“I’m sorry,” Jenna told her, “I know you’re having a rough time right now. I don’t mean to be distracted.”
Grace shrugged a slim shoulder. “That’s okay. I’m getting kind of tired of talking about the cheating louse, anyway. It’s taking up too much of my time.”
She raised a hand to get their waitress’s attention and signaled for another round of drinks. “So tell us what’s been going on with you and Gage. And I sure as hell hope he has been a wonder stud instead of just some damn Shetland pony.”
Jenna’s face flushed with color once more. Not so much from Grace’s remark this time as the memories it invoked. Memories of exactly how wonder-studly Gage had been the past few days.
“Nothing… much has been going on.”
Grace and Ronnie exchanged a glance before sly grins slid over both their faces.
“Oh-ho,” Ronnie laughed. “That means a lot has been going on. Come on, Jenna, give us the scoop.”
Jenna covered her eyes with a hand and gave her head a little shake. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to share the details of recent events with her best friends, but since she wasn’t clear herself on exactly what was going on, she didn’t quite know what to say.
“When last we checked in on Jenna and Gage, dear viewers,” Grace murmured, bringing a curled hand to her mouth as though it held a microphone for her mocking narration, “they were shagging like howler monkeys and loving every minute of it. Let’s catch up, shall we?”
She thrust the invisible mike at Jenna, and Jenna laughed. “All right, all right. Well, at least until this afternoon, we were still shagging like…” She trailed off, not quite able to say it.
Grace, of course, had no such qualms. “Howler monkeys.”
“Yes.” Jenna licked her lips, eyes darting away for a moment in embarrassment. “I’m not sure why, since we both know it’s not going anywhere.”
“I know why,” Ronnie supplied, leaning back a couple of inches while the waitress placed a fresh drink in front of her. “It’s because Gage is a gorgeous hunk of man and you’ve never really gotten over him.”
“That’s not-” Jenna began. But, of course, it was true. She knew it, they knew it… heck, Gage probably knew it now that she’d jumped his bones six ways from Sunday.
Without the hope of getting pregnant, either, which had been her original goal and the whole point of molesting him to begin with. How telling was that?
“He insists we use a condom each and every time,” she confided, tucking her head and playing with the straw in her new cocktail, but not bothering to take a sip. “And first thing every morning, he makes me take one of those home pregnancy tests. They’ve all been negative, of course, but he doesn’t seem to believe me when I tell him it’s too soon to find out if I’m pregnant or not. He still insists I pee on those stupid sticks and wait for them not to turn blue.”
Ronnie made a hmmm sound low in her throat and both women’s brows rose.
“What?” Jenna looked from one to the other, confused by their responses. “Am I missing something?”
It was Ronnie’s turn to shrug. “I’m just wondering why a man who claims not to want kids is so obsessive about finding out whether or not you’re pregnant. I mean, if the thought of fathering a child is so repugnant to him, you’d think he’d have taken off like his tail was on fire the minute he woke up and realized you’d lured him into a little forced procreation.”
“Gage isn’t that kind of man,” she told them with a shake of her head. “I should have known better than to think he could just be a sperm donor. He would never abandon a child, even if its conception hadn’t been entirely mutual.”
“So what’s going to happen if you are pregnant?” Grace wanted to know. “Is he going to stick around and help you raise the child, or does he just want to know you’re pregnant before he takes off and leaves you to deal with it on your own?”
“I don’t know,” Jenna said. “We haven’t really discussed it. And I don’t see the point in worrying or making plans until we know there’s something to make plans for.”
A few brief seconds passed with only the sounds of the bar filling the silence-raised voices, clinking glasses, a baseball game playing on one television, mixed sports coverage playing on another.
Then Grace diplomatically put in, “All we’re saying is that you and Gage never truly wanted to split up in the first place, and neither of you have ever really gotten over each other. Even you’ve admitted that much.”
Jenna opened her mouth to protest, but once again her friends were speaking only the absolute truth, so what could she say that wouldn’t sound either ridiculous or like an out-and-out lie? Clamping her mouth shut, she waited quietly for them to continue.
“So maybe,” Ronnie said, taking over Grace’s point of view, “Gage is sticking around because he’s just as torn up over the divorce as you are.”
“And just as not over you as you are over him,” Grace added.
For several long moments, Jenna’s pulse pounded in her ears as she considered what her friends were saying. Personally, she thought they were a little off base.
Time and time again, Gage had made it perfectly, crystal, plate-glass clear that he did not want children. On top of that, he’d made no secret of the fact that he was thoroughly pissed that she’d tricked him into possibly getting her pregnant, and now that they were continuing to sleep together, he wasn’t taking any chances. If he could have wrapped them both in cellophane from head to foot and gotten the same tactile pleasure from the act, she suspected he would have done it.
The idea that he might be sticking around for more than frequent hot sex and to make sure she wasn’t pregnant was alien to her, and something she couldn’t quite stretch her mind around.
She was still mulling over what Grace and Ronnie had said later that night, on the ride back to Charlotte ’s.
Could they be right?
She cast a sideways glance at Gage, who was behind the wheel of her yellow bug. He hated the car, but seemingly hated being a passenger in the tiny Volkswagen even more. Apparently it was more masculine to drive a pint-size Beetle than be seen riding around in one.
Never mind that his legs were bent at an awkward angle, even with the seat pushed all the way back, or that the top of his head brushed the roof of the vehicle.
Jenna turned away, looking out the side window before she started laughing at his obvious discomfort and annoyance at being uncomfortable.
“Did Grace vandalize Zack’s Hummer?” he asked out of the blue.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t the size of her car that had his jaw locked and his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
Jenna licked her lips, debating how to answer. On the one hand, she had never lied to him, and just because they were no longer married and she didn’t technically owe him any allegiance, she didn’t want to start now. On the other, she felt a fierce need to be loyal to Grace and maintain her friend’s confidence.
She cocked her head to study Gage’s profile, and for the first time since they’d left the bar, he slowly turned his head to meet her gaze.
“I wasn’t there, and I don’t know the details, but yes,” she murmured barely above a whisper. It hurt to hear herself admit it, to betray a friend’s confidence. But almost as though she were possessed by a powerful, supernatural spirit, she felt compelled to tell Gage the truth, regardless of the consequences.
His eyes stayed locked with hers for a heartbeat longer before he gave a sharp, brief nod and returned his attention to the road.
The silence that followed made Jenna’s skin hurt. She felt dizzy from lack of oxygen and her vision blurred with near-panic.