Half of Me

by J. M. Paul

  He intently holds my gaze, searching for something I’m not certain he’ll find. I’m not sure I have anything to give in this moment.

  “Trust me.” His voice is deep and throaty, expressing without words how badly he wants this between us.

  Before I let myself think too much, I nod. I do trust Jacob. With everything inside me, I truly believe he’ll never try to purposely hurt me. And, right now, I need someone on my side who will fight for me, not against me.

  Jacob grins before he grabs my face in his hands and crushes his mouth to mine.

  CHAPTER 27

  * * *

  SISTERS BEFORE MISTERS

  “And the Furious Foursome becomes the Three Stooge-ettes,” Liz says when I slide into the opposite side of the booth from her and Maya.

  “Cam will be here in a little while.” I peel off my raincoat and shove my purse and umbrella in the corner.

  “Yeah, but she’s a baby mama now. She’s on a different tier of life than the three of us.” Liz winks at me.

  “Jos is playing house with a rich baby daddy and his two kids. Doesn’t that put her on the same tier as Cam?” Maya’s dark eyes stare at me without a trace of humor in them.

  Maya has been a little cold toward me lately, but when I broach the subject, she always shoots it down, claiming nothing’s wrong. I don’t believe her because our friendship has never been this chilled before.

  “Nah. Jos can walk away anytime she wants. Cam’s stuck for life.” Liz refreshes her lipstick and then smacks her lips together.

  Liz’s words are a fist to my gut. It’s true; I’m not legally bound to Jagger and Jenna, but my heart is completely lost to them and to their father. But, just as Liz said, I can walk away anytime, but the same is true about Jacob. If he leaves, not only will I lose the man I’m pretty sure I’m starting to fall in love with, but I’ll also lose the children I’m already head over heels for. The knowledge of that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “If you think that’s true, you obviously don’t know Jos very well.” Maya lifts her brows at Liz and takes a drink of what I assume is a Long Island iced tea.

  A pretty blonde waitress stops by the table to ask me, “Can I get ya something to drink?”

  “I’ll have a gin and tonic with a lime, please,” I answer.

  “Old lady drink.” Liz tries to make her words sound like a cough.

  “Screw you.” I smirk.

  Liz sticks out her tongue.

  “How’s the apartment coming along?” I question Maya.

  She signed on for a place of her own a few months ago. I’ve been over to see it a few times, but she’s still in the process of decorating and finding the furniture she wants.

  Maya shrugs, scraping her nail along the jagged edge of the wooden table.

  “Really? Is this how dinner’s going to go? Because, if so, I don’t know why I’m here.” I sit back against the seat and cross my arms over my chest.

  “Yes, to what do we owe the honor of your presence?” Maya glares at me.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I slap my hand against the table.

  Liz jumps when my palm meets the surface but remains quiet.

  “How about the fact that you can barely carve time out of your busy pretend-mommy-slash-porn-star-girlfriend schedule to talk to or see your friends?” Maya snarls.

  “Were you or were you not the one who pushed for me to start playing with Jake and his snake?” My brows jump, and I peer at her.

  The waitress drops off my beverage, and her eyes widen when she hears the end of my statement.

  “Can I have another drink, please?” Maya asks the waitress.

  “I’ll have another, too.” Liz lifts her glass.

  “Sure thing.” The girl heads in the direction of the bar.

  “Well?” I question, not letting Maya off the hook.

  “Yes, I was, but I never thought it would come at the expense of your friendships. What happened to the sisters-before-misters motto we all had?” Maya spins the straw around the ice in her empty glass.

  Liz’s eyes bounce back and forth between me and Maya. I have the urge to ask her if she’d like a bowl of popcorn but think better of it.

  “It still remains true. You guys are my family and mean the world to me.” My eyes bounce between Maya and Liz.

  “You have a funny way of showing it,” Maya grumbles.

