by Laura Drewry
“Staying friends with him means we’re going to have to hate you on principle, which is too bad, because you seem like a nice guy and I, for one, had such high hopes for you. Sorry.”
“No, of course. Completely understandable.” Always a good sport, he bobbed his head in solemn agreement. “But before you have me lynched, would it do my case any good if I was to…I don’t know, just spitballin’ here…maybe pick up the tab tonight?”
“Don’t listen to Regan.” Unable to hold her grin back any longer, Ellie gave Regan a gentle shove and leaned closer to Jack. “I knew I was going to like you, Jack. Now let’s see what we can do about racking up that tab a little while you tell us all your secrets.”
She flagged Shelley for another round.
A flash of panic skittered across his eyes as he lifted his bottle; it was a look Maya had seen before, the same one he got whenever anyone wanted to make him the focus of the conversation.
“Well, that shouldn’t take long,” he finally said. “Snip’ll tell you how boring I am.”
“Why do you call her ‘Snip’?”
Maya sighed over a smile. “Because he thinks I’m like a snippet of a full-grown person.”
“Well, come on,” he teased. “You’re what, four foot nothing—you’re like a hobbit.”
“I’m five two!” Maya sat up as straight as she could when everyone else at the table raised their eyebrows at her. “I am so!”
Still blowing her off, they all sat back a little so Shelley could clear the empty glasses and replace their empty peanut bowl.
“And Jack isn’t even a little bit boring,” Maya said. “He has degrees in both creative writing and media arts and he designs videogames.”
Halfway through what she was saying, Jack leaned back, looked behind her, around her, and then under the table.
“What are you looking for?”
“Pom-poms.” With an exaggerated eye roll, he turned back to the others. “I don’t design the games, I just write parts of the scripts for some of them; the rest of the team makes the games work.”
“Just?” Jayne asked. “I’d guess the script is equally as important as everything else about the game.”
“Thank you, Jayne.” Maya stared pointedly at Jack as she spoke, as if that would somehow finally help to get it through his head. “I’ve tried telling him that about a hundred times.”
“So what brings you to town?” Ellie asked. “And if you mention Dickhead’s name in your next sentence, you’re buying a round for the whole room.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Jack muttered, giving the packed house a quick glance. “The company I work with is moving one of our offices up here, so I’m keeping an eye on things to make sure it all stays on track and we get going on time. I talked to the contractor the other day and it sounds like we’re on course, so hopefully—”
“Duh!” Groaning, Jayne thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead. “You’re Gamer-guy-Jack from TMJ! That’s why I know your name—Nick told me someone was coming to take over for Keith but I didn’t make the connection between you and him. “
“You know Nick Scott?”
“Sorry.” Maya laughed. “Let me try the introductions again. Jack, this is Jayne Scott, Nick’s wife, and if he’s doing the work, you’ll have no worries about staying on track.”
“Good, because the lease we have right now is up in mid-November, so we’re already pushing our luck.”
“Nick said you work out of Seattle,” Jayne said. “So are you going to stay when the new place is finished or are you just here on loan?”
“Just a loaner,” he said. “Until Keith’s back.”
“And are you staying with”—Jayne stopped and winked at Ellie—“He Who Must Not Be Named?”
“No.” Jack blinked past Jayne and shrugged. “That hotel by the golf course gave us a good deal, so—”
“Us?” Ellie asked. It was only one word, but it covered a lot of territory.
He turned his grin to Maya. “Me and Pete.”
“Pete’s with you?” Maya cried. She’d never considered herself much of a dog person until she’d met Pete. “How is he?”
“Still the same; big, brown, and a little bit pathetic.” Jack pulled out his phone and flashed a couple pictures of his chocolate Lab, starting with the one of Pete as a chubby nine-week-old puppy and ending with a recent one of him with two tennis balls stuffed in his mouth and his right ear flopped back.
“How old is he now?” Maya asked. “Eight?”
