I Wish You Were Mine (Oxford #2) (6 page)

“Yeah. Sure.”

Cassidy dropped his head for a second in exasperation. “This is what I’m talking about, Burke. Your shitty attitude is getting on my last nerve.”

“So just fire me already,” Jackson said, raising his voice. “I think everyone would agree that it’s not working out. I’m not cut out for this. Not the suit, not the high-rise office, not this fucking city or your preppy minions—”

“Enough.” Cassidy’s voice was quiet, and all the more impactful because of it. “You want to insult yourself, go for it, but leave the men and women of
Oxford
out of it.”

Jackson exhaled, trying to dodge the guilt that assailed him. Cassidy was right. So far, everyone he’d encountered had been perfectly nice. Had given him space. Hadn’t snapped pictures or asked for his autograph. Sure, Penelope Pope sometimes stared at him a moment too long, but it was with the admiration of a true sports fan, not a gawker.

“Here’s the deal,” Cassidy continued. “I’m not going to fire your ass, although it’s tempting when you sit there and glower at me like a spoiled princess. Your writing’s good, and you deliver it on time. But Burke, no more lone wolf. You of all people know the importance of a team, and this—
Oxford
—is a team.”

Jackson gave a rueful smile, because Cassidy was speaking a language he understood. “And you’re the captain.”

“Damn straight. If you can’t handle that, then by all means let’s work out a transition plan to hire a replacement. But I do want you here, Burke. I think you’ll fit in if you give us a chance.”

“So, what—you want me to hang out by the watercooler? Bring cupcakes on the copyeditor’s birthday?”

“How about we start small? Ask someone to lunch. Say yes when one of the guys asks you out for a beer after work. Join the softball team.”

“I don’t play softball,” Jackson spat.

“Well, maybe you should start, because you’re not playing football again, Burke.”

Jackson felt a flash of resentment so sharp he nearly stood up. He settled for clenching his fist again. Imagined driving it into Cassidy’s pretty-boy face…

“I know,” Cassidy said, all the more annoying for the straightforward kindness. “Trust me, I know how that feels. But the sooner you accept it, the sooner you get comfortable with it, the sooner you can move on with your life.”

Jackson slowly unclenched his fist. Clenched it again. “We done here?”

Cassidy stood. “Yeah. We’re done. And since you didn’t take notes, I’ll recap. Quit being a diva. Get over yourself. And for God’s sake, quit being such an antisocial loner before you end up lonely.”

With that, Jackson’s boss turned and walked out of the office, not bothering with so much as a backward glance. The door closed with a final click, an audible reminder that Jackson was the only one who kept his office door closed all the time. Jackson knew he should stand and open it—a gesture of goodwill indicating that he’d heard what his boss had said about being a team player and was making an effort.

He just…

He wasn’t ready yet.

Cassidy might understand the pain of saying goodbye to your dream career because your body wasn’t cooperating, but what Cassidy didn’t seem to understand was that Jackson Burke didn’t know how to be anyone other than Jackson Burke, football player.

Even his own parents, God love ’em, had recognized Jackson’s skill on the football field at an early age and nurtured the hell out of it. Family dinners had been 20 percent “How was math class?” and 80 percent “What happened with that interception?”

Same went for his social group back in Houston. His friends were either football players or football fans. If Jackson hadn’t been playing football, he’d been watching football; if he hadn’t been watching football, he’d been talking about it.

Even Madison, although not a football fan at the start of their relationship, had been focused on football, or at least the business aspect: when he was going to sign a new contract, and for how much, and had he decided which brewery he was going to be a spokesperson for, and how much would that pay?

It wasn’t that Jackson didn’t want to make friends with these
Oxford
guys. If he was totally honest, he was a little sick of his own company. A little bit jealous of the groups that went out for lunch on Fridays, no longer bothering to invite him after nonstop rejections.

What if they only wanted to talk about the accident and the Super Bowl and it was like pouring salt in the wound all over again?

Or, worse, what if they wanted to talk about something else and realized that he had nothing to say? That he was an empty shell of a man whose own wife had been so desperate to escape his company that she’d invented a whole motherlode of lies that had spread through the media like toxic rain?

He closed his eyes, just for a minute, feeling heavy with the pressure of it all.

