His Best Friend's Baby (5 page)

“He was hard on the people who loved him,” he finally said.

She turned wide eyes on him. “You sound like a man with experience.” She tried to smile, but failed, and that told him so much about what being married to Mitch had cost her.

His hands itched to stroke her narrow shoulders, but not for comfort. Not as further cleanup after Mitch.

Jesse wanted to touch her for himself.

“Everybody in this town loved him, but no one knew him. There was only one guy stupid enough to be his best friend.”

She bit her lip and he wondered if he’d gone too far. If he’d read her wrong and her emotions for her husband were stronger than he thought. Maybe she didn’t know what a bastard Mitch was.

“He was pretty good at keeping the worst of himself hidden. Until it was too late.”

“Remember that when you get tired of all the Mitch stories this town can tell. These people never knew him like we knew him.”

He met her crystal gaze and they were suddenly knit together, not just by that morning
in Germany, and not by the terrible, forbidden things he felt for her, but in their knowledge of Mitch Adams.

The Mitch the whole town refused to believe existed.

“I thought I married someone else,” she said. “The way he talked, I thought… Well, I thought he was a different person.”

“I understand,” he said. An expression of gratitude spread over her features.

“It’s been a long time since someone has said that to me.”

The moment stretched taut and then snapped. He looked away with a cough—hot and uncomfortable with how much he still wanted his best friend’s widow.

She laughed nervously and wiped at her eyes. “Look at me,” she said. “I arrive out of the blue to start crying on your porch.”

“Go ahead. Cry away.”

She turned aside and studied the stars while he studied her. Birds called and dogs barked and Jesse lifted himself from the chair and stupidly, foolishly, was about to lower himself onto the steps so he could touch her, smell her. Press his lips to the quick pulse that beat in her neck.

“Do you know Mitch’s parents real well?”

The air went cold, dousing the flames in him.

“Yeah.” He sat down heavily.

“What are they like?”

“They hate me,” he said, getting right to the point. “They’d hate you sitting on this porch with me.”

“Because of the accident?”

The word shattered the serene picture they made like a pane of glass. His intentions, his desire for her, turned to ash. They weren’t two strangers engaged in warm conversation, carefully scoping out the edges of their feelings for each other.

Mitch was between them. Mitch and his death and the accident.

He almost laughed.
Accident?
People could be so stupid. Didn’t anyone realize there were no such things as accidents?

“Among other things,” he said and shrugged.

She must blame him, at least a little, for Mitch’s death. How could she not? Her husband was dead while Jesse was alive. In his head the math was simple.

“Jesse?” She looked at him warily. The pressure in his chest grew unbearable. “That morning in Germany when you—”

“Don’t.” He groaned and shook his head. The honesty in her eyes and the ache in his chest defeated him so, like a coward, he looked away. “Don’t say anything. I’m sorry. I’m… sorry.”

“Sorry?”

He refused to look at her, willing her to get off his porch. He had been stupid to let her stay. Drugs or no drugs.

The silence built like a wall between them. Brick by brick, until he wasn’t even sure he could see her.

Finally she stood, swiped her hands over her butt and took a step toward the shadows of the lawn.

“Good night, Jesse.” She took another step, all but disappearing in the dark. “I’m so glad you’re here. I never expected a friend—”

“We’re not friends, Julia,” he said, from his side of the wall of silence and lies. “Don’t come back.”

J
ULIA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL
. She was plagued by Jesse’s ravaged face and the sharp-fanged nightmares Mitch’s old room seemed to spark.

She had to put Mitch’s prom picture facedown in the hopes that she’d stop seeing it
when she shut her eyes. But it was useless, Mitch’s ghost lived in this room, lived in these quiet moments of doubt that came at night. He mocked her and reminded her of how much she’d fallen out of love with him. Of how badly she’d wished he’d been more like Jesse.

In fact, that night in Germany with Jesse and Mitch, she’d wished he was Jesse.

And to make it all worse, there was nothing she could do to shake loose Jesse’s words. They ran on a loop whether her eyes were closed or not.

I’m sorry
.

She’d carried the memory of that morning in Germany with Jesse in her heart for months. She’d lived on it when food tasted like dirt. She’d breathed it through Mitch’s funeral and through all the long nights.

And he was sorry. Sorry it ever happened.

We’re not friends. Don’t come back
.

She flopped over on her back and stared up at the ceiling where the shadows of the maple branches danced and that morning rushed back to her in painful detail….

“
All done,” Julia whispered to Ben. She held
out her hands as if to prove she wasn’t holding
anymore puréed peaches. “All gone
.”

Ben mimicked her, shouting her words back
to her in his gibberish
.

“
Sh,” she whispered. “We have to be quiet.
Daddy and Jesse are sleeping
.”

Jesse Filmore—the much-
boasted-
about
friend of Mitch’s youth—slept in the living
room, draped over the too-small couch. And
Mitch slept on in the bedroom, smelling slightly
of the wine he’d drank last night and the uncomfortable,
lousy sex he’d attempted before
dawn. He’d come to bed late, full of drunken
apologies and tears. There’d been another girl.
A reporter or a contractor or something. She’d
meant nothing, he swore
.

None of them meant anything
.

Julia wiped Ben’s face, holding his head still
so she could get the cereal from under his chin,
and pulled him out of the makeshift high chair
she’d rigged on the kitchen counter
.

She filled his sippy cup with juice and water
and walked behind him as he toddled over to
the table she’d set up next to the only window
in the apartment that let in the morning light
.

She sat in her chair and Ben tried to pull
himself up into her lap
.

“Up you go,” she whispered, giving him a
boost
.

He repeated the tone of her voice, if not her
exact words
.