“Coming up next month, yeah.”
They were all still gushing over him as Ellie continued to pepper Jack with questions.
“You married?”
“No.”
“Ever been married?”
“Sorry, Jack,” Maya muttered. “Ellie, the Queen of Tact, doesn’t believe in beating around the bush.”
“It’s fine.” He chuckled but Maya knew it was forced. “And no, never been married.”
“Got any kids?”
“Nope. It’s just Pete and me,” Jack said, tucking his phone away again. “I told you, boring.”
“I don’t believe that,” Ellie said, watching him through narrowed eyes. “You don’t look like the boring type.”
There was never a day that went by when Maya didn’t know how lucky she was to have these three women as her best friends, but nights like this made her appreciate them even more. Following Ellie’s lead, they spent the next hour or so dragging all kinds of stories from him; everything from him being the tall, skinny awkward kid at school, to the craziest date he’d ever been on—the girl showed up in a leopard-print catsuit complete with tail and ears—to the time he literally ran into Thor at Comic-Con.
“He’s a big sonuvabitch, that one.”
“Looked in a mirror lately, Jack?” Regan laughed.
“Yeah, easy for you guys to laugh about it,” he said. “But I wound up flat on my ass surrounded by security.”
“Way to make an impression,” Maya snickered. “There goes any chance you might have had to get him to voice one of your games.”
A slow smirk spread across Regan’s face as she sat up straighter. “If it’s voices you need, why don’t you get Maya to hit up her new boyfriend, Griffin Carr?”
“Griffin Carr?” Jack’s eyes bulged. “You mean…no…Griffin Carr? Like just-started-filming-the-next-Bond-movie Griffin Carr?”
“One and the same.f” Ellie nodded, but Maya was already shaking her head.
“He’s not my boyfriend. We’ve been out a few times, that’s it.” Okay, it was a little more than that now, but she couldn’t exactly tell the girls about it with Jack sitting there staring at her.
“Sorry, Snip, you’re going to have to give me more than that. Griffin Carr?”
It took her a few seconds to say anything else, partly because she was in mid-sip of her wine and partly because she was dragging that sip out as long as she could.
“He’s been filming up here a lot in the last few years and likes to use Regan as his stylist.”
“And?”
“And a few months back, he and Regan made a deal where she’d be his stylist for an indie film he was doing if he’d agree to play on our slo-pitch team in a charity game, which is where he and Maya met.”
Jack nodded. “Right, I remember Will saying something about the game.”
Ellie nodded pointedly. “I’m guessing Dickhead neglected to mention that Griffin was all over Maya like white on rice.”
“But she was playing hard to get,” Regan added. “Because she thought he was a sleazeball.”
“And I already admitted I was wrong,” Maya said, forcing a dry laugh. “And that I shouldn’t believe everything I hear or read about him, so can we get over that, please?”
Regan popped a couple peanuts in her mouth and grinned. “I’m telling you, Jack, that game was one of the best things I’ve ever witnessed; we had Griffin putting the moves on Maya for all the world to see, and we had Dick
head and his skank with front row seats to the show. It was beautiful.”
Maya was sure Will’s scowl that day had little to do with the fact that Griffin was hitting on her and more to do with the fact that Stella spent the entire game the same way every other woman—and a few of the men—did: drooling over Griffin and doing whatever she could to get his attention.
A better person might not have found any satisfaction in Will’s misery, but Maya never claimed to be that good of a person.
There was no question Griffin was drool-worthy. He was also charming and funny and surprisingly open considering they’d only known each other a few months. It was all these things—combined with her own reflections lately—that made her agree to at least consider his idea.
In fact, considering it was all she’d done since getting off the phone with him last night, and while the decision was hers to make, she’d have to talk to Ellie, Regan, and Jayne about it first. And she needed to talk to them soon before she drove herself crazy.
God help her, she had no idea what they’d think about it.
