Finding Joy (The Joy Series) (Volume 2) (2 page)

“Fine. If it’s what you want, I’ll go look at apartments. With
Jay
. But I don’t like him doing favors for you.”

“Good,” I said, clapping my hands together. “And you’ll be nice?”

“I’ll be nice,” he said winking at me. “But I have big plans for you later. Big plans. Did you mean it? We can really spend the rest of the day doing whatever I want?”

“Anything,” I said resolutely. “So what do you have in mind?”

“No way. It’s a surprise,” he said, turning toward the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To get my shoes. I need to go for a run before we meet your ex-boyfriend.”

“He was never my boyfriend,” I sang to his retreating back. “Love you!”

“Sure you do,” he said as he disappeared into
our
bedroom.

But, of course, I really did, and I had no doubt that he knew it, too.

_________________________

“So how were the apartments? Will either of them work?” Carly asked. She nodded her head as if to answer her own question, and her chestnut hair bobbed in excitement. That was Carly. She was a bundle of enthusiasm, wrapped in a pretty, petite package.

“I don’t know,” I said quietly, glancing at the other end of the table where Adam was sitting with Carly’s lesser half. His head was cocked toward Burke, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t tuned in to what was being said down here.

Over the past six months, Carly had quickly become my best girl friend. If I was being honest, she was probably my only real girl friend. I’d had plenty of casual friends in college and law school and even had a few at the office, but, aside from Ethan and Adam, I hadn’t let anyone get close to me since high school. When every one of your friends abandons you – when every one you’ve ever loved and relied upon walks away in a mass exodus ― leaving you all alone to deal with a broken body and a broken spirit, it’s pretty easy to give up on people in general. And that’s exactly what I had done.

Until Ethan. And then Adam. And now Carly. And it all worked out nicely since Carly had been dating Adam’s best friend for a tumultuous eternity.

Ethan had charmed his way into my heart during undergrad. I’d let him in because he was persistent and seemed harmless enough … and also because a person can only stand being so lonely. Everyone needs at least one friend. The fact that Ethan was also really easy on the eyes might have gotten him a few brownie points as well. He might have had something else in mind in the beginning, but when all advances had been consistently rebuffed, he had settled on a platonic friendship. Mostly.

 “I think one of them was perfect, but we haven’t really talked about it yet. And first we need to decide if we are going to stay here.”

She put up her hand in the universal language for ‘stop.’ “I can’t talk about that. Tell me about the apartment. Did it have two bedrooms? Would you have room for an office?” she whispered, picking up on my desire to keep this conversation just between us.

Again, I looked nervously toward Adam at the other end of the table. 

We were having dinner at a greasy spoon that was a late-night favorite of the boys. It was part one of ‘doing whatever Adam wanted’ in exchange for apartment hunting. This unhealthy choice in dining indicated that he was throwing caution to the wind tonight, and his reckless attitude had me a little fearful of what part two of the night might entail.

Our appearance at the diner tonight was much earlier than normal, and the clientele was different than whom we were used to seeing. At 3 a.m., it attracted loud, slurring club-goers in dire need of a sobering grease fix before calling it a night. Seven hours before that, the crowd was an eclectic mix of older couples and families.

Burke still had most of his attention though his eyes kept wandering over to the table next to us where a family of four sat. A preschooler had ketchup smeared across her face and, in what appeared to be a ploy for her parents’ attention, was shouting the alphabet at the top of her lungs. Her crying baby brother was throwing bits of french fries on the floor. The mother wore a harried expression as she fluttered back and forth between the two. All the while, the father paid no attention to any of them and instead looked longingly at our table. Even though we outnumbered them two to one, their table was louder.

“Yeah,” I finally answered Carly. “It had two bedrooms, and there was an extra area off the living room that would be perfect for a desk.”

This time when I looked at Adam, his velvety chocolate eyes were on me. One eyebrow was cocked up at me in question. He held my gaze for what felt like an eternity before he finally started to chew again.

 “Or a foosball table,” he said, swallowing. “If
we’re
not going to use the second bedroom as an office, what do we need it for?” His eyes darkened and pressed at me, urging me to answer the question. I felt the pull to answer honestly. We had agreed, ‘No more lies.’ ‘No more secrets.’ ‘Honesty above all else.’ However, now wasn’t the time or the place for brutal truth.

