Purely Relative (6 page)

An hour later, I lay down on my couch to read my book.

My doorbell awakened me. Ian! I bolted to the door and threw
it open to see ... Jon with bags of groceries.

“What time is it?” I asked yawning, but given the sun had
already set, it had to be at least half past five, which was when Jon was due
to arrive. “Wait. Where the hell is Ian? Have you heard from Jenny?” I turned
and rushed inside to find my cell phone.

“Ian’s not here?” Jon asked, shutting the door behind him.

“No. Jenny picked him up. He called when I was in the
shower.” A check of my cell phone showed I’d missed another call while I had
been napping. “Unbelievable!” I dialed my voicemail and listened.

“Hey sis! Sorry I’m running very late, but there was a huge
crowd at the restaurant so we went to another one and there was huge crowd
there, too, so we finally just said, ‘screw it’ and went to Jenny’s house with
our takeout....” In the background I could hear giggling. Jenny. She was
yelling something. “So, anyway, we’ve kind of been drinking and well, neither
one of us is in any shape to drive, so I’m just gonna hang out here until we
sober uuuup-ah!” More giggling in the background, a hand covering the phone, my
brother’s drunken laughter.

What the hell was going on?

“So, anyway, Sis, I just thought you should be the first to
know. I’m in love! Don’t wait up!” And thus ended my brother’s last voicemail
to me.

In love? In love with who? Jenny? Oh, no, no, no. My brother
was not
that
guy! The boozing womanizer he sounded like in his drunken
message was not my highly disciplined, always punctual oldest brother the
rocket scientist. Had someone slipped him some ecstasy? What was Jenny’s role
in all this? I immediately called Ian’s number. It rang and rang until it
finally went to voicemail. Ian’s monotone outgoing message sounded nothing like
the nonsensical one I’d just listened to. My turn to leave a message began at
the beep.

“Ian! What the hell are you doing? You can’t be there with
Jenny. She’s engaged, you dummy! You can’t be hitting on her or falling in
puppy love with her. I’m coming to get you. I’ll drive you back, you idiot. Did
you even think of that ... did you for even one second—”

Jon snatched the phone from me and hit the end button, an
unexpected heat blazing in his eyes.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Leave them alone,” he said, no emotion in his tone.

“Why? He’s behaving abominably! He can’t just hook up with
your sister!”

“It’s none of our business, Gayle.” He set the phone down on
the coffee table. “Jenny is a grown woman. She’s thirty years old, and Ian is
nearly that, right?” I nodded. Ian was twenty-eight, never been married, never
been engaged, never even had a serious girlfriend as far as I knew, though he
was no stranger to dating. He was good-looking, smart, and even funny when he
loosened his grip on his control freak leash. “They can do what they like.
Honestly, I wish Jenny would finally kick Scott to the curb, and maybe this
will force her to do it.”

My jaw went slack. Other than the head games remark, I
didn't think Jon bore animosity toward his future brother-in-law. Sure, he’d
acted a little possessive of me in Scott’s presence, but I thought that was
just Jon doing his “My woman! Keep away!” caveman shtick he always did when
another man got too close to me. When I mentioned finding his territorial
behavior kind of sexy, he vehemently denied acting that way. Whether he
realized it or not, Jon was
that
way, but not boorish or stalkerish.

“I didn’t know you weren’t on Team Scott,” I said, dropping
onto the sofa.

In a second, he joined me, our hips and thighs touching. “I
think he’s a condescending, pompous ass.” A loud rush of his breath followed,
almost like he’d been holding that opinion inside his head so long that the
tiniest of pricks caused it all to explode.

“Okay, he didn’t impress me either, but this isn’t the right
way for Jenny—or my brother—to behave. It’s wrong. Plus, they’re
drunk. They may wake up in the morning regretful it ever happened, only Jenny
will have this burden in her heart for having cheated on Scott and may hold it
against my brother, and by extension me.”

Jon shook his head the entire time I spoke. “No. I already
knew she was going to end it with Scott. I don’t know why she hasn’t told
him
yet, but we’ve talked about it before, Jenny and I. We talked about it that
night she came home and found us in bed together.”

I squeezed my eyes together. “The Lindleys are totally
screwing up the love lives of the Cripps, aren’t we?”

