Dinner First, Me Later?

by Candy Halliday

  “Of course she won’t believe it,” Alicia said, “but it’s a plausible enough story that she can’t prove otherwise. Besides, everyone knows Kiwi always makes a beeline for my house every chance he gets.”

  “Because you spoil him rotten,” Jake reminded her.

  Alicia didn’t dispute that fact.

  Jake pushed a low branch up and out of her way. Alicia ducked under it. The full moon was high in the sky at this hour, its silver ribbons of moonlight filtering through the tree branches. Enjoying the beauty of such a mystical setting, Alicia missed a step and stumbled. Jake caught her and pulled her to him. The opportunity was perfect for a long, lingering kiss.

  “Maybe we should give Tish something to talk about,” he mumbled low and husky.

  Alicia kissed him again, then pushed him away. “With the social worker coming on Tuesday? I don’t think so.”

  They started off again, holding hands and picking their way through the trees. “I left the golf cart over there,” Jake said, pointing up ahead. He stopped walking and held to her hand, stopping Alicia with him. “This is as far as you go, Beautiful,” he said. “I’m going to stand right here and watch until you make it back to the top of the hill.”

  “No, silly,” Alicia said. “I’m going to ride back to your house with you and walk across the street. If Tish really is watching, we can say we made the loop around the cul-de-sac looking for Kiwi.”

  “Beautiful and smart,” Jake said. “That can be a dangerous combination.”

  He looked back toward Tish’s darkened house, then back at Alicia. “Looks like so far, so good. Are you sure you aren’t thinking what I’m thinking right now?”

  “Not unless there’s a condom tree in these woods,” Alicia told him.

  “Good point,” Jake said. “It licks. But it’s still a good point.”

  “Excuse me?” Alicia said.

  “Licks,” Jake repeated. “Sucks would be a huge step up.”

  He took her hand again and they walked toward the golf cart. When they reached the cart, Alicia noticed a piece of white paper taped to the windshield on the passenger’s side of the golf cart. “I didn’t realize you had to have a permit for your golf cart in Woodberry Park.”

  “You don’t have to have a permit as far as I know,” Jake said.

  “Then what is this?” Alicia reached out and removed the paper as Jake walked up beside her. Even if it had been a pitch-black night instead of a full moon, they still would have been able to read the one word written on the paper in huge, black block letters: BUSTED.

  “I guess that blows the Kiwi excuse to hell,” Jake said.

  “You think?” Alicia said, crumpling the paper in her hand.

  “But on the bright side, we do have a few condoms left,” Jake mentioned.

  Alicia whacked him on the arm.

  But the princess didn’t resist when her handsome knight led her back through the trees and up the hill to her castle.

  Chapter 21

  When Alicia walked into Tish’s kitchen for Monday morning coffee with her Fantasy Club, she felt like a prisoner facing a firing squad. Tish, Jen, and Zada were all three seated at the table, cups of coffee in front of them, blank expressions on their faces.

  Alicia squared her shoulders, walked politely across the kitchen, and helped herself to a cup of coffee. But even after she seated herself at the table, no one said a word.

  “Well,” Alicia finally said. “Does anyone have anything to say this morning? Or are you all going to ignore me?”

  Tish said, “I only have one question for you.”

  Alicia sat up a little straighter in her chair.

  “Is Jake as good in bed as I think he is?”

  “Tish!” Jen scolded, but she quickly looked back at Alicia for her answer.

  Alicia tried, but she couldn’t keep the silly grin from spreading across her face. “Jake’s better than good,” she said, blushing slightly. “He’s fanfreakingtastic.”

  “Expound on that,” Tish said.

  “Tish!” Jen said again.

  “I have a question for you, too,” Zada said. She was moving Lizzie’s stroller gently back and forth with her foot, baby Lizzie fast asleep, her tiny thumb in her mouth. Zada reached down and gently removed the thumb. Lizzie slipped it right back into her mouth again. She finally looked back up at Alicia and said, “Why all that nonsense about bad boys like Jake not being your type. What was up with all of that?”

