Isn't It Time (12 page)

Before I even opened my eyes on Monday morning, I knew two
things: I wasn’t in my own bed and I wasn’t wearing pants.

That wasn’t usually a good combination, but memories came
back in bits and pieces and I realized I must still be in Jack’s house.  I
cautiously opened my eyes and saw that I was, indeed, in Jack’s guestroom, the
one I always stayed in if I spent the night. I just didn’t have any memory of
getting there.

Sitting up and pushing my hair back out of my eyes, I
struggled to remember if I had done anything foolish.  But, try as I might, I
couldn’t remember a thing after dancing with Jack.  I stretched and looked at
the bedside clock.  Shit! 7:30! I was going to be late for work. I was shifting
into panic mode when there was a knock on the bedroom door.

“Angie?  Are you awake?” Jack called through the door.

I tucked the blankets hastily around my nearly naked hips,
not wanting him to see anything he shouldn’t. Especially since I was wearing a
ratty old pair of panties that had lost most of the elastic in the legs. 
“Yeah, I’m awake. Come on in.”

The door opened and Jack strolled into the room, showered,
freshly shaved and fully dressed in a gray suit and light blue shirt, open at
the neck.

“Good morning,” he greeted me.

“Is it? I think I’m going to be very late for work. You
should have woke me up earlier.”

He looked me over and couldn’t quite hide his smirk.  “I was
going to, but I decided you needed the rest. How are you feeling?”

What I was feeling was embarrassed. Surprisingly, I felt
okay physically, but I had a nagging feeling I might have made an ass out of
myself the night before.  “I’m okay,” I responded. “So please don’t ruin that
by telling me anything I might have done last night that I should be ashamed
of.”

“No, you were fine.  I think the alcohol just hit you a
little harder than usual.”

I snorted at the understatement.  “Yeah, that’s the truth. 
Look, I have to get home and get showered and dressed, but I think I can be at
work by 9:30 or so.”  If I could find any clean clothes.

“Don’t bother.  Take the day off.  You won’t really be able
to get anything done anyway, because I’m going to be having all of your stuff
moved to your new office.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not going to argue with you. A day off sounds
fabulous,” I said. 

Nate suddenly appeared at the door, also freshly showered
and shaved, but wearing jeans and a black tee shirt. “Is this where the party
is this morning?” he asked.

“Good morning, Nate,” I said.  I was feeling a little like
the queen of some small country, entertaining the royal court in her bedchamber
- and I wished again I was wearing pants.

“Good morning,” he answered, leaning against the door jamb
and crossing his arms over his chest.  “How are you feeling?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I said, looking
between him and Jack. “You’re making me think I really did make an ass of
myself last night.”

They exchanged grins that made me nervous and Nate said,
“No, not at all. You were just a little out of it there at the end.”

A little out of it. That implied it was bad. I didn’t quite
know how to respond to that, so I didn’t.

“Luke is going to be coming into the office this afternoon
to make some changes to your computer and do some work on the server, but I
want you to spend the morning with him to discuss the stuff we didn’t get
around to last night.  Then you’ll have the afternoon to yourself,” Jack said.

“Fine by me.”  A morning with Nate sounded very fine,
indeed.  And then my stomach growled. Loudly. “Oops,” I added through my
blush.  “Excuse me.”

They both laughed as if a growling stomach was something
highly unusual and entertaining and Nate said, “First order of business, I’ll
buy you breakfast.”

“Okay, that sounds…necessary - but I don’t have any clean
clothes here, so we might have to make a stop at my house first.”

“I think I have one of your shirts around here somewhere,”
said Jack. “If I can remember where I put it.”

I looked down at the shirt I had slept in. It was a wrinkled
mess and I began to fear what the rest of me looked like.  If he had a clean
shirt here, that would be good enough for now. I could deal with changing my
underwear later.

“Well, go look,” I commanded royally. “And then maybe I can
get out of this bed and put some pants on.”

