Kaleidoscope

Chapter Five


Where I’m Takin’ Us



I looked out my office window, down to the yard, my eyes to the bustling activity, and I did this tapping my phone on my desk.

I should be working but I wasn’t thinking about work.

I was thinking about Jacob.

More precisely, I was thinking about calling Jacob, had an overwhelming urge to do so.

I was also trying not to do so because I had a boyfriend, even though he was a boyfriend I wasn’t all that sure about. He was sweet, he was into me, but he was just… off.

Then again, I didn’t have a lot of experience so what did I know?

Additionally, after my dinner with Jacob last night, within an hour, I’d called him after ten at night and now it was only eleven thirty the next day.

I didn’t want him to think I was psycho, and calling him would imply psycho behavior. Further, when I called him last night, I’d asked him to dinner, which was dinner two nights in a row with a woman he hadn’t seen in nine years, a woman with a boyfriend, and that was semi-psycho.

Okay, maybe it was totally psycho.

I didn’t want Jacob to think I was psycho.

Ever.

But I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to connect with him on the phone. I’d missed him and I liked having him back. I liked it a great deal.

I also missed him a great deal.

And I needed to ask him something. Further, he was the only one I could ask.

I looked from the yard to my phone. My mind telling my thumb not to do it, my thumb not listening, I found Jacob’s contact and hit go.

I put it to my ear.

“I’m a psycho,” I whispered and luckily finished whispering two seconds before Jacob’s voice sounded.

“You okay?” he answered.

He kept asking that mostly, I figured, because I kept calling when I didn’t need to so he probably thought something was wrong.

Or that I was a psycho.

“I need to know if you don’t eat anything,” I lied.

Actually, it wasn’t a lie. Although I remembered a lot about Jacob (most everything, in all honesty), I couldn’t recall if there was something specific he didn’t like to eat.

I could recall how beautiful he was, how tall he was, how strong he was. I could recall how smart he was and how funny he was. I could recall how cool he was with me. I could also recall how much I missed him. But I couldn’t recall if he didn’t like chicken.

But that wasn’t the only thing I needed to know. I needed to know something else too.

Much like last night, when he didn’t make me feel like a psycho, in fact, the opposite and sounded like he was happy to hear from me and would be willing to talk all night, he again sounded like me psychotically calling him yet again in a precursor to stalker way was no big deal.

“I don’t eat it, I’ll pick it off.”

“You can’t pick it off if I cook with it in it or if the mainstay of dinner on the whole is what you don’t eat,” I informed him.

“You makin’ Indian food?” he asked.

“No. Don’t you like Indian food?” I asked back.

“Love it,” he answered.

“Then why’d you ask if I was making Indian food?”

“ ’Cause I hoped you were.”

I burst out laughing.

No, Jacob definitely didn’t make me feel like I was being a psycho.

When I quit laughing, I told him, “Sorry, honey, I don’t know how to make Indian food.”

“Shame,” he muttered, a smile in his deep, attractive voice, and if I was on an infrared scanner, specific parts of me would have shown up hotter.

You have a boyfriend, Emme! I told myself.

For a while, I answered myself.

Jacob is also your ex–best friend’s ex-boyfriend, Emme! I reminded myself.

So? I asked myself.

I shoved those thought aside, thoughts that, if anyone knew I was talking to myself in my head might prove I was indeed a psycho, and pointed out to Jacob, “You haven’t actually answered the question.”

“I’ll eat what you cook, Emme. Cook what you like.”

He was such a nice guy.

He always was.

Nice. Tall (very tall). Handsome (unbelievably handsome). Smart (so damned smart). Funny. Interesting. Gentlemanly. And a repeat of nice because it was worth a repeat since he was just that nice.

I liked all that about him. I liked that he wore his dark hair way too long. I liked that sometimes a thick hank of it fell over his forehead and into his eye. I liked that he was who he was and didn’t wear designer jeans or put gel in his hair. I liked that, even considering he was extortionately intelligent, in fact, a genius, he never made anyone feel less than him because they weren’t as smart. I liked that he never acted superior or arrogant and with all that was him, looks, body, brains, he was one person who could. And I liked that he liked to do what he liked to do, he did what he liked to do and wouldn’t get pushed into doing something he didn’t want.

Like Elsbeth tried to do.

He’d lost her to that and he’d accepted it. I knew it killed. He’d loved her to distraction. But he refused to be the man she wanted him to be and instead was the man he was.

