by Rachel Hauck
“You should be inside.”
The voice came from the huddled lump at the base of the stairwell.
“Jett?”
“Go back inside, Lex.”
She started to go, then turned around. Wait. The wife Lexa would turn on her heel with a huff and go inside, sure of his rejection, and not speak to him the rest of the night. Perhaps even the next day. Which was easy to do when she worked twelve hours and he lived and breathed his grief, his course work, grading papers, and writing his great American novel.
However, ex-wife Lexa was not subject to his moods. She didn’t give a flip. His attitude couldn’t touch her.
With her good hand against the wall, she lowered to one knee, then dropped onto her backside, barely avoiding a dog walker with no fewer than six scampering Yorkies.
“I realized today my hip is still sore from the fall,” she said. “The less my arm hurts the more other body parts demand attention.”
“Like I said, you should be inside.” He raised his head and peered at her with red-rimmed eyes, shoving back his untamed blond hair.
“Your pizza is on its way.” She handed over his phone as a large mastiff sniffed at her feet and wagged his tail before his human moved him on.
“Good. I thought I’d be an old man before it arrived.” He checked his phone screen, then cradled it in his palm.
“What’s going on?”
“Sometimes I hate her, Lexa, and it knifes me in the gut.”
“Why do you hate her?”
“Because she left. Because she’s a selfish wench.”
“I don’t think she meant to hurt you,” she said, inching a little closer to Jett’s warm body.
Jett shot her a steely glare. “Don’t be on her side.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side. I’m just saying I don’t think she meant to hurt you.”
“Then what did she mean? ‘Hi, boys, I’ve got news. This ol’ life is suffocating me so I’m out of here for California. Check you later, kids. Love and kisses.’”
“Really? That’s what she said?”
“Yeah, almost. It was certainly her tone.” He twisted his phone in his hands. “I can’t believe you’d defend her. Remember our wedding? Huh? She wanted to film everything. Even our honeymoon.”
“She’s a producer. A communicator. She wanted to gift us a detailed movie of our big day. She knew we wouldn’t remember half of it.”
“She aired it on the show without asking. She’s a money-grubbing, ambitious, self-focused shrew. Hope Oz knows what he’s getting into.”
“Don’t you think people change?”
“Not her.”
“Look, at least she was honest.” Ex-wife Lexa definitely had different answers than wife Lexa. “And you’re adults now. You can have a relationship with her if you—”
“Lexa, just stop talking.”
She shrank back against the wall feeling too much like wife Lexa as another canine sniffed her feet. Jett stretched out his hand and the dog settled his head under Jett’s palm.
“Where is that pizza?” He checked his phone. “It should be here by now.”
“Bear never said anything?”
“About pizza?”
“No, goofball, about your mom leaving.”
Jett scoffed. “About a year later he sat us down and asked how we were doing. Said something like, ‘I tried to work it out, boys.’ We said we were fine. What else could we say? He was making us late for the girls’ basketball game.”
“Nothing was said when he asked her back as producer of the show?”
“Other than she was ‘the best,’ no. And she knew him, and what the show was about. Storm started going on-site just to be around her.”
“But you refused.” She knew the story. He’d told her in bits and pieces throughout their relationship. Yet there were always details missing.
“Until they made me go. Otherwise, give me a book, thank you. Used to bug the heck out of her too. Dad and Storm would be rafting a class-five river and I’d be in the tent with a flashlight and GPR. Or Bradbury. Or Faulkner.”
The long-awaited delivery cyclist pulled up and dropped his bike against the stone post.
“Bleeckers?” Jett jumped up. “For Wilder?”
The delivery rider didn’t even bat an eye. Handed the large box to Jett with a plastic bag of napkins and seasonings, then rode away.
“Dinner is served.” Jett adjusted the box between them and handed Lexa a napkin with a sigh. “Don’t tell anyone, but when Mom said she was marrying Oz I realized I’d been holding out hope that Mom and Dad would one day get back together. What an idiot.”