  Alicia checked her watch. “Look,” she told Zada, “everything about Jake is a long, drawn-out story that I’ll have to explain later. It’s Monday morning and things are always hectic on Mondays after all the property showings over the weekend. I really need to get to the office.”

  “Too bad,” Tish said. She got up from her chair and came back with the phone and handed it to Alicia. “Call your office. Tell them you’re going to be late.”

  Alicia reluctantly made the call. After she placed the phone facedown on the table, she looked directly at Tish and said, “What if Gerard Butler, who happens to be your biggest celebrity crush ever according to you, moved in right across the street?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject by talking about my soul mate, Gerry,” Tish warned. “You know I can’t think straight when that gorgeous man is the topic of conversation.”

  Alicia ignored Tish and said, “And what if your soul mate Gerry offered you one night of passion, no strings attached, and promised you no one would ever know. Would you . . .”

  “In a heartbeat,” Tish said before Alicia could even finish her question.

  Jen frowned at Tish, then looked back at Alicia. “Aren’t we getting off track here? What does Gerard Butler have to do with Jake?”

  Alicia took a deep breath and said, “Jake has always been my biggest celebrity crush ever.”

  “Get out!” Tish exclaimed.

  Jen’s mouth dropped open.

  Zada smiled and said, “So that’s what happened when you drove Jake home the night Lizzie was born. Your celebrity crush offered you one night of passion and you took him up on his offer.”

  “I knew it!” Tish said with a satisfied smile. “I knew the second you and Jake showed up at the hospital together you’d end up in bed with him before the night was over.”

  Alicia shrugged. “What can I say? It was the perfect opportunity. Zada and Rick were at the hospital. The rest of you had gone out for a drink. And Dani hadn’t arrived yet.”

  Jen’s look was puzzled when she asked, “But if you’d always had a crush on Jake, Alicia, why were you so angry when Zada tried to fix you and Jake up?”

  Alicia said, “And that’s where the long, drawn-out part comes in.”

  “Hold that thought,” Tish said and got up from the table to look out her kitchen window. She jerked the kitchen door open and yelled, “Boys! Either give Sonya a turn jumping on the trampoline, or you can come inside and clean every toilet in this house.”

  When Tish sat back down at the table, Alicia spent the next forty-five minutes telling her three best friends everything, and she didn’t leave anything out. She told them about her “unhealthy obsession” with Jake when she was younger. About the Barbara Walters interview. About Alfie’s hysteria over Jake showing up right across the street, and his fear she’d be stalking him within a week.

  She also told them how she’d truly intended for her one night of passion with Jake to be the end of it. And then how quickly Jake’s nightly phone calls had turned their secret relationship into so much more.

  Alicia was so relieved to finally be able to talk about Jake openly with her friends, it only seemed natural that she should mention their Saturday night fantasy phone call. But Alicia only told them the princess and the knight premise. Unlike tell-it-all Tish, Alicia would never go into personal, intimate details. Sharing her fantasy phone call, however, turned out to be a bad idea.

  “That’s cheating, Alicia!” Tish accused. “We all agreed to abstain from fantasies for the rest of
the summer. Having some medieval phone romp with Jake is not abstaining!”

  “Why, Tish,” Jen teased. “Your face is turning bright green with envy. I hate to point this out, hon, but the color looks horrible with the shade of lipstick you’re wearing.”

  “Bite me, Jen,” Tish said. She leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and sat there with a pouty frown on her face.

  Alicia said, “Are any of you abstaining in the bedroom?”

  No one answered.

  Alicia said, “No, of course, you aren’t. So give me a break here. In our situation, sharing fantasies on the phone are all Jake and I have.”

  “Excuse me?” Tish said. “Wasn’t that the knight I saw sneaking through the woods to the princess’s castle last night?”

  Alicia blushed.

  Zada laughed and said, “Are you sure Gerard Butler is your celebrity crush, Tish? You sound like a woman scorned to me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Tish huffed. “I’ve never thought of Jake as anything other than a friend.”