Two strong arms urged me closer, and I shifted onto his lap,
my head against his shoulder. Jon kissed my forehead and smoothed my hair. “No,
you made me see the pale imitation of love I nearly settled for, and then
stepped into the light all shiny and golden.” A low groan rumbled in his throat
and a few primal shivers of my own made their way south. “I have no idea about
Jenny and Ian. She might be just having a fling with a man who finds her
attractive and that’ll be the end of it, a catharsis perhaps? Or maybe, like
me, one singe of the flame and she’ll combust.” Another soft kiss landed on my
cheek, followed by one near my ear and a third on my jaw. A fourth landed on my
neck, his breath hot and his tongue making some swirly motion that stirred my
insides into a maelstrom of need, and oh, dinner could wait.

***

Ian didn’t show up until nearly noon
on Saturday. He wasn’t the least bit hung over but he was quiet and subdued.
Uh-oh, maybe Jenny kicked
him
to the curb instead of Scott.

“I’m sorry. I came here to see you and showed up almost a
day late,” he said, a hot cup of coffee nestled between his palms. “I did get
your voicemail, what there was of it, not that it mattered.”

“Yeah, what’s that all about? I mean, how could you do
something like that?”

He turned to face me, brow furrowed. “Like what? What did I
do that was so horrible other than blow you off for a day, which I am sorry
about?”

“Ian....” I rolled my eyes. “Did you sleep with her?”

He smiled, a cunning curl to the edges of his lips, the
satisfied grin of an unrepentant Lothario.

“You did!” I gave his arm a slap.

“A gentleman does not kiss and tell.” He took a sip of his
coffee, but the mug wasn’t big enough to hide the smile that dug in even
deeper.

“You’re no gentleman. You’re a scoundrel!”

When he lowered his mug, his smile was gone, a sober regard
in its stead. “I’m really not,” he whispered. “She’s the one for me, the one I
think I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I know it.” His eyes searched mine.
For sympathy? Understanding? Forgiveness?

“This is so unlike you. If you two aren’t a one-night stand,
what are your plans?”

“I’m going back over to her house later tonight. She’s
breaking it off with her fiancé,” he checked his watch, “right about now. I
rented a car so you won’t have to drive me around.”

A slap in the face couldn’t have stung more. He had flown
here to spend time with me, not bust up a five-year-long engagement. But he’d
chosen the latter and maybe I’d get whatever scraps of his time he had left
over after he finished boinking his cheating girlfriend! Here I was worried
about what Jenny thought of me when she was the one who disappointed.

“Wow.” All I could do was shake my head. “Just wow. You
barely know her, Ian.”

“Not true. I’ve known her casually for about two years. I’ve
been flying the same routes a couple of times a month for that long. She’s
often been on the same flights as me. We’ve had drinks and dinner at the
airport a few times before heading off in our separate directions. But nothing
ever happened before ... though not for lack of trying on my part, believe me.”
He raised his hands. “I know. I’m terrible. It was all in fun at first, but
somewhere along the line, I realized I was no longer joking around. I wanted
her, and it was more than just sexual attraction, which, by the way, we never,
ever acted on before.”

Jenny had perked up when she heard my brother’s name
mentioned at Thanksgiving dinner. At the time, I’d attributed it to the
amazement of the coincidence. Maybe there was more to it even then.

I narrowed my eyes, crossed my arms and gave a long exhale. “Fine.
But you haven’t even met Jon yet. Can we try dinner again tonight?”

Ian smiled and leaned forward to give me a kiss on the
cheek. “Actually, I have a better idea, but I gotta piss like a racehorse right
now, so I’ll tell you when I come back.” He rose and pointed down the short
hall off the living room. “Bathroom this way?”

I nodded and away he dashed. What else was he planning on
springing on me?

My phone rang with Jon’s familiar ringtone. I answered
before the second ring. “Hey!”

“Hey ... um, I just talked to Jenny and—”

“I know.” I growled. “I’m still in shock.”

“Listen, she wants us all to have dinner tonight at my
parents’ house. Jason will be leaving on Monday, and I’ve not seen him that
much. Then there’s Jenny’s, uh ... news.”

My hand flew to my chest. “Dear God, no. She can’t possibly
want to tell them this way, just hours after telling Scott?”

Ian walked in at that point.

“Yeah, well, the Cripps sort of have their own style of
sharing news,” he said with a slight cough at the end. Not good. I knew that
little cough thing he did. It was never good. “So, I’ll come pick you and Ian
up at five-thirty if that’s okay?”