Jackson knew his life was nothing to be pissy about. He was a millionaire, for God’s sake. He had a penthouse. Could afford to go anywhere he wanted, whenever he wanted, on a fucking private jet. He could have women with the snap of a finger, a toothbrush made out of gold, a whole fleet of the most expensive cars on the market. He could have anything.

Except the one thing he wanted: football.

Unless…

Jackson pulled out his cell phone from the desk drawer and hesitated only a second before making the call.

He got voicemail. Jackson cleared his throat and waited for the beep.

“Yeah, Jerry, hi,” Jackson said, running a hand over the back of his neck as he left a message. “It’s Burke. Just wanted to know if you’ve had a chance to think over that assistant coach proposal. I’d be damn good at it. You know I would. I just…Call me.”

Jackson hung up the phone but didn’t set it down. Held it, staring at the screen, willing the head coach of the Texas Redhawks to call him back.

Although for the first time it occurred to Jackson that if his old life came calling, it would mean saying goodbye to his new life.

A new life that, if he played his cards right, just might involve Mollie.

“I
seriously
can’t believe you’re doing this,” Madison whined into the phone.

Maybe you could
seriously
believe it if you’d bothered to pick up one of my phone calls before now,
Mollie wanted to retort.

She tucked her cell between her chin and shoulder as she used both arms to scoop out the contents of her underwear drawer, dropping a smattering of thongs before plunking her undergarments into a moving box.

“I know it’s weird, Mad, but it’s only for a couple of months, until I find something else.”

“You could have asked me.”

“Well, I would have,” Mollie explained patiently, “except the last time I even mentioned Jackson’s name, you got pissed and told me not to say his name to you because it was interfering with your new life.”

A new life that involved Madison’s boyfriend moving into Jackson’s house. That was still a hard one for Mollie to swallow. Bad enough that Maddie had left Jackson for another man. But to bring him into the bedroom she had shared with Jackson just seemed wrong.

Then again, Mollie moving in with her ex-brother-in-law wasn’t exactly
right
either.

And yet Mollie couldn’t bring herself to regret saying yes. Not only because it was probably the one and only time she’d ever set foot in a penthouse, but because Jackson had somehow seemed so very
alone
.

Mollie’s best friend stuck her head out of Mollie’s walk-in closet and held up a long billowy dress, lifting her eyebrows in question.

Mollie glanced at it and gave a thumbs-up, and Kim rolled her eyes. “That was a test and you failed,” Kim hissed. “This could fit three of you.” She dropped the dress into the giveaway box.

“Is someone there?” Madison asked.

“Kim’s helping me pack,” Mollie said as she put a sexy black bra into the moving box and at the same time tossed an ancient, torn beige one into the trash pile. Then, on second thought, she fetched the beige one out of the trash bag and added it in with the keepers. Comfort counted for something.

“Oh, tell her I said hi!” Madison said.

Mollie pulled the phone away from her face and turned toward the closet. “Madison says hi.”

“Oh my
gosh,
tell her I say hi back!” Kim said in a gushing, fake voice as she came out of the closet and put a couple of blouses into a box. Kim fluttered her eyelashes behind her thick black-rimmed glasses and pretended to flip her chin-length black hair over her shoulder.

Mollie mouthed “ha ha” before turning her attention back to her sister. “Kim says hi back.”

Kim and Madison had only met a couple of times, but they weren’t exactly friends. Madison, at least, pretended to like Kim with all her brainy, no-bullshit candor. Kim, on the other hand, had trouble being more than passably polite in the face of Madison’s sugar-sweet Texas charm.

But Mollie had bigger problems to worry about than the fact that her best friend and sister weren’t pals. Like the fact she was about to be living in Jackson Burke’s guest room, and big sister was none too happy about it.

“You know that Jackson’s just doing it to mess with me,” Madison complained.

Mollie’s eyes narrowed at the smug confidence in her sister’s tone. As though the only reason
anyone
would do
anything
would be if it somehow related to Madison.

“Or it could be because Jackson and I are friends,” Mollie said, the sharpness in her own voice surprising her. She rarely swiped back at Madison’s bitchy jabs. She’d learned early on that her sister was rarely worth engaging.

“Has he mentioned me?” Madison asked, as though the idea of Jackson and Mollie’s friendship wasn’t even worth acknowledging.

Mollie picked at a cuticle. “Nope.”

“Huh.” Madison’s tone was irritated.

“Look, Maddie—”

“I hate that name.”