  Alicia said, “I hope all of you think of Jake as your friend.” She looked around the table and said, “The social worker assigned to Jake’s custody case makes her first visit tomorrow. I know Jake would never ask any of you to lie for us, but I will. For Jake’s sake and for Dani’s, we need to keep our relationship a secret.”

  “Don’t you think you might be overreacting just a little?” Jen mentioned. “You and Jake are both single, Alicia. Do you really think the court would deny Jake custody because he’s seeing someone?”

  “It’s not a chance I’m willing to take, Jen,” Alicia said. “And can you really blame Jake for being worried where the courts and social services are concerned? He grew up in the system, bounced from one foster home to another, at the sole discretion of his social worker. It’s amazing how much power social services actually has with the court.”

  Zada looked at Jen and said, “Pretend you’re the judge hearing Jake’s case, Jen. He claims he wants custody of his daughter and has her best interest at heart, but according to the social worker, one of Jake’s neighbors said he started having an affair with the divorcee across the street shortly after he moved to Woodberry Park. What would you think?”

  Alicia groaned. “God, you make our relationship sound so sleazy when you put it like that.”

  Zada said, “Your relationship isn’t sleazy, Alicia. But I know you and Jake personally. I know you’re both wonderful people, and nothing would make me happier than if you ended up together. I also know how much Jake loves Dani, and how strongly he feels about making a home for her with him. But to the court, this is just another custody case.”

  Tish said, “Plus, Jake is a public figure. I know judges are supposed to be impartial, but they’re still human. What do you think the chances are that the judge in Jake’s case hasn’t seen his picture plastered all over the tabloids?”

  Alicia sighed and said, “We all know what my perception of Jake was before I got to know him. I assumed he was just some jerk with a different woman on his arm every week.”

  “Me, too,” Jen admitted. “I had already decided before Jake ever moved to Woodberry Park that he was not the type of person I wanted for a neighbor. I’ve never been more wrong about anyone in my life.”

  Alicia said, “Unfortunately, it isn’t just the social worker I’m worried about. I’m worried about Dani finding out about us, too. Jake told me that Dani had evidently mentioned to her grandmother that I’d been letting her come over to swim. The old witch told Dani I was only being nice to her because I wanted to be Jake’s girlfriend.” Alicia looked straight at Tish when she added, “Which is not the truth.”

  “Oh, please,” Tish said. “I only made that stupid comment because I was trying to goad you into admitting you were seeing Jake. I know you better than that.”

  Alicia said, “But you can still see how it would look to Dani if she found out about Jake and me right now. Her grandmother planted that seed of doubt in her mind. It would crush me if Dani really believed that.”

  They sat at the table in silence for a few seconds.

  Tish finally looked at her and said, “Your secret’s safe with me, Alicia.”

  “Me, too,” Zada agreed. “Absolutely.”

  Alicia looked at Jen, the stickler in the group.

  “What relationship?” Jen said and smiled.

  “Thank you,” Alicia said, looking around the table at her three best friends. “But I’ll never put you in this position again. I told Jake last night that I wasn’t going to see him privately again until his custody case is settled.”

  Tish laughed. “That’s your conscience talking, Alicia, because you aren’t the sneak-around type. But you aren’t being realistic. Dani will have other sleepovers. What sense would it make for you and Jake to stay on opposite sides of the street if he has a free night? Besides,” Tish added, “you didn’t put us in this position, I did. If I hadn’t been so nosy we wouldn’t know you and Jake were seeing each other.”

  “Finally,” Jen said, “Tish admits she’s nosy.”

  Tish looked at Jen. “When have I ever denied it?”

  Zada looked at Alicia and said, “Let’s go back to what Tish said about you not being realistic, Alicia. Are you subconsciously trying to punish yourself by not seeing Jake privately again until his custody case is settled? Or are you just having second thoughts about Jake, and you’re using his custody case as an excuse to gracefully ease yourself out of this situation?”

  “Okay,” Alicia said. “I admit it. Things with Jake are moving way too fast. Can you blame me for wondering if my fantasy crush isn’t the only reason I’m even seeing Jake? And in his current situation, that maybe the convenience of the situation is the only reason he’s seeing me? I mean seriously. Jake’s stuck out here in the suburbs now with a teenage daughter. And I happen to be the convenient divorcee living right across the street.”

