Marcus (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 5)

by Hope Hitchens

  “Great,” he said simply walking past me to the nursery. Great. Yeah. Great. I closed the door and walked into the kitchen. Great…

  I braced myself against the counter and shut my eyes. I wasn’t going in there after him. I had no reason to do that. But… but didn’t he have anything he wanted to say to me? I felt so needy. A guy says one positive thing in my direction and I’m trying to move in with him. The guy had listened to me, and he’d backed off. That was what I wanted. It was what I had asked him to do, definitely, but I wasn’t sure anymore that it was what I wanted.

  Yeah, the attention is sort of nice when you’ve been starved of it, I’ll admit. I’d had a baby; my body had been dedicated to creating this life for a long time now. Gestation, and lactation and C-sections; being cute had been an afterthought for so long. Maybe I still had it.

  I heard my phone ring from the other room. Maybe it was Helena. I picked it up to check. Nope, wasn’t Helena. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?” I said carefully.

  “Hello? Adina Kelly?” a voice asked. It was a woman.

  “Who is this?” I asked back, not confirming that she had who she was looking for.

  “Adina, this is Janice. Janice Fairbanks. We met at Jared’s house over the weekend,” she said. I paused for a second because that was true. I had met a woman named Janice at Jared’s house. If this was that woman, however, she was the lady who had replaced me. It was her. The woman you could say started this whole mess. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t culpable, Jared was, but I still didn’t want to talk to her.

  “How did you get my phone number?” I asked.

  “I got it from Jared. Listen. I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I can’t imagine what about,” I said, not kindly. I was not really mad at her. I couldn’t be. I just didn’t care. Jared had made it clear to me that we were through and there was no more he had to say to me. For what reason would she want to speak to me? I couldn’t come up with one.

  “I can understand that. I’m sorry for how the meeting went that day,” she said. I wasn’t. I thought it went great. Yeah, I spent the ride home crying but things were said that had needed to be said a long time ago.

  “Janice, I don’t know what Jared has told you about me, but I am going to respectfully say that I don’t believe it’s any of your business. I also don’t think the two of us have anything to discuss. My relationship with Jared is something I prefer to discuss with him.”

  “I understand that,” she said after a pause. “I want to talk to you, about the future. I am going to be part of Jared’s life, and because you and he have a child together, we will be crossing paths.”

  “That doesn’t mean we have to be friends.”

  “Could we please meet? Coffee? Can you come to the house the next time you’re dropping Jaden off?”

  “No,” I said shortly. “Given the nature of how we know each other, I hope you understand why I don’t particularly want to spend that much time with you.” She was quiet for a little bit, and I waited. She was probably going to call me a bitch or something—accurate assessment. I didn’t want to talk to her.

  “I understand. I’m sorry for contacting you like this. I hope you don’t still feel that way in the future.” Her voice sounded detached, like a stranger having a conversation where she was essentially being attacked. I didn’t have to be nice to her, but more than that, I didn’t want to.

  This was a great opportunity to be the bigger person. It would take nothing away from me to be the bigger person, but I didn’t want to be. That was how I felt. I was angry, and I was hurt. Janice had nothing to do with me. Nothing. She wasn’t my problem, and frankly, I didn’t have to entertain her.

  I thanked her for understanding and hung up.

  Jared and Janice. How precious. Maybe in five years, he’ll cheat on her too.

  I looked over at the nursery door. It was open. I was very aware of the person who was in there. Since we were decided on what we were cooking for the event that weekend, I had to start placing orders for the produce and meat. I didn’t have to leave the house to do that.

  There was a pretty powerful distraction here though which I should ideally try to get away from. The only reason I was distracted was I felt he wasn’t telling me something.

  “Great?”

  He was making fun of me. He couldn’t go from wanting to eat my cookie to great. Also… maybe I wanted to talk to him some more? Just peek in there and see what he’s doing—not a big deal. Make sure he’s alright, ask him if he’s thirsty? Make every excuse in the book to avoid admitting I just wanted to be near him?

  I watched him from the doorway for a while before he noticed me. He had tied his hair back and was taping around the wall outlets and things he didn’t want to get paint on. Maybe I used the opportunity to check him out a little too. His t-shirt fit pretty snug, giving me a good look at his round biceps. He wasn’t wearing anything to protect his clothes. Both his arms were tattooed, but the left more than the right; nearly his whole forearm on his right side was still regular skin.

  Jared was six feet two inches tall, and this guy looked about that tall, if not taller. He was wide across the shoulders like a football player. My eyes went over his covered back—probably more ink under there—before stopping at his ass. That was nice too.

  “Something wrong?” he asked me suddenly making me blush because I’d been looking at his ass.

  “What?”

  “I could take them off if you want,” he said. Shit, I thought I had been sneakier.

  “Take what off?” I asked, trying to play dumb.

  “All of it,” he said. Was he kidding? Did I want him to be kidding?

  “Stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?” he asked, teasing me. I crossed my arms.

  “That. That and what happened the last time you were here. It can’t happen again. You and I have to remain professional,” I said to him. He looked at me, and his face was really still before he blinked.

