by Lizzie Shane
Lou was out of reach and through the door before Jack could do more than call after her. He cursed to himself and slapped on a smile for the kids, acting like everything was okay. Acting like he still had the first idea who he was and what he was doing here.
Chapter Fifteen
Lou sat in the limo, arms wrapped around her middle to hold the pieces of herself together as the children pushed their faces out of the open window and shouted Goodbyes and I-love-yous to their father, as if sheer volume equated to sincerity.
She’d managed not to cry in front of the kids so far and she wasn’t going to start now. Even if Jack had said the one thing she’d thought he would never say. Even if he’d made her feel like an uninvited guest in her own life.
He hadn’t apologized. Admittedly, she’d used the children as human shields to keep him at bay, never letting him close enough to say another private word to her, but it still stung that he’d let her leave with those words hanging between them.
His kids. She wasn’t the mother. She had no say.
Lou swallowed hard.
It didn’t matter. She was okay. She was fine. She just needed to get a grip. She couldn’t cry in front of the kids. She just had to hold it together through a limo ride, airport security, a four hour plane ride, and the forty minute drive from the airport to the house. Then she could break down.
No problem.
Thank God for Pixar. Lou didn’t know how she’d remembered to pick up the DVDs she’d set aside when she stormed out of the screening room, but she was glad she had when both kids were whining and resisting sleep on the flight. She got out the portable DVD player, popped in The Incredibles, gave them each a pair of headphones and fifteen minutes later they were both out.
She forced herself to wait another five minutes to sneak off to the airplane bathroom. Some turbulence bounced the plane a little as she was walking down the aisle and she looked back to make sure the kids were both still asleep before going the rest of the way.
She wrapped her arms around herself in the aisle, waiting for the Vacancy light to change color, so she could have five minutes of her own for a nervous breakdown. When the lock finally clicked back, she went through the excuse-me dance in the tight aisle, do-si-do-ing around the other passenger to get to the cramped bathroom.
She almost didn’t trust her reflection in the mirror.
Even her make-up was still in place. No one would know the love of her life had just destroyed her as only he could.
She closed her eyes—but those unfair Paul Newman blue eyes filled her mind’s eye, dark with anger, so she quickly opened them again.
Her gaze caught on the new haircut and low scoop of her top. She still looked good—for all her emotional turmoil—maybe even a little sexy.
For all the good it had done her.
Things between her and Jack were worse after her attempt at a vixen makeover. So much for seduction.
Who was she kidding? A mouse in vixen’s clothing was still depressingly mousey. A new haircut and new clothes didn’t make her brave. They just made her desperate.
Though there had been a moment in the screening room when she was sure the lure-him-to-love plan was working. For a minute there she had been convinced he was going to kiss her. She’d told him she loved him, come so close to explaining that it was more than just friend-love…
Then the intercom had broken the spell.
The fates were aligned against her.
And Lou wanted to maim the faceless intercom operator.
Everything had fallen apart from there. She’d wanted to confess her love and whisk him away from the show before he got sucked in any deeper with the Suitorettes, before they brainwashed him into love. But it wasn’t meant to be. All of her frustration had welled up and she’d said things she probably shouldn’t have and he’d said things she’d never be able to unhear.
And now she’d be gone all week. An entire week for the Suitorettes next door to work their wiles on him. And he was hardly going to be resisting their efforts.
And she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to be.
The way he’d spoken to her… he wasn’t her Jack anymore. If he ever had been. Perhaps she had been as bad as Missy, falling in love with a construct of her imagination, building the perfect man out of her dreams and pasting his image over Jack.
Maybe this was all for the best.
But why did for the best have to hurt so much?
Jack’s anger lasted until about five minutes after the limo had left with Lou and the kids in it. As soon as he simmered down, he immediately started regretting the words he’d thrown at her. By the time he was half-dressed for his romantic evening out, he was calling himself seven different kinds of scumbag idiot.