She should have seen she had it all even if he didn’t make bucketloads of money and thus couldn’t give her the life she was used to getting from her daddy. Country clubs, tennis lessons, vacations in villas in Italy and beaches in Thailand, fabulous homes kept by maids and fabulous meals cooked by cooks.

She didn’t see all she had.

Stupid.

“Are we done?” Jacob prompted when I fell silent.

We were. Or at least we should be.

But we weren’t.

“Okay, well, I could obviously talk to you about this tonight but it’s preying on my mind so much I can’t get any work done. So do you have a second?” I asked.

“For you, anytime, babe,” he answered.

Really, such a nice guy.

I took in a breath and started, “Okay, you’re a guy—”

There was laughter in his voice when he interrupted with, “Glad you noticed.”

Oh, I’d noticed. Any woman who was breathing noticed Jacob Decker. Hell, it was possible he could walk through a graveyard and his very presence would call up the dead females as zombies rabid to get just an undead glimpse of him, he was that noticeable of a male.


“Shut up, Jacob, and listen, will you?” I asked, a smile in my voice.

“Right. Out with it,” he invited, a smile in his.

“So, you’re a guy and say you’ve got a girl. You’ve known her for a while but you’ve been dating her for a short period of time. You like her and she knows this. You also know that she’s holding herself back like she did the fifty times you asked her out before she finally said yes.”

I paused.

Jacob said nothing while I did and when I didn’t continue, he prompted patiently, “Right, Emme, got that part.”

I knew he did. I knew he knew I was talking about Dane. I didn’t know why I was beating around the bush. I just felt I had to, maybe to protect Dane, maybe to protect me from Jacob thinking I was an idiot.

“Okay, you got that part, so you’re a guy, say you’re that guy and no vows of love have been exchanged. No commitments, not even to exclusive. Would you, um… say, buy her an expensive gift to maybe get the ball rolling in your relationship?”

This question was met with silence that stretched so long I had to call his name.

When I did, he spoke.

“What kind of expensive gift?”

“A very expensive gift,” I told him.

“What kind, Emme?” he pushed.

I closed my eyes, opened them, looked to the yard, saw Dane was now there talking to a customer and I looked away.

“A ruby and diamond ring,” I answered quickly.

This was met with more silence that lasted longer.

I spoke into the void and I did it semi-babbling. “Jacob, honey, I don’t know. It’s weird. I mean, it isn’t an engagement ring or anything. More like a cocktail ring. Which is weird in and of itself because I run a lumberyard. I wear jeans to work. They’re nice jeans but it’s not like I go to the opera on weekends and hobnob with society. But more, the ruby is very big and you don’t have to be an expert jeweler to know it’s expensive. Like very expensive. Even the box it’s in is really nice.”

I was quiet a moment then my voice dipped low.

“It’s kinda creeped me out.”

I was quiet another moment then my voice dipped lower.

“It’s actually kinda made me make my mind up about Dane.”

Through this, Jacob said nothing.

“Jacob?” I called.

“And what’s your decision about Dane?” he asked.

I shook my head like he could see me and didn’t even consider how weird this was, talking to Jacob about this, talking to him like there wasn’t nearly a decade between meeting him in town yesterday and the last time I saw him.

Then again, I’d talked through a lot with him, none of it really personal because, back then, I really didn’t have a life. But the personal part of my life, when he was in it, he knew. What movies I went to. What candidates I was voting for. The specifics (in detail) of where I was going on my next vacation and what I intended to do. That all was personal to me and very few people knew it, except family, my few friends and Jacob.

So it seemed natural, having him back, having him happy to see me, having him say it straight then act on the fact that he wanted us to stay connected this time.

We just, both of us, slid right into where we used to be.

Like real friends. Like the friends we once were.

So I answered, “I talked to him this morning, said I needed a bit of space but I wanted him to come over on the weekend. Then I’m breaking up with him.”

A moment, before, “How’d he feel about the space comment?”

“He didn’t seem pleased,” I gave him my understatement.

“I bet,” Jacob muttered, knowing it was an understatement.

We were conversing but he wasn’t giving me anything.

So I pressed for it.

“Okay, I laid that out and you haven’t said anything. You’re a guy. Is this something you’d do? The ring thing. I mean, is he being sweet and I’m just being weird?”

“Guy’s a dick and he’s a moron and he’s into you, Emme, too much. That feels wrong, smothering, creepy, you get the f*ck out,” Jacob answered.

There was no way to misinterpret that and he was right about the last part. The first parts, I felt it necessary to say something.

“He’s actually not a dick or a moron, Jacob. But he is kinda into me, well… too much.”

