How To Save A Life

by P. Dangelico

  “No…Jordan”––she laughs––“And it’s not a dump! It’s a treasure.”

  You’re the treasure.

  She can see the beauty in everything. Even a rundown house with a sagging roofline.

  “What would you do with a house like this?” Historical landmarks are notorious money pits.

  She looks at me, then the house. “Have a family.”

  The answer knocks me off balance. I look back at the house, at the promise of what could be. Except I can’t see it, not the family she may want one day. I can’t do that for her. I can’t give her that.

  “What?” She smiles softly, blue eyes bright and full of wonder.

  “You’re beautiful.” I kiss her. “Come.” Taking her hand, I drag her across the lawn, kick over the real estate sign and pull out my phone while she shakes her head at me.

  Riley

  “It’s been in the Anderson family for over fifty years––” Missy Paggett, the real estate broker, tells us.

  Love at first sight. And I’m not talking about Jordan. That love was a slow build. I’m talking about this old house. He’s right; it’s an absolute mess. The roof would need to be rebuilt. Even the foundation is compromised in certain areas. But I’d have the time of my life restoring it.

  “The grandmother who owned it died last year and the grandkids who inherited it…well, as you can see, they’ve let it go. They’re motivated sellers.”

  Sorry, Monica. Just window shopping and daydreaming.

  I feel Jordan’s eyes on me and turn. I love this man. Heart and soul. Every time he looks at me, touches me, he makes love. It’s not just the off the charts hot sex. It’s that he puts so much feeling into every touch that I wake up feeling worshiped every morning.

  “What?” I say, as an irrepressible grin pulls my lips apart.

  “I’d rather look at you than stained wallpaper.”

  I laugh.

  “Missy?” he says, getting her attention. “We can check out the rest of the place on our own. My girlfriend is a contractor. She knows what she’s doing. I’ll let you know what I decide.”

  Girlfriend. He said girlfriend.

  Missy looks confused about being dismissed so effectively. She has no idea who she’s dealing with. When she doesn’t move fast enough, he gives her the look.

  “Oh, okay, a contractor?”

  “Licensed in New York,” I add. I wouldn’t want her to think we’re scammers. Just good old-fashioned tire kickers.

  It’s not like we can steal anything in here. There’s nothing of value except to someone like me who can recognize the real maple panels under three layers of wallpaper in the living room.

  “Okay…um okay, yeah, call me if you have any questions Mr. West.”

  The second Missy walks out of the ground-floor dining room, where we are, Jordan is on me, kissing my neck, squeezing my ass. Pulling my hips against his. His silky shorts are no match for the strength and size of his erection. We might as well be naked.

  “I thought she’d never leave.” He grunts and I laugh.

  “This is why you wanted to see the house? We could’ve spared her and gone back to the boat.”

  “No…” He kisses my neck, bites me. “I like the way your face lights up when you see something you like.”

  My poor insecure heart beats harder, faster. I press my hand against him, run it down the length of his erection and squeeze. “Here’s something I like very much.”

  Never in my life would I have said something like that before. Jordan makes me bold. He makes me brave. Maybe fortune is finally favoring me.

  I get down on my knees and show him just how much I like him.

  15

  Chapter Fifteen

  Riley

  “That’s not how you…no…no…don’t do that. It needs to be at…,” says immature male #1.

  “It’s never going to hold…no it isn’t, and you’ll end up falling…,” replies immature male #2.

  The next day, I’m back not five minutes from a morning run when I hear this coming from the back of the house. I walk around, to the far side, and find Eli and Jordan ready to throw down.

  “Do that again and I’m going to punch you…”

  “I fucking dare you.”

  They’re rolling around on the ground again.

  “You tried to steal my wife!” Eli yells.

  “She wasn’t your wife then!” Jordan growls.

  This isn’t a crumb. This is a lot more than a crumb. This is an entire damn loaf.

  I march over to the garden hose in the corner and spray them. “What is going on here?” They stop wrestling and look up at me, water dripping off both their faces. “Hi, remember me”––I wave––“the responsible adult in the house?”

  Jordan looks aggravated while Eli ignores me all together. They get up and Eli returns to inspecting the lumber and plywood a lumber yard had to have delivered when I was out.

  “Anybody see a two-year-old lying around?” I say, angry at both of them.

  “In the play pen under the porch.” Jordan indicates, his expression shuttered. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the baby playing with a stuffed doll and breathe a sigh of relief. She doesn’t look to have seen the fight. Thankfully, she’s under the wraparound porch canopy, safe from the wind and sun, and two grown men who are still fighting over her dead mother.

  I want to cry.

  “What are you guys doing with all this wood?” I ask, hiding my despair in small talk.

  “Treehouse,” Eli announces while he drags a post across the lawn to an ancient oak tree that splits halfway up the trunk. Mind you, he does it in a red terrycloth robe. The robe flaps in the wind, exposing his gigantic package covered only by threadbare boxers.

  I glance at Jordan who is either too embarrassed to look at me or lost in thought about the dead love of his life.

  “Are you guys always like this?”

  His lips purse and he shrugs. “Not so much when Lainey was around.”

