Worst Date Ever

by J. S. Cooper

  “Oh, of course not. I didn’t know Lucas had told you about me before.”

  “Oh, he didn’t tell us you were dating. He was just talking about you, but I should have known then. I mean, he was going on and on about how talented you were and how you were teaching him something called the wet-on-wet technique.” She shrugged. “Is that something that you’re familiar with?”

  “Oh, yes.” I laughed. “I remember now. I took Lucas to Central Park and we were painting, and I was teaching him the wet-on-wet because he likes more abstracts, loose art, and he wasn’t getting the hang of it, but it was a good time. I didn’t know he’d told you about that.”

  “Yes, dear. He talks about you often.” She smiled. “And his eyes always light up. I should have known then that you were something.”

  “Oh, well, you know …” I bit my lower lip. I hated lying to her. She was such a sweet old lady, and I just felt horrible. Just then, the doorbell rang and her eyes lit up.

  “Oh, that must be my other grandson, John. I’m so happy that he’s here. Excuse me, if you don’t mind.” She stood up. “I’m going to go and welcome him. Not that I want Lucas to be jealous or anything, but I haven’t seen John in such a long time. He’s been taking care of the family business and has been doing a wonderful job. He really is the best grandson one could ever hope for. Not that Lucas isn’t of course,” she added, “but he’s a different sort of grandson, you know?”

  “Oh, I know.” I laughed. “Trust me and sure, go ahead. I’m sure John will be happy to see you.”

  “Oh, I hope so.” She hurried towards the door. “Edward, you stay here with Lucas. I’m going to go and greet John and bring him through to the drawing room. Okay?”

  “Okay, dear.” Edward nodded and I walked over to join him and Lucas. Lucas saw my face and started laughing.

  “Oh, yes. Everyone knows that John is Edith’s favorite, but it’s okay, because I know she loves me too.”

  “We don’t have favorites. You know that Lucas,” Edward shook his head.

  “Come on, Papa. I know that John’s your favorite too. When he was in the NFL, all you could do was boast to all your friends that you had a grandson that was a starting quarterback.”

  “Yes, but we’ve been proud of your achievements as well, dear. When you were trying to make it on Broadway, we came to several plays.”

  “You were in a play on Broadway?” I looked at Lucas surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

  “No, I was trying to make it on Broadway,” Lucas laughed. “I was in two plays off, off, off, off, off-Broadway.” He laughed.

  “Well, I don’t want to say I’m glad you stopped, but I was happy when you told me that you weren’t pursuing that career path any longer.” Edward turned to me. “So, you’re an artist, dear?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You’ll have to show me some of your work before I give this money to Lucas. I understand you’re going into business together?”

  “Oh, well, I mean, we’re not really going into business together. It will be Lucas’s business, and I’ll just be working there.”

  “Yes, but if you were to be married, it will be both of you guys’ businesses, won’t it?”

  “Yeah. Well, I mean …” I didn’t know what to say. I chewed on my lower lip and shot a glance at Lucas. Why, oh, why was I in this situation? I could hear Edith talking to someone along the corridor and I was thankful that she was going to be back with whoever this John was.

  “John, come in. I want you to meet Lucas’s girlfriend, Isabella.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” a familiar voice replied.

  I turned around, horrified to see Jack Morrison standing there.

  His eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “Well, hello there, Isabella not-Rossellini.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! This was not good at all. I darted a look at Lucas. He looked confused.

  “What’s going on?” He came to my side and placed his hand on my shoulders. “Isabella, this is my cousin, John.”

  “Hi, John.” I forced a smile onto my face. “Nice to meet you.”

  “My friends call me Jack,” he replied, “I wish my family would. Everyone else aside from them calls me Jack.”

  “I see.” So he hadn’t been lying about his name.

  “And you’re here with Lucas? Hmm.” He stared me up and down and then looked at his cousin. “And you guys are dating?”

  “Yes. We’re dating. We’re very much in love,” Lucas glared at his older cousin.

  “And how long have you guys been dating and in love?” Jack asked, a weird expression on his face.

  “Months,” Lucas said, “Years, really. I can’t even remember how long it’s been, but it’s fantastic.”

  “It’s fantastic, is it? Hm.” Jack looked at me. “So you’re in love with my cousin, are you?”

  “Yes. Very much,” I said my voice cracking. Please do not bring up the fact that I had sex with you last night, please!

  “Interesting.” Jack eyed me and I could tell that he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. “Papa, so good to see you.”

  “And you too, my boy. You’ve been making me so much money. I love it.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that.” They hugged quickly. And then Jack stepped back. “I think I’m going to need something strong. You’ve got any gin?”

  “Of course. Come with me. I’ll fix you a glass,” Edward said, and I watched them walk to the side of the room.

  Lucas came closer to me and whispered, “Do you know Jack?”

  “What?” I said blinking, trying to be innocent.

  “That was a really weird interaction. Do you know him?”

  “Um …” I nodded imperceptibly looking over at Edith. She just seemed to be standing there. I wasn’t sure she was listening to our conversation or she was just staring at her other grandson dotingly.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew him?”

