“Only Oreo.” Tristan’s tone was hopeful, yet resigned, as if knowing a stranger might not get his flavor right.
Jack picked up the cup, peering beyond the rim with a pucker of his brows– the same pucker Tristan had when contemplating. “Hey! It’s Oreo!”
Tristan’s mini brows shot up, and when he sent me a tolerating look, I knew my son was not fooled by adult shenanigans. But he said nothing to Jack of this reasoning that the customer purchasing would know exactly what he ordered. Instead, he beamed a grateful smile and held his tiny hand out.
“So, how do you play that music? Drums and guitar?”
Now Jack was the one who sent me a surprised look. Even though the origin of the question confused him, I knew he must be pleased that the first conversation his son started with him was music related.
“I play the guitar part. My friends play drums, and bass.” Jack alluded to the band members but said nothing of the band itself.
Watching this exchange, I wondered if I should introduce them, but Tristan beat me to it.
“What’s your name?” he asked curiously.
They politely clasped hands after their self-introduction, and I watched, amazed, as the two of them carried on a conversation for a quarter of an hour, only occasionally glancing my way. They talked music, comparing song knowledge, and they talked dogs, comparing Bally and Rusty. Eventually, I sank to the chair and ate my dessert, uncaring that it was a day’s worth of calories in a cup.
Jack remained until visiting hours were up at nine. Tristan slept some but awoke as if by instinct when Jack was about to leave. With a ruffle of his son’s dark hair, Jack promised to see him next time he came to town. At this, I started, my spine lifting from the back of the chair.
Waiting until we were in the hall, right outside the door, I phrased the inquiry, careful to keep it emotionless. “Are you leaving?”
“My flight is in the morning. I have a thing. I would get out of it if I could.” His dark eyes seemed both apologetic and as disappointed as I was.
Keeping my voice light, I slanged the common adage, “Well, watcha gonna do…”
“Yeah…” He quirked a half-grin, rewarding me with almost one dimple. “Watcha gonna do…”
With that last phrase, he seemed closer in distance as well as height. Was it a double entendre? If so, what I was going to do was…
Kiss him…
When I tipped my head up, he met it before I lifted on tiptoes.
The kiss was warm and sweet, and the touch of our tongues wildly electrifying.
Despite the public venue, and our son just on the other side of the door, I took the kiss to the next level, sucking, savoring his tongue with more delectation than the ice cream earlier. His throaty rumble was felt, more than heard. He pressed against me, pushing my backside against the wall, taking his tongue away enough to tease the sweet spots on mine and then swiping it across my lips before giving it back to me to do with whatever I desired—
“You kids need to take that somewhere else!”
The female voice was haughty, as if we were teens being reprimanded, and maybe the woman thought we were.
Surprised, I jerked but there was no place to go. Jack was slower to ease up, continuing to press his length against me as he stole a few more seconds of the mind-blowing kiss. My heart raced at a dizzying speed, and I was glad he only pulled his lips away and not himself or I would have slid limply down the wall.
Unanimously, our heads turned to the retreating figure of a large woman wearing Scooby Doo scrubs. My giddy giggle couldn’t be stopped, that is, until Jack brushed another kiss on my lips, reacquainting our tongues a few more seconds before moving back a step.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he promised. I nodded or voiced some form of agreement, then enjoyed watching him walk away before turning back to the room.
While my body was still singing from his kiss, nothing seemed impossible. New custody plan.
Marry Jack Storm.
CHAPTER 17
The house was quiet. Tristan was down for the night, and Bally, happy to be home and happier that her people were home, lay sleeping at the foot of her youngest master’s bed.
The television on Tristan’s dresser was from Jack. It had been delivered a couple of days ago, shortly after his discharge from the hospital. As a result, the television in the main room was now off much of the time.
Jack had called every night while Tristan was in the hospital and always talked to Tristan for several minutes before or after he chatted with me. After coming home, the calls dwindled to every other night, but he sent, and I returned, at least two dozen texts throughout each day.
