by Lisa Gillis
The other woman’s frown relaxed, and her tentative gaze flickered. “You do know that none of this is true. About me and Jack? We’ve never been–”
“I know. But where I come from, our definition of ex is pretty broad.”
“I’m not following...”
If she could escape the rest of this topic by sinking under the surface, she gladly would. Just the thought of the muffled outside world was peaceful enough to make her consider joining Tristan in his practice to hold his breath. Silently berating herself for speaking without thinking and subsequently getting herself into this mess, she admitted, “Hookups. Even one or two time hookups are exes.”
“Still not getting it...” Randi searched her face and then drew her own legs up in surprise. “Oh holy fuck! Jack told you didn’t he?”
Marissa picked at a hangnail brought on by the dry weather and saltwater pool.
“That stupid fuck,” Randi’s tone held a lilt of surprised disbelief.
This time, Tristan was staring, but he was quietly assessing the exchange instead of proudly pointing out bad words. Following Marissa’s gaze, Randi apologized to both Marissa and the young boy.
“I’m going to get another drink.” Stretching to her feet, she bent to tap once on Marissa’s shoulder. “Come get you one.”
She didn’t need another, but she knew Randi was seeking privacy to finish this unsavory conversation. Reluctantly, she followed to the portico and leaned against the bar too wrought up to sit down.
Randi began to pour the two drinks, and Marissa didn’t stop her. “I can’t believe he blabbed that to you. Men are so stupid!”
“It’s fine. I know there are a lot of women. I just didn’t expect him to expect...” Marissa stopped herself before she said ‘one of them’ in allusion to his many women, which would seem derogatory to Randi. It was weird for Jack to expect his fiancée to become best friends with his ‘non ex ex,’ and before she could reword, Randi quickly jumped in that pause with a very unexpected reply.
“Jack and I, well there is no Jack and I. Not even one time.”
As Marissa gaped, the lingerina explained her answer.
“You know how men are. They are always bothering for sex. Then once they get it, they are cool and the pressure is off.” Randi finished the drinks and stared into them. “I saw an opportunity, and even though it was kind of a dirty trick, I did it so that Jack would quit being the same weirdo that every other guy is.”
Suddenly feeling the need for the drink, Marissa grabbed one of the two glasses and tipped a gulp into her mouth. Randi went on to explain that Jack had accompanied her to one of her promotional parties, and afterward they had gone into her house for a nightcap.
“I know what you are thinking. I know what a nightcap means. But you have to understand, I met Jack through his Aunt, and he was as much of a friend as a horny guy can be, you know?” Randi curved a smile of sisterhood, and warily Marissa returned it. “We even joked about no funny business when he came in. I got the feeling he just needed not to be alone. He was going through something and wouldn’t say what it was, but it had him down.”
Jack who didn’t usually get falling down drunk had overindulged on that night for some reason. He ended up in the pool in his birthday suit, and following that, sprawled on her patio furniture wrapped in a towel. Leaving him to sleep it off she went to bed then woke him the next morning with coffee.
“He sat up from that poolside lounger and looked so proud of himself when he saw me wearing a robe.” Randi’s tight smile relaxed with the memory. Marissa did not fault her. The mental picture almost had her smiling because she knew the exact smug expression Randi spoke of. “I know it was evil but when he asked me if anything had happened, I–” Randi looked closely, maybe to make sure Marissa was taking it okay, before squaring her shoulders and finishing up. “I told him he rocked my world. And it worked. After that, he quit coming on so hard.”
The idea of Jack sad and vulnerable over something private and turning to Randi was hard to think on. What had had him so down? Another woman? Marissa pushed it from her mind striving for casualness.
“That’s some story.”
“It’s true. I swear to you. And I will tell Jack the truth.”
“He said that y’all were together a couple of times.”
“After that night, he ended up drunk on my couch more than once. I guess, if he had blackouts, it’s possible that he could have assumed we did.”
“How come you never gave in to him?” The question slipped out because she could not imagine fending off Jack’s advances.
“We hung out enough for me to know the demands of his career and that he never settled with any one woman for more than a few weeks. I’m not a casual person.” Dabbing at a water ring on the bar, Randi admitted, “I knew he would be too easy to love, and sex would just send me to the point of no return.”
“I totally get that.”
“I know you do. I’m so glad Jack found someone real. He never had good sense when it came to women.”
Marissa raised her brows in a clear invitation to continue, but as hypocritical as it was, she did not want to verbally pry.
Randi intuitively understood, and her posture leaned a bit closer. “With Jack, the flavor of the week was always mean. There is no other word. His women were always self-centered and just mean to him.”
“Why would that be?”
“I have my theories, but who really knows?” They drank a moment then Randi was further forthcoming. “Maybe it’s all he knew. You will understand when you meet his family.”
“His mother was a little cold to me at first, but then she seemed okay...”
“Yeah...Jules is an odd one. She doesn’t trust easy. And I guess in your case, she thought you had wronged her son–” Instantly, Randi chopped off her words. “I’m sorry. I mean I know you had your reasons. Nobody knows what they would have done—” Hastily, Randi gulped down a few sips as if to restrain her words. “Anyway, Jules is great once you get to know her. But Jack’s sister is something else...” Randi contributed one of her exaggerated shudders to the discussion.