Mollie ignored this. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first. Truly. But I really didn’t think you’d have a problem with it. You’ve told me a million times that you didn’t care if I stayed friends with Jackson after the divorce.”

“Sure, I meant you two exchanging your little inside jokes by text, or whatever. I didn’t mean becoming his roommate.”

Mollie frowned at the edge in her sister’s voice. Even
before
Maddie had filed for divorce, she’d seemed long uninterested in anything having to do with Jackson, as though the very mention of his name irritated her.

“Is everything okay?” she asked her sister. “I mean with Alec?”

“Alec’s amazing.” The words were out almost before Mollie had finished asking the question. “We’re probably going to get married.”

Alec McDaniels was a thirtysomething model with a history of attaching himself to the rich and famous. Mollie was 100 percent sure that if Madison had never become a household name, courtesy of
Housewives,
Alec never would have conveniently bumped into Maddie at a bar.

Still, her sister liked the guy, and Mollie supposed that was what mattered.

“I’m glad things are going well,” Mollie said. “I want you to be happy.”

Madison said nothing to this, but then Mollie hadn’t really expected her to. Her sister seemed to think that the entire world existed to ensure her happiness.

It hadn’t always been this way. True, Madison had always been self-absorbed, but she’d also stepped up to the plate when someone needed her. When Mollie needed her.

Something had changed once Maddie had become Mrs. Jackson Burke. It was as though the money and fame had somehow brought all of her sister’s worst qualities to the top and leached out all of the good. Mollie still loved her sister. But liking Madison…that was harder.

“I bet he’s thinking he can get to me through you,” Madison said in a musing voice.

Mollie picked at her chipping nail polish to keep from losing her temper. “Mad, I wasn’t kidding when I said he didn’t mention you. I really think he’s moved on, just like you have.”

“He’s seeing someone?” Madison asked, her tone turning even sharper.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

If the thought of Jackson dating someone caused a funny little pang in her stomach, Mollie ignored it. It was just that for a moment there, when the two of them had stood face-to-face in his apartment, she could have sworn there was a little sizzle of something between them. Nothing inappropriate. Not even interest. Just…awareness.

She’d always been aware of Jackson Burke. She’d accepted that as one of the facts of her life. But this was the first time she’d sensed that maybe he’d been aware of her.

Thank you, little red dress.

Mollie mentally slapped herself.
No
. That was
not
what this was about. This was about getting out of her crap hole of an apartment, saying yes to an offer from a friend.

Mollie glanced around at the grungy apartment. It was disgusting. Even before Cabbage Boy had moved in with his spider, it had been a bit of a crap hole. She’d picked the place mainly based on its bigger-than-average closet space, only to realize too late that the closet was almost as big as the bedroom and kitchen combined. She wanted out.

“Mad, I’ve got to get going. I can’t let Kim do all of my packing.”

“Oh, I’m not packing so much as purging,” Kim interjected, chucking one of Mollie’s favorite shirts into the giveaway pile.

“So you’re really doing this?” Madison asked.

“Yeah,” Mollie said quietly. “I am. I’m sorry if it’s weird for you, but like I said, it’s temporary and there’s nothing—”

“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking,” Madison interrupted. “We use this to our advantage.”

We use this to our
advantage
. Once, Mollie had taken comfort in Madison’s habit of talking about the two of them as a unit. When their mom had been wasted out of her mind on the couch, Madison had assured Mollie that
we
were going to be just fine. When they’d had to go to their dad’s new family’s house for Christmas, Madison had promised that
we’d
stick together.

But lately…lately the
we
had felt a lot more like Madison’s agenda and the expectation that Mollie follow along blindly.

“Do I even want to know what you mean by that?” Mollie asked warily.

Kim quietly hummed the
Jaws
theme in the background.

“I mean that he’s using you to keep tabs on me; I can use you to keep tabs on him.”

“Why do you care?” Mollie burst out. “You divorced him, remember? You left him for another man. Another man you’re going to
marry
.”

“Don’t be naive, Mollie. Jackson may not be a quarterback anymore, but he still has the power to torpedo my career if he wants to.”

What career?
Mollie wanted to scream. It was getting harder and harder to remember that this was the woman who’d once stayed up all night altering her old prom dress so that Mollie would have something to wear when they couldn’t afford a new gown. This was the sister who’d talked her through her first period, who’d held her hand during Mom’s funeral, who’d always been game to watch
Golden Girls
reruns when Mollie wasn’t feeling well.

