"You think, or you fear? Because fear is what I'm hearing, and Jackson Simmons is as fearless as they come. You haven't exactly been a pushover or some sort of whipping boy for her. I think she might have an idea that you're not exactly an easy-going bloke who'll be catering to her every whim and tantrum."
"Even your wife sees me as more of a pushover. I've heard them going on about it, when they didn't think I was listening. She wouldn't be driving that expensive crap heap of a car and I wouldn't be paying for two places in the city if I was really in charge. She was skittish enough back then. I couldn't be an overbearing gorilla pounding my chest every time she gave me pushback."
"She didn't run from the building screaming about you being a brute or a gorilla after the bill fiasco, did she? No. In fact, you said it was one of the most intimate nights you all had spent together. She was even sweeter a few days later. So, stop fighting what's in you. Show her all your overbearing, chest pounding, gorilla ways and let her in. Put all of your cards on the table."
"So sage, oh, wise one."
"Wise ass. I mean it, and now I'm going back to wife, before she guilts me into giving her the upper hand tonight."
"I have no idea, and I don't want to know, what that means."
"It means get off the phone with me and go talk to your girl, or should I say little girl?"
"Goodnight, Michael."
The click Jack heard was on top of his last words. When it came to getting back to his wife, his best friend could be a special kind of rude. He went to splash cold water on his face and prepare to have the conversation he should have had months ago. They would put their cards on the table today and move forward in the way that worked best for them and them alone. If that meant keeping some folks at a distance, then so be it.
The view that greeted him when he walked into the living room was a bucket of ice water on the grandstand he had built up in his head. Keila must have been exhausted. She was obviously coming down from an intense schedule and an adrenaline drop from all of the pressure she put on herself for their dinner tonight. There was no way he was waking her up to send her back to her apartment, but he sure couldn't let her sleep in his bed. Jack was by no means a saint at that level, so instead, he pulled the heavier blanket from the foot of his bed and placed it over her. Tucking it around her, Jack sat on the edge of his coffee table and watched her for a few moments. She was so beautiful and at peace in this state. Losing her wasn't an option, so maybe he could be patient a little bit longer.
He grabbed a bottle of water and locked up, before heading into his bedroom. It looked like it would be an early and uneventful night for him again. Between the time difference and the exhaustion he felt from crossing several datelines, Jack was out cold before he knew it.
When he rolled over and checked the clock on his cell phone, Jack couldn't believe how late he'd slept in. So much for getting in a longer run. His body felt rested, but his head was in the exact same place it was in when he'd hung up from Michael. Getting up to go relieve his bladder and shower some focus into his brain, Jack was convinced he wasn't going to spend another night like the one he just had. The second he was out, he and his girl were going to breakfast, and they were going to have a very serious talk.
Jack was feeling refreshed and refocused. He was ready to give Keila her own little wake up call. He thought she would've been up and moving about, but the apartment was unusually quiet, except for the low ambient sound of the appliances whirring. He noticed the blanket folded up in the corner of the couch before taking stock of the rest of the place. She was gone. There was no way to tell when or where gone was, but a quick look in the usual note leaving places quickly let him know she hadn't left one.
A disappearing act meant she was in a snit about something, and Jack had a pretty good idea what it was about. Well, she could simmer in her own juices a little longer, while he ran down to the cafe next door and grabbed a coffee. The short trip would be his cooling down time. He hated when she just stormed off in a fit of temper. Truth be told, she confessed that she wasn't terribly happy with herself when she did it, either. She told him once, she felt so out of control immediately after, but her mom would leave her be until she came back around. The problem was that she didn't really know how to come back around. She always felt like she'd pushed too far and would be rejected, so she became paralyzed with indecision. As a kid, she would cry, dig her heels in more, and double down on her tantrum. Her grams would have enough and march upstairs to give a good 'what-for' then march her back to her mother to offer up an apology for whatever nonsense had transpired. In the end, Keila said, that had made all the difference. She didn't have to worry about her grams' rejection since her grams made the first move.