That also was an understatement.

“Thought I was somethin’ else when he met me yesterday, called you on it right in front of me. Didn’t shake my hand, tried to break it. That’s a dick. That’s a moron.”

I didn’t know about the hand-shaking thing but I wasn’t surprised. That seemed a Dane thing to do.

But when Dane went weird about Jacob, that ticked me off.

Then again, Dane going weird around guys tended to happen a lot so I tended to get ticked off a lot which was one of the reasons why, even though he was usually sweet, not hard on the eyes and it felt nice that he was way into me, I wasn’t so sure about him.

That and him being… off.

I put my elbow on my desk and my head in my hand, mumbling, “Oh God, now I have to break up with him.”

“Do it on neutral ground then walk away. Or have me over, open your door to him, tell him it’s over, close the door. He knocks again, I answer.”

I blinked at my desk. “You’d do that?”

“F*ck yeah, Emme. Guy’s a moron and a dick. No tellin’ what he’ll do. So you break the news on neutral ground with people around and then get the f*ck away from him or you do it when I’m over.”

“I can’t… I mean.…” I stammered. “I can’t believe you’d do that, honey. That’s so nice.”

“Today’s Thursday,” Jacob declared. “I got a lot of shit to do, put him off ’til Sunday and I’ll be sure I’m around.”

So, so nice.

But, this brought me to my next problem. I’d done what my father would call shitting where I lived. This was one reason I’d put Dane off since he’d asked me out the first time about three days after I got back to work after I’d been hospitalized. Now I had to work with him after I broke up with him. Work with him as in be his boss.

“Emme? Baby?” Jacob called.

Thoughts of breaking up with Dane exited my head instantly.

Baby.

What was that?

Jacob had said that several times since we reconnected and each time he said it, it felt like a physical touch. A good one. An affectionate one.

A sexy one.

Jacob had never been sexy toward me.

Ever.

He was my then–best friend’s boyfriend, of course. But he’d never even flirted in a casual way.

He’d called me “babe” before, a lot (even though Elsbeth didn’t like it). He’d also called me “honey” sometimes (and Elsbeth didn’t like that either).

But baby?

“Emme,” he growled, his voice rougher and getting impatient.

He’d also never growled at me.

It was hot.

I didn’t need to think of Jacob as hot, or not hotter than he naturally exuded simply being Jacob.

“I’m here. I’m freaking but I’m here,” I told him.

“It’ll be okay,” he assured, growl gone, his deep voice was again smooth.

“I work with him, Jacob.”

“Yeah, that probably wasn’t your usual smart,” he murmured.

I closed my eyes, plopped back in my desk chair and groaned, “Ugh.”

“You’re an adult, he’s an adult. You both suck it up and act like adults. I know you can do that. He can’t, you find a reason to fire him.”


I shot up and cried, “Jacob! I can’t do that. This is his livelihood.”

“He shoulda thought of that before he asked out the boss then creeped her out.”

This was true.

I straightened my spine and declared, “Okay, I’ve just decided I’m taking this one step at a time. I’ll tell him to come around Sunday. I’ll break up with him. I’ll ask him if we can behave like adults at work. And then I’ll call you for another strategy session if he’s unable to do that.”

He had another smile in his voice when he replied, “Sounds like a plan.”

“Yeah,” I agreed then I called his name like we weren’t talking on the phone.

“I’m here, Emme.”

My voice had dipped low again when I shared, “This is cool, having this back. Having you back. Thanks for making it easy and taking us right back to where we left off.”

That got me nothing and that was unusual. Jacob could be verbally and physically affectionate, and after I said what I just said, the Jacob I knew would say something gruff or funny, but whatever it was, he’d say something to make me know he liked what I said.

Therefore, I asked, “Have I lost you?”

“We’ll talk tonight about where I’m takin’ us,” he said as answer and I froze solid, staring unseeing at my desk blotter.

Where I’m takin’ us.

Us.

What on earth did that mean?

Were we an us?

“Now, babe, gotta go. I’ll be at your place tonight at five,” he said.

“I… okay,” I replied, still reeling from what he said before. “Do you need me to text you directions?”

“Everyone in town knows your pad but a big giveaway of how to get to it is that it’s called Canard Mansion and it’s on Canard Lane and there’s only one house on Canard Lane, your house, so I reckon I can find my way.”

That erased the weirdness of before and I laughed quietly as I replied, “I forgot about your awesome mental powers so I’ll let them lead you to me.”

He had quiet laughter in his voice too when he said, “Right. Later, Emme.”