  “Okay,” he said shortly. Okay? What did he mean okay? Was that it? Was that all it would take? I had expected more of a fight, or at least some resistance. A sly comment? What the hell was okay? He was doing it again.

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay,” he said shrugging. “You said something, and I heard you. Okay.”

  “So you understand?”

  “I said I’d heard you, not that I agreed.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “I don’t. It doesn’t add up. You’re a single, sexy woman and I’m a single, sexy guy,” he said. I scoffed. So modest. “We’re attracted to each other. We should be fucking.” He didn’t mince words, did he?

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “Yes. It is,” he said coming up to me. “You’re playing hard to get.”

  “That assumes I want to be chased.”

  “You want more than that,” he said.

  “You don’t know what I want,” I said. “How would you know?”

  “I can see it. You show me every time you look at me.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Your eyes cloud over and your lips part just a little. The hotter you get, the redder your cheeks become. Your body’s burning and you don’t know what to do about it. You want someone to… take care of it for you,” he said. He inched closer. “You want to be caught.”

  “You don’t know what I want.”

  “I know a woman in need when I see one.” That should have made me mad, and it did, but not because he was calling me needy, because he wasn’t that wrong.

  “I’m your employer. Our arrangement has to be professional, or we can’t have one at all,” I said in a way I hoped was firmly. “Do we have a deal?”

  “I think I deserve another kiss to deal with the loss,” he said dramatically. I smiled and right then, really, really wanted to give him one.

  “I’m paying you for this. That should be enough.”

  “Looki
ng is extra. So is touching.”

  “I’ll be in the other room if you need me,” I told him again, smiling.

  Yup. Still got it.

  8

  Marcus

  What do you have to do to become a probation officer? Like, what sort of person do you have to be? I had had two since I had left prison. Jonas Fielding was my second one and just like my last, a man in his forties with a wife and children who for some reason always looked like he had sucked on a lemon.

  Babysitting ex-cons and junkies probably wasn’t fun, but I didn’t appreciate the negative attitude. Didn’t help the recovery and reintegration process. If they hated it so much, they could just stop.

  I had had to leave Adina’s earlier than I wanted so I could see Jonas before he left his office. I used the opportunity to tell her that I had to go for my mandatory biweekly meeting with my PO. Might as well, right? She asked what a PO was, and I’d told her.

  Next, I’d tell her about that one time I got into a fight and broke a guy’s jaw when I was in prison and got sent to the hole. And the time my mother grounded me when I was fourteen because she found weed in my mattress. Just all my sins. Every crooked thing I’d done since I was born.

  I kind of wanted to. Call it morbid curiosity. She had already hired me after I had told her that I had been to prison for stealing and she deserved a little credit for that. She had given me a job, and many, many people went out of their way to not have to give me one of those. I wanted to know, though, where would she tap out? What would be too much? How much of me could she take before it became too much?

  Probably the three years I spent with a needle in my arm. That would dry her out. It could have been worse. It wasn’t crack, or meth, it was heroin, a rich people drug. I wasn’t rich, that’s why I had stolen to support my habit, but at least I could say my addiction skewed sort of classy as far as addictions went.

  Yeah. I’d keep saying that, and she could keep being too good for me. Just stay in our lanes, keep doing what we were good at. I’d just keep trying to think of ways to get her to let me kiss her again. Wait for the day she’d be too drunk or too sad or too desperate to remember she had no business being with a guy like me and go in for the kill.

  We were being professionals now after all.

  I think she had told me the nursery wasn’t that big to reassure me or something; make me think I could be done and out of there fast. It wasn’t that big, but that wasn’t such a good thing now that I did not really want to leave her alone.

  Being professional around her was a challenge, but I liked challenges. This one I would win. Her loss would be a victory too if you thought about it because I knew a woman in need when I saw one. She needed a fix, and really all she needed to do was say when because I was ready.

  The door was open when I worked, so I could hear her out there. She’d talk to her kid like he could talk back. This woman came over who she called Sophia or Stephy or something, and I’d sort of dropped off during their female rambling at some point. Girls talk about everything; it’s like they forgot I was in the house or didn’t know I could hear them. I wasn’t trying to, but I wasn’t wearing earplugs. It was interesting—some of it. She was an interesting girl. I was in her house, inside her life, but with consent and not there to steal.

  She was a single mom living in New York City, and I thought I knew that life. I’d grown up the son of one, but this perspective was revealing things I hadn’t even thought of, like how when you have a kid with someone, they don’t leave your life. Ever.

  I couldn’t help hearing her conversations, the ones she had on the phone sometimes. They got pretty heated from what I heard. It was bad enough that I was in her house, I probably owed it to her to not eavesdrop, but if I didn’t, how would I know what was going on with her?

  She was shy and jumpy like a deer. I was her home reno guy, what was she going to tell me? She was scared of me. She was a nice, cute, single mom who baked cookies and liked to feed strangers. I was getting my dick sucked in her kitchen when we met.

