Authors: Amy Jo Cousins
“Thanks for staying.”
At least those words were true. He’d been as careful as he could to stick with statements
that were half-truths at least, telling himself that what he was doing was somehow
not as bad if he avoided any flat-out lies. But the flush of relief he felt at saying
something as simply true as “thank you for staying” made it clear to him that he knew
he was lying, half-truths or not.
Sarah fell asleep in his arms, wrapped around him as her body sank into his, her slackening
muscles resting heavily against him. J.D. felt the gentle weight of her like a lead
plate on his flattening sense of honor.
There was no way around it. However he had managed to convince himself that this lie
was just a joke, it sat in the middle of any road the two of them might choose to
follow like an out of commission CTA bus.
He would tell her in the morning. He had to.
Matters would become academic, at least, with Tyler. He could hardly stay pissed if
they were pursuing some kind of real relationship even without the encouragement of
a mock wedding ring. Of course, that depended on Sarah’s reaction to the news that
J.D. had been perpetrating a fraud upon her for the past forty-eight hours.
The sky was lightening over the spiky towers of the city skyline before he fell asleep,
dread still a churning ball of acid in his stomach, telling himself that the sooner
he cleared the air the easier he would feel.
He didn’t believe it for a second.
His only hope was that he hadn’t screwed this up so royally that Sarah couldn’t find
a way to forgive him, maybe even find a shred of humor in the ridiculous depth of
his bad judgment.
Within five minutes of waking up the next morning, however, he was reminded of exactly
why the lie kept getting out of hand.
He crawled out of sleep to a quiet song of morning noises that were unfamiliar in
his normally silent home. Glass clinking. The sucking sound of a refrigerator door
peeling open. Sharp clicks followed by brief slapping noises that his brain eventually
identified as the sound of high heels on a hard floor. The low murmur of a voice.
Rolling over, he slid his hands across empty sheets.
Sarah.
The various sounds resolved themselves into the picture of a woman dressed for work,
making coffee with cream in the kitchen. Maybe saying
hello
to the cat on her way out the door.
He groaned from deep in his gut and forced himself to sit up. The decision he’d made
hung over him and killed any thoughts of pretending he hadn’t woken up before she
left.
Downstairs, he walked up behind Sarah as she rinsed out her coffee mug in the sink
and wrapped his arms around her, knowing she’d heard his approach. The lure of drawing
out the last moments of calm before the storm worked on him.
“Morning,” she said and twisted around to reach his mouth for a brief kiss. “I didn’t
want to wake you, but I’ve got to run.”
“I know.”
He let go of her and stepped to the side, watching as she reached for another mug
from the cabinet and poured him a cup of coffee without asking. She smiled as she
handed him the mug and then reached for the winter coat she’d draped over the trestle
table.
This was not going to be easy.
“Before you leave, Sarah.” He stopped and she glanced up at him, pausing as she rearranged
some paperwork before shoving it into the zippered pocket on the front of her carry-on
suitcase. He hadn’t noticed that she’d gathered all her things, and the sudden realization
that there’d be nothing of hers left behind once she walked out his door sparked a
moment of panic, which was weird. He’d paid off the driver and brought her suitcase
inside when she’d gone exploring upstairs the night before.
“You were pretty confident last night.” She grinned as she said it.
He was still hung up on the fact that she was about to take her things and go.
“You’re all packed up.”
She raised her eyebrows at his tone.
“Well, I do have to go home at some point. However unusual our situation is,” she
said, “you didn’t mean for me to just stay here, permanently, right?” And she laughed
to let him know she was joking.
He hadn’t, had he?
Of course not. He didn’t really want to be
married
to her, not yet at least, after the equivalent of a couple dates.
And two decades of knowing each other,
the devil’s advocate in him whispered.
No, he wasn’t crazy, not at all.
But then why did the sight of her packed suitcases make him want to bar the door?
Why this sudden urge to protest that she
was
home?