“I don’t think you’re ever too old to want your parents reconciled, Jett.”
He passed her a large slice and a packet of parmesan cheese without a reply.
The first bite of warm dough, hot cheese, and sauce with crisp pepperoni was heaven. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and a midmorning pain pill knocked her out through lunch.
“We need drinks.” Jett wiped his mouth and hollered at the Giovanni kid from the second floor who rode his bike up and down the street. “Brian, can you get two Cokes from the corner market?” He pulled a ten from his pocket. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks.” Brian popped a spirited wheelie and was off, standing up, swaying his bike from side to side as he pedaled.
“Mom made good pizza,” Lexa said. “We had it every Friday night. It was her way of keeping a touch of America in the house no matter where we lived.”
It was a repeated story. She must have told him Mom’s patriotization stories a dozen times. But they were worth telling.
“I remember your mom’s pizza,” he said. “For us it was spaghetti. Dad’s specialty. Otherwise it was box food, take-out, sandwiches, grilled meat.” Lexa listened to Jett’s familiar stories, okay that it drew her to him. He needed the comfort of a friend. Friend? Was she becoming his friend? “Though Storm made a mean beef-and-cheese dish. Otherwise we didn’t have many traditions. All the traditions left with mom. She was never very cuddly but she liked to do up holidays and birthdays.”
“You’re thirty years old, Jett. Why don’t you talk to her? Man to mom?”
“And say what? ‘You hurt me’? Can’t change the past. Can’t undo what she did.”
“You sound like you want to be mad at her.”
“Maybe I do. Look, Lexa, nothing she or anyone can say will make what she did okay.”
“But you might understand her.”
“The big question is why doesn’t she talk to me?” Jett passed her another slice of pizza as Brian returned with two cold pop bottles. Jett twisted off the cap for Lexa and set it on her far side. “She runs Going Wild like a drill sergeant. Manhandles mega-advertisers. But she can’t find the guts to talk to her son.”
With a side glance at her ex, Lexa settled against the apartment building and watched Greenwich Village go by as she dined, filling her stomach and perhaps a little bit of her soul. This was the first honest, heartfelt conversation she’d had with Jett in years.
Washing down a bite of pizza crust with a swig of her cold, fizzy drink, Lexa dared a provocative query.
“What did your mom mean when she asked what happened on the mountain?”
He shifted his position, uncurling his legs and stretching them onto the sidewalk. “Other than him dying? Nothing. She makes stuff up.”
“Why would she make up something about that?”
“I’m not sure, Lex.”
So why didn’t she believe him? But it wasn’t her burden to bear. She was his ex-wife.
“Remember the night I called you at three a.m. to see if you were okay, and found out I woke you from a bad dream?” Jett pulled out another slice of pizza with cheese tendrils dangling.
“How could I forget? It was right after the divorce. It freaked me out that you knew to call me.”
“Yeah, it was weird. We talked until five.”
“I was so tired that day. First time I left ZB bef
ore six at night in three years.” Lexa finished her slice and wiped her hand on her napkin. “I’m going in. The chill is bothering my arm.” She tried to stand but her left leg collapsed, and she tumbled into Jett’s lap. Her broken arm clapped against the stone-and-brick steps.
“My arm.” Involuntary tears gathered as she breathed through the piercing pain.
In a Superman move, Jett was on his feet, Lexa scooped into his arms. “I told you to be careful.”
“My leg . . . fell asleep . . . sore hip . . . Oh man my arm hurts.”
Up the stairs two at a time, he pushed the elevator button with the toe of his high-tops. The doors parted, and Jett pushed in, past a young couple trying to exit. Again, with his toe he pushed the button for floor three.
“Jett, I can walk. Put me down—”
“Quiet.” He curled her tight against his chest, so she sank into his embrace.
“Jett, my leg is awake now.” But she didn’t fight him. She was tired and engulfed in the shards shooting down her arm. A prickly perspiration collected around her neck and ran down her back.
