“I thought you were mad at him.”
“I am. I just can’t help thinking I was too tough on him.”
“He lied to you and potentially put your life in danger.”
“He wasn’t lying about being clean. That’s what I would have been worried about.”
“But he did lie to you.” I was quiet. It was a lie by omission, but still a lie.
“I’m going to apologize to him,” I said.
“Why? To make him feel better or to ease your guilty conscience?”
“I don’t know. Both?”
“You sound like you’re defending him. What’s this guy have that’s impaired your reasoning and good sense?”
“I just could have been nicer is all. I overreacted.”
“You said this guy went to prison? Does he have any outstanding warrants? He can’t be much older than you. Did he finish high school? Does he read all the way at grade level?”
“Come on, Sophie.” That was mean. She didn’t have to make those assumptions about him just because he’d been incarcerated.
“It’s his dick, isn’t it? I can’t think of any other reason why you still want to see him.” I blushed. His dick… had nothing to do with it. Yeah, it was a nice dick. Yeah, I wanted to have sex with him again. Yes, it had crossed my mind more than once since we’d last been together, but that wasn’t what we were talking about.
“You’re no help at all,” I sighed.
“I’m just trying to understand. You don’t have to make excuses if you like this guy and want to be with him.”
“I don’t know how to do this, Sophie. I don’t know how to date. I just want to get to the part where we’re committed, and I don’t have to wonder where I stand with him.”
“Sorry Dee, but your married friend is not the right person to ask for advice about dating. Just talk to him.”
“You think I should?”
“I think I don’t want to have this conversation again,” she said jokingly. “He seemed like an okay guy. Not that chatty, but he could have murdered me twice already, and he didn’t so that’s something.”
I laughed. He did seem like an okay guy. I liked him, or at least I liked his company. No, I liked him. I liked him a lot. Maybe I shouldn’t have, and maybe I should have stopped when he conveniently forgot to tell me that he was a junkie in the past. But I did. This guy who just didn’t make sense. He wasn’t like Jared or anyone I had dated in the past. He confused me and made me feel scared and excited when we were close to each other. This guy who was really scary looking and imposing, but really nice sometimes—when he wanted to be.
“You don’t think he’s like, out of my league or anything, do you?” I asked.
“Him, out of your league?”
“Yeah. Like, maybe I’m too straight-laced or vanilla for him,” I said.
“Does he have a weird sex drive you can’t keep up with?”
“No, I just think he’s going to get bored. Like he slows way down for me, and it’s really boring for him,” I admitted.
“Has he said anything like that to you?”
“No. I just don’t want to put him in a place he doesn’t want to be. You know? A role he didn’t ask to be given.”
“I think he knows what he’s doing, getting involved with a woman who has a baby,” she said. “You should talk to him before doing anything else. Put all your terms out there. Let him know what you want from a relationship and let him leave if it’s not what he also wants.”
She was right, but I couldn’t help feeling her words sounded sort of ominous. They made me think of never seeing Marcus again, and I didn’t like the way the thought made me feel. I had to be realistic, though. He was a single, sexy guy. I had a four-month-old child. Maybe he did the casual dating thing with people in the past, but I simply put, didn’t.
And I wouldn’t with him.
Maybe it was good that we weren’t talking at the moment. I had wanted to go slow, but my slow was still too fast. I needed to stop and look at things before I started making decisions or conclusions. There was a chance Marcus didn’t want the same things that I wanted, and if that was the case, then that was fine.
It would suck, but it would be fine because all that would mean is we were badly matched from the very start. We’d just part and find people who would make us happy. Yeah. Easy. Breaking up, halting communication, whatever was just part of dating.
Now that I knew that, future interactions would go more smoothly. Dating right now was probably a bad idea, anyway. Jaden was still so young. He was my main and first priority. Who could compete? Nobody. There was no competition to be had.
Had dating always been this hard? Had I just been in a relationship so long that I had been spared all this fucking stress? I mean, Jared and I hadn’t been perfect. We argued, we fought, sometimes we didn’t even sleep in the same bed, but he was always there.
Until he wasn’t.
Just because he wasn’t didn’t mean nobody else could ever be again. Just because someone was there, didn’t mean they were permanent.
We had driven to the park—Sophie, Jaden and I. We said bye to her on her floor before going up to ours. I had some time before I had to leave. We were catering a birthday party for Helena’s sister-in-law. She wanted an ice cream and a taco station. We didn’t have to do the cake; we had ordered that. She wanted loads of cupcakes instead of one large cake. She was seventeen, and her parents were rich; she could make requests like that if she wanted to.
Jessie would be watching Jaden while I was gone. Yes, that same Jessica. I hadn’t decided what I was going to do yet about her. I wanted to do something. I didn’t feel like I could just let it go. She hadn’t done anything wrong up to that point. I’d talk to her. Maybe when I got back.
I decided to take the train instead of drive. I had been to the Hanna’s house before. They used Helena to cater all their events. I didn’t want to concentrate on driving. I wanted time to think.