  I sit forward, placing my elbows on the table. “My, if you haven’t noticed, school is kicking our asses this semester. Added to that is our grueling work schedule and the fact that I’m trying to be a nanny to two grieving children and flourish a new relationship. It’s all a little much. I know I’ve been slacking on the communication lately, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t think about you and wish we had more quality time together.”

  The waitress drops off Liz’s and Maya’s drinks.

  “I understand you’ve been busy, but it’s not an excuse.” Maya mixes her new beverage.

  “It’s not, and I apologize for being a shitty friend. I promise to try harder, if you promise to cut me some slack, like I’ve done for you several times in the past.” I tip my head at both Maya and Liz.

  Maya brings her Long Island iced tea to her lips and watches me as she swallows. A small smile pinches her mouth. “Bitch, please. You had me way back in our convo when you said the word family.”

  I shake my head and let out a deep laugh.

  “I love you.” I reach across the table and clutch her hand.

  “I love you, too.” Maya winks.

  “I love you both, but this is starting to feel like Taco Tuesday instead of Sausage Saturday…if you know what I mean.” Liz jiggles her brows.

  “As if you left any room for doubt,” Maya grumbles.

  “Hey, novias,” Camila interrupts.

  “Wowza. Sexy mama.” I whistle as Camila sits down next to me. “New dress?”

  She’s wearing a low-cut red number that sets off her bronzed Latino skin and showcases her girls.

  “It deserved me.” She smirks and tosses her long dark hair behind her shoulder. “Plus, thanks to breast-feeding, look at these things.” Camila pushes her breasts closer together. “I make this dress look good.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see the kid hasn’t sucked the ego out of you,” Liz chimes in.

  The four of us are chuckling when the waitress sidles up to the table. “Refills on drinks?”

  “I’ll have another G and T, please,” I tell Blondie.

  “I’m good,” Maya says.

  “Me, too,” Liz seconds.

  “I’ll have water.” Camila sets her purse in between us on the bench. When she glances up and notices the three of us staring at her, she freezes. “What?”

  “It’s girls’ night out, and you’re drinking water?” Liz scrunches her face in disgust. “Alcohol is standard practice.”

  “Uh, hello? Breast-feeding.” Camila points at her engorged tatas.

  “Can’t you pump and dump?” Maya asks.

  “I could, but I barely make enough milk to satisfy Josia, so I don’t want to…” Our zoned-out expressions must clue Camila in to our disinterest of her cow udders. “And you guys don’t care about that.”

  I take her hand in mine. “It’s not that we don’t care—”

  “Uh, we don’t. Tonight, we pretty much do not want to hear anything that has to do with your Mamaville speak.” Liz takes a long sip of her drink.

  I glare at Liz, and Camila flips her off.

  “And she’s back.” Maya smiles at Camila.

  We order a few more rounds of drinks as we catch up on what’s been going on in everyone’s lives. When the waitress takes our order, Liz, Maya, and I all request a cheeseburger. Camila orders a salad.

  “What the hell?” I pucker my lips in revulsion. “A salad? What? Are we on a first date?”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny.” She slaps her menu closed and hands it to Blondie, who has been an excellent waitress. “My boobs might lo
ok great, but this double chin doesn’t.”

  She points at her neck, and I see nothing of the extra skin she speaks about.

  “Blah.” Maya waves her hand. “Haven’t ya heard? Double chins are the new thigh gap.”

  “Yes.” Liz pumps her fist in the air. “You can now admire this double bubble thigh gap of goodness.” She flaps her finger back and forth against the skin under her chin like it’s a violin.

  Maya arches a brow. “You need to aim higher, Cam.”

  We all laugh.

  “So, I have some news.” The alcohol circling in my blood has me willing to share a big chunk of my newly discovered family history with the three girls who mean everything to me.

  “Don’t tell me you and Jake are engaged.” Maya sits forward.

  “Uh, no.” I shake my head. We’re nowhere near ready for that.

  “Has either of you said I love you?” Liz widens her eyes.

  “No,” I say slowly.

  “Are you there yet?” Camila touches my shoulder.

