by Jamie Knight
“Duly noted,” I told her.
This Halloween party was truly perfect. The only thing that could have made it better would be if Mike were here and if we were together.
But I told myself that was a pipedream.
Chapter Thirteen - Mike
My fingers flew across the keys of my computer’s keyboard like a concert pianist, old reflexes reasserting themselves with a vengeance.
I was always the fastest typist in school and hadn't slowed down at all with age, helped in no small part by the fact that I used a computer to make my millions after a brief teenaged flirtation with hacking. I never got caught while crossing over into the dark side but it was close, even though I never did any real damage by design.
I was trying to test myself and my skills, not fuck people over. I was ambitious, not a complete asshole, no matter how many people claim that the previous statement is a distinction without a difference.
A close encounter with the local police that made me go out the window of an internet cafe, no way I would be dumb enough to use my own IP address in the days before solid VPNs, openly lying about my name when signing in at the front desk, made me decide to turn over a new leaf pretty fast.
It was also about this time that I was graduating high school and got accepted into the computer science program at college, so it worked out.
As I worked, I couldn't help but think about Sally and all that happened. Despite my guard being up, I really did like her and even missed her if I thought about it, though I tried not to too much. I also thought about Jessa, at least as far as what she said about how if she couldn't have me, she was glad that no one did or ever would.
Not only did it show her up to be the borderline psychopath I had been suspecting that she was, at least since our disaster of a breakup, but it also made me start to question everything about the encounter I had had with her. In retrospect, it seemed unlikely that the video was what it looked like.
I had a vague memory, somewhere in the back of my mind, of having seen Sally before, when Jessa was ordering cakes for her numerous parties. It seemed a bit of a stretch that this would lead to a big hug in greeting, but as far as I had seen, Sally was really sweet, and a hug might have been her instinct.
I started wondering if I might have been wrong about the whole situation but told myself not to be stupid. I had already been duped by Jessa and videos didn't lie, and maybe this was just my way of trying to pretend as if I hadn’t been screwed over by Sally.
I looked at my watch and decided to quit for the day. I couldn't really focus, and it was nearly the end of the workday anyway. Taking the silent elevator down to the lobby, I thought about what to make for dinner. I didn't have much back at my condo and would probably need to stop at the grocery store on my way home.
To say that I was surprised to find Reece in the lobby of the office building when I stepped off the elevator wouldn't be quite accurate. We had no plans to meet up and he certainly didn't have an appointment; I didn't even have to check to know this.
Popping up where he was needed was just something that he did sometimes. Like a fashionable guardian angel.
“Hey,” he said.
“What's up?” I asked, already able to tell that he was here for a reason, to talk to me about something – I just didn’t know what.
“How have you been doing?” Reece asked.
“Fine,” I said.
“There's no need to lie. I really want to know,” Reece said.
“Really?”
“You were a no-show at the Halloween party. I haven’t heard from you in what feels like ages in friendship time. And I just know something’s up. How long have we known each other?” Reece asked.
“Okay, fair point. I guess I'm okay.”
“That's good to hear,” Reece said, not making it clear if he was joking or not, “how are you feeling about Sally?”
“What about her?” I asked, deflecting.
“Come on, man, I know you two broke up, or whatever happened,” Reece said.
“How – wait, don't tell me, Gia.”
“Good guess,” Reece said.
“What did Sally say?”
“I don't know her exact words. I wasn't actually there. I only know what you told me about the video with Jessa and the pieces that Gia told me after the fact. The gist of which was that there is some pretty nefarious shit going on.”
“What kind of nefarious shit?” I asked.
“Again, I don’t know a lot of the specifics but I know that Sally isn’t a happy camper about losing you.”
I had to admit – that made my heart race.
“I don't -”
“You know you have to talk to Sally, now, before you lose her. Jessa is messing with you. Both of you are about to make a big mistake.”
“You don't know that,” I protested.
“I know you; Gia knows Sally and you know Jessa. Think about it, man. You always go on about logic and how to find solutions. What was it that Sherlock Holmes used to say?”
“'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'”
“Right, which seems more probable? That Sally is a plant pretending to like you while fucking your brains out to get information to report back to Jessa, despite the fact she also fucked you when you showed up out of nowhere and she had nothing to gain or that Jessa, who has a history of being a Machiavellian schemer, now further empowered by her stolen control of On the Go, is setting you both up to hate each other and be unlovable due to a manufactured scandal?”
“Well, thanks for dropping by, and I'll think about things. See you at the next Ranger's game, yeah?” I said, deflecting like mad.
He was right of course, he usually was; we all figured that much out years ago, as stupid and addled as most of us were at the time, though I didn't want to admit it because then I would feel like an asshole. No one could call you an asshole if you didn't admit it.
“I get it,” Reece said, in that sage way of his, “really I do. All I ask is that you think about it. There was a similar mistake when I first met Gia and I almost lost her. Don't make the same mistake I did.”