“No, you’re right. Of course.” His hands were awkward as he fumbled with the spoon
and dumped sugar he didn’t use into the coffee he kept around only for guests. Not
that he’d had any here before Sarah. The spoon clanked loudly against the ceramic
mug. He began abruptly, “Listen, Sarah. About our being married—”
“Oh, god, just please tell me you’re not going to say anything to my brother.” She
grabbed his forearm with one hand and squeezed. Her hair smelled like his shampoo
and warm sunlight and she’d pinned it up in a twist that looked efficient and librarian-sexy.
“You have to promise me you won’t tell him.”
The faintest tickle of irritation scratched at him.
“Why?”
“I’m certainly not going to tell him. Jesus, J.D., you know my family. They don’t
exactly hold back, you know? If you tell him at lunch, it’ll be all over town before
you can say, ‘Check, please.’ And when he tells my mother…” Her eyes flared wide with
real panic. She stepped into him until they stood toe-to-toe and tilted her head back
to drill him with a look. “You tell him, he tells my mother. And she…just. No. No
talking about this.”
He smacked the mug down on the table and flinched as the hot coffee slopped over the
back of his hand.
“Listen, people do crazy, dumb things all the time, way worse than this,” he began,
but she interrupted.
“Not. Me.” She enunciated the words with precision. “Not like this. And certainly
not with a guy like you.”
She said it like he’d magically sprouted a prison record and a bad case of venereal
disease while he wasn’t looking.
“Well, forgive me for being such a bad catch, Ms. I’ve Got a Secret Tattoo On My Ass.”
He tried to keep his voice light but the words tasted like ashes in his mouth. She
was so damn superior, in her neat little suit, with her neat little hair, ready to
head out the door to her neat little nine-to-five job, clearly horrified by the thought
that anyone might believe she’d made a leap and attached herself to him in anything
more serious than a casual fling.
He was supposed to be apologizing, throwing himself on the altar of her mercy and
groveling for forgiveness, for crying out loud. But her comments kept on poking him
in that sore spot, the one that still remembered the shame of being the kid whose
dad was found passed out on their front stoop one morning because he’d been too drunk
to get his key in the lock.
Meanwhile, she was rolling her eyes at him, as if she couldn’t understand why he was
being deliberately stupid.
“One, it’s not on my ass. Two, we went over all of this the other morning. It’s not
that they don’t like you. They love you. They just wouldn’t love you for me. Or at
least, not like this. This reckless, out of nowhere, not thinking it through thing.
For Christ’s sake, J.D., even if you’re right and your divorce is final, you’ve still
got this charming ex-wife following you around the country. Fuck.”
“I’m not an idiot, Sarah. Contrary to what you apparently believe. Lana thinks I can
get her a part, so she’s just flirting with me so I’ll agree to help her. It doesn’t
mean anything. It’s just habit with her.” He grabbed a paper towel off the roll and
wiped up the coffee he’d splashed on the counter. “But I spent three days in Santo
Domingo. I went to the courthouse twice. It was a real court, with a real judge, and
I got a real goddamn divorce.”
Her movements were brisk as she buttoned her coat.
“Well, she seems pretty damn interested in spending time with you again. She was pretty
eager to spend time with you in Vegas. For all you know, she’ll be knocking on your
door five minutes after she figures out you’re back here.”
Sarah slung her med bag over her shoulder and jerked the handle of the suitcase from
its recessed compartment. She stopped next to him and for a moment he thought she
might actually lean in and kiss him. Then she straightened and headed to the door,
the heels of her boots rapping sharply on the floor as she wheeled the suitcase behind
her.
She paused before leaving and turned back to look at him.
“Just keep this between us for now, okay?” she said. “I’ll call you later. I gotta
go.”
He debated a cheap parting shot, something charming about whether she’d left the cash
on the night table, but settled for a tight shrug and a precisely controlled gesture
of his own at her back.
“She wants to keep things between us, huh?” he said to the cat, who’d emerged from
hiding just in time to take his side. He reached for his cell phone.
“Hey, Tyler.” He looked at the light streaming in the windows. It looked to be a clear
winter morning in Chicago. “Yeah, I know it’s early. Get your ass out of bed and let’s
make it breakfast, okay? I’ve got a frigging physical therapy session at eleven.”
