by Maretta, L
Adrianna knocked on the door several times before she pulled out the key Jack had given her. Her heart tightened when she found him passed out, face down on his couch, an empty bottle of whisky on the floor beside him. She hurried to his side and knelt down, relieved that he was still breathing and hadn’t drunk himself into a coma. She roused him from sleep slowly by running her fingers through his hair and kissing the side of his face.
“Jack,” she spoke softly into his ear. “Wake up, Loki.”
Jack shifted and finally opened his blue eyes that were watery and bloodshot. Upon seeing Adrianna at his side, he grinned lazily and mumbled, “Hey, gorgeous.”
“How do you feel?” Adrianna asked him, still stroking his head and scratching his scalp. Jack loved when she did that.
“Like shit,” he grumbled, feeling like something had made a racket in his head all night and then curled up and died in his mouth.
Taking the empty bottle from the floor and placing it on the coffee table, Adrianna said, “I would imagine. Are you okay?”
Jack nodded and then brought his hand out to pull Adrianna’s head to rest against his. He closed his eyes again and breathed in the scent of her hair, letting it consume him until he felt he could sit up. Adrianna helped him to his feet where he swayed and so she put an arm around his waist and ducked under his arm. She helped him to his bathroom where she deposited him on the lid of the toilet and then turned his shower on. As she helped him undress, Jack laughed, “The tables have turned, huh?”
“Shh,” Adrianna answered and then knelt down to remove his black Timberland boots and socks. When she had him fully naked she helped him stand again to get him in the shower. Before she closed the curtain, Jack, forgetting about his rank breath, pressed his lips against Adrianna’s.
“I’m sorry I took off last night,” he apologized. “I needed to be alone.”
“It’s okay,” Adrianna assured him, not bothered at all that he kissed her. She loved him. As she collected his clothes from the bathroom floor she called out to him, “Did you want something to eat?”
Jack, who swore the cure to a nasty hangover was greasy food and sugary drinks, asked her to run to McDonalds to get him a sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin and a coke. Thinking he would have asked for just some toast and coffee, Adrianna wrinkled her nose but promised him she would be right back with his breakfast.
When she returned to his apartment fifteen minutes later, Jack looked much better. He was on his phone at the kitchen table, his hair still wet from his shower, dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and a white, sleeveless undershirt. Adrianna went to sit in the chair at his side but he pulled her into his lap where she brought her knees up, curling into his body. Her head rested against him while he spoke, his deep voice vibrating in his chest and Adrianna wondered sadly if they were cursed. The majority of their relationship had been plagued by drama and she hoped, after this, they’d be free from it for a while.
“Kenny and Joe are okay with running the bar for another few days,” he told Adrianna when he hung up the phone. “That was my sister again and she’s been taking care of all the arrangements this morning. She gave me hell for not calling her back last night.”
“Are you and your sister close?”
“Not really,” Jack told her. “My sister is kind of...cold. She’s not very compassionate and she doesn’t have tolerance for weaknesses. She stopped talking to my father long before I did.”
“That’s sad for her,” Adrianna mused. She couldn’t imagine anyone related to Jack could be anything but understanding and loving. It must have been a trait he shared with his mother.
“Anyhow, there’s going to be a viewing Monday and then the funeral will be on Tuesday. I’m going to drive down there later on today.” Not having the words to comfort him, Adrianna just squeezed Jack around his middle and kissed his chest. “Would you come with me?” he asked her.
Pain crossed over Adrianna’s features. Now that Jack was asking her for something she couldn’t give it to him. “I have my interview on Monday morning.”
“Oh shit, I forgot,” he breathed. “It’s okay.”
Turning in his lap, Adrianna looked into his sad eyes, her heart breaking a little more. “Maybe I can call them and reschedule for later in the week.”
“No,” Jack insisted. “You can’t do that, you know it wouldn’t look good and this is important.”
Adrianna thought for a while and then said, “I’ll come down Monday after the interview. I’ll take a train or a bus.”
“It’s a three hour drive, Ade,” he sighed, shaking his head. “That means it could take up to five on a train or bus, I don’t want you to have to do that.”
“Then I’ll rent a car and drive myself,” Adrianna insisted.
“No, it’s okay.”
“Jack, I want to be there for you! Please, let me do this,” she begged. After all he had done for her she at least wanted to help him on the day he was going to bury his father.
Seeing her distress, Jack smoothed his fingers over the wrinkles in her forehead and relented. “Okay.”
They ate their breakfast in silence; the both of them too lost in their own thoughts to carry on a conversation.
