls.”
“I think there are diamonds in it. Smarty Pants. And it’s supposed to make your skin more beautiful in six weeks of regular use,” I informed him. “It’s been twelve, but I’m holding out hope.”
“Anything that could possibly make you more beautiful is clearly witchcraft, Avery.”
My eyes went big as saucers and suddenly I had nothing to say. Couldn’t manage a flipping word.
He continued after a moment of charged silence. “As would be anything that could make you more annoying.”
And the moment was gone. My eyes narrowed. Bastard.
He chuckled as if he knew exactly what he did to me, and pulled up the covers on his side. “Go to sleep, AJ.”
But I couldn’t. And as his breathing evened out and the household noises went quiet, I thought I might be the only one. The only one still wide awake, trying to make sense of something I should be perfectly okay with.
None of us really had the right to be upset at our father moving on. He obviously needed someone to fill that space, that void…that hole in his life where Mom used to be. And yet, some part of me couldn’t forget that it had only been five years. Only. I huffed out a breath. There was that word again. Part of me understood tha
t there was nothing “only” about five years of coming home to nothing where there had once been everything. Five years of rolling over to the space where your wife slept for thirty years and finding nothing but cool sheets and space.
But then there was the other part of me…the part that wanted to throttle him good. The part that couldn’t believe he was replacing her, finding someone else to take her place. And he didn’t give a damn if we were okay with it or not.
Good for him, he got to start over. I didn’t. Lane didn’t. Art didn’t. Our hole was just a motherfucking hole and there was no amount of spackle that would ever cover it. Tears. Again. Jesus. I swiped at my face disgustedly. Quietly.
I barely flinched when his arms came around me. Guessed he wasn’t asleep after all. I wanted to resist. Wanted to tell him where to get off. Wanted to tell him I wasn’t crying and I didn’t need comforting.
I wanted to rail at him, and tell him that no matter what he thought he knew, he didn’t understand me. How could he, with his perfect life, understand how I felt? Only…Jackson’s life hadn’t been quite as perfect as I’d thought. They may have been rich and entitled, but his family was as screwed up as mine. He’d lost just as I had—his mother and his father. Even more than that, he’d lost his father twice. The man he’d known, and the man he’d thought he’d known. It was strange, but every chink in his armor made him seem stronger to me. Ugh. Like I needed another reason to like him.
Finally, my brain quieted down, seeking REM, far too exhausted to puzzle anything out anymore. And ushered by the strange dichotomy of comfort in a stranger’s arms, I slept.
CHAPTER TEN
I woke up early the next morning, sniffing the air and hoping that I smelled bacon.
I did not.
Irene’s guest services program lost one of her five stars in my mind as I headed for the bathroom. Oh, and minus one star for surprise, sneaky announcements that made me have a restless night’s sleep. Hopefully by the time I got cleaned up and spiffy, someone would rectify the bacon situation.
After I showered, I decided on a fuss-free mode of dress. I threw on some khaki shorts and a white baby tee top, and slicked the thick length of my still damp hair into a low ponytail. Jackson was still sleeping when I got back to the room, his big body sprawled across his half of the bed and some of my half, too.
At some point during the night, he had thrown off the comforter, and the sheet was getting lazy. It clung to the lower half of his body just right, and his sleep pants had slipped low enough for me to see the tapered V of his torso.
Not that I was looking, or doing anything sleazy like that. I did my absolute best not to look at his undeniably fit body as I moved about the room, putting my shower supplies away. It felt wrong to ogle him while he was sleeping and vulnerable. Not wrong enough to stop, of course, but still wrong. One last glance at the monument to rock hard abs, and I turned away, grasping at the last slivers of my conscience with clawed fingernails.
All right, one last look.
I sat on the edge of the bed, back turned resolutely to the gorgeous sight on the other side. I began thumbing through my phone, checking work emails. Nothing seemed to be on fire, and Julian had everything well in hand. Too well in hand. I was almost put out by how well he was handling everything. Jeez, it was like he didn’t need me at all. I soothed myself with the thought that we’d structured the company to work that way, so that everything ran like a well-oiled machine whether we were there or not. Just like it was supposed to.
I also checked an email that my pedometer had generated. According to my Fitbit, I was a lazy bastard. A lazy bastard who planned on eating bacon later. I decided that if I was ever going to look my cardiologist in the eye again, a walk was in order. I stuck my feet in some sandals and tiptoed through the house. I headed for the beach.
It was undeniably the best part of the house. About a half mile of unpainted, rough deck led down to the sand, bracketed by patches of tall grass, a blend of green and wheat stalks swaying in the early morning breeze. I passed a ragged sign that proclaimed no boating, fishing, or swimming past this point and smiled slightly. The current was pretty strong, but as long as I could remember, every family on the block had done a combination of all three.
