Janice looked at her like she was nuts. “Friends? That’s all you are?” She frowned. “None of my friends have ever kissed me like that.”
Sophie shrugged, as if a kiss like that from a male friend was perfectly normal, then looked at her watch. “I’d better get inside.”
Well, she thought as she walked up to the large front doors, perhaps there was an upside to Janice having seen Jake. At least that way, when she started showing maybe she wouldn’t have to explain as much. Her co-worker would spread the word for her.
Chapter Fifteen
Jake screeched to a stop in his parking space behind McCann’s.
Sophie was right. He was an idiot.
What if their kids could barely read because of him?
A cold sweat broke out across his skin, thinking of his kids going through what he’d been through. School had been hell. He could still remember sitting with the other kids in first, second, third grade, watching them learn to read all around him. But no matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t get the letters to make sense.
It was one more way he was worse than everyone else. He wasn't just the poor kid whose clothes stank like his father’s booze and cigarettes.
He was stupid, too.
Sure, numbers always added up easily for him, but words were a part of everything, especially making it all the way through school. He’d cut more classes than he’d attended and he figured they’d only let him graduate because the teachers didn’t want to see his ugly mug another year.
How many times had he told himself it didn’t matter in those teenage years? That he didn’t need to know how to read in order to be a bartender?
But owning a pub was a whole different ballgame from merely working in one. And that was when he’d had to face the truth: If he didn’t learn to read, there wouldn’t be a chance in hell that he could keep the business afloat.
Man, he’d been an asshole with those first tutors he’d hired in secret, enough of a belligerent twenty-one-year-old dickwad that they’d quit one after the other. Finally, he’d found one who seemed more amused by his antics than anything. Mrs. Springs had been in her sixties and was tough on him in a way no one had ever been before, almost as if she cared about whether or not he learned to read.
He still remembered the day things finally started to click. He’d planted a kiss straight on Helen’s lips, but she hadn’t been angry with him. She’d hugged him instead...then told him the road was still going to be long and difficult, but hopefully worth it.
She’d been right about the first part, anyway. He’d continued to sweat it out with her, and then other tutors after she’d retired. The bigger his business grew, the more contracts, the more correspondence he needed to deal with. People often commented on the way he did nearly all of his business on the phone or in person, rather than using email. They called it his “personal touch.” He didn’t care what they called it, just as long as no one ever guessed why he rarely used his computer for anything but spreadsheets and financials.
So, yeah, he could read. But it was still difficult to get through a book and he couldn’t see himself ever doing it for fun.
Whereas Sophie lived and breathed books.
Please, God,
he found himself praying silently,
let our kids get Sophie’s brain, not mine.
One of his waitresses saw him sitting in his car gripping the steering wheel for dear life, and gave him a startled little wave before turning away quickly as she clearly realized her boss was losing it.
Not little by little, but in big, huge chunks.
Hearing that he was going to be the father of twins by fall had thrown him for the biggest loop of his life. Big enough that he hadn’t been able to think of anything but chaining Sophie to him, doing whatever he needed to do to make sure she didn’t leave him, to ensure that she and his children would be healthy.
Jake started to get out of the car when his eye caught the corner of the thick book the pregnancy doctor had given them. He needed to read it, needed to know everything that could go wrong with Sophie’s pregnancy so that he could make sure nothing bad ever happened to her.
Of course, when he flipped through it, hundreds of tiny little words laughed up at him.
Just try to read me now,
each of those words challenged him.
Best of luck, loser.
If Sophie ever found out that he could barely read—
He shoved the book off his lap onto the floor mat. He didn’t have time to read it right now, anyway. His executive assistant had already called him repeatedly with reminders for the half-dozen conference calls he had scheduled for today. They were important meetings he would normally have given his entire attention to, budding emergencies at his newer sites that should have had him on the next plane out of SFO...rather than just trying to get through them so that he could get back to Sophie.
* * *
8:00 p.m.
If Jake thought she was going to pack up her things and be waiting for him like a good little girl, he was very much mistaken. As soon as he got to her apartment, she was going to give him a piece of her mind.
Just because they were having twins didn’t mean he could treat her like she was his possession.
Sophie paced in her living room and stared daggers at the door.
9:00 p.m.
Seriously? He couldn’t even get here on time to cart her away like a barbarian to his house? That was how little she meant to him? Did anything hurt more than being forgotten? All her life she’d been invisible. Not just to Jake, but to everyone else. How could a bookworm like her even begin to compete with her larger-than-life siblings? She’d never be a movie star, would never throw the winning pitch in the World Series, would never be the sparkling, stunning Sullivan twin.
Once he finally deigned to show up at her door, she swore that nothing was going to stop her from giving him a piece of her mind about what he could do with his six remaining days.
Okay, so maybe she was careening from one extreme to the other like a madwoman, but he could at least give her the respect of showing up less than an hour late to ruin her life.
10:00 p.m.
Sophie’s righteous anger grew bigger, stronger with every passing minute until her cuckoo clock chimed 10:00 p.m. That was when it finally hit her—something had to be wrong. Jake had been too intent on controlling her life this morning to give up just a few hours later. Especially since he wasn’t a man who ever gave up.
What if he’d been hurt? What if he needed her help and she’d been wasting precious time in her apartment thinking horrible things about him?
No one would know to call her if something happened to Jake. No one would know he was important to her, that she was pregnant with his children.
She didn’t own a car since it was easy enough to rent one from the car share company when she needed one. But they were all out of vehicles for the night and since Sophie didn’t know the bus schedule very well in the evening, it took her far longer than she wanted to get to his house. When all the lights were off and he didn't answer the door, she called the pub. The bartender told her Jake was there, but was in the middle of dealing with an emergency and couldn’t get to the phone.
