Coco stood up and took in a deep breath. “That’s a lot of work trying to make myself cry and fake being upset.” Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, she walked over to the bar area in her living room and poured a glass of wine.
“Would you like some?” she asked.
“No. What I would like is for you to answer my question.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Jack
I threw back my glass of scotch as Garrett walked into the living room. I slammed my glass down on the bar and pointed my finger at him as I walked towards him.
“How fucking dare you!” I yelled.
“Jack, stop!” Coco screamed.
“You’ve been sleeping with my sister and you didn’t tell me!”
“Jack, calm down.” He put his hands up.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!” I threw a punch at him.
He stumbled back and held his jaw.
“Do you feel better now, friend?” he asked in a calm tone.
I went to throw another punch.
“Jack, no!” Coco grabbed my arm and held me back. “I swear I will never talk to you again if you don’t stop.”
“She’s my sister, man. My fucking sister. You’ve known her your whole life.”
“And I’ve been in love with her my whole life!” he shouted.
I closed my eyes and slowly shook my head. Taking a seat on the couch, I cupped my face in my hands to try and process everything that was going on.
“Jack.” Coco sat down next to me. “Do you want me to be happy?”
I looked over at her as the tears streamed down her face.
“Of course I do.”
“Garrett makes me happy. He always has. Sometimes, the person you’re meant to love is standing right in front of you the whole time.”
“Coco, he’s like a brother to us.”
“But he’s not our brother. He makes me feel alive and whole. You can’t understand that because you never let anyone in. I’m in love with him, Jack.”
I looked over at Garrett, who was still standing in the same spot, holding his jaw.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes. I do.”
I got up from the couch and poured another drink.
“Why did you stay with Joshua if you were seeing Garrett?” I asked. “Which brings me to another question. How long has this been going on?”
“We’ve been seeing each other for a little over a month. Why do people who are married cheat and still stay married?”
I shook my head as I took a sip of a scotch. After downing it, I looked at Coco and then at Garrett.
“I’ll see you two Monday morning at the office. I need to get out of here and think.” I grabbed my coat and walked out.
As I was on my way home, I sat in the back of the cab and thought about what Coco said about me not letting anyone in. She was right. I had never let anyone in except one woman: Lorelei. The one woman I brought into my bed that was off limits to everyone. The only woman who I held in my arms all night. And what happened? She withheld a vital part of her life from me.
****
Lorelei
My mom and Stella sat at the table with shocked expressions as I told them about my week; being sick and Jack taking care of Hope. They couldn’t say anything because Hope was right there. My mom reached over and took hold of my hands.
“I wish you would have called us, sweetie.”
“Why, Mom? You were on a boat in the middle of the ocean. There would have been nothing you could have done.”
“Still. I’m so sorry we weren’t here for you and Hope.”
“That’s okay, Grandma. I liked Jack taking care of me. He’s fun.”
“He is?” Stella gave her a look with a twisted face.
“Yeah. He read to me and we watched Cinderella. He took and picked me up from school. He came to my spelling bee when my mom was in the hospital and he cooked. He’s not a good cook, though. He burns everything.” She giggled.
“That was very nice of Mr. Sutton to take care of you, Hope.” My mom hugged her. “And I’m happy you’re feeling better.”
Hope went to her room to take a nap and my mom left to get home and unpack from their trip.
“Okay. What’s going on with you and Jack?” Stella asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, my ass. Why would a man who fully admitted to you that he hates children take care of your kid while you’re lying helpless in a hospital bed?”
“Because he knew there was nobody else who could take care of her.”
Again, she twisted her face. “I think Mr. Sutton has a heart and I think he’s madly in love with you.”
“No, he’s not, Stella. He left me and Hope the other night to go on a date.”
“Oh.” She bit down on her bottom lip. “Why would he do that?”
“Who the hell knows. Probably because he needed to feed his sex addiction.”
“He has a sex addiction?”
“Let me rephrase that. Probably because he needed to feed his sexual appetite.”
“He’s a man. They’re always horny.” She smiled. “I see a possible relationship here.”
“I can’t and I won’t.” I got up from the table and walked into the kitchen.
“Why not, Lorelei? It’s obvious the man has deep feelings for you or he wouldn’t have taken care of Hope the way he did. That little girl adores him.”
“Of course she does. He’s the first man who has ever paid attention to her.”
“And whose fault is that?” She frowned.
“I gave in to my feelings once before and I won’t make that mistake again. Look at how he treated me when he found out about Hope. The things he said. If he truly had feelings for me, he wouldn’t have said those things. Brett would never have said those things to me.”
“Aw, honey. You have to stop living in the past. Maybe Brett never would have said those things to you. Hell, he didn’t even know you were pregnant, Lorelei, so you really don’t know for sure how he would have reacted. You’re a grown up now and you’re playing in the grown up world.”
“So you’re saying that it was okay for him to talk to me like that?”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. But you also need to understand that he was hurt. He found out by accident one of the most personal things about you. He probably felt betrayed that you didn’t trust him enough to tell him.”
“How could I trust him when he flat out told me he hated kids? You even told me not to tell him. Hell, Garrett didn’t even tell him because he was afraid he’d fire me.”
“Okay. Okay. You have a point. But still.”
Taking our coffee over to the couch, I sat down and crossed my legs.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. You’re never going to believe what I did.”
“Oh my God, what did you do?”
“I created a profile on Match.com.”
“Shut up! You did not!” she exclaimed.
I grabbed my laptop from the coffee table and logged into my account. This was the first time I had done that since the night I created it. I had over fifty responses.
“Oh shit. Look at this.” I laughed.
We spent the next hour going through the profiles and laughing.
“This guy isn’t bad. He’s an ad executive. He has a daughter who’s eleven and his hobby is bird watching.”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s also forty years old. What the hell does he want with a twenty-five-year-old?”
“You really need to ask that?” Stella spoke. “Just think of all the different kinds of birds you could learn about. I wonder if he makes those weird bird sounds to them.” She laughed.
Chapter Forty-Four
Lorelei
I stopped at Starbucks to get Jack his morning coffee. I hadn’t heard from him since Saturday night and he didn’t respond to my text messages. As I walked down the hallway to my desk, many of my coworkers welcomed me back. I took in a deep breath as I walked into Jack’s office.
“Good morning,” I spoke.
He looked up at me from the papers he was looking over and mumbled, “Morning.” When I set the coffee on his desk, I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He looked back down at his papers and acted like I wasn’t even standing there.