“ ’Bye, Jacob. And thanks for your guy advice.”

“Anytime, baby.”

Baby.

I was still dealing with that when he rang off.

I looked back out the window into the yard.

Dane was gone.

I sighed.

Things Jacob said last night made me realize that I’d said yes to a date with Dane because I’d been sick, I’d unconsciously reflected on my life and how I was living it, and I decided to live it differently.

I’d always liked my life and tended to gravitate toward solitude. I was close to my family, had a small cadre of friends who were all real, true friends, even Elsbeth had been a true friend (just, in the end, a stupid one). But I didn’t mind being alone.

It was being sick alone that made me feel lonely.

I’d felt loss before. When Elsbeth broke up with Jacob then I broke up with her because she did. I hadn’t realized what a big part of my life they were, including Jacob. How I’d have them over to dinner just to get a chance to talk to him. How I’d pop by their place on the off chance I’d see him. How I’d be the first one to their parties and the last one to leave because I liked spending time with him.

When he was gone, and even before, when he got distant (and I knew that was Elsbeth, I didn’t know why, but she could be weirdly jealous), I felt that loss.

Acutely.

But nothing was worse than being sick, really sick, and going it alone.

Not that I wanted to share my exhaustion and vomiting with someone I loved.

Just that it highlighted how really alone I was. Especially up here, away from family and friends.

I loved the mountains, jumped at the chance to move here, something new, a change. I didn’t know why I did but it just came when I was ready for it.

And it seemed I’d found my calling, not the lumberyard, where I had to admit I enjoyed working. Being the boss didn’t suck and my dad being my boss didn’t suck either, seeing as he loved me and always believed I could do just about anything.

My calling was my house, which I took one look at, saw what was under all the mess and fell in love.

But after I was sick, I made changes I hadn’t really even noticed were changes. They just came naturally. New hair because I’d gone so long without a cut. New clothes because I’d lost so much weight.

And a boyfriend because he was cute, sweet and into me and it meant I might not be so alone.

Now I’d screwed the pooch.

I sighed and turned back to my desk to get some work done, thinking people lived through worse, me being one of them. And at least I had Jacob back. Better, it seemed like Jacob was happy to be back.

So it would probably suck for a while.

But that was life.

Then everyone would move on.

One way or another.

* * *

“Jesus, Emme, baby, this place is a heap.”

This was what Jacob said upon me opening my door to him at five-oh-three that night.

I stared up at him a second then asked, “Are you kidding?”

He put a hand to my stomach, shoved me inside, came in with me and pulled the door out of my hand to swing it closed with a flick of his wrist.

My door was twelve feet tall, solid wood. It weighed a ton. Maybe not literally but it felt like it.

And Jacob threw it to like it was a flimsy screen door.

This was hot and I’d forgotten how Jacob doing superhuman things with his big-guy strength gave me a little tingle.

Back then, I wasn’t allowed to really feel that tingle because he was Elsbeth’s.

Now he wasn’t so that tingle struck full force.

I was dealing with the tingle as he walked into the entryway, looking around and talking.

“F*ck, don’t know whether to pack you up, take you to my place and save you from this nightmare or move in here and start work tomorrow…” he turned, locked eyes with me and finished, “and save you from this nightmare.”

I fought back the tingle and put my hands to my hips. “It’s not that bad.”

“You don’t have any snow on your roof.”

I rolled my eyes. I knew what that meant. Dad had been on me about insulation since about three hours after I moved in. I didn’t need the same from Jacob.

I rolled my eyes back to him and declared, “It’s fine.”

“You’re heating the mountain, Emme, and payin’ for it. It isn’t fine. And you need new windows.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I returned. “They’re after the kitchen.”

He shook his head and moved to me. “Before the kitchen, babe. Heat and safety. Windows may seem more fragile than boards but some a*shole who wants in will balk at breakin’ a window. He won’t balk at pryin’ open a board.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“But insulation before that,” he went on to announce.

“I’ll get to it,” I told him.

“When?” he asked.

“When I have the courage to go up in the attic,” I shared, and he stared.

Then he asked, “What?”

“The attic creeps me out. Spending a lot of time up there…” I shook my head then informed him, “This is an old house. It’s seen a lot. There might be ghosts. And ghosts congregate in attics.”

Jacob said nothing but he did this continuing to stare at me, now like he thought he might need to take my temperature.

So I kept talking.