  From what I’d heard and what Jessie had told me, there was something going on between her and her kid’s dad. They weren’t fucking; they were fighting. I didn’t have kids, but it must have sucked, what she was going through.

  Too bad you couldn’t make babies on your own. Sometimes the person you fuck is an asshole, and I guess, shit like this happens.

  Jonas was a shitty substitute for hot mom Adina.

  The first thing I had to do even before he talked to me was take a piss test. Drugs and alcohol violated my probation, traveling violated my probation, a lot of things violated my probation. I was an ex-con, but I was an addict first. I wasn’t using at the moment, but you never stopped being an addict. Your drug could change, but you probably wouldn’t.

  These meetings were always so awkward. He’d say things like he was proud of me and he wanted what was best for me, like a dad sort of. I mean, I guess that was what dads told their kids. My mother would say it sometimes.

  He would ask me how I was, and I’d tell him, not how I was like when my counselor would ask me, but the important stuff; restitution, employment, sobriety, any laws I’d broken lately and what would happen if I did. He was pretty laid back, considering he was the guy in charge of making sure I didn’t get in trouble again.

  I couldn’t imagine how he possibly enjoyed his job, but I was willing to guess he at least sort of did. I wasn’t a repeat violator or anything, so he was pretty loose with me. He hadn’t searched my apartment once when really, he could, whenever the fuck he wanted.

  I liked having good things to tell him because he was a generous guy. It was like in prison when you got out early for good behavior.

  “I got a job,” I announced.

  “You did?” he asked. I nodded. “That’s good news. Where?”

  “I’m doing some stuff around the house for this woman. Painting, installation, things like that.”

  “That is not a job, Marcus. You’re going to finish there and then be unemployed again.”

  “I know that,” I said, trying to cover my ass. “I spoke to her, and she got me a spot working at her company. Catering.”

  “Catering?” he asked. He was making this face like someone who was laughing at you without really doing it. “How’d you land that?” I shrugged.

  “She sees in me what you do, Jonas. Potential and good work ethic.”

  Jessie’s suggestion found its way out of my long-term memory as the best lie for the occasion. Lying to your PO was like lying to your mom—you always got caught. I felt some guilt, but look at it this way; I didn’t have the job currently, but if I asked and still didn’t get it, I still wouldn’t have it, and I could tell Jonas the ‘truth’; they decided at the end of the trial period that I wasn’t a good fit for their company, which had happened before several times. He’d totally understand.

  “Yeah. You tell me how that goes,” he said.

  I would because I was going to ask. He was cool, but he wasn’t stupid.

  It wasn’t a lie. It was, but only because I hadn’t gotten round to asking Adina anything yet. How could I when I’d been so busy flirting with her? I had the job, in the future because I was going to get it. I was going to go out on a limb and say that Adina—she didn’t hate me. She seemed very nice, and that meant that she would probably help me out if I asked her. I was a stranger, and I was an ex-con, and I had kissed her when she didn’t want to be kissed, but, she was nice.

  I was banking on that niceness. I hoped it was enough. I’d ask her, and she would say yes because I was going to do such a good job with her nursery, and I’d stop flirting with her and making her feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t ask her for a job, but all I wanted was an interview.

  Jonas asked about my brother, and I let the detail that he had had drugs in my house slip my mind. Just that once. I was his brother, and that had something to do with it, but I had been there before and that had more to do with it. Staying straight’s hard, esp
ecially in the beginning when you might not have your own house and it’s been a long time since you were out and you’re sort of whacked out by the stimulation of normal life.

  If he took this chance and used it to pull some shit like that again, it was federal laws he was breaking, not mine.

  He was in the house. Where the fuck else would he be; he was stuck there? As far as I could tell, he wasn’t really doing anything. He cleaned up after himself when I’d tell him to, and he spent a lot of time on my computer. His probation officer had apparently come over when I wasn’t home. Perks of breaking the law—they can search your shit without a warrant. I had nothing to hide, and Jonny was still there when I got home which meant he hadn’t been arrested.

  I hated asking for stuff. In prison, you didn’t. You got the same thing as everyone else in there. You were entitled to your rec time and three meals and bed. When you asked for stuff, you had to have a good reason why you should get it, and usually, have something to give in return. Interviews were just really formal, organized begging.

  Adina didn’t have to give me anything; I hadn’t given her a reason to. I just wanted something, a favor. The sooner I called her, the less time I’d have this lie in my back pocket. I waited to start the car to leave probation because I wasn’t confident I could ask her what I wanted and drive at the same time.

  “Hello?” she said picking up.

  “Adina? I hope this isn’t a bad time. Are you home?”

  “I am. It’s not a bad time. What is it?” she asked. I could hear her baby in the background making those little happy baby sounds, the ones you can’t make when you’re an adult. I could imagine her holding the phone to her ear while she played with him. It was late afternoon.

  There had to be something to this, either that or all my high school teachers were right; I was crazy. I loved seeing her with her child. The love she felt for him was so obvious—the way she looked at him, the way she held him. It was beautiful. Like real beauty, innocent and clean and perfect.