Twenty-five minutes and two bus changes later, she practically ran inside McCann's, pushing through a crowd of college kids and not caring that they clearly thought she’d lost her mind.
“Where is Jake?” She nearly grabbed the bartender’s shirt to get his attention.
The scruffy man gave her the same look the college kids had. Like she should be on her living room clock with the rest of the cuckoo birds.
“He’s in the back.”
The last thing she expected was to see Jake in his office handing a tissue to a young woman with pink and blue hair. The girl blew her nose loudly just as Sophie saw that there were two other people in the room. The couple was older than Jake. Old enough, she realized, to be the girl’s parents.
She skidded to a stop, but not fast enough for Jake not to see her.
“Sophie!” He said something to the couple, then got up and headed for her. He brushed his fingertips against her skin as he slid a lock of hair back from her face. “It’s late. You know what the doctor said about rest. You should be sleeping.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I was worried when you didn’t show up.” She gave him a little half-smile. “And I was mad at you for standing me up,” she admitted. This time she was the one reaching for his face. How many times had she wanted to touch him like this over the years? Warmth flooded her as she realized she could do it now. “Now that I know you weren’t, tell me what I can do to help while you—” She looked over his shoulder at the group gathered in his office. “—deal with things.”
“All I want is for you to get some rest.” She was about to tell him she wasn’t tired, that his day had to be a hundred times more difficult than hers, when he frowned at her. “How did you get here?”
“The bus.” She didn’t think it would be wise to mention the few dark blocks between the final bus stop and his pub.
He swore. “You should have stayed home.”
Didn’t he see? “I needed to make sure you were okay.”
Jake still looked upset about her late-night jaunt through San Francisco’s public transportation system, but rather than continue to rail at her, he threaded his fingers into her hair and tugged her closer so that her head was tucked in beneath his chin. “God, you’re sweet.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Just then, the bartender burst through the door. “Customers are about to riot out here if they don’t get some service soon. Betty is already way past what she can handle.”
Sophie plopped her hand over Jake’s mouth before he could reply. “I’ve got this.” She didn’t wait for Jake to agree before she grabbed a black apron from a peg on the wall and wrapped it around her waist. “Do you have a pad and pencil?” she asked the bartender.
He gladly shoved one into her hands and thirty seconds later, she was in the middle of a steep learning curve on how to be a good waitress in an Irish pub as customers all but growled their orders at her and demanded endless refills.
Sophie had never been a part of something so noisy, so full of constant motion. No, she realized as she loaded a tray with frothy beers, that wasn’t true. Growing up the youngest of eight had been just as noisy, just as full of motion.
No wonder she found herself loving every single second of it.
* * *
By the time Jake got a chance to pull Sophie from the pub floor, it was nearly 2:00 a.m. and they were on the verge of shutting down for the night. His bartender had popped his head in a at one point to say, “You should hire that girl full time,” but Jake had still been focused on trying to get his young employee to agree to see a counselor. A full-on treatment program would be better, but he had enough experience with alcoholics to know that pushing them in the right direction usually made them do the exact opposite.
He’d always been careful to monitor his employees for substance abuse and to make sure all of his managers did the same, but Samantha had hid it well. Well enough that it had taken her parents coming in and begging him to fire her for him to see what had been right beneath his nose.
He blamed himself, knew if he hadn’t been so obsessed with Sophie these past months he might have seen the changes in Samantha’s behavior.
The subject of his obsession was wiping down tables with a rag. She’d pulled her long hair back into a ponytail and wisps of hair curled around her flushed face. Her beauty took his breath away just as it always had, making it impossible for him to do anything but stare at her...until she went to lift one of the chairs onto the table.
“You shouldn’t be lifting things.” He took the chair from her and put it up. “I’ll get the rest. Go lie down in my office.”
He knew he should be thanking her for getting him out of a rough spot, that he should have already apologized for acting like a jerk that morning when he dropped her off at the library. Instead, he was barking orders at her.
But instead of railing back him, she simply said, “Is everything all right?”
God, she really was sweet. And far more forgiving than he deserved. No one had ever worried about him before. She was going to be the perfect mother...and wife.
Lord knew, she didn’t deserve a life stuck with an idiot like him.
But there was no way he would ever give her up. Because he was exactly the selfish bastard she’d accused him of being.
He continued putting chairs onto the tables. “Not right now. But hopefully, it will be.”
“Your employees all speak really highly of you.”
“Owning a pub,” he said, running a hand through his hair, “you’ve got to be really careful about things.”
“You mean all the easy access to alcohol?”
“People can get hooked on it. Far too easily.”
“I realized the other day that I’ve never seen you drunk before.” Her eyes looked too deep as she said, “That’s on purpose, isn’t it?”
He nodded and she put her hand on his arm. “I’m sure you’ve done everything you can to help the young woman in your office. The rest is up to her.”
He hadn’t thought anything would help him feel better about tonight...but he hadn’t counted on Sophie. The question was, he thought as she yawned, whether or not he could ever figure out how to become the kind of man she could count on, too.
“It’s way past your bedtime.” He reached out a hand to her and finally said what he should have long before now. “Thank you, Sophie.”
She put her hand in his. “You’re welcome.” She smiled as she threaded her fingers through his. “I had fun.”
He couldn’t get a handle on what he was feeling as they walked out to his car in silence. And as she fell asleep almost the instant he pressed on the gas pedal, shifting in the seat so that her hand was on his lap, Jake was thankful for so much more than Sophie filling in for the night at his pub.