They were talking about the Wirt profit-loss statements when Jake came in. He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips, then, with a wink, disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned, Robin was still on the line, laughing about the infamous office politics in New York and one particularly notorious secretary. Carrying a circular saw, Jake paused to put it down as Robin laughed at Evan’s telling of the secretary’s latest escapades, picturing the whole scene in her mind.
“Okay, well, look, I’m going to be in Houston next week. I’m pretty booked, but maybe we can get together for dinner and talk about Wirt, all right?”
“Sure,” Robin said and switched her computer screen to her calendar. “Wednesday night would be great.”
“Okay, got you down. Take care and I’ll see you next week.”
Robin put down the phone, put Evan on her calendar, and looked up. Jake hadn’t moved. He was standing there, looking at her with an odd expression. She held up a magazine she had been reading. “Hey,” she said cheerfully, “I found the perfect place for your house—Retro Hardware. I’m going over there this afternoon to look at the stained glass. Have you thought about what you want?”
Jake had thought about what he wanted, all right. Had thought about it pretty much for the last month. One thing he knew for certain, as he walked over to see the pictures Robin was poring over, was that he didn’t want Iverson in her life or anywhere near her.
He was not a jealous man by nature, and in fact, he rarely allowed himself to get involved deeply enough to have cause for jealousy. But there was something about Robin that appealed to the deepest parts of him, and there was something about Slick Evan he instinctively did not trust. Evan had a thing for Robin. He could tell just by the way the dude looked at her. At the same time, Jake recognized Evan’s role in LTI, understood the interaction with Robin was inevitable. He just had to figure out how to handle it if he was going to pursue something meaningful with Robin, which certainly was his intent.
And as the next few weeks unfurled, Jake spent as much time with Robin as he could, trying to balance school, Cole, and his work with the very real need to be with her. His reaction to her, both physical and emotional, overpowered all normal operating procedures. Somehow, she was pushing him from the shallows into the deep, so deep that he felt he was treading water when they were apart. He could feel her when she wasn’t with him, could feel her hair on his face, her breath on his chest.
That was exhilarating, but it was plenty disturbing, too. He didn’t want to feel that. He never wanted to get used to any kind of happiness because it never lasted, and he felt safe in that assumption. This was a silly dream he was living, and while it was one thing to have silly dreams, it was much worse to actually believe they were attainable.
Yeah, something amazing was happening to him. Funny little dreams of fulfillment were beginning to creep into his thoughts, dreams that practically had a white picket fence around them, dreams that included a degree, Robin in his house and his bed, and even Cole, flourishing in high school, preparing for college.
But okay, he wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t know their evolving relationship wasn’t entirely a bed of roses. He was never sure of Robin’s feelings, for one thing, didn’t know if when the job ended, her feelings wouldn’t end right along with it. And while he could feel her affection, there were also certain barriers between them. Like money.
That was an aspect that deeply bothered Jake—he couldn’t abide her shopping habits. Robin had no concept of money. She would go to the grocery store but come back with a bag full of shoes. Like one day, when he happened to see the price tag on the end of a shoebox and almost had a coronary—up until that point, he hadn’t known it was possible to mortgage a pair of shoes. “That’s insane!” he had blurted. “There are people starving in this world and you are paying that for shoes?”
Robin was immediately indignant. “So? I give plenty to charity. I can buy a pair of shoes if I want.”
“Of course you can . . . but it’s the principle of spending that much on shoes, Robin.”
“Oh man,” Robin cried, “here we go again! Doughnuts, shoes—you have too many damn principles, Jake.”
“And you obviously don’t have enough.”
That stunned her—she gasped, then abruptly picked up her shoes. “I don’t have to listen to this!” she snapped and went into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Okay, maybe he was out of line, but she went through money like water, unfazed by the enormity of what she was spending. For a man struggling every month to keep his business afloat, it was a hard thing to watch.