“I’m supposed to meet her in a couple of days,” Marissa worried.
“Oh, well she is sweet as pie to everyone, except Jack. Like she never grew out of sibling rivalry or something.” Randi emptied her drink and reached for both of their glasses. “And I’m just saying, maybe if I wanted to be a shrink about it, in his head somewhere, he thought that bitchiness was part of love. Until now. You have no idea how happy everyone is about the two of you.”
“If everyone were happy, Emmajesty would not have been in my face this morning,” Marissa jested and then sobered. “Seriously though, thanks for clearing stuff up. And maybe with Jack and you, you should just let the past be the past.”
“Not tell him that we didn’t?”
“What would be the point? I guess I’m thinking that knowing the truth after all this time might make him feel like a joke.”
“Good looking out. See that is what I’m talking about. You understand him and love him enough to care about something like that.”
“It’s mutual,” Marissa sighed unable to banter away the cheesy moment with one of her typical caustic remarks.
CHAPTER 24
“I DON’T KNOW if I like it...”
“Mmh. Well I like it...”
“It’s just so white. We eat in bed. Spill stuff in bed.”
Which is exactly why Marissa woke up that morning and changed out the bed linens for those that Jack’s mother had given them.
The previous night, they had eaten nachos in bed while watching a movie with Tristan. After rubbing the cheese and hot sauce stains with a wet paper towel, and brushing the crumbs from the dark sheets, they had fallen asleep with Tristan between them.
“Are you doing this because you lied to my mom?” From their observation stance at the foot of the bed, Jack raised confrontational brows.
Jack’s mother had called th
e evening before to inform him that they could not stay away from their grandson and would be flying in today. Before ending the call, she had requested to speak to Marissa, and cordially inquired how she and Tristan were adjusting. In thanking Mrs. Loren for the gifts, Marissa had led her to believe that she and Jack were already using the bed set.
Jack had smirked upon hearing the white lie, just like he was smirking now.
“I didn’t lie to her. Not exactly.”
The smile grew wider, and since they were due at Meg’s house in just over an hour, Marissa couldn’t erase it from his face in the manner she wanted to.
“It’s just weird. My mom giving us bed stuff.”
“It’s actually kind of a cool ‘welcome to the family’ if it was thought out that way. A woman thing.” This time when his brows lifted, they were a question, a curious invitation to continue. “It’s kind of an acceptance that I’m not one of your groupie hoes.”
“I never had groupie hoes.” When it was her eyebrows moving this time, he negated, “Okay, I did sometimes. A while ago. But I didn’t think of them as that.” His dark gaze was sweetly sinking into hers while he obviously remembered their first meeting. “And I’m really glad now. With no women on the tour bus, there would be no little boys dropping as many nachos as he eats in the bed.”
Pulling her eyes from his compelling ones, she studied the fresh, white bed. The atmosphere suddenly charged in a way that was becoming familiar. They didn’t have time, but they were going to make it.
When one step brought him toe to toe, she raised her arms to twine around his neck, already anticipating the jelly her knees were about to become.
The kiss was unhurried even though they should have been pacing through a quickie. After more than a few moans at the way their tongues played together, she kept her lips lightly resting on his as she asked, “Dax will keep playing with Tristan?”
She knew what Jack would do, and watched as he reached to his waist for his phone. After wanting to scream at Jack on several occasions that Dax was not a nanny, at this time, she was actually encouraging the text that would keep his assistant on the Xbox with their son until further notice.
In one quick swipe, he pulled the thin tank top over her head and tossed it aside as he moved away long enough to push the door closed. Without pausing in his return strides, he peeled his own tee shirt off, letting it fall to the floor, and his eyes roved hungrily over the skin exposed when she let her bra drop.
She loved his ways. That he almost always took a moment, even if it was a nanosecond, to enjoy the view. That his hands would not go straight for her chest once it was bared. They almost always settled on the curve of her waist and glided upward until they were filled. That the first kiss almost always went to her cleavage before making a selection and taking her to the edge of crazy.
He brought his kiss back to her lips while hooking the fingers of each hand into the waistband of her shorts and panties. With a yank, they were both off, and she worked the fly on his cargos.
The new sheets were soft against her back, and Jack was hard against her front. The electrifying jolt of skin to skin contact had her gasping. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the intensity of each kiss and the certainty of each touch.
Turning her head, she shivered as she gave him access to her neck, and when her eyes next opened she froze in frustration.
“That dog is a voyeur!”
Rusty, who had earlier been napping next to Tristan as the race game was played, was now, for some inexplicable reason, bedded down in his cage watching as was the norm.
Jack crushed his hips teasingly and intimately to hers before bounding off the bed long enough to kick the cage door closed and drape the blanket that was now kept on top of it, over it. The condoms had been moved to a trinket box on his nightstand, and he grabbed one before resuming his place.