The unhappy baby next to us chose that unfortunate moment to scream at the top of his lungs. His bellowing cry rang out across the restaurant and distracted Adam. “Damn babies,” he said, shaking his head while staring at the screaming child like it might be possessed.

I looked down at the burger on my plate and suddenly felt sick. I didn’t know if the sobbing child was a distraction or a cry of truth. After all, I had plans for that second bedroom, and a baby was exactly what I wanted to put in it. I was just having trouble finding a way to tell Adam. The reason it was difficult for me was no mystery. He’d made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want children … by me or anyone else. However, I knew in my heart that he would be a great father. He’d already had the best training you could get and that was the crux of the problem.

“Or a foosball table,” I said, nodding slowly. “What was I thinking?”

“I dunno. Maybe you should tell me what you’re thinking,” he said. His gaze turned from the baby to me and bored into me. “Are we taking in a roommate?”

The question seemed innocent on its face, but felt loaded instead. Was it possible that he knew what I had in mind? If so, how? I hadn’t brought it up, and Lizzie had never mentioned it when he was around. Was I that transparent? Maybe that’s what happened when you opened yourself up and allowed someone to truly love you. Maybe they became privy to all of your innermost thoughts.

The tension caused by Adam’s tractor-beam gaze – and my sudden belief that it wasn’t merely my face that he was studying, but instead my soul – was almost unbearable. I looked around the table, sure that our friends could feel the tension, too.

 “I bet it was awesome,” Carly said quickly, changing the subject for me. She was a savior. “I wish I had your budget. Of course, if I’d gotten off my ass and done something with my life, maybe I would.”

“Hey, our place is nice,” Jillian chimed in. “It has an elevator and minimal pests.” Jillian had become an almost-friend because of her status as Carly’s sister.

“Riiiiight,” Carly strung out. “The elevator worked for one day last month, and it wasn’t even a day when I went grocery shopping. We sleep in damn bunk beds, Jillian. Whether I’m watching TV from my bed or the couch, it’s the same latitude and longitude.”

“Yeah, well, the dining room is under my bed. It’s not like you really sleep there all that much anyway,” Jillian said.

I laughed thinking about their comical apartment. It was possibly the most poorly decorated … and nastiest … apartment in Manhattan. But I had to give it to them because they had figured out how to maximize the space. Their beds were elevated, and they had placed furniture beneath them. They called it ‘double-decker living.’ But, as efficient as the arrangement was, nobody wanted to hang there. Maneuvering from the living room to the dining room could be hazardous to your health. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d gotten up from the couch and banged my head on the underside of Carly’s bed.

And then there was the issue of Mr. Big. He was Carly’s ankle-biting, chirpy dog.

“It’s a shithole, and you know it,” Carly said.

“It’s your dog that has turned it into a shithole,” Jillian exclaimed, wagging a perfectly manicured finger at Carly. “A dog shouldn’t have a potty spot in the house. It’s unsanitary, and cleanliness is next to godliness, you know.”

“It’s not unsanitary,” Carly said. “Allie’s cat has a litterbox. It’s really no different.”

“No, it’s … ,” Jillian started.

“I hate cats,” Burke interrupted with a mouth full of burger. He pointed a finger at Adam. “They’re evil. I don’t know how you can stay over there. Not me. I would have to sleep with one eye open.”

Jillian rolled her eyes at him and continued like he hadn’t spoken. “No, it’s absolutely different. Cats bury their crap. Dogs don’t. Dogs go outside … not on miniature football fields next to the dining room table.”

“You have a football field in your apartment?” Ethan asked, looking up. Clearly, he hadn’t been following the conversation. I’d noticed that he tended to space out sometimes when Jillian was talking, which made me wonder why he had stayed with her for this long.

Ethan was a very intelligent guy, and Jillian … well, Jillian was pretty.

When I’d first met her, I had been a little enamored by her. She had a super-model-esque look about her, and since she carried vodka in her purse, we had immediately hit it off. But since I’d gotten to know her, I had come to recognize that she came with limitations. Carly had clearly gotten the brains in the family. Regardless, for the most part, Ethan was still enamored with her … at least parts of her.

“Yes,” his still-shiny new toy answered. “Except there’s poop all over it, and it’s next to our table, which is directly under my bed.”