  “I didn’t know he was your cousin.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “Last night.”

  “What? How?”

  “Remember the date I told you about?”

  “Oh my God, not the guy you had the one-night stand with?”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “Ugh, I should have known my cousin was the obnoxious asshole that you banged.” He looked around the room and then pulled me to the far side. “What are we going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if he tells my Nana and my granddad? Then it’s over, it’s done.”

  “Yeah. I mean, this is not really the best situation for us to be in.”

  “You’re going to have to tell him to keep quiet.”

  “But he’s going to know that we’re not together.”

  “No, he doesn’t have to know that we’re not together.” He shook his head.

  “He doesn’t have to know we’re not together?” I raised an eyebrow. “I just slept with the guy. He’ll know.”

  “Dude, lots of people are in relationships where people cheat.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “There’s no way I’m going to let him think—”

  “Isabella.” And he glared at me.

  “What?” I was annoyed.

  “You’re going to have to figure this out before he says something to them.” He groaned.

  “Oh, this sucks.” I bit back a series of curse words. “I thought I was never going to see him again. And now he’s here, and I have to spend the whole weekend with him—”

  “Please don’t have a meltdown. Please, please, please.” Lucas groaned.

  “Oh, I knew this was a bad idea.”

  “Why did you have to go and choose this week to go and finally get laid!” he hissed.

  “It’s been years, that’s why!”

  Edith, Edward, and Jack glanced over at us and I lowered my voice. “Anyway, let’s talk about this later. Remember you told me that the walls have ears
?”

  “Ears, eyes, and everything in between,” he said.

  “We’re screwed. You know that, right? We’re screwed. There’s going to be no cafe. There’s going to be no art studio. There’s—”

  “It’ll be okay. Let’s see what we can do, okay?” I squeezed his hand.

  Jack strolled back over to us. “So Lucas, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.” He said the word girlfriend in such a weird way that I had a feeling that Jack knew that Lucas was not interested in dating girls. I mean, he was self-aware enough to know the world that we lived in. I didn’t think he was that oblivious to his cousin’s sexual orientation.

  “Yes, she’s my girlfriend. Okay? We were on a break recently,” Lucas said quickly, “because we weren’t sure that we wanted to be together. But we decided this morning that we really wanted to be together because she realized there’s no one better out there than me.”

  “Really?” Jack’s lips curled up and he stared at me. “So this morning you realized that Lucas was the best that you could do?” I could tell that he wanted to laugh.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I glared at him.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged, “but a lot of things make sense now.”

  “What makes sense?”

  “I don’t know.” He coughed. “Gold digger.”

  “Excuse me? What?” I looked over at Lucas who was busy looking at his phone. “Did you just call me a gold digger? Lucas, your cousin just called me a—”

  “Hey, I got to go. I’ll be right back.” Lucas was typing something into his phone as he quickly left the room.

  “What the hell?” I was absolutely going to kill Lucas. How could he just leave me here in this awful situation?

  “So, we meet again,” Jack said softly leaning in close towards my ear. “You left so quickly the other night. I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “I was hoping I’d never see you again.”

  “Really? You don’t replay that night over and over in your head? You’re not tempted to touch yourself every time you think of it?” he said softly.

  “Shh!” I glanced furtively around the room. “You cannot be saying this here.”

  “Why not?” he laughed, “because you’re dating my cousin?” He rolled his eyes. “Really? Did you need a rich man that badly?”

  “How dare you?” I glared at him.

  “How dare I what? You want me to believe that you’re in love with my gay cousin?”

  “So you know?”

  “Of course I know. Probably the only people who don’t know are Nana and Papa. And I’m sure they know as well, they’re just in denial. Lucas doesn’t really think he has everyone in the family fooled, does he?” And then he shook his head. “Of course, he does. He’s completely oblivious. He always did think he was a much better actor than he was. So why the charade?”

  “You can’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone. Why the charade?”

  “Because Lucas wants to start a business, and he can only get some of his inheritance if it looks like he’s going to be getting married and having kids soon.”

  “So you’re going to marry my cousin so that he can get part of his inheritance early?” He raised an eyebrow. “Wow. I thought you had higher standards than that.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t even know—” I stopped myself. “You know what? Whatever.”

  “Whatever indeed, huh? I guess you don’t want to be honest about anything, do you, Isabella Wilder?”

  “Why are you saying my name like that?”

  “Hm. Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’re in my bed not twenty-four hours ago, and now you’re here at my family home trying to pull a con on my grandparents so that you can get millions of dollars and who knows what you’re going to do with them. In fact, who knows what you would have tried to do to me the other night if I hadn’t been smart enough to catch onto your game.”

  “You know what? You are as big as a jackass as I thought. Maybe you’re even more of a jackass than I thought.” I shook my head. “If I wasn’t here in front of your grandparents, I would slap you.”

  “You would love that, wouldn’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Is that one of your fantasies, Isabella? Slapping me?”