  The two of us watch Eli struggle to drag the second beam over by himself. Once done, he marches over to us. “I understand this is your area of expertise,” he says to me all businesslike.

  “It is.”

  “I need to build a treehouse for amazing Maisie.”

  I try to choose my words carefully. From what I’ve gathered since we arrived five days ago, Eli has always been rather eccentric, a mad genius of sorts. I just don’t know how much grief has turned him more mad than genius.

  “She’s two years old, Eli.”

  “For when she gets older.” He looks off, brow wrinkled in deep thought. “Laine and I had one when we were kids. I want Mais to have one too.”

  I walk over to the oak tree which is at least a hundred years old, it’s branches mangled, heavy and hanging low. The weight would have to be offset so that the branches wouldn’t grow through and around and take the entire structure down.

  “I’ll come up with a rough plan and we can start tomorrow.”

  Eli bear hugs me, picks me up and swings me around.

  “Okay, that’s enough gratitude,” Jordan grumbles.

  I laugh, Eli puts me back on my feet, and Jordan claims me instantly. Wrapping his arm around my shoulders, he plants a kiss on my neck. It’s the first time he’s been openly affectionate with me in public.

  I love this man. I love him utterly and completely even if he is still in love with someone else. And I’m keeping a big secret from him. It’s not right. It’s really wrong in fact. It feels increasingly as if I’m holding onto a ticking time bomb with both hands that’s about to blow up in my face. I have to come clean about Tommy if I want a future with Jordan.

  How, though? How do I tell him my life is falling apart without losing him in the process?

  For the next two days, we work tirelessly building amazing Maisie’s castle––as Eli named it. Jordan, not accustomed to physical labor, is sound asleep every night by ten p.m. Our nightly activities have been seriously curtailed
and he’s not happy about it.

  I crack open a book I found in the library, one of Eli’s fantasy novels, while the man of my dreams talks in his sleep.

  “…too much…wrong…” I run my fingers through his hair and he whimpers, presses into it. Even asleep he welcomes my touch.

  I’m so far gone I can’t imagine my life without him in it. But our days here are numbered––it’s only a matter of time before Eli finds a nanny for Maisie––and I don’t know what going home will do to us. It also hasn’t escaped me that he hasn’t said anything about love. He hasn’t made any declaration. Then again, neither have I.

  Jordan

  “Pack sandwiches. We’re taking the boat out today.”

  I haven’t sailed since last summer and I’ve been itching to get back out on the water. A nice wind kicked up today, giving me the perfect excuse. It’s a cover. Frankly, I need to have Riley to myself again.

  Those big blue eyes search my face. “But what about the treehouse?”

  She looks so unsure I almost give in. Those eyes have a power over me that’s borderline frightening. “The treehouse can do without us for a few hours.” When Riley makes a promise, she keeps it and she promised Eli a treehouse before we leave in a few days.

  Riley puts Maisie back in the playpen, pets her head. “I feel bad for Eli.”

  The woman I’m falling hard for has a heart as big as the sun that’s barely visible on the horizon behind the bank of clouds rolling in.

  She lifts the sunglasses I bought for her yesterday in town off her T-shirt and puts them on. I nearly pissed myself laughing when she tried to give me money for them. Sometimes I can’t believe she’s real, that this world hasn’t ruined her yet.

  “We just took care of his daughter for three months. We’ve done all that we can do for him.”

  She looks so cute when she’s pensive I walk over and tip up her chin, kiss her gently. She rakes her fingers across my chest and I instantly get hard. I don’t know what it is about this woman but her touch breathes life into me.

  An image flashes in my mind…Riley holding a baby, our baby, and my pulse races. For a single suspended moment so much joy explodes in my chest that it robs me of oxygen. Then I remember I can’t have kids and it all comes crashing down. Kids, a family––I’ve never even considered a family. Not with my history.

  “Turkey or ham?”

  “Turkey.”

  The day for us to return home is quickly approaching and with each passing hour I’m getting a growing sense of unrest. Of something unresolved.

  “Where are you two going?” Eli asks when he sees me prepare the boat. I push the cooler of drinks onto the deck, the bag of food Riley packed for us.

  “Taking the boat out,” is all I tell him. “Did you find a nanny?”

  We haven’t been able to leave for that reason. He can’t take care of her alone, and I would never leave Maisie with him without one.

  Eli nods. “A retired nurse who lives in town.”

  “Good.”

  “You guys are leaving soon?” He looks off, at the horizon. Something in his voice gets my attention. We’ve had a fractious relationship since the day we met. First friends then rivals, then friends again. All because of Laine.

  “Have to. I have to get back to work.”

  I suspect he was dragging his feet on the nanny to keep us here. Not that Eli would ever admit it, but he’s lonely and having someone, anyone, but especially a woman like Riley in the house changes everything. Nothing seems hopeless anymore. I know from first hand experience.

  “We’ll be back soon Eli. Promise,” Riley tells him as she walks past him and boards the boat.

  He nods.

  I know how he feels. I know that sense of loss, and how it colors everything else. But I finally have a chance at happiness, and I’m not going to give it up.

