Second Look (A New Beginning Book 3) (2 page)

Not long after being dumped, Adam met Abby and was pleasantly surprised by their spark. He and Abby started to date and it wasn’t long before he realized she was exactly what he needed to get over Jenn.

However, when Jenn flew back to Minnesota for winter break and asked to see him, he decided to meet up with her to prove to himself his heart now belonged to someone else.

One look at Jenn and he knew he was wrong. He couldn’t deny he still had feelings for the woman he always thought he’d marry one day. He never wanted to break up in the first place.

When the bar closed that night, in a moment of weakness Adam asked her to come over to his apartment to talk. He knew he was playing with fire but he felt like they had unfinished business. He didn’t even know if she’d come.

She did.

He shook his head and closed his eyes. That was just the start of the mess and it only got worse. The way he handled everything after that night was bad. Really bad.

Now he settled for casual and uncomplicated and the women he occasionally saw knew of his strict no-strings-attached policy. The second he sensed any attachment, he bailed. If that made him an asshole, so be it. At least he made sure they knew where he stood ahead of time.

Adam looked down when he heard the notification of a voicemail followed quickly by a text. Enough of going down memory lane. It only depressed him.

Mom:
Adam, we need to talk. Please call me right away.

Adam:
Sounds important. What’s going on?

Mom:
Call me or answer your phone!

Adam:
I’ll call you later.

Exactly 15 seconds later, his phone was ringing.

Adam had no choice but to answer the phone. “Hi mom. I was going to call you after my meeting.”

“Hi honey. I’m sorry to bother you at work. Your father and I need to talk to you. Your sister is on her way over now. Can you come?”

“Well, I have a meeting starting in about five minutes. Can it wait until after?”

Adam tried to ignore the warning bells.

Her voice was shaky. “Sure, but then head right over, okay?”

What the hell is going on?

“Never mind, mom, I’ll come now. I need to ask my assistant to reschedule the meeting. Be there in 30 minutes.”

“Okay, Adam. See you in a little bit. And Adam? We love you.”

“I love you too, mom. Bye.”

His stomach sank. Something was definitely going on.

Adam sent an instant message to his assistant asking her to reschedule the meeting. As soon as he got her reply, he shut down his computer and started towards the elevators.

*****

“Mom! Dad! I’m here. Where are you?”

He heard his dad’s voice call out in response. “We’re in the kitchen, Adam.”

Adam headed that way to find his parents and sister all sitting around the kitchen table. Mandi and his mom were sipping on a glass of red wine and his dad was drinking a tall frosty glass of beer.

This wasn’t like his family to be sitting around drinking in the middle of the day on a Wednesday.

This cannot be good
.

“Want a beer?”

His dad looked a little different since the last time he saw him. Thinner maybe? He wasn’t quite sure.

“Yeah, I guess I do. I’ll grab it.”

His mom spoke up. “Grab a glass from the freezer.”

“Uh, okay.”

Adam walked over to the freezer, grabbed a frosty mug and placed it gently on the counter. Then, he chose a Bud from the fridge and with the fridge door still open, downed it. When he finished, he grabbed another Bud and poured it into the mug. Normally he didn’t mess with the mug but he did it to please his mom.

While he took another large mouthful, he contemplated what they could have to tell them. He glanced over at his sister, and she shrugged her shoulders. She had a concerned look on her face. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and it looked like she had come straight from working out. It was clear he wasn’t the only one in the dark.

Maybe they were getting divorced or something. He didn’t see it, but he guessed it was always possible.

“How was your day at work?”

Adam’s mom looked nervous and was definitely not her cheerful self.

“Fine, mom. So, what’s going on?”

Adam walked over to take the last open chair at the table, eager to get this over with.

Mandi looked between the two of them, taking another sip of her wine. “Yeah, what’s the family meeting about?”

Just when he was about to go crazy from the silence, his dad spoke up, and the words that came out of his mouth he wished he could un-hear.

“I’m dying.”

There was silence while Adam and Mandi processed what they heard. Adam swallowed hard to try to get the lump in his throat to go down. His dad was never one to mince words.

“I have pancreatic cancer. It’s bad. Stage 4. They gave me 2 months.”

Adam looked over at his mom who was silent and he saw the tears in her eyes, which made them look even more blue than normal, almost electric.

This is not happening. My dad cannot be dying.

Mandi burst into tears, getting up from the table and giving her dad a hug. “No! We need to get a second opinion, dad!”

“Oh honey, we got a second opinion. And a third.”

His dad’s voice was calm and steady.

The room was silent for several seconds before Adam asked, “Are you doing chemo? Radiation?” Why the hell couldn’t they just be getting a divorce?

“No, son. We were told it would buy very little time, and make what time I have left more miserable. I’d rather they make me comfortable.”

Adam was stunned. He just kept looking between his parents, wondering when they’d begin to laugh and tell them it was all just a bad joke.

His dad had a full head of gray hair. He looked fine, better than he had in years. How deceiving looks could be.

Adam took a breath. “No, this just can’t be. You’re only 57 years old.”

He looked over at his mom at the other side of the table. She had tears falling silently down her youthful face. She was five years younger than his dad, her hair was still blonde and she could easily have passed for mid-forties.

His dad got up, his eyes still dry, and hugged his mom. It wasn’t something Adam witnessed very often. It broke his heart to see his mom needing to be comforted by his dad.

A few minutes earlier, Adam wanted to hear the news and get it over with so he could go on with his day. Now all he wanted was to be able to give the news back and pretend he had never heard it at all.