“So that’s why you’ve never invited me over,” Ethan murmured. “Why is the table under your bed?” He still hadn’t completely caught up with us.

“I saw an infomercial the other day on how to train your cat to pee in the toilet. I have to admit I was tempted,” I said.

“Like Jinxy, the cat from
that
movie,” Carly said, snapping her fingers as if this was a brilliant idea. “You know,
‘Meet the Fockers
. I should try it. If you can teach a cat to poop in the toilet, I don’t know why I couldn’t teach Mr. Big.”

 “Dogs aren’t as smart as cats, Focker,” I said.

“That’s not true,” Burke interrupted. “Dogs have a much larger vocabulary than cats. Cats understand two words – ‘Here, kitty, kitty.’ Wait. Is that two words or three?” It was possible that Burke was a better match for Jillian than he was Carly, but those were not words that I would ever utter aloud.

 “Ugh,” Carly said, rolling her eyes. “It’s three words, but only two are unique so it counts as two. And Rubber Cat is not smarter than Mr. Big. I will bet you that I can teach Mr. Big to use the toilet before you can teach Rubber Cat.”

“That dog can’t even jump off the toilet without breaking his legs. I’ll take that bet,” Adam said. He had finally rejoined the conversation after several minutes of appearing to be lost in his own thoughts.

“I’m in,” Burke said. “What’s the bet?”

“Here we go,” Barnacle said, laughing. He looked toward me. “Their bets are legendary.”

I smiled back at him. Barnacle was probably my favorite of Adam’s wayward friends. I mean, there was no doubt that Burke was Adam’s go-to man, and he was a good guy if you could overlook his cocky ‘I’m the Lead Singer of a Band’ behavior. I liked him a lot, but I actually loved Barnacle a little. He was big and burly, and, though he was a bit scary looking, he was just a teddy bear masked in tattoos and black rocker clothing. I didn’t know why, but from the very beginning, I felt a connection with him.

Adam looked thoughtful for a few long seconds. “If I win, you have to wear a t-shirt of my choosing for three shows in a row.”

Burke groaned. “You have terrible taste in clothes. Just look at you.”

Adam looked down at his faded brown t-shirt. In fact, we all looked at his shirt. A piece of bacon was splayed across his chest. It was sandwiched between the phrase ‘Smoke Meat Everyday.’

“What’s wrong with my shirt?” he asked with a shrug. “Who doesn’t like meat?”

“Me,” Jillian said with a disgusted look on her face. All eyes flipped from Adam’s shirt to Jillian’s plate and her half-eaten tofu burger. The ‘meat’ portion of the burger was an odd color of grey and looked a little on the gelatinous side. I looked back at my bacon cheeseburger and sent up a little prayer to God in thanks for my love of meat.

“Yeah, well, that’s just wrong,” Adam said unapologetically, still staring at her sandwich.

“It does look a little disgusting, doesn’t it?” Jillian asked. She looked to Ethan. “Am I too high maintenance?” Her voice came out as a high pitched whine, and the whole table was reminded of how, at the most awkward of times, she could sound like a chirping monkey. The auditory resemblance was truly unfortunate.

“No, Jill baby, you’re not too high maintenance,” he said, while contradictorily nodding his head. “Besides, I can think of a rare cut of meat that you never turn down.”

“Stop,” I said, throwing a french fry at him.

“Okay, fine. I’ll wear whatever you want.” Burke said, redirecting the conversation away from the sordid topic of Jillian’s secret meat fetish. “But it doesn’t matter because I’m going to win. And then I’m going to get to drive your car.”

A collective gasp went around the table. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell,” Adam said, chuckling. “I’ve seen you drive, and, no offense, but you drive like a 16-year-old on a bender.”

“And you drive like a …,” Burke stammered, unable to come up with anything to counter Adam’s insult. “Fine. Bet’s off. If a night with Eleanor isn’t the prize, I’m not playing.”

I met Adam’s eyes and sent him a subliminal message that we had this in the bag. He nodded, indicating that he’d received my directive loud and clear. “Fine, but you have to wear chaps with whatever shirt I pick and talk in a Texas accent to even the field.”

“You’re on. I’ve always wanted to wear chaps. I’m going to look and sound just like John Wayne.”