“I’ll give on the windows before the kitchen, which sucks since I’m about saved up for the kitchen and my kitchen sucks and I really was looking forward to a new one. But the insulation, I’ll wait until summer when the days are longer and, incidentally,” I leaned toward him and finished, “brighter. Ghosts don’t like bright.”


Jacob kindly ignored my comment about ghosts and stated as a question, “You’re gonna install insulation in the summer, when you don’t need it, instead of the winter, when you do?”

“I’ve lived here three winters, Jacob, I’ve been fine.”

“And your heating bill has probably been astronomical.”

I couldn’t debate that because it was true, so I shut my mouth.

He watched my mouth close.

“F*ck,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’m already planning to be here on Sunday. You break up with your moronic dick, I’ll install insulation.”

It was my turn to stare. “Are you serious?”

“Didn’t hear the beat of the drum to announce the end of the joke, babe.”

At his quip, I grinned at him but shook my head. “I couldn’t ask that. That’s a big job. I have a big roof.”

“And I’ll bring Chace. Got some other buds. We’ll see to it.”

I held his gaze.

He actually thought he was going to see to it.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said softly, still holding his eyes.

“Say you’ll be here on Saturday when I’m gonna have the insulation delivered.”

I waved my hand in front of my face. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll order it tomorrow.”

“Installin’, Emme, and payin’,” Jacob declared, and my mouth dropped open. “You need your money to order new windows.”

“I… you… I can’t… you can’t pay for that,” I blathered.

He turned away, mumbling, “Late housewarming present.” Then he started walking toward the back of the house asking, “Do I gotta wait until work’s done Sunday to get a beer?”

I didn’t answer.

I was standing there, speechless, staring at him disappear.

When I got over being speechless, I rushed after him to get him a beer.

* * *

“Leave it to a woman to put a guest room and kitchen before insulation and windows,” Jacob remarked.

It was after dinner. We were in my somewhat-habitable (Jacob’s words) family room at the back of the house. Jacob had started a fire in the fireplace, doing it mumbling under his breath about the state of the chimney and how he hoped he wasn’t creating an eventual smoke out.

Earlier, he’d had beer. I’d had beer. I’d given him a tour of the house. Through this, he’d verbally lamented my choice of dwellings and feared for my safety. He did this teasing so I only got mock upset. We had dinner and conversation, which, as always with Jacob, was titillating. Talking with Jacob, as I remembered and as I again experienced over our back-to-back dinners, was like foreplay except the mental kind.

And way better than any of the real kind I’d ever had.

Now we were in my family room with more beers and Jacob was back to teasing me.

He was lounged in one corner of my couch, his long, long legs stretched out in front of him, his long, long arms curved around the arm and back of the couch, a beer in one hand. I was in the other corner, sitting on a calf I’d folded under me, my chin on my opposite knee that I had bent and I’d wrapped an arm around, my fingers curved around a beer in my other hand.

“Considering the fact that every time I flipped a switch, a fuse blew or sparks flew, I’ve had the entire house rewired too,” I pointed out, trying to be funny but failing when I noticed my words made Jacob’s hazel eyes flash and his jaw go hard. So I hurried on. “And I have a new boiler. Hot water heat can’t be beat. And I redid the master, the master bath.” I reminded him then continued, “And the garden. Honey, in summer… wait until you see. It’s magnificent.”

“Gotta have somewhere to sleep, somewhere to shower,” he replied, his eyes moved the truncated length of me in a way that made my skin feel warm, “and you did a good job with that, babe. Looks phenomenal. But now you gotta stop lookin’ at this as a whole project. You gotta break it down and prioritize.”

“I know that,” I told him.

“Then why do you have the chandelier down in the front room, cleanin’ it, at the same time you’re reskimmin’ the walls in the dining room, at the same time you’re refinishing the floor in the conservatory?”

Unfortunately, he had a point. It seemed I had a schizophrenic style when it came to my restoration efforts.

“I see something, I get the urge to fix it and give in to the urge,” I told him.

“Emme, in this heap, everywhere you turn, you’ll see something to fix. You gotta have a plan. And that plan is, Sunday, insulation. You get contractors in here to give you bids on the windows. Next up, repointing the brick so the place doesn’t fall down around your ears. After that, outside lighting updated so you cut through that dark and give yourself more safety. Then you focus on the inside, one room at a time, starting with that avocado nightmare that’s your kitchen.”

That was the fourth time he called my kitchen “that avocado nightmare.” An apt description that meant that was the fourth time I grinned at him when he said it.