“Did any of your other women bitch about your dog watching?” Maybe because of the new sheet set, this was fresh on her mind, and she unthinkingly broke the cardinal rule of discussing past partners during sex. However Jack didn’t seem to care. Raising that dark head from her chest, he peered into her eyes.
“No.”
She took advantage of his position, putting her lips to him, repaying him for every kiss, every touch of the tongue, every nip.
Even though they had begun in a leisure fashion, they finished fast and furious, and as they lay winding down, her eyes were drawn to the part of him that remained a mystery.
“What’re you doin?” he rumbled, and she froze her tongue in the midst of its trace of the band of music that circled the biceps and triceps of his upper arm.
Raising her eyes, she found his head slightly elevated from the pillow and curious dark eyes tinged with amusement.
Using her fingertip, she continued to trail the winding music bar. A few times before, she had inquired if the notes made up an actual song, and each time, her question had been met with a diversion.
“Are you ever going to tell me what this is?”
It didn’t surprise her when his head dropped back, and he pulled her close. “I will. Soon. Can I tell you something else for now though?” Twisting to her, he trailed a finger down her cheekbone. “No one else has ever been in here. In my room.”
“What do you mean?”
“These women you speak of. None have ever been in here.”
“How long have you lived here?” She asked of the house. It was hard to believe him, although what reason could he have to offer up such a lie?
“A couple of years. But it’s a weird life. You know? This is my bedroom, dammit. Even though the ‘sex contract,’ that you like to talk about, eventually was a disclosure too, despite it, I just never trusted that someone wouldn’t take pictures or something, somehow, without me knowing. If something about me hits the internet or a magazine, and it is really my room, it validates it.”
“You mean that women would actually sign a paper that kept them from saying they had sex with you?” The scoff wrapped up in her words was unintentional, and thankfully, he took no offense.
“Of course nobody can know what they say. But it kept them from telling the story, or selling the story...what?!” An indignant flash darkened his eyes when she laughed.
“I love you Jack.” She moved her head enough to touch her lips to his. “How can you not see that you seemed so far out of my league? How can you truly not understand why I couldn’t tell you I was pregnant?”
“I do. I guess. I’m just mad that I didn’t get to see it.” His hand moved from her face to curve over her stomach. “We are having more right?”
At this she stiffened, nervously biting at her lip while evading the direct question. “How many more?”
Although, he had jokingly hinted of more kids when gifting the bracelets, this was uncharted territory. It struck her that Jack had been wise to say they needed time to know each other before jumping into marriage. There was so much they had yet to learn about one another. And learning some of these things just might be a deal breaker, although losing him would tear her heart out.
“A dozen.” The pronouncement came as timely as if he were a clairvoyant. Then he laughed, and she squirmed. “You’re too easy.” he declared, and she indignantly pulled back a space while he continued. “How about one to start with? Then one or two more if we think we are up to it?”
“Four kids?!”
“Max.”
“I never liked that name,” she deadpanned and then brushed her foot against his.
A few seconds went by before her joke registered, and he punished her with a nip of his teeth to her lip. Pressing a kiss to her head, he swung out of bed. While dressing in each article of clothing as it was retrieved from the floor, he playfully tossed her clothes at her.
A sudden feeling of despondency pervaded, and she leaped up to dress before it could soak in and ruin her mood.
Dax professionally ignored their half hour or so escapade and helped them load the car with the few
necessities including a skimboard for Tristan, since Meg’s house was near the beach and then waved them off.
CHAPTER 25
THE DRIVE TOOK over an hour, much of it in traffic due to not traveling in that perfect window of time between rush hour and lunch hour. Soon, they were driving up the coast, and Marissa caught a glimpse of the ocean between homes, or when the road inclined higher up the mountainside than the rooftops.
Upon their arrival, his sister berated, “Little brother! Are you ever not late?!” Nonetheless, she happily hugged him. She then addressed Marissa with her wide smile, “First work order for you. Jacks. On time!”
“Good luck with that. She totally made us late today.” Jack pulled one of his smirks and still had leftover heat in his eyes when he met Marissa’s abashed glare.
“Ugh,” Meg barked out a sound of disgust and reneged, “First order of business. Teach Jacks not to share deets!” But like Jack’s parents, Meg’s main focus was Tristan and she dropped to her knees. “I’ve been dying to meet you! How are you liking California?”
Meg, true to her Facebook photos, was a female version of Jack, the only difference in her coloring was her startling blue eyes. The same eyes that their mother had.
Jules Loren appeared and greeted Marissa with a friendly hug. Next, the woman patiently waited for Meg to peel herself off Jack, before wrapping her, six-foot plus, son in a hug and then joined in the banter with Tristan.
This gathering was obviously one of the large family affairs Jack had mentioned. Besides his sister and parents, there were aunts, uncles, cousins, a niece, and a nephew. A mouthwatering aroma wafted from the deck where most of the adults were visiting.
Meg’s home was directly on the beach, and Jack piggybacked Tristan down the steep wooden steps to the sand where a group of children played in the surf. After she was introduced around, Marissa stood admiring the view and watching Jack present Tristan to his cousins. She worried when one of the girls pointed at the crutch as she said something, but Jack said something back, and they all laughed including Tristan.
