“Anything cold.”
He mocked a salute and headed into the crowd, toward the bar. Lindsay walked toward a wall, dark brown, scratches partially obscured by a framed Picasso print. She’d been to this bar before. The host of tonight’s cocktails preferred it, and took them there the two previous times she’d been to Hong Kong. She’d never seen it packed with this many people though, and realized that she could barely see Jake. Even with his new fame, in some places he could still be invisible.
“I’m sorry,” came the voice suddenly beside her. “I couldn’t help but...I wasn’t going to say anything, but I have to.”
Zoe. Victor’s Zoe.
“Hello,” Lindsay said, after a pause. “I’m Lindsay Kresta, with Caine Foundation.”
“I know,” she said.
Zoe was beautiful, but maybe Lindsay was generous in her thoughts about the woman because she didn’t want to feel guilty about anything. In any case, no hard feelings on Lindsay’s part.
“When did you last see Victor?” Zoe said.
“I...we’re colleagues. I saw him last week.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Zoe said, and the emotion she had tried to hide was showing up all over her face.
“Zoe, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” she said. “When did you last sleep with him?”
Lindsay was stuck. She wanted to lie, help Victor out. But she wasn’t sure what to say, and wasn’t given a script, wasn’t told what to say to keep him from getting in deeper shit.
“You should talk to him,” Lindsay said. “I shouldn’t be part of this.”
“No? I find out that my boyfriend has been fucking someone else on the side and that someone else doesn’t think she’s part of this?”
“As I said,” Lindsay craned her neck, not exactly looking for a rescuer but making sure that Lucien and anyone in her work circle weren’t around to hear this. “You should talk to him.”
“He said nothing about me?”
But he did, Lindsay thought. Victor obviously loved her. And that was all getting pissed down the drain now.
“I got you a rum coke,” Jake said, coming up beside Lindsay.
“Did you know about this?” Zoe said, lashing out at him, finger now up and pointing at Jake’s chest. “You know that your girlfriend’s been fucking my boyfriend for god knows how long?”
He flinched at that unexpected attack, and it must have hurt because he didn’t do that anymore, didn’t flinch as often as he used to. Might have been all that acting.
“I think if you want to talk about this, you should take it somewhere else,” he said, and his arm went around Lindsay’s shoulders. “But you’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”
“What is this?” Zoe cried. “You’re kidding me, right? Do I have to explain how this works? Tell your girlfriend not to fuck other people’s boyfriends. It’s simple.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lindsay said, and he said it too, and she was surprised by that.
“Explain to her,” Zoe snarked at him. “Explain to your girlfriend what decent people do.”
There was an ugly word that was hanging there, the accusation, but it wasn’t being said. Lindsay was afraid that Zoe, no doubt a decent human being normally, was going to be mad enough to use it.
Lindsay wasn’t overly romantic, that was true. She didn’t go around looking for happily ever after in people she dated. Like she said years ago at Drake’s, sex, wanting to connect to someone, that was physical. She tried not to overthink it, but other people did. Was it her fault? She had a feeling she was going to get blamed for this one.
She pulled at Jake’s sleeve.
“We should go,” Jake said.
Lindsay took a big sip of her drink and then nodded, leaving her nearly full glass on a random table.
Chapter 19
They walked to the nearest train station, instead of riding a cab. She didn’t even think about it. There was a busy familiarity to this city that was on the other side of the world.
They walked in silence. Lindsay didn’t know what to say, and Jake looked like he didn’t want to comment on it. He laced their fingers together. There were no seats on the train, so they leaned against the wall together, hands connected. He didn’t know how to head back to the hotel this way, but didn’t ask, and fell into step beside her, slightly behind her, attached to her limb, following her lead.
They got back to the hotel room like that, their silence heavy. As soon as the door closed behind them, the evening routines started wordlessly. Little things about him hadn’t changed, like how he took a long time brushing his teeth, way longer than she did, and with more tools and gadgetry. When he finally stepped out of the bathroom, Lindsay went in to shower, and it was a solitary, reflective one, not one of those times when he’d join her, or hover by the door and ask if he could watch. He himself showered while she dressed and did evening stretches on the carpeted floor, trying to work out what was starting to be a formidable kink in her neck.
An email had come in for her about an hour before, and she only got to see it when she slipped under the covers and picked up her phone. It was from Marnie.
“The only news I found: Jake spent time in a Vancouver hospital following an incident during the filming of the season two finale. Had trouble breathing, was kept for two days under observation. Link here. Do you suspect something? You think it was really rehab or what?”
Lindsay replied: “No, I don’t think it’s rehab. Don’t worry.”
God, like she was having Marnie investigate a pathological liar or something. It wasn’t that.
She had put the phone away by the time he dressed for bed and joined her, pulling her by the hip, gently, until her back fell against his chest.
“Another conversation we should have,” he said. “Do you want to start?”
She might as well. This was a very good embrace he had her in, quite excellent really; she’d never felt so comforted in her life. If she was going to have her heart ripped out this was one time she might actually survive it.