Wandering the house, I picked up toys, doing general straightening to absolve any feelings of guilt at not wanting to do the dishes. Opening the desk drawer, I replaced Tristan’s art box of colored pencils, Crayola’s, and such, and when I pushed it closed, the laptop perched on the desktop came to life. This was not unusual.
Olivia had stopped over to keep an eye on Tristan while I did some grocery shopping. A lot of times, if Olivia forgot her tablet, she would entertain herself with the laptop, stopping in the middle of what she was doing to tend to Tristan, or take a call, or whatever.
Although the screen coming on surprised me, it was simply waking from hibernation, and I closed my palm over the mouse with the intent to power it off.
Before I pointed and clicked, the banner of a popular Hollywood gossip blog blinked, and I smiled at the habits of my friend. Just for the heck of it, I carried the computer to the couch. I sank down, propping my feet comfortably on the table as I clicked through the images and read of the latest celebrity exposes.
Noticing a search box, I typed in the name that never left my mind. Once the page links came up, I further narrowed the results by images and began to view the face I missed and hoped to see again soon. In our last phone conversation, Jack had mentioned the possibility of flying in for a few days at the end of the week.
Various links to other blogs continuously beckoned from the edge of the page, and suddenly one caught my eye.
‘The Hottest Stories Right Now’
‘Jack Storm Caught Creepin’ At The Sky Bar With Sexy Ex Leanna Miranda Gavin’
A quick click brought the story up, and I studied the picture, inquisitive of anything to do with Jack, even ex-girlfriends. Why had I not engaged in this entertaining pastime before?
Moments after the thought crossed my mind, the things I was seeing became the opposite of fun.
While drooling over the picture, I had disregarded the date.
Apparently, the blog was not exaggerating the claim of ‘Right Now.’
The picture of Jack with his arm curved around a beautiful brunette had been snapped earlier in the evening.
This evening.
Stunned, I stared across at the blank, black television screen, then back down to the vivid laptop screen to recheck the date.
When the ugly fact was conclusive, I opened another tab and typed ‘Leanna Miranda Gavin.’
For several minutes, I scrolled pictures of the woman who was, of course, a lingerie model. To see this incredibly beautiful woman clad as scantily as Jack had obviously seen her only doubled the pain.
Restraining the urge to throw the laptop at the wall, I surged from the sofa and with one arm swept the basket of remotes from the sofa table. They bounced along the area rug and clattered to the vinyl wood floor.
Thinking back over some of the flirtatious texts over the last several days, I reanalyzed them, wondering if I was reading too much into the wireless words. I thought of past times, of flirting with Clayton, or any of the other guys, with no care of what I was doing. They didn’t mean anything to me, so I treated them all the same. Did I not mean anything to Jack?
Was he just playing the same word games I often had with the opposite sex? Was he just kissing or accepting a kiss when it felt right in the moment with no want of where it could lead?
These lun
atic ravings sent me pacing the floor and when I stopped before the entertainment shelf system, another rake of my arm sent DVD’s flying to the floor. Spying my phone, I threw it too so I wouldn’t give into my lunacy and call him.
And that is what it was, pure lunacy. I knew I had no right to be this possessive or to feel this bitter burn of betrayal.
♪♫¨♫♪
Standing under a hot shower, I struggled to find a calm place in my mixed-up mind.
Yes, he seemed anal for kissing me as he had– first a tender fortifying kiss, and next a hot passionate kiss– then going out on the town with his ex so soon after landing in LA.
But, he wasn’t. I had just dreamed of him too long, made a relationship in my head that was never there. And then at some small hint of his affection, I had allowed my imagination to go overboard.
More than anything, I wanted to be a family with him. If that was a farfetched, unrealistic ideal, then so be it. I had clung to the vision too long to let it go.
My plan might be a devious, desperate act, but for once in my life, I wanted to gamble away logic and yes, maybe even decency, to win what I wanted.