Then I informed him, “The work outside is work I can’t do, Jacob. The work inside is stuff I can do, outside the electrical, which cost a small fortune and I narrowly avoided five years indentured servitude to get it done. If the project is contracted out, it’s a case-by-case basis and you know, those windows are going to cost thousands because it isn’t just the broken ones that need replacing. All of them do.”

“So bid it out,” he returned. “And I’ll ask around. Been in Chantelle a few years, know a few guys. We’re comin’ out of a recession but all of them felt that sting so they’ll be happy for the work. I’ll see if I can swing you a deal for a marker or your promise of a discount at the yard.”

This kind of brought us around full circle so I rolled with it.

“I’d appreciate you doing that, honey,” I told him quietly, holding his eyes, lifting up and taking my chin from my knee. “But this reminds me we have to finish our conversation about you paying for the insulation.”

He shook his head, saying, “I’m payin’.”

“Jacob—”

“Emme,” he cut me off, leaning toward me, “I’m paying.”

I unwrapped my arm from my leg to throw it out to the side. “That’s crazy.”

“Nothin’ crazy about it,” he replied.

God, his thinking it wasn’t crazy was also crazy.

I dropped my leg so I was sitting cross-legged in the couch and leaned into him. “Honey, you remember everything so I don’t have to remind you I haven’t seen you in nine years. I dig it that we reconnected and I love having you back.” I again threw an arm out, this time toward him and back to me. “This is great. You and me spending time together, shooting the breeze. I missed that. And I get it that friends make gestures, but this is too much.”

His eyes warmed during this speech and he took his arms from the couch, bent his legs, leaned into them, and me, and put his elbows to his knees, never releasing my eyes.

“Baby, I want you warm and liquid. The first bein’ physically, the second bein’ financially. You stop payin’ so much for heat, you’ll have more money for the rest of the shit you gotta do.”

This made sense.

But he’d again called me “baby.”

And I needed to address that.


So I asked, “What is that?”

His head cocked and his eyebrows drew together. “What’s what?”

I drew in breath and on the exhale, stated, “You calling me baby.” Then I went on quickly, “Not that I don’t like it. It’s sweet. It’s just not…” I hesitated, “us.”

Something happened to his eyes, his face, his whole big body and that something made me brace at the same time it made my heartbeat escalate.

“You know what it is,” he said softly.

I didn’t.

“I don’t,” I shared.

His eyes stayed locked to mine and I knew him relatively well, or I used to. But even if we hadn’t been separated for years, I still would not have been forewarned to the fact he was about to blow my mind.

“Before, we had Elsbeth between us. My head was f*cked about that, about her, and it took almost a decade to get it unf*cked. Lookin’ back, havin’ you back, I now know and I reckon you know, that’s the way it was. She was between us. She knew it too. And she didn’t like it. But it didn’t matter. My head was f*cked so I couldn’t see clear of her and not doin’ that, I didn’t see you.”

I knew my lips had parted. I also knew my eyes got big. And last, I had no clue what to say.

So I said nothing.

“Now she isn’t between us,” he finished.

It was then I knew what the “baby” business was.

I just had no idea how to react to it because I never considered it. He was beautiful. He was kind. He was smart. He was funny and interesting and affectionate.

But he was my best friend’s boyfriend.

That didn’t mean my mind didn’t go there in vague ways, not stupid enough to wish for something I could never have, just silently covetous of what Elsbeth had. And, because of all that he was and that Elsbeth had it, in the end, infuriated she threw it away. Angry enough to end an important friendship because of it.

Sitting there, all that was Jacob, and all that being spectacular sitting across from me, holding my eyes, I finally understood that the reason I was angry at my friend was because, in throwing Jacob away, she took him away from me.

And now I had him back, but also, he was saying I’d always had him a different way, we just didn’t go there and he was going to take us there.

Yes. I had no clue what to say but my body had a clue how to feel. Warm and there were a lot more tingles.

“Jacob—” I started on a whisper.

But he interrupted again.

“You saw me, asked me out to dinner that same night, no f*ckin’ around. Since then, you’ve called twice for no reason except to connect, and, baby, before you freak that I noticed that and what it said, I’ll tell you, I’m f*ckin’ glad you did and I’m also f*ckin’ glad about what it said. The boyfriend you were on the fence about, you got off the fence in less than twenty-four hours after seein’ me again and decided to get shot of his ass. And you didn’t waste any time gettin’ me right where I am tonight. That is not friends reconnecting. You know it. So do I.”

“I—”

“Don’t deny it.”

I shut my mouth.

