Do Over

by Serena Bell

  “Not with me,” I amend. Penelope Mills. Now the blonde with the shoes and the bra has a name, and it doesn’t make me feel any better.

  “With you,” Sienna insists.

  “So, here’s the part where you get up and walk out,” Lani says.

  “I’m not going to get up and walk out.”

  “No, because it’s not your style. You’re too nice. But you might want to after I tell you the rest.” Lani takes a big breath. “I messaged her. On FB.”

  “You—?”

  “I messaged Penelope Mills. We were never really good friends, but we are Facebook friends, and I figured given the situation it wouldn’t be too weird to ask her if she’d ever slept with Jack—”

  “You what?” I screech.

  “I asked her if she’d ever slept with Jack.”

  Lani looks like she wishes the floor would swallow her. And I’m mad enough that she’s probably right to wish it.

  “I can’t believe you!”

  But I’m gradually starting to calm down as I realize that they didn’t get me here and feed me a pink drink so they could tell me what I already know.

  Or believed I knew.

  And for the first time, it registers, what they were saying earlier. Jack is a mess. Drinking, sulking, not hooking up.

  Jack misses me.

  I feel a flutter of stupid but very real hope.

  “He was a mess after you left the first time,” Sienna says quietly. “He always said you caught him with someone else and that’s why it didn’t work out between you, but it never added up for me. I just felt like there was more to the story. So when Lani said she knew Penelope and she could ask her, I told her to do it.”

  “What—what did she say?”

  My voice is so small, I almost don’t recognize it.

  Lani lays her palm on the table in front of me. “Penelope went to Jack’s apartment to seduce him. I guess she started taking her clothes off, but he said he wasn’t interested. He said he was with you. He made her get dressed and he threw her out.”

  “That’s what you saw,” Sienna tells me triumphantly. “Penelope striking out.”

  Once again, I’m having a lot of trouble catching my breath.

  “But—”

  I try again. “But—I—he—why didn’t he just tell me that?”

  They’re both shaking their heads.

  “You’re sure. You’re sure Penelope wouldn’t lie about that?”

  Lani makes a scoffing noise. “There is no way Penelope slept with Jack. Penelope and I were very competitive in high school about our conquests, and if she had a chance to tell me she’d slept with Jack, she would have jumped at the opportunity.”

  My world is rearranging itself around me, and not in an entirely pleasing way. “He let me think—he was okay with me believing—”

  “I think you and Jack have some things to talk about,” Sienna murmurs.

  I tip the rest of my drink back and set the empty glass on the table with a solid thunk.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  Chapter 39

  “Can’t,” I say.

  Henry squints. “You can’t go out.”

  He and Clark are standing on my front stoop. Clark’s truck is idling in the driveway. They obviously thought this would be more of an in-and-out mission than it’s turning out to be.

  “Gotta save. It’s all sandwiches and cheap beer until the business starts bringing in money.”

  I have spent the last couple of days making phone calls, the first baby steps toward becoming a general contractor and business owner. It’s pretty exhilarating. It’s not going to be easy. I’m going to be eating a lot of peanut butter and tuna fish and forgoing nights out for a long time, but my finances and credit are good, my work history is solid, and I played high school football with the business loan officer at the local bank. Never hurts.

  Henry and Clark wanted to quit Kevin’s crew too, in solidarity, but I told them to wait. I told them I’d hire them as soon as I could, but in the meantime, they should keep making steady money.

  Clark gives me the stink eye. “So basically, you just became a free man again, and now you can’t have fun because you’re cheap.”

  I flip him the finger.

  Henry sighs. “So if we go to O’Hannihans, you’re not coming.”

  “Right.”

  Henry rolls his eyes and sighs again. “Then you know what? It’s gonna have to be pizza and cheap beers here.”

  I think he’s afraid if he leaves me alone here, I’ll fall apart, what with how I’ve been since Maddie left and the whole temporarily unemployed bit. But I’m actually feeling pretty optimistic for the first time in a while. It’s good to have a plan.

  The three of us end up sitting around my living room, putting back Bud Lights, watching basketball, and destroying a large pizza.

  The last of the pizza has just slid down Henry’s gullet when there’s a knock at the front door.

  “You expecting anyone?” Clark asks, looking hopeful. Like I’ve arranged for a troupe of strippers without mentioning it, possibly.

  I shake my head.

  I get to my feet and head to the door, figuring worst case, my mother or my sister dropping in; best case, Lani taking my temperature to see if I’m back to being a willing fuck buddy (I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.).

  Only, you know.

  It’s Maddie.

  Suddenly there’s this crazy jumble in my chest, this mixed-up salad of everything I’ve ever felt for her or about her. What she meant to me when we were kids and how bad I’ve wanted her as long as I’ve known how to want anyone and how good it felt to be with her and how bad it feels not to be. And I want to, I don’t know, get down on my knees and beg, but also slam the door in her face.

  She looks so good. She’s wearing work clothes, some green blouse-thing shot through with silver over a slim, short black skirt and heels.

  Her face is flushed, her eyes bright—

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  She’s pissed.