Well, Jack planned to take a page out of her grams' book today.
Seven
Keila
When she hung up the phone from Brianna, Keila was convinced that she was going to tell Jack exactly what she wanted. What she could and couldn't live with anymore. In a few months, they would be celebrating a year in their current Daddy arrangement, and she wanted to revisit their contract. Changes needed to be made, and she felt she had a right to make those demands. After a shower, and cleaning—a clear sign of nervous energy—Keila was about to check on some press releases her team was in charge of working on. Everyone else probably had exciting Saturday plans, so she might as well get them ahead. It was pushing a bit after ten, and if Jack wasn't awake by now, he was more exhausted than she'd given him credit, and if he was awake but hadn't sought her out, he was pissed about her little disappearing act and she was in no hurry to see him. Maybe her subconscious was feeling a little badly about not leaving at note. Then there was her pastry greed. Okay, perhaps she did behave like a temperamental brat having a fit. Shoveling in the last one was pastry pettiness at its best.
Keila plopped on the floor and opened her laptop, but before she could get her email pulled up or a file loaded, she heard the keys in the door. Suddenly, all of her courage went out the window and off of her balcony. She leapt up and gathered everything from TGIP and shoved it under the couch cushions like a kid hiding a naughty note home from school.
"Keila Soriano, you better have one good reason for your little disappearing act this morning."
Jack didn't normally bellow, but he was in a mood, and his short walk didn't settle him nearly enough.
"I'm right here, Jack. You don't need to… Oh, did you get that for me?" Keila managed to hop up from her position on the floor and reach him in two steps. She could put some hustle in her step when it came to blended coffee with gobs of whip cream and drizzled caramel. He obviously wasn't that ticked off.
"Yes, I did. It would have served you right if I had given it to Ted to wash down his cronut."
She at least had the wherewithal to look chastised. "Ted has a big mouth. I was being nice. You wait until I see his wife picking him up. If he can share, then so can I."
"You weren't being nice, Kid, you were being spiteful and sneaky. Take this and go have a seat. I didn't want to have this chat caffeine free and thought you could use a bit of the same, but now I'm rethinking my kindness."
As she took the cup from his hand, Keila stretched up and gave him a peck on the cheek then hurried to situate herself atop the cushion covering her little secret. Jack followed and took a seat in the club chair she'd inherited from her apartment with Bri. Keila was encouraged by his deliberate distance.
"I'm still waiting for an answer, Kid."
"Jack, I live across the hall. I didn't flee to a foreign nation. Overreacting much?"
Keila watched as he placed his to-go cup on the table and looked her square in the eye. Yikes! There wasn't much space to scoot back, but she did what she could to put some space between them, because the look he was giving her said the coffee table might not be enough of an obstacle.
"You want to try that again, little girl! I think you know that's not even close to a level of sarcasm I'm willing to tolerate."
<
br /> "We were supposed to hang out, maybe talk about things last night, and you spent so much time on the phone with Michael that I fell asleep. Why'd you leave me on the couch? That's what you do to a friend who's gotten wasted at your house or to a kid you're babysitting. It's not what you do to your girlfriend who slaved at a hot stove all day to make you a special welcome home dinner."
Word vomit gone wrong. Keila wanted to shove her hand in her mouth, next to her foot. From the look on Jack's face, she instantly knew he'd heard her as clear as day. She couldn't hold his gaze for even a second. All she could do was stare into her cup, which she was clutching for dear life and certain it was going to burst from the top if she gave it even one more slight squeeze.
She felt the cup being taken out of her hand and the couch dip a bit on her left.
"My what? Look at me please. Kid, is this what you've been wanting to talk to me about?"
Keila was mortified at her little outburst. So much for a mature dialogue on the state of their relationship. Whatever was happening in her head and her heart, she knew she had to say something to Jack. Now was not the time for subtle head nods.