I wished it took more to shake me. The prison thing… so many people were incarcerated in this country. It wasn’t fair to hold that against him if he’d done his time and reformed. It was sort of the same with the drug thing. He wasn’t using anymore. He also hadn’t been lying to me. He was clean.
I just wished he’d told me.
Avoiding him was hard. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was basically just stalling at this point, unsure how to go back to him and tell him I was sorry. Picking up one of his calls was easy enough, but then once I did I would be taking him back. I’d be agreeing to be with him again, and that was its own daunting kettle of fish. I had to tell him what I wanted, and what if he didn’t want the same thing?
I wanted something real. We didn’t have to get married, but I wanted something constant. I didn’t want to introduce a different guy to my son every few months. This was as selfish as I was going to let myself be. I wanted Marcus. I was extremely attracted to him, and as much as casual sex sounded fun and would feel good, I wasn’t going to do it. If that was what he wanted, finding a woman with less baggage was his best option.
We were doing three kinds of taco—tilapia, pork carnitas and chicken. The pork and chicken had been marinating since the day before. The ice cream had been made too because we weren’t going to serve root beer floats and sundaes made out of Haagen Dazs. We’d have servers passing beverages and clearing, but it wasn’t a formal, sit-down affair. I’d be cooking while Desiree and Gary, two of our sous chefs would assemble the tacos at the station. I was doing the chicken. I just had to keep the meat cooking. I’d smell like a barbecue by the time I left; I’d have to wash my hair tonight.
I preferred sit-down events to this sort of thing, but this was fine too. As long as everything was delicious. The party was out on the rooftop terrace of the townhouse. The house was pretty massive, but that was okay; there was an elevator up, so the food didn’t get cold on the journey up there. Yeah. Helena’s in-laws were rolling in it.
She knew Marcus and I
had a thing, but she pretended not to notice. She wasn’t going to go easy on him because of me, and I wouldn’t have expected her to. Getting him the interview was all I had agreed to do; the rest was up to him. He hadn’t fucked up yet because he was on the terrace working right then.
“Adina?”
I froze. Well, he was supposed to be on the terrace working right then. I looked up, and it was him. He entered the kitchen getting stares from the other chefs.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I came to talk to you. Why have you been shutting me out?”
“If I have to answer that for you then you’ll never know,” I snapped. I didn’t have to be that mean about it, but I didn’t like the way he asked me. He was the one who had made the mistake. He was the one who had lied to me. I stopped myself from feeling guilty about what I had done. That was not okay, and he had to know it. I turned the heat down on the stove, so I didn’t burn the chicken I was cooking. “You have to go. You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“I’m not leaving till you talk to me,” he said in a forceful whisper. I swore, turning the heat off and abandoning the chicken, pulling him away to the adjoining pantry. It was like a supermarket in there; incredibly well-stocked. I’d cheffed private dinners for Helena’s in-laws before; they had everything. While we were here, it was also where we had kept our extra chafing dishes, racks and disposable cutlery.
“Make it quick,” I said.
“I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m sorry. I fucked up and did something stupid. I should have told you.”
“You did tell me, but next time, try slide that in before you fuck the person, yeah?”
“Adina. Please.”
“You said what you needed to say, and I listened. You’re going to get in trouble,” I said to him. “You need to go back. You’re here to work, not talk to me.” I started out of the pantry nearly bumping headlong into Drew Hanna. Helena’s Drew. He caught me with both his hands steadying my shoulders.
“Adina? Are you okay?” he asked. “What are you doing in here?” he asked, noticing I wasn’t alone. Drew and Helena didn’t live in the house, but this was still as bad as being caught filching the silver.
“I needed some help with the dishes. The chicken’s selling out up there,” I said, half-lying. The chicken was actually going pretty fast. Marcus being there, however, could only be explained legitimately in very few ways.
“I had a couple of tacos—they’re great,” he said, looking at Marcus with some suspicion. “Are you with the company?” he asked him.
“Yes. I’m part of the service staff,” Marcus said. If he was nervous, he didn’t sound it. His tattoo was covered, and I wondered whether he had done it himself since I hadn’t.
“We’re a little understaffed down here. I just needed him to walk some more food up,” I said, trying to smile. He nodded, shooting Marcus another glance before telling me he was on his way to the wine cellar and leaving. I sighed. Helena would have my ass for this if she found out.
“Who was that?” Marcus asked.
“Your boss’s husband. Go back upstairs, Marcus. I’m not lying for you twice.”
“I didn’t ask you to do it once,” he said. “I get it if you’re mad, but don’t fucking punish me for something I didn’t do.”
“You lied to me.”
“I told you I was clean, and I was. I don’t do it anymore Adina and I never will. Maybe it was stupid for me to think I didn’t have to say anything, and I’m sorry. I can’t change that I did it, but I never put you in danger. Don’t treat me like I did.” He walked past me out of the pantry. I closed my eyes and waited a few minutes till I was sure he was gone and silently returned to the kitchen.
I didn’t like him mad.
I was already guilty for the way I had treated him before, but I was practically choking on it now. He was angry with me. He was cold. It was scary. I hadn’t seen that side of him, and it shook me. I didn’t like it. His eyes were painful to look into. He was mad, but he was something else too. I heard it in his voice. He was hurt.