Chapter Fourteen - Sally
It was coming again. A slow, cold, creeping feeling, like a zombie crawling out of the grave.
I had been sick for a couple of days. I didn’t know if I had the flu or something even worse. It only happened in the morning and I conferred with the calendar to make sure I hadn't missed my period.
Fuck.
I had.
By a quite a bit.
I had been so busy with work I hadn't really noticed.
I knew the condom broke that first time and we hadn't exactly been careful once I had told Mike I was on the Pill. I was on the Pill, but I guessed it had failed!
It was pretty obvious what was going on, whether I wanted to admit it or not, even to myself. I doubted Mike would have been over the moon to find out I was pregnant, especially since, for all I knew, he saw what we had had, before it all blew apart, as a fling.
And also because our whole relationship, or whatever it was, had started out at a baby shower where he was saying he had no interest in kids.
I really hoped, against all logic, that I was wrong and that I wasn't pregnant, though I couldn't help but imagine what our baby might look like. Neither of us were bad looking. Mike was quite beautiful actually and I thought our kid would be gorgeous.
I didn't think the Pill would have failed but that really would be just my fucking luck. Getting pregnant by a guy who was duped back to his super-villain of an ex-girlfriend.
If he actually, in fact, was. Gia seemed really surprised that Mike would get back with Jessa and from what I had pieced together about their past, I knew that Jessa could be a manipulative bitch who was very good at getting what she wanted, no matter what anyone else might want.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed reasonable that Mike would have
been tricked to going back to Jessa, if he did at all. Other than in the video, I had never seen them together and that was from the source that she owned and could have been doctored to give a particular impression. No, there was no real evidence they were together at all and actually some fairly compelling evidence that they weren’t, and that Jessa was lying just to fuck with us.
The lighting always got me. No matter how many times I went into a drug store, particularly one of the big box ones, I had to blink for a few seconds before I could see clearly. I knew this particular store pretty well, having been here before.
It never failed to surprise me how many different brands and styles of pregnancy tests there were. Condoms made sense. There were all kinds of considerations there. The function of a pregnancy test seemed a bit too straight forward to really account for such variety, particularly in terms of price range, which was almost comically large.
Getting what I deemed to be the simplest one, which also turned out to be one of the cheapest, based on a philosophical consideration more than an economic one, I went to the cashier and rang through, not really feeling the need to load up on a bunch of unneeded crap to try and disguise the purchase.
I told myself there was nothing wrong with buying a pregnancy test and I shouldn't have to feel any shame about it. Even if this was a completely unplanned pregnancy!
Not feeling any need to beat around the bush, I took the test as soon as I got home. Better to know and be able to prepare than the alternative. As I waited, I put on a kettle for some tea. No matter what the result, I was pretty sure I would need something to calm my nerves.
I knew that Americans were meant to drink coffee, but I also didn't give a shit. I was really never one to keep with the status quo, besides which, my dad was from Yorkshire originally and had brought his tea drinking habit with him to our shining shores.
My mother never really got it, but I loved the ritual of it. I would watch him set up the tea tray as the water boiled, setting out everything just so.
He advised me on the best biscuits for which types of tea and which of the liquids, milk or tea, to put in first. He was dead set against the addition of sugar to a nice cup of tea, or 'cuppa,' as he used to call it. Another on the list of dictums I disregarded during my twenty-three years of life.
The egg timer dinged and it was time to check the test. There were times when clarity was a curse more than a blessing. And this was one of those times.
There were no two ways about it. I was pregnant and it was Mike's. While I knew it was a questionable decision, I decided not to tell him. At least not right then.
I wasn't planning to tell anyone, not even Gia.
I needed time to think.
To consider things.
The information was still pretty new, even to me, and I needed time to digest. The situation was made even more complex by the fact that I had been in a similar situation with Gia recently when I was the first person she told that she was pregnant with Amber. She was conflicted about telling Reece and I had counseled her to tell him.
I said she would regret it if she didn't and besides, he had a right to know. She would no doubt mention this as evidence that I should tell Mike. The difference was that I could see that Reece was good, that he would support Gia and be there for her, even if Gia couldn't be.
Yes, he had lied by omission about his money, but it had been understandable, considering Gia's attitude at the time. Everything had worked out in the end. I knew no such thing about Mike. Not for sure, anyway.
And neither did Gia. She and Reece were happily married. There was no way she could understand my conflicted feelings about Mike.
The kettle started to scream in the kitchen. Putting the test back on the counter, I went to put it out of its misery. Making a cuppa more or less the way dad had taught me, and wishing that he or my mom were around to talk to about this particular predicament of mine, I sat down at the table, taking a long sip, the effect of the concoction instantly doing its work, calmness washing over me and making me physically relax.