She could feel Jack’s gaze on her and when she turned, he frowned slightly. “You okay? You kinda spaced out there for a second.”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m fine.” Did that sound as phony to his ears as it did to her own?
With a slow nod, Jack downed what was left of his beer and pushed the bottle toward the middle of the table.
“Okay, well, it was great to meet all of you, but I better get back to the hotel and let Pete out.” He turned to Maya, his big grin making her smile, like it always had in the past. “If you want to get together this week, give me a call. Pete’ll want to see you.”
“I’d love that.”
Still looking at her, he tipped his head sideways toward her friends, and leaned closer to Maya, pretending the rest of them couldn’t hear. “How’d I do? Did I pass inspection or am I going to get raked as soon as I leave?”
“I’m not gonna lie,” she whispered. “There might be a little raking, you know, because of the connection to You Know Who.”
“Fair enough.” He pushed to his feet and grinned a little awkwardly around the table. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“See ya, Jack.”
“ ’Night.”
“Bye.”
Leaning over, he hesitated a second, then pressed a soft kiss against Maya’s cheek. “It’s great to see you, Snip.”
From the first night they’d met almost four years ago, it was how he’d always said goodbye to her, nothing more than a quick peck, so it didn’t surprise her when he did it this time. What surprised her was her reaction to it; the way her cheek tingled, the way it cranked her pulse up a notch and how it made her eyes stutter a bit over her next blink.
“Yeah, you too.” Her tongue tripped a little before she finally managed to add a squeaky “I’ll call you.”
He stopped at the bar to settle up with Shelley then lifted his arm in a final wave before heading out the door. It was only after he was gone, and the other three all turned and smiled at Maya, that she realized she’d been staring as he walked out.
“Okay,” Ellie said. “Start with why we’ve never met him before, and tell us everything.”
Chapter 2
“I figured out I need to charge seventeen bucks a jar just to break even. So, I’ve got a new plan now: babies.”
Monica Geller, Friends, “The One with the Jam”
Maya inhaled slowly, giving her pulse a chance to steady itself again. Weird.
“I didn’t know any of you guys until I married Will and moved up here. Jack had just been offered the job in Seattle and moved down there a couple days after the wedding, so I saw him at Christmas that year, and then I saw him once just after I left Will, but that’s it.”
She shrugged slowly as the three of them stared back at her expectantly. It was like they had a whole bunch of questions but didn’t know which one to ask first.
“Okay,” Ellie finally said. “Well, Regan and I had the misfortune to actually meet Dickhead before all that shit happened, so I’m basing what I’m about to say on that Dickhead, not the one he is today.”
She waited for Maya’s nod then went on.
“The two of them are nothing alike. Dickhead’s smooth, confident, articulate, and though it pains me to say it, he’s like…classically handsome.”
Regan’s gagging made them all laugh.
“And don’t get me wrong, Jack’s no slouch in the looks department, either, but honestly, it wasn’t until he started talking that I realized something. It’s like…I don’t know…it’s not that he’s awkward, really, but you can see he’s not comfortable talking about himself, and I’m betting he would’ve rather died than have you drag him over here.”
“Yeah.” Maya smiled. “He doesn’t like being the center of attention.”
“He’s funny,” Jayne said. “Since I didn’t know Dickhead before, was he like that, too? Does he have that self-deprecating kind of humor, too?”
“God no,” Regan said. “It’s like Dickhead always wants to be the star of the show, whereas Jack seems to prefer to be the guy who opens the curtain for the show.”
“Yup,” Maya said. “All of that’s true.”
Ellie squinted a little as she leaned her elbows on the table. “So how is it possible that the two of them ever became friends?”
That made Maya smile, not because it was a funny story, but because every time she thought about it, the soft spot she’d always had for Jack grew softer, bigger.
“Jack grew up in foster care and bounced around quite a bit when he was little. He’s told me a few things about some of the families he stayed with, some good, some bad, but by the time he was twelve, they’d moved him to a group home.”