Nate laughed and Jack winked at me, then they left the room.
As soon as the door shut behind them, I jumped out of the bed and put on
yesterday’s jeans.  I had just finished making the bed when I heard another
knock at the door.  I called for whoever it was to come in and Jack entered,
carrying a bright blue polo shirt.

“Hey!” I exclaimed.  “I wondered what happened to that
shirt!”  Actually, I thought it was on the floor of my closet somewhere, but I
had been too lazy to look for it.

“It’s been here awhile,” he said and handed it over.  “I’ve
got to run. The coffee’s on and Luke’s waiting for you in the kitchen. I told
him not to expect you too soon.”

I scowled at him. “Ha ha, very funny.  But, even though
you’re an ass, I have a surprise for you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And you’ll find it at the very bottom of my tote bag
in the kitchen.”

A slow grin spread across his face.  “Were you holding out
on me?”

I was holding out on him.  When my mom gave me that huge
container of Rice Krispie treats, I split it into two smaller ones before
bringing them over. Jack had a tendency to eat everything in one sitting and
then regret not saving some.

“It was for your own good,” I told him.

“Awesome,” he said, pulling me into a divine-smelling hug. 
“Thanks for saving me from myself.”

“You’re welcome.” I worried about my own scent and stepped
back.  “Have a fun day.”

“You, too. Call me if you need anything.” He was almost out
the door when he tossed out “Love you.”

What the heck? He was pretty free with the “I love you’s”
lately. It was unusual, but maybe he was just feeling happy.  A happy Jack was
an affectionate Jack.

“Love you more,” I replied and we went our separate ways.

Thirty minutes later, I was showered and re-dressed, my hair
still wet because I couldn’t find a blow dryer. My stomach was now growling
fiercely and I needed caffeine.

When I entered the kitchen, Nate looked up from his laptop. 
“Hey. That didn’t take as long as I expected.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Jack likes to exaggerate,” I
said, getting a mug out of the cupboard and helping myself to a cup of coffee. 
I set the coffee on the kitchen table and took a seat across from Nate, who was
looking at me speculatively.

“What?” I asked.

He closed his laptop and moved it to the side of the table
before he answered.  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“You can ask, but I won’t promise to answer it.” I smiled
and got started on the caffeine infusion.

“Okay, fair enough.”  He paused for a second, then asked,
“Are you sleeping with Jack?”

His bluntness caught me off guard and I slowly set my coffee
down.  “Well, that’s certainly personal.  But no, I am not.”

“Have you ever?” He leaned forward slightly, as if wanting
to make sure he didn’t miss my answer to that question.

The only reason I could come up with for this line of
questioning was that he was interested but didn’t want to move in on Jack’s
territory. I wasn’t sure why he was asking me these questions, instead of Jack,
but I answered with a question of my own. “You’re pretty blunt, aren’t you?”

“So I’ve been told.  Have you?”

I leaned back in my chair and picked up the coffee again. 
“No, I have not.”

He was staring at me intently and I squirmed a little under
his scrutiny. “Do you want to?” he asked.

Well, now that was a horse of a different color, wasn’t it? 
If he had asked that question last week, my answer would have been an unequivocal
“no”.  Now, the answer was quite different. I did want to. And I realized I
wanted to quite badly.  But I promised myself I was never going to pursue that,
so I guess that meant the answer was still negative.

“What the heck, Nate?” I sputtered instead of answering
directly.  “What’s with the inquisition?”

He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward.  “Do you
want an honest answer?”

“I’m thinking you’re not capable of any other kind, so
yeah.”

“I’m very attracted to you. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d like to
think you feel the same.” He was still staring at me intently, waiting for a
response.

I broke the eye contact and looked down at the table.  I was
attracted all right.  There was no question about that.  Whether I should be or
not was an entirely different matter.  Just four days ago I had been in a
relationship and, added to that, this situation with Jack was running through
my head almost non-stop.  My emotions were all over the place. Part of me
wanted to throw caution to the wind and sit down with Jack and discuss the hell
out of my changing feelings, telling him the truth about my past and what it
meant in relation to his sexual tendencies – and see where that led us. And the
other part of me, the rational part, told me to stick with my original
decision, not to take the risk, and leave things as they were.  I went with the
rational part.