"Yes, you heard me right." She charged her answer with far more confidence than she felt. A wobbly voice wouldn't convince him that she was serious. "I didn't want to blurt it out or anything, but I'm not sure what else I would call you. I haven't dated or even thought about dating anyone since we agreed to this," she said as she gestured between them. "Not so much as a kiss in almost a year. It just wouldn't be right. Just because I was willing to sign up on that crazy website doesn't mean I could easily flit between different men. I wouldn't."
"That's not why I'm shocked, Keila. We had a very specific conversation about what this would be between us. We had an agreement, and I've done everything I can to honor it. You're hitting me with this out of left field."
"I don't think I am." And there was the wobbly. She was determined not to cry, but how could he not have seen or known what was building between them or what she felt? "You were quick to renegotiate the spanking part of our arrangement."
"Touché! And, I couldn't negotiate a thing on my own. We renegotiated, because we discussed it and knew it would work for us. Are you remembering that conversation differently now?"
"No. I just want to know why we haven't renegotiated the rest yet. Are you seeing someone else?"
"Absolutely not. Keila, I haven't avoided this conversation because I want to date other women. I've had plenty of opportunity to do that. You know why we haven't moved forward, and for the record, it has nothing to do with my affections or desire for you."
"Then, what is it? The more time we spend together, it feels like the further apart we get. When I woke up this morning, I felt so good wrapped in your blanket, inhaling your scent, for a minute, it was exactly where I wanted to be, and then it dawned on me that I was on the couch. I was wrapped in a blanket and not wrapped in you. It just made me angry."
"With me?" Jack asked. He moved closer and pulled her into his chest. Keila wanted to resist. She wanted to fight her need to be close to this man, but she couldn't do it. She was weak for Jack.
"I was angry with you, but I was also pissed with myself. Brianna kept telling me to talk to you, but I wanted you to want to have this conversation. I wanted you to want me."
"Oh, my, that is not something you need to worry about. My wanting you has never been in question. Before I even realized what was happening, I wanted you. In more than a decade, before we met, I was convinced that my one moment in time for love had already passed me by. There was nothing in those moments in between that led me to believe otherwise. Then you, quite literally, stumbled into my life."
Looking up at him with some doubt still in her eyes, Keila was shocked when Jack proceeded to lift her full off of the couch and onto his lap, her knees falling to the sides of his thighs as she straddled him and his arms holding her snuggly in place with his hands on her lower back. They were a breath apart, the scent of coffee and pastries filling the air between them and mixing with a fair amount of pheromones and sexual tension.
Keila's hands went to his face, and she could see the truth of his words in his eyes. But, something was still keeping them arm's distance apart, and she needed to hear it.
"I can see the 'but' in your eyes."
"Keila, I've become a very exacting man. In case you haven't already noticed, I like things done a particular way and need a certain amount of order in my life in order to not feel as out of control as the rest of the world. Some of this is my age and life experience, but it is who I am. So, our age difference and all that comes with it, well, this could always be an obstacle for us. The fact is I've lived twice as long as you have. There will be things that are non-negotiable for me. The first thing is I meet your mother and your grams, and we don't sell them some nonsense story about who I am or when we met or what I mean in your life. You are not my dirty little secret, and I don't expect to be yours."
Her hands dropped from his face and she started twisting them furiously in front of her. Unable to stand the proximity she was enjoying so much a few moments ago, Keila started to wiggle out of his embrace.
"Settle back down. You wanted to talk, and that's what we're going to do. I'm not saying anything you didn't already know. I wasn't even on board with the lie you and Brianna concocted to cover your living arrangement. Why would you think I'd feel better about a lie that involved me?"