He knew Lou, knew the best way to hurt her, and had gone for the throat in a knee-jerk reflex. The week’s stresses had piled up on him. He’d been defensive and stressed out since he got to LA. Lou’s visit was supposed to make him feel better, but it had only made him feel more off-kilter. More confused. She’d been so different and he’d felt even more twisted and tangled than ever.
Then when Lou—the one person he could always count on to support him—attacked his choices, he’d lashed out without thinking. It was no excuse, but it was all the explanation he had.
He needed to call Lou. He needed to apologize. But by now she’d be at the airport, juggling the kids’ carry-ons through security. She may have already turned off her cell. He wouldn’t be able to grovel for at least four more hours, so he might as well suffer through date night with as much appearance of pleasure as he could muster.
Jack groaned as he knotted his tie. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the evening smiling for the cameras and wooing at the symphony.
Marcy was easy to be with and Missy was sweet, in an overeager puppy kind of way, but the person he needed to be with right now was Lou. He needed to set things straight between them before the poisonous words he’d said could hurt her any more than they already had.
“Jack?” Miranda’s voice cut through the door. “We’re ready for you, darling. I’ve got two gorgeous women and a private box at the symphony with your name on it.”
Jack cringed. His name was also all over the contracts requiring him to play along or else he would have told Miranda where she could shove that private box. “I’m on my way.”
The symphony was everything he thought it would be. Boring and boring, with a side of extreme boredom.
Sweet, curly-haired Missy perched on the edge of her seat, as if that would help her receive the music better, with her eyes closed and her head swaying slightly with the dips and swells of the song.
He glanced to his other side. Marcy leaned back in her chair, a small, amused smile curving her lips and her eyes locked on him. Also brunette, her hair was slightly lighter, slightly longer, and not as curly as it tumbled over shoulders left bare by her dress. “Having fun?” she whispered, with a sarcastic lift of one eyebrow. Her eyes twinkled like his boredom was a fabulous secret they shared.
Jack gave her a half-hearted grin—which was about all the enthusiasm he could muster. “Are you?”
Marcy tipped her head to one side, considering the question. “I am entertained,” she admitted. “Though the musicians can’t claim full responsibility for that. You, Mr. Perfect, are fascinating.”
She didn’t say it the way the other girls did—gushing with manufactured adoration. She sounded more like he was a puzzle she hadn’t quite worked out yet. No love or hate—real or fake—clouded her tone. Just curiosity.
Jack found himself leaning over the armrest toward her. “What’s so fascinating?”
Her smile grew a little, as if by asking he had passed some test. She leaned closer until they were inches apart. Her eyes were green, he noticed. Somehow he’d just assumed they’d be brown.
“You signed up for the show,” she whispered, “so clearly you want to be here. But right now, you look like you’re hoping a hole would open up
in the floor and swallow you. And I don’t think it’s just because you hate the music. You keep tossing glares at the pro—” Marcy caught herself. They weren’t supposed to mention the behind-the-scenes folks. Ever. “I just meant you look like you want to escape the whole experience. So which is it? Happy camper or inmate digging his way out with a spoon?”
Jack glanced at the cameraman hovering nearby to catch their intimate exchange. He could feel the segment producer’s gorgon stare on the back of his neck, but he didn’t turn to look at her. He took Marcy’s hand and smiled as he ran his thumb across the backs of her knuckles. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said, willing himself to mean the words.
Marcy leaned closer. For a moment, he thought she was going to kiss him and he had to force himself not to flinch away, but she just pressed her cheek against his so her lips were directly next to his ear.
“Liar,” she whispered, too low for the mics to catch.
Jack felt a genuine smile curling his lips. He really liked Marcy. No games. No pretense. And she wouldn’t let him get away with a damn thing. Just like Lou.