Jack sat uncomfortably in his navy suit and stared at the mahogany casket that contained the remains of his father. Even though he knew he was dead, he stared at his chest, waiting for it to rise and fall with a breath. Looking at a body, lying so still and pale, was unnerving no matter who it was, but being that it was Jack’s father disturbed him all the more. He had been upset when he learned his sister had chosen to have an open casket; he wanted to remember his father as strong and lively. Now when he closed his eyes and thought of his dad he would picture the waxy looking shell of a broken man.
When he arrived at his father’s house in his hometown just outside of Springfield, Jack’s sister regarded him coolly, reminding him of a Stepford wife. Her hair that was much lighter than his was twisted up on the back of her head and even though they weren’t going anywhere, she was dressed in a pink skirt and white blouse. She had flown in from Wisconsin alone, choosing to leave her two daughters at home with their father. When Jack asked her why, she had said there was no point in bringing his nieces or brother-in-law to the funeral of a man they barely even knew. She was going to fly home to them Wednesday morning.
Jack was comforted by his mother, who was also at his father’s house with her live-in boyfriend Denny. She was really the one who needed comforting though, crying on her son’s shoulder and apologizing to him.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she had wept, tears falling from eyes as blue as Jack’s. “I begged your father for years to get help, you know that, don’t you?”
“I know, Mom,” Jack had murmured, rubbing his mother’s back soothingly. “We all tried to help him.”
He sat in the front row of wooden, padded chairs reserved for the family of the deceased while his mother held onto his hand and kept wiping at her eyes. For the last hour and a half, friends and relatives passed by them to offer condolences, while Gillian stood at the casket greeting the mourners. Seeing her there in her black dress and pearls as she smiled sadly at the kind words being spoken to her, Jack wanted to punch his sister in the face. How was he related to anyone so phony?
Looking at his watch, he saw there was another half hour left of the viewing and then another hour before Adrianna was due to arrive at his father’s house. Man, he really wanted to see her. He had missed her since leaving Saturday afternoon and even though he knew it was a bother for her to rent a car and drive all the way down there, he was glad she was doing it.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Jack sat down at the old patio set on the deck behind his father’s house. He had shed his jacket in the living room and now loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top buttons of his white shirt, feeling like he was now able to take a breath for the first time that day. Leaning back in his chair and relaxing a fraction, he took a sip of beer and was g
lad for some alone time before Adrianna was due to arrive. Watching the setting sun disappear behind the line of trees, Jack finally felt a semblance of calm for the first time in three days. The feeling didn’t last long, however, because Gillian joined him just a few minutes later.
“What do you want to do with Dad’s house and things?” she asked, cutting right to the chase.
With a heavy sigh, Jack told her, “I don’t know, Gillian.”
“Well, it’s something we have to think about, Jack, it’s not just going to take care of itself.” Gillian kicked her heels off and put her feet up on a chair and then took a sip from the glass of red wine she had poured for herself.
“It’s not something we have to think about right this second,” Jack insisted, the annoyance clear in his voice.
“I have to get back to my children on Wednesday,” she replied tightly. “This isn’t something I can just put off.”
“Jesus, Gillian,” Jack exclaimed. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll take care of it, sell all of Dad’s shit and then send you a check!” He took another sip of his beer and then slammed the bottle down on the glass tabletop, resisting the desire to punch his sister once again.
“Take it easy,” she urged, her voice more gentle now. “I don’t want to fight, Jack. I’m sorry; this just came at a bad time. Sophie is sick with an ear infection and Mark-”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack interrupted, not having even the faintest amount of patience to listen to his sister complain. Her husband, Mark, owned a boat design and manufacturing company and made millions. Even with a full time nanny and cook, Gillian still found ways to gripe about her life and Jack was in no mood to hear it.
Gillian sat quietly for a minute and tried to sympathize with her little brother. She knew he was going to take their father’s death badly. Jack may have stopped talking to their father like she did, but unlike her, he felt badly about it. It’s not that she wasn’t at all sad about his death, but Gillian had cut herself off emotionally from her dad years ago.
“So, your girlfriend is coming down tonight?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood with small talk.
“Yes, and so help me, Gillian, you better be nice to her,” Jack threatened, fixing his cold, blue eyes on her hazel ones.
“Of course I’ll be nice, what do you take me for?” she huffed. Gillian knew she was a lot of things but rude to people she just met wasn’t one of them. “Although,” she added with a laugh, “I have to know, what’s wrong with her?”
“What the hell do you mean?” Jack spat.
“You know what I mean,” Gillian insisted. She cocked her head to the side and gave her brother a knowing look.
“No, I don’t know what you mean, what the hell are you talking about?” Jack could feel his blood pressure rising with each word he said and angry adrenaline started to pump through him.
“I mean,” Gillian explained with a roll of her eyes, “that you always find girls who are troubled, to say the least. You have a hero complex, little brother.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he repeated, his voice rising along with his anger.