She had a few toys on the table and he played
while she rested her chin on his head and
looked out the window to the street of duplicate
houses, covered in Christmas lights and snow
that made up the family housing on the
barracks
.

Houses filled with women just like her. Alone.
Lonely. Worried half the time. Scared the other
half. They filled their time with book groups
and sewing circles, coffee klatches and grief-
counseling sessions
.

She went, dragging Ben and bad pasta salad,
wearing the mask of a woman still in love with
her husband. She wore that mask until she
thought she’d scream
.

She rested her head against the window
.

“Jesse,” Ben whispered and her heart
squeezed tight at the mention of the handsome
stranger her husband had brought home last
night. It had been a surprise, not just Jesse, but
Mitch’s appearance as well. She’d had no notice
of their leave. No chance to prepare herself
.

Not that she could have
.

Not for Jesse Filmore.

He’d walked into her home, he’d shaken her
hand, he’d smiled at her, played with her son
.
He’d even gone so far as to compliment her
spaghetti and she knew she’d found the very
limit to her foolish heart
.

She’d watched him all night from the corner
of her eye, from beneath her lashes like some
lovesick teenager
.

Maybe that’s what I am.

Maybe that’s what this feeling is.

He was a good man—it was the clearest
thing she’d ever seen. As real as the sun behind
the window. He’d walked into the room and
she’d known him. Known him as though she’d
been beside him his whole life. Jesse was the
kind of man she’d imagined Mitch to be. The
kind of man she wanted Mitch to be and it
burned her like acid to have him in her house
.

“Jesse,” Ben said louder and Julia turned
finally to shush him, only to find Jesse
standing in the doorway to the kitchen. A
bright and dark angel brought into her life to
remind her of the mistakes she’d made, of the
things she’d never have
.

His black eyes were a hot touch on her face
.

She opened her mouth, but there was nothing
to say. No empty chatter in her head to fill up
this moment. She wanted to stay this way with
this man’s eyes on her—intense and dark and
so knowing she felt naked
.

Ben scrambled off her lap and ran past Jesse
into the TV room
.

“There’s…” Her mouth was sticky, dry. But
before she could try to finish her sentence Jesse
crossed the kitchen in three steps, stopping only
when he was right in front of her. Less than a
foot away. She could have reached out to touch
the hem of his gray T-shirt
.

You’re married,
she told herself—a stupid
reminder of the vows she’d taken, binding
herself to a man who had never meant them
.

Jesse crouched in front of her, until his face
was level with hers
.

She grasped her hands in her lap until her
knuckles went white
.

“You deserve better,” Jesse whispered, and
her lips parted on a broken breath. He reached
out and his fingers, the very tips of them, brushed
her face in a nearly imperceptible touch. Her
cheek and the curve of her jaw. As though she
were diamonds and gold to him. Precious
.

She shut her eyes and hated herself for
wanting him so much
.

Jesse stood, jammed his fingers through his
short military hair as if he wished he could
pull it out
.

“I can’t stay here,” he said
.

Julia didn’t stop him and when she heard her
front door click shut the tattered, threadbare
life she’d managed to hold together split at the
seams, falling in terrible ruin around her
.

Julia closed her eyes wishing the memory away. Wishing it on another person. She’d arrived in New Springs looking for a family, to set down roots…and finding Jesse was like a dream come true. She was so close to all she ever wanted, only to have it ripped away.

Don’t come back here
.

It’s because you expect other people to make
you happy
. Mitch’s voice revealed her worst fears about herself, the bitter truth she’d always suspected but never wanted to admit.
You
expect other people to do everything for you.
You’re useless. You’re worse than useless
.

The pain burrowed into her chest and made a home in the soft tissue surrounding her heart. She’d thought she was tougher than this, that Mitch’s lies and infidelity had turned her cold and hard. But she was wrong. That pain was nothing compared to what she felt right now.

Jesse’s rejection ruined her.

Such a fool. Such a sucker
.

She rolled to her side and punched her pillow, trying to get comfortable. The wonderful mattress that had cradled her last night now seemed too soft. Lumpy in places. Hard in others.

You’re impossible to please. You want too
much
.

Ben sighed, murmured something in his sleep and rolled toward her, curving himself into her body, into that little space against her chest that had been made for him.

She had to get her act together. She had to make a life for her son. She couldn’t expect other people to help her with this anymore.

“No more,” she whispered.

What are you gonna do?
Mitch’s voice asked and she could practically see his sneer, the snide superiority in his eyes that had made her feel two inches tall for most of her married life.
Live off
my folks? Sleep with my best friend? You heard
him, he’s sorry for that morning. It was a
mistake—

“No more!” she said, louder this time to shut up the voices in her head. To convince herself that she meant it.

Things were going to change.

She was going to get a job. Tomorrow. And she’d only stay with the Adamses as long as was absolutely necessary, until she’d paid off the last of Mitch’s debts and could save some money for a place of her own.

And she’d stay away from Jesse—just as he’d asked. She’d remove her heart, set it someplace else where she couldn’t feel its pain.

J
ESSE DIDN’T SLEEP
. He was no fool, he knew the nightmares waited on the other side of consciousness. And frankly, tonight he had no taste for fire and the crash and Mitch’s knowing eyes.

He sat on the porch for a good long time, his eyes open and the image of Julia—sitting so close…right there…within arm’s reach—burned into his retinas.

He leaned his head against the old rocker he’d made in high-school shop class and imagined standing up on two good legs, walking down the street, jumping the ditch, crossing the yards. He imagined circling the Adams’ house and climbing the rainspout up to the roof of the kitchen. From there he could walk up to Mitch’s second-floor bedroom
window. It was easy. He’d done it a thousand times.