*****

Adam followed his sister out the front door of his parent’s house a couple hours after hearing the news.

He didn’t want to leave, but could tell his dad was getting tired. His speech was slurred and looked like he could fall asleep in his chair. It wasn’t something he was used to seeing with his dad, the strong man he grew up with.

Adam walked Mandi to her car and for the first time in a very long while, gave her a hug.

As soon as he touched her, it triggered a memory of how their parents used to make them “assume the position” when they fought. If they didn’t stop fighting on the count of 3, his dad made them hug until they were smiling and laughing. They hated it back then but it always worked. It almost made him smile.

When he backed away, he looked at Mandi. She had tears in her eyes.

“We’re going to have to be strong for them, you know?”

“I just can’t believe this. It’s not right that he isn’t even going to fight it.”

Adam could hear the anger in her voice as she tried to stop the tears from falling.

“I know, Mandi, but if he’s been told there isn’t any use and it would make the little time he has left worse, I guess we need to try and understand his decision.”

If his dad chose not to do the treatments, there was a damn good reason.

After several more minutes of talking, he said goodbye to his sister and got into his car. It took him a few more minutes before he finally backed out of the driveway. Thoughts of his dad went through his mind, making him drive on autopilot.

His dad was always the life of the party, the one who could stay up the latest and never wanted people to leave. For the first time he could remember, when Adam said he and Mandi should get going, his dad didn’t try to talk them into staying.

No matter how many times he had said it to himself over the past few hours, it still didn’t sound real.

Scattered bits of their conversation kept popping into his head.

“…two months to live.”

How did his dad cope with being told he had such a short time to live? Did he get mad? Deny the possibility? Did he tell the doctor he didn’t know what the hell he was doing? He could picture his dad doing that, especially considering they got three opinions.

“…need to prepare for the funeral.”

It’s not something you want to hear your parents say, especially being so young. Adam could see his mom was worried and exhausted, which was hard for him to see considering she was one of the strongest people he knew.

Adam reached over and turned on the radio. He needed to quit rehashing the depressing evening.

*****

When Adam pulled into his driveway, he checked his phone before getting out of his car. He had a couple text messages, one from his co-worker, Jeremy, asking if everything was okay, and two from Sarah.

Shit, Sarah.

He’d completely forgotten to let her know he couldn’t meet up with her that night. It slipped his mind he even had plans. Who could blame him?

But still, he felt like a jerk.

Sarah, 7:15pm:
Hey, handsome. I’m at The Pickle. We still meeting up?

Sarah, 7:45pm:
I take it you can’t make it. I’m heading home. Text me later.

Adam met her at the bar a couple weeks ago. She was sexy, with dark brown hair, green eyes and a tight little body. She was recently divorced and wanted nothing more from him than no-strings-attached hookups.

It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Adam, 8:32pm:
Bad night. Didn’t mean to ditch you. Forgive me?

Sarah, 8:37pm:
Depends…

Adam, 8:37pm:
On what?

Sarah, 8:38pm:
On how you make it up to me ;)

Did that mean she was still game?

Adam needed his brain to turn off. He planned to go down to the water, sit on his dock with a six pack of beer and drown his sorrows.

But now that the thought was in his head, escaping with a sexy woman was an even better idea.

No harm in asking.

Adam, 8:39pm
: What are you doing?

Sarah, 8:39pm:
I just got out of the shower. Still in my towel.

Adam, 8:40pm
: Up for company?

Sarah, 8:40pm:
Maybe

Adam, 8:40pm
: I promise to make it up to you. More than once.

Sarah, 8:40pm:
I could be persuaded.

Adam, 8:41pm
: Be there in a bit.

Sarah, 8:41pm:
See you soon, handsome.

He smiled and headed towards Sarah’s place. By the time he was ready to come back home shortly before midnight, he’d been able to make it up to her, multiple times.

Chapter Two

Jennifer

Learning from your mistakes

“I got the job!”

Jennifer jumped up and down and began to dance around the room, shaking her butt and she was pretty sure she looked ridiculous.

“I got the jo-ob. I got the jo-ob. The J.O.B. job jo-ob!”

Her five-year-old daughter, Amber, was still sleeping, or at least she was before Jennifer got so carried away with excitement. She didn’t really care if she woke her up…she got the job!

She was sitting in her kitchen, sipping on her delicious mint mocha, when the long-awaited phone call came through. She interviewed several weeks prior, and actually began to give up hope of hearing back from them, much less actually getting the job.

Jennifer strained her ear towards Amber’s room, trying to see if she heard any noise. Not a sound was coming from down the hall, so she figured she was safe for a few more minutes.

She dashed to her computer and printed her resignation letter, one she crafted after the interview. She gave a deep sigh as she waited for the paper to spit out of the printer.

Another job, another move, another state. That would make her third major move in less than ten years. At least moving was one thing she was good at when things got tough.

Jennifer originally moved from Minnesota to California for nursing school after completing her generals in Minnesota. She didn’t want to move there, but she wasn’t able to get into nursing school at home. Although she never intended to be there that long, she stayed for almost six years. She moved from California to Arizona when she needed to disappear and start fresh after the debacle with the man she thought was her child’s father. She took the first job offer she got, changed her phone number and left no forwarding address.

She lived in Arizona four years. In that time, she concentrated on her daughter and her career.

Why did she now feel the need to move away from Arizona? That was the best part and she regretted it only a tiny bit.