“Oh, come on,” his sister laughed, clearly ignoring the fact that she was upsetting her brother. “You’re always looking to save someone, Jack, and your relationships have always been full of drama.”
“That is not true, you don’t know what the hell you’re saying,” Jack seethed.
“Really? Let’s put aside the girls you dated in high school; teen girls are always full of drama but even as an adult, Jack, girlfriends and friends, you are forever taking it upon yourself to fix them somehow. Look at Stacy, she had all those problems with her ex stalking her and you took care of it. When the trouble died down you two broke up. I hate to tell ya, Jack, but you thrive on drama. You’re like a drama king.” Gillian laughed at her joke while Jack just got more furious.
“That’s one example, that hardly gives me a hero complex,” he growled.
“Whatever,” Gillian snickered, “but if you think back to all of your relationships with other people, you’ll see that I’m right. Even with Dad, Jack, you wanted to save him, and when he wouldn’t play into your little rescue fantasy, you gave up on him!”
Jack violently stood from his chair, knocking it over before slamming his fist on the table in front of him. Gillian shrank back in her chair with wide eyes as the glass splintered.
“I tried to help our father who was slowly killing himself with drugs, which is more than I can say for you,” he fumed. “And I’d rather have a reputation for being a hero than a cold, heartless bitch. You’re so wrapped up in playing house with your rich husband that you’ve become numb to anything that doesn’t suit a purpose in your life and it’s sickening, Gillian. You’re compassionless and empty and sad.” Jack looked down at his sister with disgust and fury. “Do me a favor,” he continued through clenched teeth, “stay the fuck away from me and Adrianna until you leave!” Jack picked up the patio table so that two of its legs rose from the wooden deck below and slammed it back down. Gillian had to jerk her legs quickly out of the way before glass rained down on them.
With another curse, Jack stormed away from his sister, jumping off the deck and moving around the side of the house in long strides. He didn’t know why what his sister said had gotten him so riled up and that only angered him even more. Now at the front of the house, he kicked the garage door, effectively putting a dent in the aluminum. He paced on the driveway until he calmed down a bit and then sat on the step leading to the front door.
Jack did know why he was so angry. He was wondering if what Gillian said was true. Were Adrianna’s troubles what had attracted him to her? Did their relationship flourish because he felt that she needed him to save her? Did he really have a hero complex? The thought that he really did thrive on drama made him sick to his stomach. Before he could even dismiss the idea, Adrianna’s car pulled onto the driveway.
Exhausted and aching from the long ride, Adrianna climbed wearily from the rented, white Impala. As tired as she was, she looked forward to being swept into Jack’s arms and feeling his lips against hers. She was also excited to tell him about her interview. Unfortunately, Jack only greeted her with a hello and a quick peck on her cheek before he reached into the back seat to get her bags. Adrianna was a little disappointed but figured Jack was probably tired and stressed.
She followed him into his father’s home that was a small brick house with two stories and three bedrooms on the second floor. The front room was pretty bare, with only an old, sectional sofa and a television mounted above the fireplace. Jack led her into the kitchen where he placed her bag at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor and then leaned back against the yellow countertop near the sink.
“Are you hungry?” he asked quietly. “There are cold cuts if you want me to make you a sandwich.”
Before Adrianna could answer they were interrupted when Gillian came down the stairs. She looked upset and was carrying her luggage. Adrianna quickly took notice that she looked nothing like Jack, with hair much lighter and eyes that were darker. She was attractive with a slim frame and a slight grace to her but she wasn’t nearly as alluring as her brother.
“You must be Adrianna,” she smiled, though it did not reach her eyes. “I’m Gillian.”
She stuck out her hand and Adrianna accepted it. She shook it gently and offered, “It’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry about your father.”
Gillian thanked her and then said, “I’m going to let you two have some privacy and go stay at Mom’s.” Looking at Jack she added, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jack only nodded, his jaw clenched shut, and Adrianna wondered what had transpired before her arrival. She was sure something unpleasant had been exchanged between the siblings and whatever it was had Jack in a mood she had never seen. It was unsettling.
Gillian exited the house quietly and Adrianna looked at Jack willing him to come clean to her. Instead he asked her again if she
was hungry.
“No, I’m fine,” she told him. She moved to stand in front of him and pulled at his arms that were crossed tightly at his chest. She guided them around her and pressed herself against his body, inhaling deeply before placing a kiss to his throat. “Are you okay?”
Jack sighed and relaxed a fraction at Adrianna’s proximity. Feeling sorry that he hadn’t given her a proper greeting, he tightened his arms around her and claimed her lips when she looked up at him. As he kissed her he felt the same desire course through him that always did and it comforted him to know that his sister had to be wrong. There was more to Adrianna that he was attracted to than just her problems. The evidence was right there; singing in his blood as her tongue moved against his, pounding in his chest as her small hands clutched his hips.