When I did, the skin around his eyes got soft and his mouth twitched and I’d seen that before but not during an intense discussion where Jacob Decker was essentially telling me he was into me. So although before I liked it, now it made my hands start shaking. Therefore, I clasped them both around my beer bottle in my lap.

“Now, layin’ this shit out for you, I f*cked up,” he continued. “In a big f*ckin’ way that I been dealin’ with since summer. Hung up on a bitch, and Emme, honey, I know you two were once tight and women don’t like men referrin’ to women as bitches but there’s no denyin’ what Elsbeth pulled this summer exposed her as just that. I thought she was what I wanted and my only shot at gettin’ it and to be the man I felt I needed to be, I’d selfishly let that go. I been kickin’ my own ass about that for f*ckin’ years then kickin’ my own ass when it hit me I shouldn’t have been.”

He stopped and it appeared he wanted a response from me and the only one I had was to nod, which fortunately was all he needed for he kept talking.

“But I got a kaleidoscope that I’ve been carryin’ with me everywhere I go for the last nine years that I was too blind to see until very recently that holdin’ that thing with me proves that shit irrevocably wrong.”

At the mention of my gift to him, my pulse started beating so fast I could feel it in my fingertips.

This was because that kaleidoscope was something it took a lot of courage to seek him out and give to him. It also was something that meant the world to me to give, most especially the message I gave with it. I still figured he’d kindly taken it from me because he was that kind of guy. I also figured he then gave it away because it wasn’t his type of thing.

But knowing he took it everywhere threw me.

It also delighted me.

Beyond belief.

Therefore, I whispered, “Everywhere?”

“Been to some interesting places, Emme, baby, and that has always been with me.”

My breath started escalating and I knew Jacob didn’t miss it when his eyes dropped briefly to my chest before cutting back up to mine.

“Now,” he said gently, “unlike your very-soon-to-be ex, I’m not a dick. You gotta sort that and I gotta give you the space to do it. So tonight is not gonna end where I’d wanna lead it.”

My breath quickened even more.

He wasn’t done.

“But one thing I did learn from Elsbeth that you’re gonna get the benefit of, honey, and that’s that a man looks after his girl. That means I’m payin’ for your insulation and I’m installin’ it. And that means you’re gonna let me.”

“Your girl?” I asked, my voice coming out in a near on squeak.

“Yeah,” he answered, his voice deep, low and firm.

“This is, well… kinda weird.” Understatement! “And fast.” Extreme understatement!

“Met you twelve years ago and we’re just gettin’ here. I don’t call that fast. I call that a waste of f*ckin’ time I’m about to rectify.”

Again, I was speechless.

Jacob wasn’t.

“So, summin’ up, you got until Sunday to get your head together about McFarland. On Sunday, you scrape him off. On Sunday night, the boys are gone, you learn the true meaning of me callin’ you ‘baby.’ ”

I could no longer feel my pulse beating just in my fingertips. It was beating somewhere else, somewhere special, somewhere private, somewhere awesome.

“Jacob—” I began again but his head cocked again.

“You don’t want that?”

I shut up.

“You want that,” he murmured, his gaze on my mouth, the skin around his eyes again going soft but his mouth didn’t twitch because the look in those eyes was hot and intense and I could tell he wasn’t finding anything funny.

The pulse radiated out from that awesome place and I felt my entire body get warm.

His gaze lifted back to mine and he unfolded from the couch, putting his beer bottle on my coffee table. It was then my entire body got stiff as he moved toward me and leaned in. That was, my entire body but my neck, which bent back to hold his eyes.

Then I held my breath as he slid the tips of his fingers along my forehead, sweeping aside my bangs, before they went back until his fingers were tangled in the strands and cupping the back of my head.


That felt unbelievably nice.

He dipped closer.

I started breathing again only to hyperventilate.

“He’s been jacked by a woman,” he said quietly, “a smart man learns. And, baby, you know I am not dumb. And what that man learns is not to waste time on bitches. But more, not to waste time when he finds one who he knows is worth it. Now, you got until Sunday. You with me?”

He stopped speaking and I knew he wanted a response but I just didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t cope with this, this massive shift, this incredible gift, the offer of all his beauty.

He got so much closer all I could see were his hazel eyes. And that close I noticed that, although his lashes were dark, short and spiky, there were a lot of them. So dense, they were fascinating, and I found myself wanting to take up the challenge of counting each and every one.

“Emme,” he whispered.

I blinked and focused.

“You with me?” he repeated.

“I think our conversation about insulation took a very weird turn,” I replied.