“If you really loved me all this time,” she said, “what was Jessica then?”
“Ah.” His arm tightened around her slightly, and she wasn’t sure if that was meant to reassure her. Or if it was simply that, muscles tensing, preparing to defend themselves. “I thought I loved her too.”
“It looked like you did. I saw how devastated you were.”
“We’d been broken up for a while then, when you saw me. You saw me as a piece of shit, is what you saw.”
“That was Jessica though, wasn’t it?”
“It’s not...I was angry at myself for a bunch of reasons then. It might seem like it was all about Jessica, but I also kept letting her treat me the way she did, for as long as it happened. I didn’t have to.”
Lindsay closed her eyes and felt his chest rise and fall with every breath. She heard nothing wrong in what he said. He was right. He had no reason to lie to her.
“What bothers you about it? Her?” he asked, his voice a whisper against her shoulder. “She’s not in my life anymore. And not just because she’s not on the show…she could walk right by me now and I wouldn’t do anything. I’ve woken up from that.”
“When you met me you were living alone for the first time. Maybe you wanted to be part of something, and our family was ready to have you.”
“I’m grateful for that, but I’m not a stray.”
She laughed. “I have a point to this, wait for it. I know that you fell hard for Jessica, you don’t have to downplay it. I saw when you were happy, so smitten. But I know that you also felt unsure of yourself over there, and relied on her a lot. I worry that you’re falling for me now because you’re unsure of yourself again, and you feel like you need me.”
“But I’ve always loved you.”
“In love then. The crazy kind. The insane kind that makes you clear three weeks of your time, head to New York, and tell me you want to be
with me. You’ve always loved me, but not like that, not until recently.”
“You don’t think it’s the same thing? I love you. I do.”
“I believe you. But this isn’t our apocalypse, Jake. Not yet.”
It was helpful, being able to say this without looking at him, but knowing he was there.
“Why can’t it be?” he asked.
She couldn’t help but smile. “Because the world didn’t change. Maybe it did for you, when you had your accident. Maybe it reminded you of a bucket list, things you need to do. Maybe I’m a bucket list item for you.”
“That’s not wrong, but I don’t like how you’re saying it. It’s not a list. It’s a short list, if it’s a list. And it’s done.”
“What does it say? Get an environment job, then fuck that girl from college?”
“Hey.” He spun her toward him, finally getting them eye to eye. “That’s not what this is.”
“Fine, if you say so,” Lindsay said. “It doesn’t fix that we haven’t tried being together, together. We don’t know what it could be like when everything we do and have to keep doing piles up over us.”
“I told you this isn’t about asking you to quit and move.”
“How did you expect us to stay together?”
His gaze dropped lower, to her neck maybe, or lower still. He started to say something, but then stopped. Maybe she needed to prompt him.
“What’s your question?” she said. “Do you need to ask me anything, after what you heard at the bar earlier?”
This he didn’t need to pause for. “Was it what you thought it would be?”
“What exactly?”
“This.” His hand drifted down, then up, into her shirt, resting against her warm skin. “Everything. You felt something for me but you were with other people. How does it feel now that you’re with me? You seem to be enjoying it.”
She nodded. “Well yeah, but that’s not your question, is it? How could I know I love you but stand to be with other people?”
His eyes shifted back to hers, expectant.
“I couldn’t stand to be with other people. It’s why I...didn’t. Last week, on your first day in New York, Victor actually sort of broke up with me, asked to end whatever we had going on. We hadn’t intended it to go on that long anyway. He started to like someone else, and he knew. He knew that for me, he was a substitute for someone else.”
“He didn’t want to be?”
“Maybe no one does, really. It’s not his fault.”
The past week was a blur or work and adjusting to old and new domesticity, old and new feelings about Jake. She didn’t get to really think about it, how it felt, being with the person she always wished she were with, when she was with other people.
But then she realized that it didn’t occur to her to think about it because the question never came up. Instead it was an answer, felt like life ironing out a wrinkle, such that it disappeared.
“It’s different, with you,” she said. “Vastly.”
***
She forgot when exactly the conversation about this came up, but it had been short, and also casual.
Would they continue using birth control, knowing they were “all clear.” Yes, they agreed. But maybe sometimes they’d skip the condom. He’d withdraw. She’d tell him if she wasn’t taking her pill. There would be rules, warnings, preparations.
That night they talked for a little bit longer, because in her mind certain things never got resolved, but then she drifted off to sleep. She woke up in the middle of the night, and felt him stir.
“Now,” she said. “I want you now.”
“What?” Obviously he was awake and hard, but not all there yet. “We need...what time is it?”
She was on her side, still facing him, and with one hand pulled her panties down her legs. She pressed forward, opening her legs to him. And then he realized what she meant, and this was now, and in a second he was out of his boxers, covering her with his body. She felt him hot and hard against her and couldn’t wait, began to guide him inside.
“Fuck. Slap me.”
“No. What?”