  “I feel like I’m getting ready, but I have no idea where his head’s at.” I flail my hands in front of me. “Stop. This isn’t where I was taking the conversation.”

  “Are we finally going to get the deets on Jake’s bedroom antics? I bet he’s a dominant son of a bitch, isn’t he? All his old-man skills are what’s keeping you from coming out of the cave.” Maya pumps herself against the bench.

  “Ew.” Liz bats at Maya.

  “He’s only thirty-one,” I snap.

  “Old man,” Liz mumbles into her drink.

  “Can we please stop?” I scowl. “This is important.”

  “You shouldn’t have let Tweedledee and Tweedledum”—Camila waggles her finger between Maya and Liz—“consume alcohol if you wanted to go serious.”

  Maya clears her throat and sits up, straightening an imaginary tie. Liz cackles at Maya’s antics and follows suit.

  “Are they going to start multiplying?” I grumble to Camila.

  “If they do, I’m fleeing, and you’re on your own,” she says under her breath.

  “Leave no man behind,” I remind her of our military’s motto.

  “I heard that.” Liz points at Camila and me.

  Camila puts her hands up in an innocent gesture.

  “Tell us your news, Jos,” Maya’s prompts me.

  “Do you remember those two boxes that were saved from the basement of my house?” I regard Maya.

  She lifts her eyes to the ceiling and taps her finger against her nose.

  I close my eyes and shake my head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Here we go.” The waitress starts putting food in front of us.

  After she’s done, we dig in, thankful for the sustenance.

  When we’re halfway through our plates, Maya says, “So, what’s up, Jos?”

  I point to the ketchup, and Liz passes it to me.

  “I started going through two boxes of my mom’s that were recovered from the fire. I’m going to make a very long story short.” I squeeze a hefty amount of the mouthgasm in a bottle onto my plate. “My mom kept journals, and in them, I discovered she had a baby girl who my parents gave up for adoption about seven years before they had me.”

  Gasps circle our table and then a round of “What?” and, “Wow,” and, “That’s crazy.”

  “Tell me about it.” I drag a French fry through the ketchup and pop it in my mouth. “It’s insane to think that I have a sister somewhere out in the world.”

  “Do you have any information on her?” Camila shoves a cherry tomato into her mouth.

  “I still have some paperwork to go through, but what I know for now is, she wrote my parents a letter saying she’d like to meet them, but to my knowledge, I don’t think they did.” I scratch my ear. “She graduated from U of M, so she was still in Michigan.”

  “Maybe she’s still in the state,” Maya says with a full mouth. “What year did she graduate?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. The letter wasn’t dated.”

  “How are you handling all this? It must be strange to find out you have a sibling when you’ve always wanted one.” Camila’s big brown eyes search mine.

  “I think the hardest part is figuring out why they gave her up but kept me.” I push my fries around on my plate.

  “Jos, I know it seems important to you right now, and I really hope you find your answers if you want them, but you can’t dwell on that. People make decisions for a million different reasons, and sometimes, they don’t even know why.” Liz reaches over the table to cover my hand with hers. “You were meant to have the life you have because there’s a bigger plan out there for you that required your circumstances to happen.”

  We pick at the rest of our meals, listening to the other patrons’ conversations, their laughter, the clinking of glasses, and silverware scraping across plates, until Maya breaks the silence sitting between all of us.

  “Damn, girl. Since when are you so great with advice?” Maya bumps Liz with her shoulder.

  “I told you the last time we hung out that I’m awesome. You obviously forgot.” She shakes her head.

  “Well, if we ever forget again, we know you’ll have no problem reminding us.” Maya playfully slaps her arm.

  “You know it, bitches,” Liz singsongs.

  And, just like that, my dejected mood is defused, and I’m just a normal twenty-three-year-old girl hanging out with her best girlfriends.