The man wasn't lying. Keila could hardly look at him, the intensity of what was going on between them too much to take in a single dose. For all of her internal struggles and outward pouting about how she was in the dark regarding how Jack felt about her, Keila knew she was lying to herself about his feelings regarding her subterfuge, under any circumstances, and what coming clean with her mother and grams meant to him. She still didn't see it as a big deal. Between school and her internship, she almost never saw them, and when she did, it was when she went back home to Brooklyn. Jack simply wasn't a factor in her relationship with them and yet it was his biggest sticking point in his relationship with her. To her, it felt like a whole lot of unnecessary drama that she was more than happy to ignore, which was her general MO, ignore it until it goes away.
Jack had no way of knowing what the two she-cudas were really like. She'd introduced Brianna to the term the one time she had taken her to Brooklyn for a long weekend. Bri learned quickly that her friend did not exaggerate when it came to her grams and mother. Her mother hadn't been an unofficial member for long, but the more time she spent not having her own life, the more she was becoming an exact replica of her grams.
"Come on, Brianna! I swear if you make me late, I will murder you in your sleep tonight. I told you my grandmother takes her little show and tells seriously. Why couldn't we just use the car service account Michael arranged? You just had to experience the joys of New York City Mass Transit. I think you defy him just to get a rise out of him."
"Yeah, where the hell have you been? No one experiences the thrills of New York City behind the tinted windows of a Town Car. He's from here, he knows this, and he knows me, so I don't know why he even bothered."
"Maybe he thought you'd decide to not act out for the sake of your best friend's sanity. I should have called him and put a stop to your city shenanigans from the start. No, I should have put my foot down with Grams and her compulsive need to parade me around her friends. Maybe I should have gone with my first instinct and just turned around after my appointment and came back home. Coming in for a long weekend and dragging you with me was a clear error in judgment."
Brianna just laughed at her like that was the most ridiculous thing she'd heard all day. The girls had gotten up and headed into Manhattan to do a little shopping (well, Brianna's version of a little shopping) and catch a show, before they had to be back for one of Keila's grams' little gatherings. Keila explained that a little gathering was code for the temple she-cudas to size up the latest potential wife for the boys graduating from college
that coming spring. If Keila had known their trip out would coincide with the group's annual (unofficial) wife troll, she would have moved her doctor's appointment. She was still on her mother's insurance and the woman wouldn't let her switch to a doctor in Virginia. It was a completely controlling and gelastic notion that she would know more than Keila wanted her to know because she was going to the family doctor. She'd wanted to scream 'HIPAA laws still apply, Mother, and I'm not a minor.' She'd wanted to scream it, but she didn't. Keila lived on a powder keg of lies, and keeping the right balance of peace and contention with her mother was a dance she couldn't walk off the floor on.
"The she-cudas?" Brianna asked.
"My grandmother's Yenta friends. Those women are the temple barracudas. They rule over that kingdom like a team of predators. Only the strong survive an encounter with them. Honestly, the NYPD should hire them out for interrogations. Confessions to crimes would go up a hundred percent."
"Oh, my God! I got she-cuda'd. I thought your grandmother was being a sweet, albeit nosey, typical old lady with a lot of questions. Was she sizing me up for the Yentas, too?"
"She can totally be a regular nosey old lady. But, no, you're safe. You're not Jewish enough for the temple sons."
"I'm not Jewish at all."
"My point, exactly. Let's go. This is our stop, Ms. Let's-Take-The-Subway. You better be able to run in those shoes. I swear if I get one second of grief, I'm telling Grams we found out you were part Jewish on your mother's side and I'll have her release the she-cudas on you."
The memory brought a smile to her face. She and Bri did have some adventures during their two years of living together. They complimented each other's personality, and once they got past the initial awkwardness of Keila finding out about Michael, they'd been inseparable. In this moment, she wished it were she and Brianna sitting on the couch, fantasizing about their relationships and futures over ice cream and Lifetime movies. Bri could drive her nuts, but she missed her best friend. They did have fun together. That afternoon, long ago, was why Keila refused to get sucked into the world of the Soriano women. Living with Brianna, meeting Michael, and getting to know Jack had been the best reprieve she had ever gotten. It wasn't something she wanted to put at risk.
The Girl in Apartment 1203 Page 6