  Riley

  “Jordan…”

  “Hmm.”

  We didn’t get very far. We sailed around the bay, found a deserted cove, and dropped anchor. We’ve been below deck since. The man is insatiable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but I would like to see sunlight once in a while.

  I rake my fingers over his chest, circle his nipples, and he’s fully erect again. “I’m going for a swim.”

  “Water’s cold.”

  “I don’t care. I haven’t gone swimming in…forever.”

  His head comes off the pillow. “Did you bring the red swimsuit?”

  His smirk makes me laugh. “So you did like it.”

  “Too much, baby. I liked it too much. I got hard in public.”

  A grin spreads on my face. “I’m flattered.”

  “You should be,” he grunts into the pillow. “That doesn’t happen to me, ever.”

  “Come on,” I say, stroking his erection.

  “You can’t leave me like this,” he practically howls.

  How does he not have chaffing on his dick? It’s the hardest working organ on his body. I’ve had more sex in one week with Jordan than I had in the two years I dated Jimmy.

  “You’ll survive. Come with me.”

  On deck I watch the bank of clouds in the distance creep closer. The weather is mercurial here on the Cape, especially the wind. It can cut you in two on a gusty day.

  Taking my long-sleeve T-shirt off and my shorts, I jump in the water in my bra and underwear. The red swimsuit is tucked in the drawer at home because someone led me to believe it was too sexy.

  I scream. The water is freezing. I can barely catch my breath.

  “Told you,” the man of my dreams says, standing on the deck in nothing but shorts and his sunglasses. He slips them off and jumps in after me.

  Breaking the waterline, he blows out a sharp breath and shakes his head. Then he grabs my hips and pulls me close, my legs automatically wrapping around his waist.

  “Fuck, it’s cold,” he grumbles.

  “You didn’t have to follow me in,” I say between the sweet, closed-mouth kisses he keeps placing on my lips.

  “I’d follow you anywhere,” he whispers back.

  And just when I think I can’t fall any harder for him, that I couldn’t love him more than I already do, he makes a liar out of me.

  “Jordan…” I finally scare up the courage to speak. He’s doing something with the boat, adjusting lines or preparing sails or something.

  “Hmm.”

  “What happened with Lainey and Eli? Between the three of you.”

  Jordan drops the ropes and walks to the head of the boat, looking out at the horizon like he’s searching for something. He exhales and pushes his sunglasses to the top of his head, squints at me.

  “I was fourteen when I got sick. Do you know what’s on the mind of a boy that age?”

  “Girls?”

  “Girls.” He smiles. “Laine and I had something in common––cancer. The disease we were both fighting. It’s like going to war. The experience binds you…She turned it into something romantic. Too many Jane Austen books.”

  He sits down next to me.

  “She was beautiful and funny and…I was a boy with no hair, no social life, a handful of friends who never came to visit. She paid attention to me, made me feel…seen.” He shrugs.

  “I fell for her hard. But Eli was always around, visiting daily. I convinced myself I could win her over. And for a few years, she made me believe I had. We were both going to get better so we could be together…at least, that’s what she made me believe. I did everything the doctors asked of me, never gave up because I was doing it for Laine.

  “She told me to keep it a secret because she didn’t want to hurt Eli’s feelings. She told me to wait until we went to Harvard––we’d both gotten in. Eli was heading to Yale…For years, she kept stringing me along. Until our freshman year at Harvard. I pushed her and that’s when she admitted she was in love with Eli…I transferred to MIT next semester.”

  I can hear my heart breaking one piece at a time. For him, for me. That empa
thy thing again. My chest aches for the boy with so much working against him. But I also send up a silent prayer of gratitude to Lainey. She gave him a reason to live, a reason to fight, and for that I thank her. She probably saved his life by giving him hope, false or otherwise.

  “And you stayed friends?”

  “Lainey…” He smiles softly. “I couldn’t stay mad at her.”

  “And Eli?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “You never told him.”

  He shakes his head. “What for? To make him as miserable as I was? I wouldn’t do that to her.”

  I get up and walk over to him, throw my arms around his waist, and sink my face into his neck. He feels so solid and warm and…present. I never feel like his mind is somewhere else or with someone else when we’re together.

  “Is this real?” I whisper.

  Jordan squeezes me tighter. Kisses my cheek, my forehead. “This is real,” he whispers back.

  16

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jordan

  “I envy you.”

  Eli’s rocky voice rips my attention off the football game we’re watching. Pats are shutting out Miami, but I’m barely paying attention. My mind is on the woman in the kitchen.

  “Me? Why me?”

  He chuckles dryly, no humor in it, and glances at the door that leads to the kitchen. Eli cooked a feast fit for ten and Riley offered to clean up.

  “Because your best years are ahead of you while mine are long gone.”

  At thirty-four, I doubt it, but it’s too soon to talk about moving on. He’s not ready to hear it and it may be some time before he is.

  “You’re wrong, but you won’t listen now, so I’ll save the speech for later.”

  Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived a hundred years and none of them good. None with the exception of the last three months that is. It’s been so long I’d forgotten what feeling good feels like. Content, at peace, whatever you want to call it. Happy.