And, if I was going to play girlish games, then it was time to step them up.
Maybe I wasn’t an underwear model, but I had two very strong things going for me.
First, Jack and I were connected by a son. A son who was a miniature version of him, no less.
Number two, I wanted him, and he had wanted me at one point if his speech at the hospital in Tristan’s empty room could be believed.
He just needed convincing that he still wanted me and that it made sense for us to raise our child together.
Draping my towel on a hook, I wrapped in my robe, checked on Tristan, and went to retrieve my phone.
Carefully, I considered what I was about to do. Retracing the hall to my room, I thought it over and it seemed sound. Dropping to my bed, I began the text.
Go ahead with setting me and Joel up
Sent 10:50pm
The text itself was as dirty a trick as what the words would set into motion.
Thankfully, Olivia was working and would not be able to call immediately with curious questions.
A few days ago, I had fulfilled my promise, confiding everything about Jack to my friend. Giving no steamy details, I confessed the best sex of my life five years ago and finally stopped with the two kisses at the hospital and our current phone relationship. Fiercely loyal, Olivia had been angered to hear of Jack’s initial harsh reaction to the news of Tristan, yet as a true romantic and a best friend, she was pulling for a love connection between us.
Pulling back the spread, I sandwiched myself in the bed and was about to dock my phone in the charger when it sounded with a text.
RUSS
u awake?
11:55 PM
Dropping it into the dock, I shut off the light, but my eyes wouldn’t close, and I lay staring into the dark for what seemed like hours.
♪♫¨♫♪
“Mooommm… Mom, Mom, Mom… Mooomma, Mom…”
Still heavy with sleep, I strained to wake. Tristan was singing my name in a low growl voice. This was his latest habit. It began after I had managed to find one Jackal song without curse words or sexual implications to download on his iPod.
The iPod was also Jack’s gift to him, arriving in the overnight mail on Tristan’s first night home. It came pre-filled with some of the songs Jack and Tristan discussed– mostly classics such as The Beatles.
Rolling over, I grabbed my phone to check the time and leaped from the comfort of the covers when I saw how late it was. Tristan’s physical therapist would arrive in a half hour, and the tot had not yet dressed or eaten breakfast.
Animated characters harmoniously sang, and I realized that his shows now being on his own television were keeping him in his room later and later each morning. He wasn’t quite fully back to his crutches yet, and I picked him up, carrying him to a stool at the kitchen bar and plopped a bowl of cereal down. Then, I went back to clean the plastic portable urinal, brought from the hospital to make use of until he was getting around better by himself.
From my bedroom, my phone sounded, and from the kitchen Tristan screamed, “It’s Jack! Answer it!”
I didn’t and endured Tristan’s disfavor for a half hour.
The call from Olivia didn’t come around noon as I’d predicted. My friend actually drove over to try to talk me to my senses. From where Olivia and I were standing in the kitchen, we could easily see Tristan and the PT, in the gym room, moving about in his exercise routine. Since Tristan was occupied, I could talk freely, and I quoted the entire blog article to Olivia.
“Give him a chance to explain,” Olivia pleaded. “Better yet, don’t go all crazy on him. It was two kisses. Men are different. Sometimes they don’t drop everything they have going after only two—”
“Amazing kisses,” I interrupted. “And you’re right. That’s why I want Joel. If Jack sees that I am not taking those kisses any more serious than he is…”
Liv’s look was watchful and suddenly sympathetic at whatever she was seeing. I made an effort to close off my expression.
“I just want a chance with him. If it doesn’t work, who knows, maybe me and Joel work out…”
But, I didn’t even want to think about things not working with Jack.
My phone began to rock, and before Tristan could deafen his physical therapist’s ears by screaming at his mother, I answered.
“Hey!” Making sure my voice was carefree, I greeted Jack. “What’s up?”