  “And it’s never crossed your analytical Harvard mind, I suppose,” Tish said, “that the reason you and Jake are seeing each other is so simple that you’ve overlooked it completely.”

  “And what reason would that be?” Alicia wanted to know.

  “L-O-V-E,” Tish spelled out.

  “Please,” Alicia said. “We haven’t known each other long enough to be in love. I made that mistake with Edward, taking everything he said at face value. I’m not going to be that stupid again.”

  Zada said, “Well, for what it’s worth, I knew I was in love with Rick the same day I met him.”

  “I was in love with Charlie before I met him,” Jen said, a dreamy look in her eye. “We lived in the same co-ed dorm. I took one look at him and told my roommate, ‘That’s the guy I’m going to marry.’”

  Everyone looked at Tish.

  Tish frowned and said, “All of you know Joe. Trust me. Falling in love with Joe took a lot longer.”

  Everyone laughed.

  But Jen said, “You do what’s best for you, Alicia. If distancing yourself from Jake is what you feel you need to do right now, do it.”

  Zada asked, “What about the nightly phone calls?”

  Alicia said, “Just because I’m safeguarding myself from reading something permanent into our situation doesn’t mean I’m going to stop talking to Jake on the phone.”

  Tish’s eyebrow came up. “More importantly, what about those fantasy phone calls?”

  “None of your business, nosy,” Alicia said and smiled.

  Jake checked his watch and frowned. It was ten minutes after ten in the morning. Alicia still hadn’t called him. He’d told her after they’d found Tish’s note that he wanted to go to morning coffee with her and take responsibility for his own part in deceiving everyone, but Alicia wouldn’t hear of it.

  He’d also told her that he had no intention of asking anyone to lie for him if a certain social worker happened to ask personal questions about him. Alicia didn’t agree with that decision, either.

  “It’s my fault we’
re in this situation,” she’d insisted, her head on his shoulder as they cuddled in bed after finding Tish’s note. “If I hadn’t shown up on your doorstep that night, we wouldn’t have anything to hide now.”

  “And if I hadn’t shown up on your doorstep tonight,” Jake had reminded her, “we wouldn’t be busted now.”

  His argument had fallen on deaf ears. He was not going to coffee with her—that was final. And she was going to ask the girls to keep their secret—whether he approved or not.

  But Alicia insisting that they shouldn’t see each other again until the custody case was settled had Jake worried. Had she made the suggestion out of concern for him and Danielle? Or was Alicia basically trying to tell him that a fantasy relationship was all she would ever want from him?

  He hated to admit it, but he’d lulled himself into a false sense of security where Alicia was concerned, hoping she would begin to see that something permanent coming out of their fantasy relationship was a possibility. Jake thought back to her princess and knight fantasy. He hadn’t missed her underlying analogy—the Ice Princess with the sad, frozen heart. Had she missed his declaration that the knight’s mission was to melt that sad, frozen heart?

  How ironic, Jake thought. He’d spent the last fourteen years after his failed marriage playing the field, and certain that having a family would never be in his future. Yet now, all he could think about was sharing the rest of his life with Alicia and Danielle, as a family, which was something he’d never had and had always wanted.

  Jake checked his watch again.

  Now, it was ten-fifteen.

  He’d called Alicia again this morning, trying to make a final plea about coffee before he went to the Potters’ house to pick up Danielle. Again, Alicia had vetoed any idea of them presenting a united front to the Housewives Fantasy Club at coffee. She had, however, promised to call him on his cell phone as soon as coffee was over.

  So where the hell was she?

  It was now ten-seventeen.

  The thought crossed Jake’s mind, however, that checking his watch every second had him acting like the two teenagers he was supervising, instead of the parent in charge. When he’d arrived at the Potters’ house at nine o’clock for Danielle, he’d offered to take Katie to her ten o’clock riding lesson when Betty mentioned she had a conflict in her schedule.