“I want to be fully awake for this.”
“You’re going to be.” She was wet, already, and for some reason she thought this was going to be easy, and she hungrily circled her hips and ground against him, taking him all the way in, deep, the friction inside and outside nothing less than a shock. It was the first time she’d had anyone bare.
“Oh my god,” she said.
She tensed up so forcefully that he raised himself up on his elbows and stopped moving. “Lindsay?”
“Don’t move,” she said. Her hips moved instead, bucked off the bed, taking him deeper. “Don’t move.”
“Shit.” All he could do was keep himself up, keep himself hard, and ready. “God. Lindsay. I’m awake. Shit, this is hot.”
However he was positioned it was perfect, just perfect, every push of her pelvis was hitting every single place that screamed for it. She reached for his head, his beautiful head of black hair and pulled him toward her mouth. This was going to be quick, wet, dirty, and she was glad it was him.
“I’m close,” she warned him, after biting his chin. “You’re everywhere I need you to be and I’m so close to coming. But I want you to come before I do. Inside me. Deep as you can go.”
“Lindsay, shit. I can do that. I’ll fill you up.”
“Stop promising things and fucking do it. Now. Now. God.”
He gripped her hips and pumped once, throwing her rhythm off, but then it was off completely anyway because he had collapsed on top of her, groaning into the pillow, then into her face, as she let herself go, allowed herself to surrender to it, and then felt it as it rippled through her. She felt a good kind of throbbing, a good kind of sore, where they were still connected. He moved and slipped himself out of her, warmth from him and her spilling onto her, him, the sheets. He was out of breath but he kept his mouth on her face, her hair, her neck. She caught his lips when they passed near enough to her mouth but she didn’t feel like moving, didn’t feel like her limbs were ready to function.
They both needed air.
Chapter 20
On his last day at the conference, Jake had time to hit the gym, get a full, late breakfast, and read more about Borneo. He hadn’t been invited to sit in on that meeting but he was planning to crash it. Curiosity, mostly. It had been a problematic project for Caine Foundation, and they were willing to cut it loose. Lucien himself was presenting at that meeting, and sending the boss was obviously a sign of how seriously they were taking this. From what Krup said yesterday though, Lucien’s game plan was mostly to save Caine Foundation’s credibility and pitch other things they could fund.
Knowing this made him want to be there all the more. Maybe he was in a fighting mood lately, kept trying to fight for things that were probably hopeless.
Waking up next to Lindsay that morning had been sobering. As he remembered what had happened, a split second of fear hovered. He’d felt it before, it was the same fear that jumped at him with that STD scare, the same one that brought him to the clinic and eventually to Drake’s with Lindsay.
Then his mind began to clear, and the fear dissolved. It wasn’t the cold light of day that did it; he felt more in love with her than ever, but he also figured out something else.
Bullshit, he thought, as a summary. The whole thing was bullshit.
Lindsay thinking he wanted her now only because he was depending on her for something? Bullshit. He had a year to plan this, and think about it, and he made sure he was without her the entire time.
He also wanted to know how he’d feel, if she wasn’t as accessible.
There was a purity to his need for her that she wouldn’t understand, but it was all his fault. The same distance that made his mind clear enough to decide was giving her the wrong idea.
But it was all his fault.
***
Lucien was late for the meeting.
He
had another one right before, already meaning a tight five-minute walk from one meeting room to another, as it was. Jake was, at present, the only Caine Foundation representative. Five other people were around the table with him: two from the Swedish bank, two from the partnership of environment ministries.
And then there was one guy, Frank, from the firm that handled the project on the ground in Borneo. His presence there surprised Jake, but he tried to keep the poker face on and nodded. Mentally he panicked, scrolling his memory for the guy’s name, and then eventually the annual report, while they were waiting for Lucien. It was like he got surprised with a quiz.
“Mr. Berkeley, do you know if Lucien will make it before the hour is up?” one of the bank guys asked him.
“Definitely,” he lied. Lucien barely spoke to him, much less updated him on the schedule.
“We should start anyway,” Frank said, “since we implemented this. I can answer any questions you might have.”
Jake had been to three other meetings like this one. They were all alike, boring even, in the way that a certain kind of professional decorum was expected and enforced. People shook hands, kept their voices level, took notes. Also, they started only when the person who called the meeting was present. He wasn’t sure if time was an issue, because Lucien really was late, but it still felt like something was going on.
So the meeting started. The woman from the ministries, Rosa Liski, got on it immediately. Said right away that they read the report, and while the modest goal seemed to have been reached, the problems that came with it seemed to overshadow most of the actual work.
“Yes, we definitely could have used more support,” Frank said.
“In what way?” he was asked, by a bank guy.
“Streamlined access to the funds. Faster response time.”
Jake straightened up in his seat. “From Caine Foundation, you mean?”
They weren’t expecting him to speak. They were aware of him, of course, from the opening remarks, that he was the actor mascot.
Never Just Friends (Spotlight New Adult Book 2) Page 8