I looked back up at Nate.  “You’re not wrong.”

He smiled broadly and I smiled back.  “That’s good to hear,”
he said. “I just had to make sure there was nothing between you and Jack. I
would never do anything, regardless of how much I wanted it, to screw up our
friendship.”

“Bros before hos?” I asked with a smirk.

Nate laughed and stood up.  “Yeah. Something like that.  Now
come on and let me buy you breakfast.  I can hear your stomach growling all the
way over here.”

He waited while I quickly cleaned up our mess in the kitchen
and then took me to breakfast.

Nate insisted on driving, so I directed him to a small diner
a few blocks away where Jack and I often had breakfast.  It was a
hole-in-the-wall kind of place but they made great omelets.

Once we were seated in a booth in front of a window, coffee
in front of us and orders already placed, I asked him if he had any pictures of
his kids.

“Of course.” I expected him to show me pictures from his
phone, but he shifted a little in the booth and pulled his wallet out of his
back pocket.  He opened it up and retrieved a photo. “This is the most recent
one I have,” he told me as he handed it to me.

The picture was a studio shot of both boys – and their
mother. My initial thought was that it was more than a little strange for him
to be carrying a picture of his ex and my second, and more dismayed, thought
was that she was absolutely stunning. 

Her hair was short, dark and attractively tousled - she was
totally rocking that short hair.  She had large, dark eyes and the rest of her
features were delicate, suiting her almost elfin face perfectly.  Wearing a
casual floral-print skirt and a simple, sleeveless lavender blouse, she was
seated, the younger boy on her lap and the older one standing behind her with
his arms looped around her neck.  She had a hand up and it was resting on his. 
They were all happily smiling.

The boys were cute as they could be, but neither of them
favored Nate.  They both bore a strong resemblance to their mother.  Which was
what made them so cute, I thought forlornly.

Looking up from the picture, I said, “Michael has your
dimples.”

“Yeah, that he does,” he said with a laugh. “I’m surprised
you remembered his name.”

“Oh. That was easy. That’s my dad’s name.”  I handed the
picture back. “They’re both very cute.”

“Thank you,” he said, replacing the picture in his wallet
and sliding it back into his pocket.  “I think so.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”  I asked.

“Sure.  Fair is fair, I guess.” He smiled and looked at me
expectantly.  I was sure he knew what I was going to ask, but he waited for it.

“Are you sleeping with her?”  If he could be blunt, then so
could I.

“No,” he replied instantly.  “Our relationship
is…unusual…but it’s not sexual.”

“And how is it unusual?”

He was saved from having to answer immediately by the
arrival of the waitress and our food.  She put our omelets in front of us,
slapped the bill on the table and then left us alone.

We got our plates and napkins situated and I had picked up
my fork before Nate replied. “Do you want to hear the whole story?”

“Duh,” I responded maturely.

He laughed and, while we ate, he told me the whole story.

“I’ve known Kayla most of my life.  We grew up in the same
neighborhood, but she’s four years younger than I am so we never hung out
together or anything.  I knew who she was, but that was about it. Then, about
seven years ago, I saw her at a neighborhood party.” He paused while he loaded
his fork with potatoes, allowing the significance of that date to work its way
into my head.

“I think you did more than see her,” I said dryly.

“As it turned out, yes.”  He laughed and continued.  “She
was sitting by herself at a picnic table and I was kind of surprised to see her
there.  My mom had told me that her mother had cancer and was close to dying. 
Because Kayla didn’t have any other family besides her mother, she had to drop
all but one of her classes at college and was working full-time while trying to
take care of her mother and support them both.”

“That must have been hard on her, being so young.”

“Yeah, but she’s never been the type to let anything get her
down.  She does what has to be done and never complains about it.  So, I saw
her sitting there and I went to talk to her just to tell her I was sorry to
hear about her mother. She was very sweet, and a little funny and just so
eternally optimistic that I ended up sitting there talking with her the whole
night.”