Had it just never occurred to him to tell me? If yes, then how? Why? He didn’t think it was important for me to know? He said he had recovered and would never use again, but how did you hide a secret like that? I wasn’t punishing him. I was… I didn’t know what I was doing.
It was a little late by the time I got back to the house. Jessie was sitting on the couch watching something on the television. I apologized for making her wait and told her I’d be right back to pay her for the hours she’d stayed with Jaden. I went to my room and shrugged my jacket off before I heard a knock at my door.
“Adina, could I ask you something?” Jessie asked coming inside.
“What’s up?” She paused and looked like she was searching for the right words.
“The nursery looks really great. Marcus did that, didn’t he?”
“Uh, yeah. He finished a little while ago. I think he did a good job.”
“Yeah. I… I can’t think of an easy way to say this. Are you and Marcus… he’s been seeing someone, and I just need to know. Is it you?”
I didn’t feel guilty. That wasn’t it. I felt concerned, and then a little mad. He had said that he and Jessie weren’t together. If he was cheating on her with me, I was going to kill him.
“We… we’ve been… seeing each other,” I said. “Casually. I’m not, I mean we’re not like a couple or anything. He told me he wasn’t seeing anyone, but we weren’t really…” I stopped because Jessie didn’t seem mad. She was smiling a sad little smile, looking at me.
“I thought that might happen,” she sighed. “I suppose I led him right to you.”
“I hope I’m not in the middle of anything, Jessica. I wouldn’t see him if I knew.”
“We aren’t together. We weren’t before either. I just wanted to know. I think it’s great. He seems to really like you. I just… I don’t think I can keep working here if you and him… you know.”
I blinked. Was she dumping me?
“Is this my two weeks’ notice?”
“It is. I really like you. And Jaden. It just feels a little weird being here knowing you two… and he might come over sometimes. I just wouldn’t be comfortable,” she said slowly.
“We aren’t together. You have nothing to worry about,” I said. She shook her head.
“No,” she said like she knew something I didn’t, “it would be too awkward. I doubt he’d want me around either.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then stopped. I paid her, and she left. I took my phone and almost called Marcus. What had he told her? What had he told anyone about me? I sighed. Maybe after tonight, I didn’t have a reason to try to find out. I checked on Jaden and showered, going straight to sleep.
16
Marcus
I leaned against the door of my room listening to Adina’s phone ring. It was Saturday, and I was at least halfway sure that she wasn’t working. I knew she wasn’t home with Jaden because Jaden’s dad had him over the weekends. That was all I knew. Maybe she had plans. Maybe she wasn’t home. Maybe she was home but didn’t want to see me. There was only one way to find out, and that was calling her so she could ignore me some more. How long was she going to try to push me away? I was pretty sure we were having a fight, but how much more time did she need to be mad before she spoke to me?
Who the fuck was I? Blowing up a girl’s phone because she wouldn’t talk to me. Who the fuck was she? A girl. She was a chick. Just another woman. Fuck. If only that were true. She was a woman, but she wasn’t just another one. If she was, I wouldn’t have talked to her again after she had let me fuck her. I wouldn’t have tried to see her again. I wouldn’t have told her about Henry. I wouldn’t have done anything. Nothing. I would have taken my orgasm and left.
She was not just another girl, and that was why this was such a fucking mess.
Last night at the party had been a mistake.
She probably wasn’t goi
ng to pick up, but fuck if I wasn’t going to try calling her. I hated to think it, but if she didn’t pick up, I would most likely be trying the number again. Then maybe again later that day, just in case she had missed these two phone calls. Then tomorrow because she wasn’t just another girl and I couldn’t—wouldn’t—just take no for an answer with her.
I was mad.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was.
That wasn’t me anymore. It hadn’t been for years. Strung out and sick, skinny, thinking about when my next hit would be. I would never get back the years I wasted, and I’d never not be an addict. The track marks were still there. It didn’t matter that there were tattoos over them. It was me, but it wasn’t now, and it bothered me that Adina didn’t seem to believe me.
I wanted to think it was her not believing me because if it wasn’t that; it was just her torturing me. It was her taking my past and treating it like it was all I was or would ever be, and I didn’t want to believe Adina would do that to me. I didn’t want to care about her opinion of me so much because it made me look at myself a lot closer than I wanted to.
What was I doing?
This was one degree better than begging her to take me back. No, it was worse because we weren’t even together like that in the first place. We were taking it slow, and now we weren’t taking anything at all anywhere, at any speed.
I shouldn’t have called. She was going to ignore it, anyway. I pulled the phone from my ear before I heard her voice down the line.
“Hello?” I said quickly. So much for hanging up.
“Marcus. I didn’t think you’d call,” she said.
“I wanted to apologize to you, about last night.”
“I’m the one who owes you the apology, Marcus,” she said quietly. “Will you meet me? I want to talk to you.”
I had had an entire script ready in my head, and she had thrown me off. This was supposed to be the part when I apologized, said I’d been an idiot and prayed the next words out of her mouth weren’t a rejection.
Marcus (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 5) Page 12