“Ian, too?” I caught Ian’s eye. He stared back, face
expressionless.

“Yes. Ian, too.”

“Oh my God, that’s going to be so awkward. Seriously?”

“Yes.” He offered no more, no explanation, no similar shock
at the impropriety of making such a sudden move public.

“Alright. Five-thirty then. What should I expect?”

On the other end of the line, Jon exhaled. “I have
absolutely no idea. At least Jason’s life is drama-free at the moment. He’s
only nineteen, though. Give him a few more years, then watch out!”

I had to laugh. “I’ll make sure to sit next to Jason, then.”

Jon chuckled softly. “Not if I beat you to it.”

Ian didn’t stay and wait for Jon.
When he hadn’t heard from Jenny post-break-up, he couldn’t stand it any longer
and booked it back over to her house.

I sat in stunned ignorance on my sofa, wondering how the
whole sordid situation would go down. Nothing had ever happened in my family
like this. Maybe because we weren’t fiery Italians? Early in our friendship, I
wouldn’t have labeled Jon as fiery. I had since learned that when the heat was
held to the nearly flame-resistant fuse for too long, he could explode. I had
seen it with my own eyes the night he beat up our supervisor when he caught the
slimeball sexually harassing me. He lost his job at Anderson-Blakely over that
incident.

Jon’s arrival brought only more questions.

“Any word from Jenny?” I asked as soon as I opened the door
to admit him.

He shook his head, his expression grim, and walked inside. “Where’s
Ian?”

“He left. He went to your sister’s house because he hadn’t
heard from her. Do you think maybe she changed her mind?”

Jon pulled me into his arms saying, “First things first,”
before laying a big smooch on my lips. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t
think Scott is the type to go ballistic.”

I pulled out of his embrace and grabbed my purse and my
jacket. Like a true Southern gentleman, Jon helped me put it on.

Christine made excellent time through the drizzly Dallas
streets and highways. Traffic was light, with most exhausted from their weekend
shopping warfare or indolent from Thanksgiving leftovers in front of the tube
watching football. The pavement shone under the streetlights as we made the
final turn onto his parents’ street.

Jon punched in the code to the front gate, and we drove up
the driveway. Finding it nearly full, we were forced to park far from the front
door.

“Wow, a lot of cars here tonight,” I said, pulling up my
hood and gathering the fronts of my coat together against the icy rain.

All Jon said was, “Hmm.” As we scurried up the driveway, he
rattled off the names of the cars’ owners. “Mom, Dad, Alex and Sophia,
Thalia—”

I clutched his arm. “Thalia is here? Are you kidding me?
Why?”

“I’m sorry, Gayle. Honestly, I had no idea Jenny was calling
a dual family meeting. There’s Jenny’s car, thank goodness. I don’t know that
one,” he pointed to a silver Prius, “and that one’s Tully’s. No idea who owns
the Mazda.”

“Not Scott, I hope. And Tully’s here?”

“No, not Scott, and Tully’s almost family,” Jon said as he
opened the door.

“I suppose one could be Ian’s rental. I didn’t get to see it
before he took off.”

“You didn’t ask him what he rented?” Jon shot me an
incredulous glance.

“No. Should I have?”

His head dropped before slowly lifting it back up again. “Gayle,
Gayle, Gayle.”

“What?”

Voices in the dining room drew us in that direction, Jenny’s
rising above them all. All eyes turned to us as we stepped into the doorway.
Jenny pointed at Jon and said, “No one said anything when Jon cheated on
Thalia! Everybody welcomed Gayle with open arms barely a few weeks later! But
I’m the bad one for finally saying enough’s enough and dumping a man who’s put
me down and made me doubt myself for years? Un-fucking believable!”

“Watch your language! No one’s putting you down, Jenny,”
Jon’s father bellowed, tossing his napkin on his empty plate setting.

My eyes widened. Jon snorted out his nose and lurched
forward. Thalia stood up and yelled at Jon, “You cheated on me? With,” she
waved a finger at me, “this one and with how many others, huh?” Angles and curves
arranged with wet-dream-inducing perfection made up the woman who had been
Jon's significant other since high school. Even eyes flashing above the taut
line of her lips couldn't sully the flawless beauty of her face. And, of
course, she was tall. Damn her!