Jack’s smile faded. Had Lou and the kids landed yet? If he called her now, would she answer? The symphony felt like it had been playing forever, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or two. They were probably still in the air. Or baggage claim. And then she would be driving. The traffic around O’Hare was a nightmare, even on a Sunday night. He shouldn’t distract her while she was driving, but could he afford to wait until she got home? His hand slipped into his pocket, stroking the links of the gold charm bracelet.
“You’re gone again,” Marcy said, watching him from a distance of inches. “Where’d you go just now?”
Jack sighed and gave up hiding it. He didn’t want to be here. “I need to talk to my kids. There’s something I forgot to say.”
Marcy’s head tipped to the side in that considering way again. “I don’t think that’s all of it. You look… guilty.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re too perceptive for your own good?”
“All the time. Does that mean I’m right?”
Jack glanced back toward the producer. She was frowning. Internally, he shrugged. What the hell. They could edit this part out. “It’s Lou. My friend who helps me take care of the kids. My best friend. I said something stupid to her this afternoon as they were leaving.”
“Ah. And now you can’t sit still until you’ve made it right. That’s actually a pretty admirable trait—that you realize when you’ve fu— ahem, messed up and want to make it right. I know a lot of guys who would stand by their guns even knowing they’re in the wrong.”
“I doubt they’d do that if they were quite this far in the wrong.”
“Really screwed the pooch, did ya?”
He winced. “You know, this isn’t making me feel better.”
She grinned, unrepentant. “It’s not supposed to. You want to beat yourself up until you can make amends. I’m just helping.”
“You’re all heart.”
A mischievous smile quirked the corners of her mouth. “That’s what they tell me.”
A little huff of indignation from his other side reminded them both that they weren’t alone—even if they didn’t count the camera crew that crowded the box. Jack wasn’t sure whether Missy was upset because they were talking during her transcendent musical experience or whether she was in a tiff because he was ignoring her to favor Marcy. At the moment, he didn’t particularly care. He just didn’t feel like playing the game.
Marcy jabbed him with her elbow. “Put your arm around her,” she whispered low. “She’ll eat it up.”
Jack looked at Marcy questioningly, but she was already turning back to the symphony, feigning sudden interest in the current concerto. Strange girl.
He shifted in his chair, draping his arm along the back of Missy’s seat. Missy, who hadn’t budged from the tip of her chair all night, sighed happily and leaned back into the curve of his arm, proving she was definitely aware of her surroundings, no matter how entranced she seemed to be.
Jack slanted a look at Marcy out of the corner of his eye and caught her repressing a wicked little smile. For a moment, the I-shouldn’t-be-laughing-but-I-am expression reminded him sharply of Lou.
They were so much alike. Marcy even seemed to share Lou’s mild skepticism toward the entire process. He wondered if Marcy would be half as good a mom as Lou had been—before he’d essentially told her she had no right to have an opinion about his children. Dumbass.
As the orchestra finished a number and the audience surged to their feet in applause, Jack came slowly out of his chair to join the fanfare, wondering for the first time if the only reason he liked Marcy so much was because she reminded him so strongly of Lou.
Chapter Sixteen
When Lou’s plane landed at O’Hare, there was a message on her phone. She didn’t listen to it. She set the phone to silent and herded two cranky, sleepy kids through the maze-like airport toward baggage claim, trying to remember where she’d parked the Focus.
She didn’t check the phone again until she had the kids home, in their pajamas, brushing their teeth like zombies, already half asleep. When she flipped open the phone, it immediately lit up with four new messages.
Four.
All from Jack.
Lou held her breath. That was good, wasn’t it? He still wanted to talk. He wouldn’t call five times if he just wanted to tell her to get the hell out of his house and drop the kids at their grandparents’ on her way. Would he?
Lou herded Emma and TJ into their beds, the need to listen to her voicemail burning inside her. She would have broken the speed record for cover-tucking—forehead kiss, fast-forward through the lullaby, nightlight on, overhead light off—but just as she was pulling Emma’s door shut behind her, a soft voice piped up from the bed.
