TWENTY-FOUR
“Darcy, don’t you make me take that file from you. It’s nearly seven.”
Hand flat on the top of the file in question, Darcy shook her head. “You even think about taking this from me, and you can kiss your ‘Nana Gail’ fantasies goodbye. I’ll have this baby calling you Gammy Gigi for years.”
Jeff’s mother flinched, but apparently tonight she wasn’t backing down. Slipping her phone from her pocket, she made a show of starting to text. “Hold on, dear. Let’s talk about this in a moment. After I tell Jeff about how you aren’t eating and you look so very pale.”
“What?” she gasped, grabbing the plate with the remains of her organic burrito...the second burrito, because there wasn’t even a single crumb left to show for the first. “This is my third, no, fourth meal today. Since I’ve been here!”
Gail didn’t look up as she sighed. “We old people get so easily confused. The file, Darcy.”
Old. At fifty-five, Gail was hardly material for the old folks’ home, especially since she had the physique and attitude of a woman closer to forty. Add another item to her ever-growing “Why I want to be like Gail when I grow up” list.
Darcy looked down. She knew it had been a long day, but the truth was, being at home was difficult. It was beautiful and comfortable and all, but a week into living there, she still found herself watching the clock for the part of her day that had become her favorite, waiting for an event that wasn’t going to come.
Reminding herself that Jeff wouldn’t be swinging through the door at any moment.
It was just her. Alone. With nothing to wait for or anticipate at the day’s end because she’d had to go and make the smart decision for herself. And it stunk.
She used to thrive on living by herself. But that was before she’d had a taste of what it felt like to share a home. Before Jeff.
“I wonder what he’ll do when he hears how sad and thin and worn-out you look?”
Darcy narrowed her eyes. She did not look thin. The rest, possibly. But certainly not enough to report to Jeff. Gail was bluffing.
And if she wasn’t...
No, she tamped down that insidious little hopeful part of her looking for any excuse or justification to see him. Anything to ease this hollow aching part of her that had opened up the day she moved out and secured his promise to give her some space as they adjusted to the new phase of their relationship. They’d be seeing each other soon enough once the baby arrived.
But Gail was bluffing because no matter what Darcy and Jeff had respectively told her about Darcy’s move to her new place, Gail wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t blind. And she wasn’t one to manipulate her son for sport. So no worries. That text wasn’t going anywhere.
Still this was the most entertainment she’d had since ripping her heart in half when she moved out of Jeff’s place. Maybe she wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.
“You do that, and I’ll tell him...I’ll tell him...” What lie she’d never actually tell could she threaten Gail with—ha! She had it. “I’ll tell him Grant put a move on you! You’ll have that promising young doctor’s blood all over your hands. So how about them apples, Gail?”
Darcy waited for the gasp, the cough, the laugh or the escalated threat, anticipating whatever the response with glee. Ready for whatever her friend had to lob back at her. But all she got was Gail staring at her, wide-eyed and stock-still.
The seconds stretched, and Darcy’s brows began to creep skyward. “No. Way.”
Gail blinked, looked down at the floor where she made a small circle with the toe of her shoe. Finally she shrugged. “Give me the file and I’ll tell you about it.”
Three things ran through her mind at once.
First, Grant didn’t value his life the way she would have expected him to.
Second, Wow. No wonder Jeff didn’t know how to lose.
And third, rename her list as “Why Gail is my hero” and add this as the top line item.
Handing over the file, she tried not to think about what ran through her mind next. How relieved she was not to have to be heading back to her lonely house. How grateful she was for what would probably be the only distraction powerful enough to keep her mind off the man she couldn’t stop missing.
* * *
The door swung open and Connor squinted out at him. “Not that I’m not happy to see you. But it’s four in the morning, Jeff. What are you doing here?”
Yeah, what indeed. Trying to keep himself from making a seriously monumental mistake. And calling in a favor to do it.
