Never Just Friends (Spotlight New Adult Book 2) (9 page)

Good thing still that his thoughts on the matter weren’t required at all, except for a throwaway, “What do you think, Jacob?” at the end. He didn’t think that Krup needed his backup anyway. They’d managed to become friends since meeting at that Caine Foundation event, and they had a beer whenever they were in California at the same time. The guy was solid, a hard worker, and not at all interested in Lindsay. (Krup was gay.)

“You don’t have to worry about the rest of this conference,” Krup was telling him, as they regrouped at the end of the meeting, after the others had left the room. “You earned your fee at the plenary this morning. We’ve got press asking
me
for quotes. I hope some of the foundation messages manage to get into the news.”

“I’m in, as long as I’m here,” Jake said. He thought he had already said that, in meetings with Krup. “I’ve read up on the project reports.”

Krup laughed, but his eyes were on his laptop screen, his attention obviously already somewhere else. “Jake, you happen to like giving yourself a hard time? You don’t like paid vacations?”

“I wasn’t expecting this to be one,” he said, his voice going tight.

It revealed tension when there had previously been none, and Krup looked up at him. “Sorry, that was...that’s something we tell ourselves. We usually make jokes about wanting to take a break. No one really enjoys having to ask for money to put up drinking water stations across the world. You really want to do this?”

Jake paused. Did he? Would it make him sound naive to admit it? That was what this trip was about, what this whole damn thing was about.

“I guess it’s time I find out, isn’t it?” he said instead.

***

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

The question threw him off because she happened to say it while taking off her top, revealing a sleek black bikini, and he remembered how hot she looked in clothes like this, in warmer weather. He began thinking of where they could go, places with sunny beaches. Like France, where would he take her in France, where she’d get to wear that? He hadn’t yet told her about it, was planning to surprise her with a trip. Surely she could get away for a week or so.

The night swim was her idea. They had come from dinner with her co-workers and some of their friends from the conference along the harbor. The Italian had been there, briefly, enough time to plant a kiss on both her cheeks and introduce a woman Jake assumed to be his date. Not that he cared.

Most of their companions wanted out early, but back at the hotel, Lindsay wanted drinks by the pool. She must have really wanted to talk. (Drinks at his room would have meant something else.)

He took his shirt off, and then stripped down to his Speedos. He watched her take off her shoes, lay them neatly beside her folded clothes, and walk toward the small, circular pool. An attendant saw their interest in it and the water began bubbling, blue lights coming on from underneath. They were the only ones on the pool deck, an hour before they were to close it for the night.

“You’re asking me this?” he said, joining her in what looked like a boiling pot, sitting on a tiled step beside her. “On the day I meet the Italian asshole who keeps trying to rub against you?”

The very ends of her hair were getting wet, clinging to her body. She frowned at him but turned the other way, called a waiter, asked for two glasses of red wine.

“I slept with Rocco once, last year, at this same conference,” she said. “But it was in Rio de Janeiro at the time. I met him before that though, and he’s always been a flirt. I’m not telling you this to make you angry, or jealous...it’s just...what it is.”

Was he angry? Jealous? He couldn’t be.

Still wanted to punch the guy’s face.

“What I mean is that this is the work I want to do, and it’s the kind of work that takes people everywhere, or brings people around to me, but temporarily, you know? I’m sure you understand.”

Jake’s body was understanding several, contradictory things. The water he was in was pleasant, the vision in front of him attractive, and from the neck down he was buzzing with anticipation of good things. Happy things.

The rest of him was flashing warning signs about what she was telling him.

“Because I work on the show?” he said, trying to catch up.

“Maybe? Short-term contracts, revolving door of projects and people, travel...” Lindsay’s wine arrived and she handed him his. “I noticed the kind of long-term relationships that my colleagues have. A lot of them who are young, don’t. And the ones who are older, they’ve pretty much made their families an extension of this job. If I want to move up, I need to get more degrees. I’ll need to find time to actually study for those degrees. I’ll need to manage a project directly, and not from New York, but from wherever it happens to be. It won’t be just one; these people live where the new project requires them to live, take their families with them. And then make that choice all over again three years later when contracts are up. Are you starting to understand why the idea of Victor, of Rocco...why it made sense to me?”

He was beginning to. His job in particular was known for its lack of security; one year at a time, they were told, even though he had signed on for five. He was lucky, as one of the leads. Others, like Jessica, showed up because of a pre-production decision to hire someone for a short period of time. It was a relief, personally, that she had gotten serious with finding more work and spent a lot of time outside of Vancouver. It was true; he slept with her, fell for her, because she was there. He also knew she might not be there all the time. He thought he’d be fine with it, but their relationship was obviously not as strong as he was hoping it would be.

“I’m not asking you to give up your work,” Jake said. “I’m not asking you to move to wherever I happen to be filming. That’s not what this is about.”

“So, back to my original question. What is this exactly? What haven’t you told me?”

If only Jake could say it. Not that he was holding anything back, but he didn’t know what it was. This didn’t have a name.

“I had an accident on set last year,” he told her. It was the first time he had said it aloud to someone; he had no family really to report it to. Felt like a good time to have some wine, so he took a swig. “It was why I wasn’t able to visit you in August last year.”

“What happened?”

“Something to do with a harness, and I had trouble breathing...it was meant to be safe but I didn’t know that I would respond that way. I lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital, and they kept me there a couple of days. They managed to keep that quiet as much as possible, definitely Cora pulling her weight around...”