  “What?” I’m wracking my brains for anyone she could legitimately be talking about, but the last person I slept with was so utterly and thoroughly her that my mind is basically a blank.

  “Penelope Mills. Did you sleep with her?”

  For a moment the name doesn’t even register, and then I remember. Penelope Mills.

  I think she sees the truth on my face right then, but she keeps at it. “Did you? Jack. Answer me. Did you sleep with her?”

  She’s so intense. Like it was twenty seconds ago and not five years ago that Penelope Mills walked out of my apartment with her shoes and her bra in her hand. Like it still matters that much. And the thing is, it does, and I know it too.

  From behind me I hear whispering and rustling, and then Henry and Clark materialize and slink around us, toward the door. “Time for us to be going,” Henry says, wincing in my direction. Sorry, man, he mouths.

  But I’m not sorry. Not really. I can’t be sorry to see her. I’ve wanted this every moment of every day since I walked out of her and Gabe’s new place, without realizing how much. And even if she’s angry, she’s here.

  As soon as Henry and Clark are gone, she resumes the inquisition.

  “Did. You. Sleep. With. Her?”

  I should have told her the truth. So many times. And it’s probably too late now—I think the rules are that if she comes to your house and shouts in your face, it’s too late, but regardless, it’s our moment of truth. This week, I stood up for myself and began to remake my life, for better or for worse, because of her, because of the kind of woman she is and the kind of man I want to be for her and our son, and I can’t lie to her again, not even by omission. I will never, ever lie to her again, not even by omission.

  I shake my head. “No.”

  Her eyes get bigger. “Did you even kiss her?”

  “No.”

  “Did anything happen between you?”

  “She—she too
k her dress off. And—her bra.”

  It’s funny—even though she’s creeping close to the truth, I feel as guilty as I ever have. Guiltier. Because of the look on her face. Like we’re finally getting down to the real nature of my betrayal.

  “And then I made her put them back on. And I threw her out.”

  It feels good to say it. Right. Freeing. I wonder if it always would have felt like this, or if it had to come down to this moment.

  She shakes her head angrily. “Jack, why? Why—why would you do that? Why would you let me think you had if you hadn’t?”

  I don’t know how to answer. It’s like the words are trapped behind a barricade.

  “Jesus, Jack, how could you? How could you do that?”

  Suddenly, she’s crying. And coming toward me. Pounding her fists against my chest, raining blows on me, sobbing. “You broke my heart!”

  There is really only one thing to do, as there is only ever one thing that I can do when Maddie cries. I take her in my arms, trying to contain the flailing fists and the hiccupy sobs and all the rage coming off her in waves.

  “You let me think—” Sob.

  “I was pregnant!” Gasp.

  “I can’t believe you!”

  And then more sobs, her body shuddering in my arms.

  Gradually, she calms down.

  “Why?” She pulls away. “Why would you do that? Did you do it to get rid of me? To get rid of me and Gabe? You didn’t have to do that. You could have just said you didn’t want to be involved.”

  I’m shaking my head. “No. No!”

  “Then why?”

  I understand now why I’ve avoided this conversation for so long. Because the answer to her question is such a small, mean thing. I’m ashamed of how tiny and twisted my heart is.

  “When you looked at me like that—”

  If this is what it feels like to be a real man, it fucking sucks. My voice breaks on the words, and I want to pull the shutters closed between us so she doesn’t see if the rest of me breaks, too.

  “Like what?”

  Her voice is much gentler now, like she knows. Like she knows how close to the edge I am. And maybe, maybe—like she knows that she’s the only person who can get me here, the only person I will ever let see me like this.

  “You trusted me.”

  She shakes her head, confused.

  “You always trusted me. And then, at the lake, at the boathouse, you trusted me with you. With your feelings, with your body. But when you saw Penelope leaving my apartment, you looked at me the way everyone always looked at me, like I was a mistake.”

  A little breath whooshes out of her. Her eyes are huge. I should stop—I’m hurting her—but I can’t.

  “You were the only one who’d ever had that kind of faith in me. And I knew. Even if it wasn’t Penelope, it was going to be someone. Or something. I’d hurt you, I’d hurt the baby, I’d screw us up. It was just a matter of time, and then what you were thinking about me that night would be true. And I just—” My voice breaks again, but I have to finish. I have to explain, as little sense as it will probably make to her.

  “I couldn’t.”

  Chapter 40

  He’s turned away from me now, like he can’t bear to look at me. Like I might have that look on my face again. And I think about Jack, the Jack I’ve known since he was still a boy, as full of promise and joy as Gabe is now, and how his father slowly sucked out of him his faith in himself. How Jack’s father wore him down, like a river over stone, eroding his ability to see the best in himself.

  For a long time I believed it was my job to keep that faith, that ability, alive for Jack.

  But in the end, when it mattered…

  So now I understand. I understand what happened that night. And I feel so much relief, and also so much guilt and grief.

  “I didn’t trust you. I didn’t believe in you. When you needed me to.”

  He very slowly looks up at me, and the expression on his face—it’s simultaneously so broken and so hopeful.