“Needed to get out of the apartment for a while. So I went for a drive. Ended up in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop in.”
“Two hundred miles is a bit of a drive.”
“Yeah.”
“You look like hell.”
Jeff gave Connor a once-over, taking in the bedhead that put the other man’s hair on par with his own, the wrinkle running across his cheek and the unfocused look in general. “Coming from you, that’s saying something.”
“Ha. So you want to come in, or was this just a drive-by?”
“I need you to take my phone. Darcy asked me to give her some space. And I’m trying. Really, really hard. But I haven’t seen her in two weeks. And even though I’ve talked to my mom and Grant and they both say she’s doing great, I haven’t seen her. Not being able to—hell, the only reason I’m not knocking on her door right now is because I forced myself to turn left instead of right...and keep going. And the only way I’m not going to call her and tell her that I can’t stand another damn day like this...when I need to be able to stand a whole damn lifetime like it, is if you take the damn phone out of my damned hand. Please.”
Connor looked down at the offending piece of technology and held out his hand for it.
“Thank you,” he said as Connor waved him inside.
“I owed you one, right?”
Jeff was about to make the usual polite protest—even though it was the absolute truth—when he stopped at the sound of crunching plastic and metal.
Eyes bugging, he cranked his head around to where Connor was pulling the crushed phone from between the door and the frame, a sleepy half-cocked grin on his face as he handed back what had seconds before been a working phone, painstakingly programmed to accommodate every aspect of his life. At his stunned stare, Connor slapped the bits of phone into his palm and said, “Now we’re even. And you’re welcome.”
Five minutes later, Connor set five bottles between them, then dropped into the kitchen chair, eyeing Jeff over the table. “Let’s get this out of the way first. What kind of night are we having? Coffee?” he asked, holding a hand over the two bottles of caramel-and-cream flavored iced coffee, before moving to hover over the green glass of his favorite imports. “Beer?”
Then rubbing a hand over his mouth and the scrub of his jaw, Connor eyed the last bottle warily. “Or if it’s really, really bad...and only for you...” He winced, looking away. “This.”
A twenty-five-year-old Scotch Jeff was willing to bet Connor hadn’t had a glass of since the night Jeff had had to run out of a meeting to head him off at the airport before Connor showed up drunk at his then-estranged wife’s door.
“Wow. You really do love me,” Jeff said, and grabbed the hard stuff as he pushed back from the table and set the bottle at the far counter. Looking back at Connor, he turned the bottle so the label wasn’t staring him down like some school yard bully. “But I love you, too, and even if I didn’t—do you honestly think I’m going to get plowed with my pregnant non-girlfriend God only knows where? Doing God only knows what. With God only knows who.”
“Isn’t she with your mom?”
“No. She’s at her new house. Probably sleeping. Alone.” Of course alone. Definitely alone. For now.
And as soon as that thought hit him, the next certainty followed.... If she didn’t want to be alone, she wouldn’t have to be. He saw the way guys looked at her, eight months pregnant or not. Hell, he knew how he looked at her. How he wanted her.
How he missed her.
“I’ll pass on the beer, too,” he said, but scowled at the remaining selection of iced coffee. “Caramel?”
“Megan bought it. The machine is broken, just man up and drink what’s on offer. It’s actually pretty good.”
Reluctantly, Jeff grabbed his own and tried it. Smacked his lips. “Like liquid candy.”
Connor gave him an I-told-you-so look and settled back in his chair with a bottle of the iced coffee. “Okay. So now that we’ve got the beverage portion of the evening—err, morning—out of the way. Let’s have it. What’s going on?”
“I asked Darcy to marry me.” At Connor’s raised brows, he added, “She declined.”
“Aw hell, I’m sorry, Jeff. I didn’t realize it was like that with you two. Or at least that you’d realized it was—and I’m probably not helping, either. Okay, why’d she say no?”