“Aunt Lou?”
Lou froze with her hand on the knob, her cell phone burning like a hot coal in her pocket. “Yes, baby?”
“I miss Daddy.”
Lou’s heart dropped. She’d been expecting this. Frankly, she was surprised Emma and TJ hadn’t felt their father’s absence sooner. Of course it would have to be now. When Lou was exhausted, frustrated, hurt and angry with Jack. When the last thing she wanted was to sing the long-distance praises of Emma’s daddy.
Lou pushed the door back open, ignoring the siren call of the cell phone in her pocket, and moved to perch on the edge of Emma’s bed. “He misses you too, sugar.” She brushed the baby-fine hair off Emma’s forehead. “There’s nowhere he’d rather be than with you.”
“Then how come he doesn’t come home?” Emma mumbled, burrowing down under the blankets until they covered everything from the nose down, Fluff Muffin peeking out beside her, pressed against her cheek. Heart-stopping blue eyes gazed out from her rounded baby face. Em had gotten Gillian’s dark hair, but the eyes were all Jack.
“He has to stay for the show, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking of you every minute.”
“Why does he have to do the show?”
Trust Emma to ask the simplest unanswerable questions. “He…” Words failed her.
What could she say? That Jack didn’t really have to do the show. Lou wasn’t even sure in her own mind about his motives anymore. If she had ever been. How could she explain it all to Emma? A reality TV show was never a need.
“Is it to get a new mommy?”
Her heart stuttered. Had Jack told Emma that? Lou couldn’t refute it. “Maybe. But not just any mommy will do for you guys, so he has to stay a while and make sure she’s the right one.” Uncertainty snaked through her thoughts. Was that the right thing to say? Dr. Spock didn’t exactly cover this part of parenting. Suddenly Lou wished for Jack, someone to talk to about the tricky parts, but his words from that afternoon haunted her.
Had he just lashed out? She didn’t want to hold a grudge about words spoken in anger, but what if he’d really meant it? Had she hallucinated all th
e team parenting over the last four years?
She’d had a lot of time to think on the plane ride home. Maybe too much. She was sure Jack hadn’t meant to hurt her with what he said in the screening room. His temper so rarely came out she sometimes forgot how he reacted when he felt cornered. And she hadn’t exactly been careful with her accusations.
Not that her words were any excuse for making her feel like an imposter in her own life. She was going to make him beg before she forgave him for that crack about her not having any say in the kids’ lives.
Provided he even wanted to beg. The show had some strange hold over him. Who knew what advice Miranda and the Suitorettes were feeding him?
“Aunt Lou? Can we call Daddy to say good night?”
Any other night Lou would have called Jack and had him sing an off-key lullaby to Emma, but tonight she didn’t know what kind of reception would meet her call. If they were going to have a fight, she wouldn’t let it be in front of Emma. So Lou made a stern face and tucked Emma in tighter. “Do we make phone calls after bedtime?”
“No,” Emma grumbled, the covers slipping down just enough to reveal a pout.
“Tell you what. We’ll call him as soon as you get home from school tomorrow. And the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner tomorrow will come. Okay?”
Emma’s nod took her back under the covers, nearly to her eyebrows. Lou smoothed her curls one more time then shifted on the edge of the bed, getting ready to stand. A tentative whisper stopped her.
“Aunt Lou?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Don’t you want to be the mommy anymore?”
“Oh, baby.” Only Emma could shatter her heart so completely. “I will always love you and TJ. I will always want to be with you and look after you. I’m always going to be here for you, baby, no matter what. But… things are going to be different when Daddy gets home.”
Everything would be different. She could only hope that Jack wouldn’t be completely changed.
“Why different?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Lou sighed. “Sometimes different is wonderful. You don’t ever have to be afraid of change, okay, Em? Daddy and I are always gonna love you and be here for you.” Just not together.