At the third floor, Jett charged toward his apartment. Adjusting Lexa’s weight, he reached for the knob. “When did you last take a pain med?”
“About eleven.”
He tried the knob again. “Lex, did you lock the door?”
“No, I checked on my way out. I left it open.”
He kicked at the barrier. “Well, it’s locked now.”
Back to the elevator, they rode down to the first floor. “Jett, please put me down.”
“Hush, I’m in the groove.” He banged on the superintendent’s door with his foot. “Billy, I’m locked out. Need you to let me in.”
She felt ridiculous yet curiously content as they waited for the super to appear, a five o’clock shadow on his loose jawline, a beer in hand. “How’d you do that?”
“Really, you want to figure out the cause while we still have the problem?”
He pointed to Lexa. “She okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Hurt her arm. Come on. Let us in.”
With a grumble, Billy wandered off for his master keys while Jett called for the elevator.
Lexa pushed against him with her good hand. “Jett, please, put me down.”
“Billy, I got the elevator.” Jett held it open with his foot, nodding for the sleepy-eyed building manager to get a move on.
He cradled her in his arms as Billy unlocked the door, then he carried Lexa inside, through the living room to the bedroom.
A short snicker escaped her.
“What?” He lowered her against her pillows, his face so close she caught a whiff of citrus and spice on his skin.
“You. Carrying me upstairs, downstairs, upstairs again.”
He jerked back. “You were in pain.”
“Jett—” She gripped his sleeve and peered into his eyes. “I can take care of myself.”
“I never said you couldn’t, but isn’t it nice, Lexa, when someone steps up once in a while? It doesn’t make you less strong to need and accept help.” He remained close, hovering over her. “It always crushed me when you were sick or hurt. Even with a cold.”
“You never said.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was a sissy.”
“I would never think you were a sissy.”
“I know sometimes a woman hurts in places a man can’t see.” He slid in next to her and slipped his hand carefully around her back and angled her toward him. “Not unless she tells him.”
“Sometimes a man is hurt in places a woman can’t see. Unless he tells her.”
There it was. Their stalemate.
Jett moved slowly toward her. “Lexa—”
His kiss arrived slow, with their eyes locked, their breathing in rhythm. As they sank into the pillows, their bodies responded to the very familiar, pleasurable road.
He tasted like life—the tang of tomato sauce, the sweetness of cheese, and the cool wet of a cold drink.
It made her hungry for more and she tugged on the bottom of his shirt with her good hand.
This kiss. This kiss. She floated, forgetting the pain in her bones. His moves, his touch, were so intoxicating, filling her more than any pizza pie ever could.
Just when she thought she’d forget herself and let her passion carry her away, Jett sat up.
“I’m sorry. I can’t”—he turned for the door, leaving her in a sudden chill—“take advantage.”
“Who said you’re taking advantage?”
“Me.” He started out of the room, down the hall. “Helping you these past three weeks, seeing you half naked, knowing you’re in here night after night . . .” His low scoff scraped against her. “Lexa, you still press all my buttons. I mean, what are we doing here? I could continue without a thought of tomorrow.” He swung his hand in the air between them. “You’re vulnerable. I’m vulnerable.”
“And divorced.” She finished his thought.
“Exactly.”
Her confession mingled with his, tossing cold water on their passion. Of course. What was she thinking? She’d regret it tomorrow. Jett knew she would.
She never, ever intended to be in his life again, let alone his bed.
“We know we’re not a good couple.” She reasoned out loud. “Failed once, why try again? You didn’t even write me a note when the other society members did. After I broke my arm.”
“Yeah, well, what could I say on paper that I couldn’t say to you in person? Why, exactly, are we wrong for each other?”
“Do you not remember the last two years of our marriage? I mean, other than for carnal pleasures, we hardly spoke.”
