*Jackson*
“Everywhere in TV and films, actors who become mothers are treated differently. Suddenly, people will be like, ‘Oh, she’s a mom, so she can’t play a sex symbol role.’”
Kashmira Shah (aka Kashmera Shah)
I would’ve gotten on with my life, and happily too, if Charlotte had stopped talking about Raquel Ezra for one single second.
“Oh my gosh, she’s so awesome. Did you smell her? She smells amazing. I wonder what kind of lotion she uses. I’ll message Sienna and ask. Do you think Sienna would mind if I ask? I only have her phone number because of her eldest’s birthday party last year. Nah. She won’t mind.” Charlotte skipped on the sidewalk in front of her house, doing a little twirl.
Dinner was over. Soon the evening would be over too. I couldn’t wait.
“And so nice. So, so nice. I just knew she was nice. No one can act that well. Sienna’s so nice, but the papers say she’s nice, so I wasn’t surprised. But Twitter—are you on Twitter?—folks talk about Raquel like she’s a slut or something, like a man-stealing tart. She didn’t give me that vibe at all.” Charlotte leaned against the closed passenger side of my truck, making no move toward her house.
“I’m not on Twitter.”
“What a thrill, you know? It’s so great having Sienna Diaz in town when all her movie star friends visit. And Sienna is so great, I just love her—what I know about her. We’re not close. I just, you know, I’m sure everybody wants to be friends with her. I haven’t really approached her, we got kids the same age, so maybe it would be okay? What do you think?”
“Maybe—”
“You’re right. I’ll give her a call. See if she wants to have a playdate.”
I closed my eyes against the threatening headache. “You should.”
Charlotte was blessedly silent for a moment, and I gathered a deep breath.
“Jackson?”
“Hmm?”
“You were quiet during dinner.”
A smile curved my lips, a real one. “When would I have spoken?”
“I guess I did talk a lot.” She chuckled lightly, but then was quiet again.
I opened my eyes when her silence stretched and found her staring at me—studying me—with a troubled-looking knot between her eyebrows. “What? What is it?”
“Did I embarrass you?”
I didn’t answer right away, but I knew I needed to say something based on the hint of worry behind her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Kevin always said I embarrassed him, whenever we went out. That I . . . didn’t act like a mother should, like a lady.”
I’d known Charlotte for a long time, so I’d been there when her husband walked out on her. The man was a giant asshole—an elephant-sized asshole—in my opinion. And he acted like he had something perpetually stuck up that elephant-sized asshole, likely his own mouse-sized dick.
“Absolutely not. You didn’t embarrass me.” At least, she didn’t embarrass me the way she was asking about.
Yes, I’d been embarrassed. Yes, she’d pushed me into doing something I really didn’t want to do. But that was just Charlotte. She pushed. I’d known from the start of our relationship that she was a pushy person.
“I think you’re lying.” She gave me a wry smile. “You were bright red when we made it to the table, and I’m sorry. I did not mean to embarrass you.”
I felt like she’d punched me in the stomach. If anyone should’ve been apologizing, it should’ve been me. “You—you didn’t. I promise.” I shook my head emphatically.
“I know I did.”
“No. I was embarrassed, but definitely not in the way you mean. I was embarrassed, but not embarrassed of you. Never of you.”
She screwed her mouth to the side, her gaze flickering over me like she wanted to believe me.
So I added, “It was an overwhelming experience, is all.”
Inspecting me for a moment longer, she nodded, finally accepting my words. “Okay. I believe you.”
“Good.” I breathed out my relief, setting my hands on my hips. That settled, I looked over her shoulder at the moon, already high in the sky. It wasn’t late, but I was exhausted.
“Do you want to come inside?” she asked, drawing my attention back to her. “Have a drink? The kids should be in bed.”
“But they won’t be asleep, and tomorrow is a school day.”
Charlotte lifted her chin, the knot between her eyebrows returning, like I’d said something significant, and it irritated her.
“What?” I looked to the left and then to the right, looking for the source of her sudden ire. “What is it?”
She crossed her arms, the set of her mouth more defensive than friendly. “Tell me honestly, Jackson. If I were Ashley Winston, and she’d invited you in, would you come in tonight?”
I made a face. “No. Because that would never happen, and she’s married.”
“But let’s say she wasn’t married, okay? Let’s say Drew, I don’t know, they split up, he was abducted by aliens or something, leaving her with two little kids. Let’s say she wasn’t married and the two of you had been seeing each other for months. Let’s say she invited you in. What would you say?”
My mouth worked, and just like before, no sound came out. What the hell—
“I knew it!”
“Knew what? What do you know?”
“You waited too long to answer the question.”
“I was thinking! I shouldn’t be penalized for thinking.”
“If you were over her, you wouldn’t need to think.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “I am most definitely over Ashley Winston. That was a long, long, long time ago.”
“And yet, if she’d asked you over to her house to fix a pipe in the middle of the night, I bet she would’ve gotten laid.”
I flinched, honestly shocked. “Charlotte!”
“Oh, don’t you Charlotte me. You know I’m right. And here you are, treating me like a lady.”
“You are a lady.”
“And you’re a gentleman, and—I’m sorry—but I don’t want a gentleman.”
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
What is happening? How did I get here?
“You don’t want a gentleman?”
“No!” She threw her hands up, rolling her eyes. “I mean, yes. Okay, of course I want a gentleman. But I want someone who at least has to try to be a gentleman with me. I want it to be difficult for a man to always be a gentleman with me, I want him to—to—to—”
“Not always be a good guy?” The words and thought slipped out of me at the exact same time.
“Yes! Exactly. And, Jackson, I adore you, I really do, but you . . . you never have to struggle against any ungentlemanly impulses with me, or any impulses. We have no chemistry.”
Chemistry. She wanted chemistry? What the hell was I supposed to do with that? How did I make chemistry appear out of thin air when we’d only been on four dates as of tonight?
“You don’t have to say anything.” She sounded remorseful yet firm, but also deflated and sad. “Truth be told, I think I made up my mind before dinner. I think I made up my mind on Monday night. But I didn’t want to send you a text to call things off.”