“Actually, I can’t believe I didn’t think about this earlier,” Madison was saying. “This is perfect.”

Mollie held up her hand even though her sister couldn’t see. “Hang on. Five seconds ago you were pissed. And before you even go there, I’m not moving in to
spy
on him, Mad.”

“Of course not! But you can, you know,
influence
him. You’ve always been able to talk to him when he wouldn’t listen to anyone else.”

Mollie’s eyes narrowed. “What is it you want me to talk to him about?”

Kim hummed the
Jaws
sound louder.

“I just mean it would be good to know what’s going on with him. To make sure he doesn’t ruin things with me and Alec.”

Mollie rubbed her forehead. “Okay. Fine. So if I make sure Jackson doesn’t sabotage your happy ending with Alec, you’re cool with me moving in?”

“Well, I don’t know about cool,” Madison muttered. “But it would be nice to know what the guy’s up to, since he doesn’t return my calls.”

That got Mollie’s attention. “You’ve been calling him?”

Madison made a little sound, and Mollie got the impression her sister wasn’t thrilled to have let that slip. Maddie liked to be pursued. Not the other way around.

“I just wanted to check in. Make sure he was okay.”

“And he didn’t pick up?” Mollie winced at the eagerness in her own voice. It shouldn’t matter whether or not Jackson had talked to Madison. It didn’t matter…much.

Kim was making siren noises now as she folded one of Mollie’s jackets and set it in a box.

“Ugh. I don’t want to talk about this right now, Molls,” Madison snapped. “I’ve gotta run. Cindy’s ready to rinse the color out of my hair.”

“Okay,” Mollie said resignedly. “Call me later. I love you.”

The phone went dead before she finished speaking.

Mollie pulled it away and stared at it. “Good talk.”

“Babe, what the heck were you expecting? The woman’s a monster.”

“She’s not,” Mollie said automatically.

Kim gave her a look. “She slept with your boyfriend.”

Mollie swallowed. “I don’t know that for sure.”

“Right. I forgot we’re still subscribing to the theory that maybe she invited Shawn to her hotel room to talk.”

Mollie frowned a little as she realized that she didn’t feel so much as a pang at the memory of seeing her grad school boyfriend emerge from Madison’s hotel room. Not so long ago, reliving that moment had been enough to sucker-punch the breath out of her. Now she felt merely…tired.

That was it. Talking to her sister—hell, even
thinking
about her—made Mollie tired. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Can we not talk about her? Please?”

Kim came over to the bed, shoving a box to the side so she could sit beside Mollie, looping an arm around her neck. “Sure, babe.” They were silent for a minute before Kim gave a big sigh and said, “You’re not
really
leaving me, right? For the uppers?”

Mollie smiled. Kim had a great little studio just a few blocks away from Mollie’s place on the Lower East Side. The “uppers” referred to the Upper West Side and Upper East Side of Manhattan, which were more expensive than their current neighborhood. She and Kim had a long-standing joke about what life would be like when they could afford the “uppers.”

Mollie sure as hell hadn’t figured this was how she’d get there, and yet…She had no regrets. A chance to get away from Austin and his spider, a chance to be closer to her work, a heater that actually worked…

“Do you think Madison wants Jackson back?” Mollie blurted out.

“Thought we weren’t talking about her.”

“Kimmy.”

Her friend sighed. “Fine. I don’t know, babe. But if I know anything about your sister, I’m guessing that if she didn’t want him back before, she definitely does after that phone call. Did you really think there was any way she was going to let her hot little sister move in with her ex without some sort of ulterior motive?”

“She’s not like that,” Mollie said automatically, leaning against her friend so that her hair tangled with Kim’s black locks.

Kim kissed the side of her head. “She’s
exactly
like that.”

Mollie swallowed, knowing she should defend her sister. Once upon a time, she’d exhausted herself trying to make sure people understood Madison. But recently Mollie wasn’t even sure
she
understood her sister.

“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Mollie asked her best friend. “Moving in with Jackson?”

Kim was uncharacteristically silent for a long moment. “I think you’re taking a risk.”

“Because he’s my former brother-in-law?”

Kim patted her knee. “That. And the fact that you used to be in love with him.”

There was that. There was definitely that.