I thought more about my dad then and what he would have thought of the whole situation. He had been a pretty clever man, in both the street smarts and the book sense arena, and he would likely have figured that Mike was being manipulated. I doubt he would have been thrilled about the exact circumstances of the whole thing coming about, but he would have been happy to be a grandad.
I really wished I could have called him then.
Chapter Fifteen - Mike
The turkey design on the Google home page was just one more reminder that Thanksgiving was upon us, although I didn't really feel like I had too much to be thankful for. I had been shutting myself off for weeks. Either in my office at work or in my condo working at my station.
I was starting to get what looked like prison pallor due to a lack of sunlight. I convinced myself it was to try and forget about Sally, doing what Reece had suggested, though I doubted he had meant to do it in quite that way, but it was, of course, bullshit. I knew what I was doing, even if I wasn't willing to admit it yet.
Thanks to Jessa, I was cutting myself off from my social life to keep from having to see her or Sally at social events. Jessa had made it clear that she knew where I was most of the time and Sally and I had a few too many friends in common not to bump into each other.
On the other hand, it might not be so bad if that happened. If we were to bump into each other, I mean.
I felt pretty bad about what had gone down and didn't feel quite right approaching Sally directly, but I still wanted to talk to her. I knew Reece had been right and there was no realistic way that Sally was a spy for Jessa.
Me suspecting that Sally was working for Jessa was exactly what Jessa had wanted. She had moved us like chess pieces in her sick, twisted game, and we had let her. I really hoped I would have been smarter than that but, like Ava liked to say, for a genius I could be really stupid sometimes.
That sister of mine was smarter than even she gave herself credit for – and she had a pretty healthy dose of self-esteem.
I was pissed off at Jessa for what she did but even more than that, I was mad at myself for falling for it so completely, for being so terrible to someone as sweet as Sally and cutting her out of my life because of a scheme from my super-villain of an ex who could give most spy masters a run for their money when it came to subterfuge.
Suddenly, the words of George Orwell came flooding back.
The bit about how rolling in the muck was not the best way of getting clean.
I had fucked up in the past – that much was for sure – but now I was overtaken by a new drive. Not one of anger against Jessa or even myself, but a more constructive one, aimed towards trying to make amends and setting things right if such a thing were still possible.
I thought about Sally’s beautiful eyes and luscious curves. Sure, my cock missed being inside her. But my hand also missed holding hers, as cheesy as that sounded.
I wanted to fuck her, to feel her pussy dripping wet for me and to know how much she had missed me. But I also wanted to laugh with her, to see her smile and to let her know just how much I had missed her, too.
Maybe it was too late.
She probably was too mad at me to give me another chance.
In the past, I would have said forget it. I didn’t usually put my heart on the line for a woman who might not be a sure bet.
But Sally wasn’t just any woman.
She was my woman and I wanted to claim her again and make sure she never left me this time, not due to Jessa’s shenanigans and not for any reason at all.
I grabbed my coat and called the limo company.
Chapter Sixteen - Mike
It was dark by the time I pulled up. The street was pretty jammed with cars and I had to have the limo park six blocks away from Catharine's brownstone. The length of the limo played no small part in the difficultly of getting a spot just the right size for that mammoth machine.
I made a note to myself to not ask for a stretched limo next time. They looked nice but had too many problems to make them worth dealing with.
It was a sterling example of automotive ballet as the driver got the limo in the gap between a Lexus and an Audi. Both were testaments to the upper class culture of the area, which had been freshly gentrified, anything even resembling a detached house being like gold in New York, even if they were in Brooklyn.
At least they were close to the bridge. You could actually see the Empire State Building from the street I was on.
“I'll call when I'm ready to go; go treat yourself to some coffee or something in the meantime,” I said to the driver as I got out of the backseat.
“Yes, sir,” the driver said, sounding rather happy with this.
I gave him a twenty to assist in this endeavor, thinking of it more as a tip than straight up charity. Reece was right, with what he always said. It did feel good to give back. At least a bit. And not just as a way to get a tax receipt. Which was also a nice upside but not the only reason to help one's fellow humans.
The limo eased out of the spot. Left to my own devices, I turned up the collar of my coat against the gathering chill and started the walk back to the brownstone. This interlude gave me ample time to run scenarios through my head about what might happen when I got there.
I had been asked to go to Catharine’s Friendsgiving dinner, but I had declined. I hadn't been in the headspace to deal with all the drama that I was sure would ensue if I showed up.
I wasn't sure how Sally might react but there were several possibilities and many of them were far from pleasant. Not that I blamed her, honestly. I had acted like a prick.
This was before Reece had come down to the office to talk some sense into me. I felt like a bit of a jerk for just showing up after saying no to the party, but I still hoped it would be okay.
I knew Ava would be fine with it. She likely already knew that I was coming, despite declining at first. Reece likely also wouldn't be surprised. They were the two people who knew me better than anyone.