“Dear God. You didn’t think I should know about that?”

He shrugged. “I’m fine. I’ve been cleared, no memory loss, no damage... The point is...I was there in the hospital and I didn’t have family to call.”

“You have family you can call.”

“I didn’t want to. I only wanted to call you.”

Lindsay’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t call me for a year.”

“Because I didn’t want you to be back like that only time you came to Vancouver for me, cleaning me up like a nurse. I had so much crap to deal with. So I worked on it, dropped everything that I didn’t need. Decided what I really want. And that’s why I’m here. Does this answer your question?”

He had practiced how he would say this, how much he would say. Maybe it worked.

In response, she kissed him, and it was a deep kiss, her free hand going around to his back. It was arousing, also comforting.

“I would have helped you,” she whispered against his face. “I would have dropped everything and helped you.”

“I know that.” He did. It was the thing that gave him strength, but what he most feared he’d lose if he called upon it too often. Cora understood this, thank God, and did everything to keep Lindsay out of it. “It’s why I don’t care about your Victors or Roccos or whoever else you have in your pocket. I know what we are.”

She wanted to go back up to his room, and he agreed. There was a slight difference to the way she touched him, looked at him, like she was softening it, meaning to be gentler. He didn’t want this, didn’t want her to see him any differently, but knew that it was inevitable. It made him glad for his decision to show up only when he was ready. Hopefully the idea of him helpless and alone would be abstract and hazy, shot in her imagination with flattering filters, and she’d never truly get to keep a vision of how low he had sunk. This pity, if she was feeling pity, was temporary. He hoped.

Maybe he was overcompensating, but this led to him wanting to take control when they got to the bed. The admission put her in an emotional state, but maybe she’d remember instead his tongue against her clit, his fingers deep inside her, or, and this was likely, his impeccable timing, having rolled on the condom and then sinking into her
right before
getting her to come, knowing now that she wanted to come with him inside her, her hands full of whatever part of him she could find, and he felt it was perfect this time, felt the strength of the climax that tore through her, felt it in the arch of her back, her pleasurably painful grip on his hair and shoulder. 

“You’re crazy,” she said, trying to laugh, still out of breath some time later.

“You love me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, quickly. “That’s not the problem at all.”

She thought that her five-thirty alarm was already impossibly early, but when she flicked the “dismiss” option on her phone, Jake was already awake, reading on his iPad.

“God,” she said, voice cracking from her dry throat. “I still can’t believe how functional you are at this time.”

“I told you, I’ve perfected the power nap,” he said. “They make me wait a lot at work. I can get a good night’s sleep two hours at a time spread out in a twenty-four hour period. I swear I’m completely rested.”

“But jet lag.” Lindsay had been doing this world-travel thing for a few years now, and coped by sleeping in planes, buses, any vehicle that she had to park her butt in for an hour or more.

“I can align my power naps with time zones.”

“That can’t be healthy.”

“It means I can take the night shift.”

Lindsay groaned and elbowed his side. He meant the night shift, during the zombie apocalypse. “You know what happens when you’re sleep deprived, right? It catches up. You drop like a log, and you don’t even know it. You’re going to
suck
at night duty especially if you’re armed. Might as well just give the zombies a gun.”

“You will be proven wrong, and you’ll beg me to teach you.”

“You like it when I beg, don’t you.”

His leg brushed against hers under the covers. “Why are you up so early?”

“Need to call Marnie while she’s at work. You’re going to be all right today?”

Jake nodded. “There are some sessions I want to attend, and then I have those meetings scheduled. I think you can leave me alone for a day, I won’t set anything on fire.”

“I’ll find you at the cocktails tonight, okay?”

After showering and collecting her work things, she found a spot at the hotel’s business center.

Marnie stayed in New York even during conference season. First there was the matter of her small child, but as time went on, and more opportunities weren’t taken, Lindsay suspected that she just never wanted to travel. The woman wouldn’t admit a fear of flying, but never agreed to go on flights, or ferry rides, for that matter.

Lindsay found her on Skype and started the call. “Hey, Marnie,” she said, when Marnie picked up. “Thanks for those slides I asked for. Lucien is going to need you to stand by there for another hour or so until he finds out if his eight a.m. is going to happen.”

“No problem. I’ll wait.”

“And...yeah I have another thing. I’d do it myself except it’s going to distract me from actual work...”

“What is it?”

“Can you find out anything you can about an accident on the
Rage Eternal
set last year? August?”

“Why are you looking up stuff about Jacob behind his back?”

Lindsay groaned. “Can you not judge me about this? He told me about the accident himself. I want more info, that’s all.”

“Fine. You know that relationships are supposed to be founded on trust, right?”

“Yeah well, there’s trust, and then there’s protection.” Lindsay sighed. “I think he confuses the two.”

Lindsay could see Marnie’s eyebrow shoot up. “I think you have some learning to do too.”

“Whatever. You’ll do this please?”

“Yes. Check your phone later.”

“Thank you.”

The next person Lindsay looked for was her sister. “Cordelia?”

“Linds?” From the background of the video that came up, it looked like Lindsay had caught her sister at the supermarket. “Aren’t you in China or somewhere?”

“I’ll be back in New York by the weekend. Jake is here, with me, by the way.”

“I know. Rusty told me. Things are good?”