  CHAPTER 28

  * * *

  OCEAN OF WHAT-IFS

  I walk into Jacob’s house and wait for Jagger to come running to greet me at the door. He’s finally starting to break from his shell a little more and not just around me and Jacob, but also with friends and at school. It warms my insides to know he’ll more than likely be okay, that the last several months haven’t traumatized him to the point that he’s broken.

  Dropping my backpack to the floor, I shed my raincoat and hang it in the closet, noticing the house is uncharacteristically silent.

  “Hello?” I call down the hallway toward the living room and kitchen.

  No answer.

  What’s going on?

  This morning, Jacob and I discussed having dinner and watching movies with the kids when I got home from work. I expected hustle and bustle and excitement to fill the space, but it is the complete opposite.

  As I walk down the hallway from the foyer to the kitchen, my pulse beats heavily, blood rings in my ears, and my breathing quickens. Something feels off, but I can’t put my finger on what, besides the fact the house is too quiet and dark.

  “Jacob?” My voice is softer this time, not sure I want my presence to be known.

  The kitchen is empty as well. Standing in the middle of the living room, I’m at a loss for what’s going on.

  I reach for my cell phone in the pocket of my Mickey Mouse scrubs to text Jacob when I hear a noise toward the bedrooms. Worried something’s wrong with the kids, I trot down the hallway but find both Jagger’s and Jenna’s rooms empty.

  Where is everyone?

  Repetitive thumping sounds from the last door on the right. Creeping up to Jacob’s closed door, I turn my ear toward the barrier. I hear murmuring and another thud.

  I feel light-headed as visions of him standing in this exact position not that long ago flash through my mind. I think of how he must have felt right before he opened the door and found his best friend screwing his wife.

  He wouldn’t do that to me.

  But it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been cheated on.

  Red-hot liquid builds in my chest and spreads throughout my body. I clench one fist and turn the knob to swing the door open with the other.

  “What the hell is going—” I fall silent when I take in the scene before me.

  Jacob, who is standing in the middle of the room, turns toward me with his eyes wide, mouth hanging open, and a woman’s clothes in his hands. Low music floats through the air to mingle with the wafting vanill
a scent from various candles lit around the space.

  My eyes fly over to the big poster bed, but it’s flawlessly made and empty. There are sealed to-go containers littering the nightstand with an open bottle of wine and two glasses.

  “I wasn’t expecting you so early,” Jacob says, drawing my attention back to him. Twisting his wrist, he glances at his watch.

  “I can see that.” I step foot into the room. “What’s going on?”

  Moving over to his dresser, he sets the stack of clothes on the surface. I follow his every movement as he swaggers over to me, his hungry gaze eating up every inch of my curves.

  He stops in front of me, so tall and large. His blue eyes grab ahold of me, his tight grip now clenching my hips. He pushes his body into me until I’m pressed against the wall. Without a word, he fists his fingers in my hair, pulls hard until my face lifts to his, and slams his mouth down on mine.

  It’s dominant Jacob tonight. He’s my favorite.

  His tongue assaults me with such rolling passion, I can feel it all the way to my toes. His free hand slides up to roughly massage my breast, rubbing his thumb over my peaked nipple. His sudden attack is welcome and causes my heart to beat heavy and loud, my blood pumping hot and fast.

  Breaking our connection, he kisses a path down my neck to the slope where my shoulder starts, and then he licks up to nibble on the sensitive skin just under my earlobe.

  “Jacob,” I moan. Plunging my hands into his thick locks, I pull him back to me.

  This time, our tongues slide against each other’s at a slow and languid pace. The hard and soft skin of his lips both soothes and devours me, taking me completely under his spell.

  When Jacob slowly pulls away, he presses his forehead against mine, so our noses touch. Both of our chests are heaving, trying to settle ourselves down.

  When I finally catch my breath, I caress his cheek and rub my thumb over his bottom lip. He gently bites it, and it sets sparks zinging between my legs. He covers my hand with his and turns his head to kiss the center of my palm.

  “Mmm.” I briefly close my eyes. When I open them, the setting around us catches my attention. “What’s all this for?” I nudge my chin at the candles, food, and wine.