His eyes lit with warmth and humor and I lost my fascination with his lashes because I’d seen that look in his eyes frequently when he was with me but I’d never seen it that close and it was so beautiful, I wanted to hold onto that moment for eternity.

“Right,” he said. “You got until Sunday. You feel like pickin’ up the phone, I’m busy but I always got time for you. You need space from me ’til then, you got that too, baby. Yeah?”

I decided my best bet was to nod.

So I did that.

“Okay,” he murmured. I felt his hand in my hair pull me forward and I felt my breath stick in my throat before I felt his lips touch my hair and there he kept murmuring to say, “Strawberries.”

My hair did, indeed, smell like strawberries. That was what the shampoo smelled like that cost an arm and a leg and a vague promise to the devil I’d bear his children to populate the earth with devil’s spawn in order for my hair to get this soft, sleek and shiny.

But Jacob murmuring that word against my hair, I decided to make that promise not at all vague. I’d produce demon spawn to hear him say it again and again.

Alas, he did not say it again.

But what he did was a whole lot better.

His hand at my head pulled me slightly back, his fingers drifted through my hair to my temple then curled so the backs could glide lightly across my cheek and down, touching the side of my lip in a way that was a promise I felt sear through me from lips, through my heart, straight between my legs.

Was this happening?

“You can shake and bake with the best, Emme,” he told me, his hand settling cupping my jaw, and at words that were so far out of the moment, I stared.

Then, at the reminder of the dinner I served and that it might be good, but it was a far cry from gourmet and it was so Jacob to mention it, tease me about it, and it was also so Jacob to go out of his way to take us out of intense and put me at ease, that suddenly a feeling I didn’t quite get but I really liked stole through me and I felt my lips smile.

“Gourmet all the way with me, honey. That’s why you got the buffalo-flavored Shake ’n Bake.”

“I cook next time,” he declared, and Jacob was an excellent cook. Amazing. And he didn’t shy away from anything, even gourmet.

And what he said meant he intended to cook for me.

That stole through me too.

“I expect Indian,” I told him and something about him shifted, relaxed, and I knew, in sharing I was going to be eating with him again, I’d also shared I was “with him.”

My breath started coming faster again.

“You got it,” he replied, leaned in, kissed my forehead, leaned back and caught my eyes. “Later, Emme.”

“Drive safe, Jacob.”

He grinned.

My heart jumped.

His hand slid away from my jaw and I watched him saunter out of my living room.

Then I sat immobile and listened to the front door open and close.

And last, I listened to the distant sounds of his truck growling out of my drive.

Been to some interesting places, Emme, baby, and that has always been with me.

I sat unmoving and remembered standing outside the door to the hotel room he was staying in since he left the apartment to Elsbeth. I stood there heartbroken for him, heartbroken for me, and I gave him that kaleidoscope. I remembered what I said. I remembered his eyes got warm and surprised and he took the box and opened it, pulling out the piece of beauty within and holding it like it was precious.

I also remember he didn’t let me into his room.

He just kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, “I’ll always remember you, Emme,” before he pulled back, gave me a smile that got nowhere near his eyes and backed into the room, closing the door on me.

Taking the kaleidoscope with him.

At the time, I got it, why he had to close the door on me. At the time, I was distraught at what his breakup with Elsbeth meant to him.

And to me.

So I’d walked away and let him go.

But at the time, I also was dealing with things, things I didn’t share with anybody, not Elsbeth, definitely not Jacob.

I still had that secret.

Words came to me. Words said in a man’s voice, a man no one knew was in my life. A man who was special to me in a way I knew no one would get. A man I shared with nobody.

I hope this wakes you up, sweet Emme.

I closed my eyes and called that moment up in my mind.

It was a month after I got out of the hospital. I’d visited him. He could not visit me. He’d been concerned. Eaten up with it, it was plain to see. But he could not come to see for himself I was all right.

He had to wait for me.

We were sitting in his kitchen, drinking coffee.

I hope this wakes you up, sweet Emme.

It did. Being sick like that, it did.

I didn’t get it then. I didn’t get it when he said that to me. I only got it when Jacob pointed it out.

I opened my eyes and looked to Jacob’s beer bottle on my coffee table.

You can shake and bake with the best, Emme.

I knew right then that Jacob saying that meant that he intended to keep the goodness, the easiness, the familiarity of what we had safe.

He just intended to add really great things.

I hope this wakes you up, sweet Emme.

I took a sip of the beer that I held until then forgotten in my hand.

And when I was done, I whispered, “I think I just woke up, Harvey.”

And when I did, pure joy flowed through me.

So I smiled.