* * *
“I slept with J.D.” Sarah announced, bracing herself for the explosion.
Her sisters did not disappoint.
“Hey, this is a public place. Watch your language,” she hissed into the resulting
cacophony, and raised a guilty, apologetic hand to the woman who was sitting at the
table next to them with her two toddlers.
Her two sisters, older married Addy and younger single Maxine, were throwing fairly
typical questions at her, although she would have expected each to have given voice
to the other’s words.
“Was it good?” Addy leaned forward over the table with a predatory look about her.
Then she rolled her eyes and sat back. “What am I saying? Of course it was good. Just
look at him. And look at you, glowing girl. But feel free to tell us how good.”
Funky, imaginative Maxie must have been playing the concerned maternal role today,
because she just held Sarah’s hand. “Are you okay, sweetie? I’m a little worried about
you.”
Sarah retrieved her hand and sat back with her arms crossed over her chest, pursing
her lips and staring at her baby sister. Maxie’s brows were knit together and her
hands were clasped, prayerlike, in front of her, but she could only keep it up for
a minute beneath Sarah’s pointed gaze. The younger woman’s mouth twitched, and though
she clamped her lips together, the corners of her mouth tipped up until at last she
balled up her napkin, whipped it at Sarah’s head, and burst out laughing.
“Hey!” Addy was the one to scold now. “Try not to get us tossed out of Grace’s restaurant,
will you?” she said, referring to their sister-in-law, who was scheduled to join them
at any moment.
“Damn it, Sarah, you can always make me break!” Maxie reached for her water glass
and swigged it down. “That’s why you’re not allowed to sit in the front row at my
plays anymore. Go on, tell us about your night of passion with the smokin’ hot J.D.”
“Nights, plural.”
Hoots and long low whistles broke out just in time for Grace to demand to be let in
on the joke as she walked up to the table.
“No fair starting the gossip before I get here. Put that menu down,” she smacked the
leather folder out of Addy’s hands. “You know Chef has a hissy fit if we don’t let
him go all-out for our lunches.”
“But I can’t eat another seven-course meal,” Sarah protested. “I only have an hour
for lunch today. I’m not kidding.”
“You’d better eat fast then,” was Grace’s unsympathetic response as she slid a chair
out and sat down. “So, come on. Spill it. Who did what? Or should I be asking who
did who?”
Three heads swiveled like weathervanes to point directly to Sarah. She felt just like
she did when the dentist switched on the blinding light above her face and told her
to open up, “this won’t hurt a bit.”
Except the dentist didn’t make her blush.
“I slept with J.D. in Vegas.”
Having to repeat yourself was the punishment you received for opening the meeting
without having a full quorum.
Grace lifted her open hands in the air like she was raising the roof. “That was my
idea, thank you.”
“It was
what?
” She loved her sister-in-law. Which meant it was a shame she’d have to kill her.
“Well, it would have been my idea, if you hadn’t come storming into the pub all G.I.
Jane on us that afternoon before you guys left for Vegas.” Grace waved Sarah’s protests
away. “J.D. had just told us about the kiss, and Tyler was pissed because that wasn’t
what he was supposed to do with you, but I was about to tell J.D. to go for it. I
figured what you really needed was a good, sweaty wrestle between the sheets.” She
framed Sarah with two hands like J.D. lining up a perfect shot with his camera. “And
you see how good it was for you? So, technically, it was my idea.”
Sarah dropped her head until the cold edge of her plate pressed against her forehead.
So. Many. Problems. Where to begin?
“What does my brother have to do with me and J.D.?” she demanded after one problem
in particular wriggled its way to the top of the pile and she sat up again. “What
was ‘supposed to’ happen?”
“Nothing. We just wanted to see if he could find out how you were doing.”
“So, you did what exactly? Told J.D. to bang me for information about my personal
life?”
The humiliation was stinging hot and strong behind her eyes, but she knew she’d crossed
a line when Grace snapped at her. “No. We asked him to
talk
to you. You know, since it’s been months since you’ve talked to
us.
”