“What was that like?” Jayne asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it was pretty bad, because in all the time I’ve known him, he’s never said a single word about it. The only reason I know he was in one is because Will’s mom told me. Anyway, when he was thirteen or fourteen he met Will at school, and shortly after, Will’s family took him in. That was that; that’s where he stayed.”
Jayne nodded slowly. “So they’re kind of like brothers, then.”
Maya shrugged. “The Carsons’ place is where he stayed the longest, so yeah, kind of.”
“What happened to his biological family?”
“So far as he knows, he’s an only child. I don’t think he ever met his dad, and once the Ministry took Jack, his mom just sort of disappeared.”
“That’s so sad,” Jayne murmured. “Poor kid.”
“I know, but to hear Jack talk, he hit the jackpot with the Carsons; apparently they were the family most foster kids dream of. I didn’t know any of them back then, but they must have been all that and a bag of chips, because he’s incredibly devoted to them.”
“Devoted or indebted?” Always perceptive, that was Ellie, and all Maya could do was nod.
“Both.” She’d known he felt indebted to the Carsons, but she’d always thought it was all in his head. That all changed the night of the wedding rehearsal.
Will’s mom, Genie, having had her fair share of champagne, nudged Maya and nodded toward Jack who’d been sitting on the other side of the large round table talking to Will’s sister, Tammy.
“Everything Jack is, everything he’s become, is because of us. If we hadn’t taken him out of that group home like we did, he’d probably be in jail right now. Dead maybe. God knows he never would’ve made anything of himself.”
Stunned, Maya hadn’t even responded, but at the sound of his name, Jack had turned their way, his big happy grin faltering only slightly before he turned back to Tammy. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but it had been long enough for Maya to see the truth, and for the rest of the evening, Jack had tried to hide it behind bigger smiles and louder jokes.
He might’ve fooled everyone else, but he hadn’t fooled Maya and he knew it.
>
It was no secret Jack had gotten himself into a bit of trouble as a kid, but smoking a few joints and lifting a couple of KitKats from the corner store were hardly enough to send him to prison. And besides, from what Maya had witnessed since meeting all of them, Jack had repaid his debt to the Carsons a few times over.
Staring blindly at her glass, Maya nodded slowly then tipped her face back up to her friends.
“When Will’s dad died, a few months before Will and I got married, it was Jack who stayed with Genie, who helped with all the arrangements, and who checked on her every day. Will and Tammy helped, but it was Jack who made sure everything got done. When there’s work to do around Genie’s or Will’s houses, it’s Jack who gets called, and when Tammy wanted to go back to school, she hit Jack up for the money.”
It seemed incredibly lopsided to Maya, but having grown up middle class with two parents and a room of her own, she’d never had to worry about anything. In fact, she’d taken it for granted her whole life that her family loved her and would always be there when she needed them.
Jack grew up in a completely different world, waking up every morning not knowing if he’d still be sleeping in the same bed that night and never knowing what it was like to have family to depend on, so if it made him happy to do what he did for the Carsons, and if it gave him a sense of family, she wasn’t going to try to rip any part of that away from him by voicing her opinion.
“I’m confused.” Regan twirled her empty glass for a second before pushing it into the middle of the table and folding her hands. “Granted, we’ve only just met him, so it’s possible I’m wrong here, but Jack seems like a pretty good guy.”
“He is.” There was that warmth again, spreading a little deeper inside her.
“And I get that Dickhead just pushed his way in, but still…Maya…what the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you tell Dickhead to screw off?”
“Give me a break.” Maya laughed. “Despite what Jack says, it wasn’t exactly obvious he was trying to pick me up that night. In fact, I’m pretty sure he said he’d just keep me company until my cab arrived, and then when Will walked over, Jack didn’t put up any kind of argument, he just got up and left, so what was I supposed to think?