I kicked off my sandals as soon as the deck ended and buried my feet in the warm sand, looking out at the sea as the sky lightened all around me. The distant swells were powerful, but by the time they reached the shore, they gently rolled over the saturated sand and dissipated into foam. I did more looking than actual exercising, walking along the shore’s edge, enjoying the foam washing over my feet. It was stark. Desolate. Beautiful. In other words, perfect for my mood.
“Hey, wait up!”
I turned to see a figure making his way down the dunes and squinted, trying to see who it was. When he was finally close enough to see his face, I groaned. The way my luck was going, that lottery ticket in my purse was probably a dud.
“Adam?”
“Hey, AJ.” He smiled sheepishly. “Long time no see.”
Not long enough.
I quietly took in a deep breath. I’d been prepping myself for this moment for a while, and apparently I needed another six months of prep to pull off the unaffected, laissez-faire attitude I wanted to portray. “What are the odds?” I finally said.
“My parents do live next door.”
“And you just happened to visit them while I’m here?” I narrowed my eyes. “Not to mention, I don’t particularly remember you going on many early morning walks.”
“I was in the kitchen, near the window. I saw you walking out this way.”
“Oh.” His honesty took the wind out of my sails. “Well. It’s…it’s good to see you.”
“That’s all I get?” His mouth twisted. “It’s good to see you? After all we were to one another? Wow, you really are over me.”
There was a bitter note to his voice that I wasn’t going to address. “Well, I’m all out of complimentary nuts and Biscotti,” I said lightly. “What do you want from me?”
He stared at me for a moment before smiling slightly, shaking his head. “Still a smartass, I see. To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure why I came out here.”
That didn’t seem to require a response, so I didn’t offer one.
“Art told me that you had someone new. That you brought him home.” His gaze slid past me toward my father’s house, and I finally understood the real reason he’d moseyed on over. “Is that him?”
I turned to see Jackson coming down the path in cargo shorts and a tank top, a pair of thong sandals on his feet. He ambled toward us, hands stuck in his back pockets. The tension between Adam and I seemed to directly increase with his approach, and by the time he reached us, Adam was bristly as a porcupine.
Jackson ignored him completely, sending me a smile. “I was looking for you.”
“When I was a kid, I always came out here to think.” I shrugged. “I was hoping to prowl some moors in a whirling dark cape, but this was the closest I could find.”
“I would have come with you.”
“I didn’t want to wake you. You looked pretty tired.”
“I was. Someone was snoring pretty hard last night.”
I flushed. “I was not.”
“Don’t worry. It was kind of cute.” He sent me a sideways grin.
I felt a smile pulling at my lips. “Thanks a lot.”
“No problem.”
It was strange. Already, we had this sort of comfortable camaraderie with one another that usually took years to create. I wasn’t sure if I should be disturbed or just enjoy it. After a moment of overthinking, I decided to go with the latter, and tease him right back. “You’re not sleeping beauty yourself, you know.”
There was that sexy half-grin again. I could really get used to that grin. He shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to stop you from wanting to jump my bones.”
Adam cut in rudely. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“This is m
y boyfriend,” I said, trying not to stumble on the word. After so long, it was strange and foreign on my lips.
“Hey.” Jackson held out his hand as he introduced himself. Which Adam ignored. He shrugged and dropped his hand. “I’m Jackson—”
“Sparks,” Adam finished snappishly. “I know who you are. Art told me.”
“Then why did you…” I broke off and took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to let Adam get to me because he didn’t like someone taking his place. He was engaged. We were over and he’d made absolutely, publicly sure of that. His jealousy and posturing were beyond ridiculous, and I wanted to end it before he wound up peeing in a circle around my feet—I was wearing my good sandals after all. “We should be going.”
Dropping his polite, Mr. Rogers-won’t-you-be-my-neighbor routine, Adam growled. “I know you’re not dating him.”
“Says who?”
“Says the man who knows you pretty damn well. And you’ve always been more about substance than flash.” He waved his hands at Jackson to include all of him. “You expect me to believe that you’re dating some rich pretty boy who changes women like I change socks?”
I ignored rich pretty boy’s snort behind me, who obviously didn’t agree, and smiled. “It really sounds good when someone else says it. I suddenly feel really young. Hot.”
Adam gritted his teeth. “He’s not right for you.”
“And a better guy for her would be who? You?” From the sound of Jackson’s voice, he’d had enough. I’d heard him sound many ways in the past—amused, frustrated, annoyed, upset—but I’d never quite heard his voice as cold as it was now. I moved a step closer to him. If need be, I probably could have wrangled him in a bear hug long enough for Adam to get inside and double lock the door. Maybe.
“I think it would be good if we all forget this conversation ever happened.” I gave Jackson a little nudge to get him moving, but it was like trying to push a concrete block. He was too busy staring at Adam, arms folded across his chest, face grim. I huffed out a breath in frustration. Men. Since I couldn’t move Jackson Mountain, I turned to Adam. “It was good seeing you.”