  I take a deep breath. Because there are a lot of layers here. There’s a lot of talking that needs to be done, a lot of sorting-out that needs to happen.

  “I owed you the benefit of the doubt,” I say, slowly. “Not just a chance to explain yourself, but the benefit of the doubt. Because of how it was between us. And Jack, it was so good between us. So good.”

  He’s quiet, still, just listening to me.

  “But—I was scared, Jack. I didn’t know you very well. I mean, for all that I’d known you forever, I didn’t know the adult you. All I knew about you were the rumors, and they—”

  “They weren’t flattering.”

  “They weren’t. And I wanted to believe I was different from all the other disposable women, but—then I had this evidence right in front of my face that I wasn’t different. And I—I wasn’t bigger than my fear, I guess.”

  He looks an awful lot like Gabe does when you’re answering his why questions. Just eyes and attention, his face so vulnerable and downright—sweet.

  “Neither was I.” He takes a deep breath. “You are different from all the other disposable women. You are different from every other woman. It was only ever you. And it will only ever be you. And the only thing I regret more than letting you walk away that night is letting you move out of my house last weekend.”

  My heart is suddenly three sizes too big. “Oh.”

  “And I just want you to know that I’ll do whatever it takes. Work on my temper—”

  “Your…temper?”

  I’m genuinely befuddled.

  “The other night, when Gabe wouldn’t go to bed, and I lost it?”

  “Was I there?”

  “You were standing right there. And I was like, trembling with rage—”

  “Oh, yeah, those bedtime shenanigans can make you lose your shit.”

  “In my head, I just hauled off and screamed at him, and my spit was flying in his face—”

  His voice cracks. His eyes are agonized. And it takes me a moment, but then I get it. I get that for him, that moment felt so real and so familiar, it broke his heart.

  I reach for his hand, grab it tight. “You know it doesn’t count if you don’t actually do it, right? I mean, if it did, he would be dead from shaken baby syndrome a thousand times over. I can’t tell you the number of times I had to walk out of the room when he was a baby so I wouldn’t do something awful to him.”

  “But how did you know you wouldn’t? One day? Some day?”

  “I just—I knew, you know?”

  “No,” he says. “I don’t.”

  And I look at him, like I’m seeing him for the first time, and I think I am seeing him for the first time. Hair just long enough to wave, eyes the blue-gray of a cloudy day’s ocean, features set in steel, including a jaw clenched so tight I’m afraid something’s going to crack.

  “Oh, Jack,” I say, reaching out to touch the evening’s early stubble along his rigid jawline. “I know.”

  He drags in a deep breath.

  “I know you will never hurt us. And if I could go back, and never have had my faith in you flag, not even for a millisecond, not in any way, I would.”

  He closes his eyes, just for a second, then opens them again. It might just be my imagination, but they look a little damp. Which makes my own heart feel like it’s going to burst.

  “Just because I did that one stupid, idiotic thing and let myself believe that you would sleep with stupid Penelope Mills does not mean that I ever thought you wouldn’t be a good father. You are not your father. You couldn’t be your father if you tried. You are the very best father.”

  Now it’s my turn to draw a shaky breath. “You are the man I want to teach Gabe how to be a man.”

  He leans his face into my hand. Turns his head just a little, so he can press his lips against my palm. They’re warm and gentle, and that touch sizzles straight through me.

  When he lifts his head again, his eyes are warm, and I can see
the tension has melted out of his jaw.

  He smiles wryly at me.

  “Even though I’m unemployed?”

  Chapter 41

  I tell her about the confrontation.

  “Those bastards,” she breathes.

  I tell her about the paper trail and the way Max crumpled it.

  “That asshole!”

  And then I tell her what happened next. It’s not easy to say. I guess it’s not going to come as a huge surprise to you that it is not easy for me to tell Maddie, or anyone, how I feel.

  “You know how you said I should start my own business?”

  She nods.

  “I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been doing some research and taking some steps. So when Max crumpled up those pieces of paper, I just—knew. I was going to do it.”

  And here’s the hard part.

  “I knew, because I wanted to be that guy. That guy you were describing. The one who was smart, who wouldn’t take shit from the super or the developer.”

  Nope. Here’s the hard part.

  “I wanted to be that guy for you.”

  “Oh,” she says again, but this time her eyes shine with tears.

  Okay, I think I’ve earned this. I slide my hand into the back of her hair and draw her close and kiss her hard. And oh, my God, it’s good. Her mouth is sweet and hungry, and how did just a few days without doing this become unbearable?

  Then, just as I’m about to pick her up and deposit her on a soft horizontal surface and have my wicked way with her, she pulls back and gives me a suspicious look.

  “But you dismissed the idea of starting your own business when I said it.”

  “Yes. I dismissed the idea at the time.”

  She grins. “So…?”

  “Okay. You told me so.”

  “I told you so!”

  “Just don’t make that a habit,” I say gruffly, but I don’t fucking care. She can lord everything over me for the rest of our lives, and that will be okay. Because, let’s just repeat that. Rest of our lives!

  And I realize—I’m here, telling her the story, just the way I wanted to when it happened. I’m home, she’s home, we’re home together, and—