Jeff ran a finger through the condensation on his bottle, wondering how it was possible to feel half numb and wholly horrible all at once. “The first time, because she didn’t care about ‘the whole legitimacy thing.’”
“Umm, out of curiosity, how many times did she turn you down?”
He shoved his hands through his hair. “A couple. Few maybe. Once because I asked like I was joking around. I know. Big surprise. And okay, then because I asked when she was throwing up.”
“Dude,” Connor gasped, pulling away in his chair even as he said it.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jeff waved at the air. He’d been trying to cheer her up but, yeah. He knew. “And most recently, because she thinks she can do better.”
The coffee clanked on the table as Connor threw up his hands, all what’s-this-world-coming-to? “She thinks she can do better than you? What the hell is she looking for? You’re generous, kind, almost as intelligent as I am, not quite as good-looking, but what you lack in pretty you make up in portfolio.”
Jeff let out a short laugh, but the real thing seemed harder and harder to come by these days. “Connor, no matter how you sweet-talk me, I’m not getting in bed with you again. So don’t even try.”
“Someone’s still smarting over me thinking he was Megan,” Connor responded in a deep singsong voice that really should have made Jeff’s day. “And nice dodge, but aside from the nose and hair, you’re like every woman’s idea of Mr. Right. I’m serious, man. What does she want?”
Jeff took his own drink, only the sugary concoction had turned sour on his tongue. “She wants to be in love with the guy she marries.”
Connor rocked back in his seat. And who could blame him. There wasn’t much room for outrage with a defense like that.
“She said she doesn’t love you?”
Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking about all the times Darcy had pushed him away. Walked out on him. Told him she didn’t want what he was offering. He thought of that last conversation, the way she’d looked at him with such regret in her eyes as she told him she couldn’t marry him because... “She didn’t have to.”
He cleared his throat and met Connor’s concerned stare. “Which was fine. It wasn’t like that with us.”
Connor’s brows pinched together, concern turning to calculation in a blink, as he drawled, “Oh, really?”
Jeff shifted uncomfortably. Whatever that look was, he didn’t like being on the receiving end of it. “Knock it off, Connor.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I got her pregnant. I didn’t fall in love with her. It was never about love. It was about making a family. I’m upset because it didn’t work out like I’d hoped.”
More of that look. “Sure.”
“Damn it, Connor. This isn’t like you and Megan.”
“Didn’t say it was.”
“You’re looking at me...with this infuriatingly...smug look. And it’s making me want to mess up your perfect nose.”
Totally unconcerned, Connor reached across the table, his crooked smile smug and secure as he rubbed his hand over the top of Jeff’s head.
Condescension and delight mixing in his voice, he said, “I love you, man. But come on, I can’t believe you don’t see what I’ve been hearing in your voice for months. In every mention of her. Every frustration, every funny story, every TMI account you can’t seem to contain. And if you can’t hear it in your own words, then maybe it’s time you take a good look at why exactly you are so hell-bent on getting this woman to marry you. You keep asking her for everything, but I’m not sure you’re seeing all you’ve got to give in return. Which means maybe she’s not seeing it, either.”
No. Connor was just reading his own happy ending into Jeff’s story. But it wasn’t that way. They’d agreed up front about the limits so no one would get the wrong idea. It had worked with every other relationship he’d had since Margo. And granted none of those women had held a candle to Darcy. They’d been easy to say goodbye to in a way he couldn’t even contemplate with Darcy...but still.
Jeff collapsed back in his chair, the weight on his chest one of unwilling recognition. “Hell.”
Connor was right. But unfortunately, that didn’t change a damn thing as far as Darcy wanting to marry him. Or live with him. Or see him. Or talk to him. Or laugh with him. Or any of the million other things Jeff wanted to do with her.
That was the heart of it. He wanted everything.
While she wanted to be friendly, independent co-parents to the child they would share for the rest of their lives...he wanted the fairy tale.
And he’d promised Darcy he wouldn’t ask for it.