“Yeah, carnal pleasures. Not speaking. Unless . . .” The heat and possibility of his “unless” awakened the rest of her yearnings. “We could, say, take a break from our divorce and—”
“Take a break?” His suggestion intrigued her. But wait, what course would she be taking? No, this was temporary insanity. An emotional response to her physical desires.
“Wilder.” An angry voice battered the front door. “Did you leave your trash on the sidewalk?”
“Lexa?” Jett remained fixed on her.
“Jett, I, um, I don’t know.” But her rapid pulse knew. Yes. Please.
“Wilder! I’m coming in. I know you’re there.”
Jett released a mild expletive and beelined from the room.
“Settle down, I’m coming.”
Lexa slumped, listening.
“Dogs . . . all over. Pop . . . crusts.”
“All right, all right, you’re right. When Lexa got hurt I just ran inside. I’ll clean it up.” Jett’s voice faded as he exited the apartment.
With an exhale, Lexa scooted to the end of the bed and tapped the door closed. Lying on her side, she tried to drift off, but her dreams stalled as her imagination replayed the motion and feel of Jett’s kiss, treasuring it over and over.
Chapter 16
Ed
He’d done it. Typed three pages. Yes, sir, he’d actually written down his life with Esmie.
Wasn’t much, mind you, just how her beauty knocked him sideways when he first saw her outside the Winter Garden theater.
Luckily for him, the co-op was relatively calm all week, leaving him to peck out a bit of his story.
But as he made his way up the subway stairs to Fifth Avenue, terror sank into his old bones.
Could he share something so holy? What if they laughed? Or worse, smiled politely and muttered, “How nice.”
How nice? Would they not feel the love and passion? Last thing he wanted was for anyone or anything to spoil his memories.
By the time he walked through the Bower doors, Lexa had spread out her dinner. Soup and salad.
For pity’s sake. How’d she expect him to muster up courage on soup and salad? The light fare put him in mind of Mabel’s pasta. He never did join her for leftovers. What he wouldn’t give now for a rib-sticking, hearty meal.
“
Evening, all.” Ed set his briefcase in his chair with a nod at Chuck.
“Lexa, I figured you’d bring a couple of ZB Burgers.” The big guy took up a paper plate and stared at the rabbit food.
“Me too,” Ed said.
“Sorry,” Lexa said, stabbing at her lettuce with an awkward left hand, trying to balance the plate with the fingers of her right. “I was hankering for Hale and Hearty’s soups.”
“Sorry? They should apologize to you, Lex.” Coral shot Ed and Chuck a look. “She is our wounded sister, boys. Be nice.”
“Wounded yes, but she had this delivered from GrubHub. Lex, couldn’t you have picked ribs or something?”
“No one said you had to eat it, Chuck.”
“You tell him.” Coral swatted him with her plate, the color of love, or at least a crush, on her cheeks. Ed saw the same on Holly when she brought Brant home the first time.
What have we here?
“How was everyone’s week?” Jett carried a bowl of steaming soup and a dripping bottle of water to his chair. “Any stories to tell?”
“No.”
“None.”
“Not me.”
Well, a fine story society they were turning out to be. No one but Ed had a story to tell? Filling his plate with the garden salad mix, he determined not to go first. Someone else would have to burp up a tale or two before he led them down his memory lane.
“How was your week, Lexa?” Coral said, taking her seat, balancing her plate on her lap.
“Boring. I’m home all day.”
Well, well, another cloaked glance? Darn if Ed didn’t see something in her expression when she looked at Jett.
“Watching any good soaps?” Ed worked the salad tongs and loaded his plate. “My Esmerelda loved All My Children.”
“Soap operas? No. I try to read but end up falling asleep. I read work email but since I can’t type any replies, I end up frustrated. I finally called Zane today and talked for two hours, telling him what to do with some of the stuff going on. You’d think someone in the office would come up with a solution but it’s like they’ve lost their heads. They try to make it hard.”
“You are singing my song, Lexa,” Coral said.
“You’re supposed to be resting.” Chuck poked at his salad, knocking a piece of lettuce to the floor.