  “No, of course not,” I blushed. “I mean, I don’t know.” The idea was kind of a turn-on.

  “You know what I’d like to do to you right now?” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’d like to put you over my lap and spank you. You need a really good spanking, Isabella Wilder. And then, once I spanked you, I’d fuck you.”

  “How dare you?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. And why did his voice seem so loud? What would Edith and Edward think if they knew I’d been with both of their grandsons…well, I’d only been with one, but they didn’t know that.

  “How dare I what? I fucked you already. Why would it be such a surprise that I’d want to fuck you again?”

  He laughed, and before I could respond, he walked away from me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I had to resist the urge to run after Jack and tell him to hold on.

  He was a football player? No wonder he’d been quizzing me about my love of football. He’d obviously known I was lying through my teeth. No wonder he’d mentioned his name so many times, like I should have known him. Maybe he thought I was pretending not to know him because I was a gold digger.

  I pulled out my phone and quickly put his name into Google. His photo and Wikipedia page came up immediately. He was a big deal. A handsome, rich, big deal. And he knew I was a liar. I knew that he knew, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

  Lucas walked over to me and raised an eyebrow. “What was that about, babe?”

  “I think you know what that was about.” I shook my head. “This is a hot mess.”

  “You’re telling me. My almost-fiancée slept with my cousin yesterday!” He pulled a comically shocked face, but I could see the wicked spark in his eyes. “Oh my gosh. What is the world coming to?”

  “Lucas, this is not funny. I don’t know why you’re trying to make a joke.”

  “What else can we do?” He shrugged. “I mean, you’re just going to have to be some sort of femme fatale who’s not really that trustworthy, but I love you so much that I forgive you.”

  “Lucas. Really? Do I look like a femme fatale?”

  “I think you don’t understand just how absolutely gorgeous you are.” He looked serious for once. “I mean, yes, I’m gay, but I can appreciate your beauty. You are stunning. I don’t understand why you don’t see that.”

  “I’m not stunning.” I shook my head. “I mean, I’m okay.”

  “Girl, please. With your long, brunette tresses, and your big, beautiful brown eyes, and your golden skin, which I know is natural because I know you don’t go to the tanning salon.”

  “You know I don’t have money to spend on a tanning salon. Let’s thank my Italian ancestors for that one.”

  “Girl, you’re beautiful. You know that, right? And I don’t know what happened with my cousin, but you’re better off without him. Trust me on that.”

  “Well, it’s not really like I had much of a choice. He was an asshole.”

  “Isabella, I need all the details. You know that, right?” He was acting like an eager paparazzi interviewing a Z-list celebrity who had information on an A lister. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how badly he wanted to know my sordid story.

  “Yeah. But this is not the right place.”

  “I know,” he nodded. “Want to go and get some ice cream?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He turned toward his grandmother. “Hey, Nana?”

  “Yes, Lucas?”

  “Can I borrow one of the cars? I would love to take Isabella into town to get some ice cream.”

  “Okay, dear. Su
re. Take whichever one you want.”

  “Even the Bentley?”

  “Even the Bentley.” She smiled indulgently.

  “Wow. Thanks, Nana.”

  “Be careful with it now, son.” Edward looked slightly concerned. “Don’t be driving all crazy like you used to when you were young.”

  “Papa, it’ll be fine,” Lucas assured him. “Come on, Isabella. I’m about to show you the local sights in style.”

  “Well, don’t I get an invitation?” Jack stepped forward and cleared his throat. Lucas and I paused and glanced at each other.

  “You want to come?” Lucas looked at him suspiciously. “Really? Why? You never want to go into town for ice cream. Not even when we were kids.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t seen you in a while and I’d like to get to know your girlfriend.” Jack looked over at Edith and Edward. “Plus, I think that Nana and Papa could do with some time alone whilst they get ready for everyone else to arrive tomorrow.”

  “Yes. Take your cousin into town. It’ll be nice for you guys to catch up,” Edith chimed in. “I know that you haven’t been spending as much time with each other as we would have liked. And Isabella, do enjoy the village. It’s quiet, but you’ll like it, I think. Greenwich is such a beautiful town, and so close to New York. Maybe when you and Lucas are married and have kids, you’ll think about living there.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” I said, avoiding Jack’s eyes. I could tell that he was laughing at us.

  “Okay, it’s set,” Jack said. “Do you want to take the Bentley or the Rolls? Or would you rather I drive, Lucas?”

  “I will drive,” Lucas said. “I already said I want the Bentley. You can take the Rolls if you want to go by yourself. I mean, you don’t have to drive into town with us.”

  “Oh. You’re funny, Lucas.” Jack ran his hand through his hair, which I could tell he’d cut since I last saw him. Was I so into him that I could tell when he’d had his hair done? I was really a lost cause.

  “Okay. I’ll meet you in the foyer in five minutes?” Jack turned. “I’m just going to go and freshen up really quick and we’ll head off. Yeah?”

  “Yes, sir,” Lucas said, and then rolled his eyes at me. “Come on, Isabella. Let’s wait for him outside.”