“I was thinking about coming in Friday if that’s cool. Left you a voicemail…”
Finding some humor in the voicemail, whether or not it was a jab, I paused, pouring a cup of coffee and reigning in my raging senses at the thought of seeing him. “Sure, that’s cool. And, sorry about the voicemail. The day’s been crazy, haven’t had time to check it.”
Olivia gave me a goofy stare at this blatant lie since we had just been discussing that very voicemail message.
“It’s cool. Just wanted to double-check before I scheduled the flight.” The sweet sexy rumble of his voice made my knees weak, and I slid on a bar stool next to Olivia as he continued. “How’s the little rocker?”
We talked a few more minutes before he rang off with a, “See you soon then, Mariss.”
Turning, I found Olivia practically swooning and comprehended that my friend could likely hear through my phone since the tv in the den was not making racket as it normally was.
“I can’t believe you’re going to do this, Rissa.” Olivia rose to get her own cup of coffee. “What if you screw things up?”
“Trust me. I know how far to take it. I landed Kel didn’t I?” The name of my ex fiancé was repugnant, but I brought it up to drive in the point. Kel had been a major player, dating many women in my semester and a half of college, and I had driven him to pop the question within six months of knowing him.
Did that sound manipulative and mean? In Kel’s case, it had been deserved. Looking back, all the signs were there with Kel. He had led me on just enough to keep me hanging on, until I had turned the tables. In the end, it had been me that got burned. Maybe, Liv was right to worry.
Pushing those thoughts aside, I stared morosely at my phone.
CHAPTER 18
Pouring spiced creamer into her cup, Olivia stirred without a word, and I knew what my friend was thinking but was too nice to say.
‘And look how that worked out.’
But, Jack was not like Kel.
In just a couple of days of being with him, and a couple of weeks on the phone, I found in him an integrity so many men were lacking. He had been a fantasy beyond my reach for so long, and now that he was within my grasp, I knew I was frantically clutching.
“Liv,” I implored, willing my friend to understand. “I know I shouldn’t be playing games. But I feel like he is so far above me, that it’s the only way to win him. And I want him more than I hav
e ever wanted anyone or anything except Tristan.”
Olivia watched as I ripped a napkin to shreds in my nervousness, and she made one last valiant effort to talk some sense into me, but I held firm.
It felt important for Jack to see I had options, and that I was not some desperate white trash mom, or some grown up groupie.
“Fine,” Olivia dragged the word out and promptly punched in the call to her husband.
Less than an hour later, the double date between the four of us, Olivia, Michael, Joel, and me was set. We would have an innocent meal at an upscale Italian restaurant.
Reconciled to the date, Olivia took in my appearance and asked, “Want to raid my closet?”
I did more than borrow a slinky black dress from my friend.
Olivia sat with Tristan the next day while I sat in a salon, having professional highlights streaked through my hair and a trendy trim to the long, layered length. On the day Jack was to arrive, I did my own nails while Tristan napped off his Tylenol. The physical therapy session that morning had shown optimistic improvements. Tristan was moving about with his crutches better than ever before, and seeing it, put a happy spark in my eyes.
Jack sent a text that he was on the ground, and I knew soon he would be in a rental car, navigating an electronic map to our little house.
Pulling a shirt from the dryer, I tossed it to Tristan who was in his tiny recliner with his tablet.
“Why do I have to wear this?”
“Because Jack is coming over, and you need a clean shirt.”
At the reminder of Jack’s visit, his eyes lit, but he stubbornly pushed the shirt away. “I want my red shirt.”
Tristan spoke of his shirt with the flaming guitar across the front, faded from so many washes. The hem of the borrowed black dress had a tendency to ride up, and pulling at it, I rushed to the utility room where I rooted through the dryer for the requested shirt. Tristan pulled it over his head just as the doorbell chimed.
Shoving the two shirts Tristan was not wearing deep down in the side cushion of the couch, I straightened and gave my clingy skirt another yank, managing to work it to a few inches above my knees. My heels clicked as I crossed the hall floor to the door.