“If that’s what this is, any ideas who it could be?”
“No.”
“Who would stand to gain something if your reputation is trashed?”
“Fuck knows, but at the moment, it’d be whoever wants my role in Jagged Point because that’s the thing I’m going to fucking lose in all this.”
Jack dislikes, with a passion, the bullshit of Hollywood. He always has. The dark side of the world he works in, with the lies and the fake schmoozing and the stepping on each other to get to the top, is something he’s always done his best to avoid. He’s succeeded in spite of all that, but still, he’s had to deal with it at times. I know from when we were together, and from what Ashton has shared with me since, that it affects him in ways that can lead to unhealthy coping strategies. Knowing this makes me wonder if someone is doing this deliberately, hoping he’ll relapse.
“Maybe you should look into this,” I suggest even though I suspect he won’t want to.
“Yeah, maybe,” he says, but the way he says it so absently makes me think he won’t.
I don’t harp on about it. I’ve put it out there; Jack can do what he wants with it.
A text buzzes on my phone, distracting me from the conversation.
Mira: You’re definitely coming home on Wednesday, right?
Jessica: Yes. Why? What are you concocting that I won’t want any part in?
Will: You know my wife so well.
Mira: A tea party with the girls!
Jessica: What’s the catch here?
Mira: You love dressing up and you love the girls. There’s no catch.
Will: There are 5 catches to be exact.
Mira: Will Johnson. Be quiet.
Jessica: Out with it.
Will: I’ll give you a hint. They’re all tiny but make the same noise that something three times their size would make.
Jessica: Jesus. No. I don’t even like tea.
Mira: Will! I was going to make my case in ways she couldn’t resist.
Jessica: Trust me, I can resist all your ways.
Mira: Put Jack on.
Jessica: Why?
Mira: Just do it!
Jessica: He’s driving.
No more texts come through, but a moment later, my phone rings.
“You’re not going to win here,” I answer the call. “I don’t do tea parties with seven tiny humans.”
“Jack.” Mira’s voice comes through the speaker in the car. “Are you there?”
“Hey, Mira,” he says.
“Oh good, I want to invite you to a small gathering next Thursday afternoon,” she says. “There will be tea and cake. And any other type of party food you like. You just tell me what you want, and I’ll make it happen.”
He eyes me. “I take it we’re trying to get Jessica there.”
“Yes, and if you have any ideas, please share them,” Mira says. “Also, I really like your willingness to be my co-conspirator. This means great things for our families going ahead.”
“Conspirator is another word for traitor,” I point out.
He laughs and rests his hand on my thigh. “Mira, I’m all for great things for our families. Count me in. I’ll get her there. What’s this gathering in aid of?”
“Olivia started ballet a few weeks ago and is struggling to make friends in the class. I’ve invited five of the girls to the park for a tea party, hoping it will help them connect. I know having her Auntie Jessica there will mean a lot to her. Especially since she and her aunt had a big conversation recently about friends and how to make them.”
“Oh, you’re good,” I say. “This emotional blackmail is some of your best work.”
“Is it working?” Mira says. “I can go harder.”
Jack laughs again and squeezes my thigh.
I really like that squeeze.
I also like this conversation, a fact that doesn’t fail to surprise me. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. I’m liking a whole range of situations with Jack that I never saw coming.
“I’m not answering that,” I say. “But I will be there if Jack agrees to wear his grey shirt.”
“I don’t care if you hate that shirt, Jack,” Mira says, all Mum-bossy, “You are wearing it.”
Another squeeze of my thigh, and Jack says, “I wouldn’t dream of wearing anything else.”
We end the call as Jack pulls into a car park at the airport. Cutting the engine, he says, “I like that Mira thinks you’ll go where I go.”
My breathing slows; this feels like an important conversation he’s initiating. Maybe I’m just feeling like this because I’m about to leave him for five days and am worried about him. I don’t know, but either way, I’m suddenly slammed with emotions. “It’s not true,” I throw out.
He smiles and reaches across the car to slide my hair off my face. “I think it is.”
My only response is to blink, because he’s doing his best to bewilder me, and he’s succeeding.
“I think you’ve gone from not wanting me to be your friend,” he says, “to wanting me to give you that, right alongside giving you the world. And sweetheart, I need you to know I’m working on it, and part of that is me not quitting on myself.” He leans in and kisses me, taking his time to do it thoroughly. “I’m never going to quit on myself again, Jessica.”
My heart does that rapid blinking thing again.
There must be an actual word for this physical response, but it eludes me.
The thing that doesn’t elude me, though, is how deeply I feel what he says. How fully I believe him.
Jack is doing everything in his power to manage his health and his addictions. I could never ask more from him.
I watched my father quit on himself time after time. Jack knows this. He also knows how growing up with that made me into the woman I am. How it carved grooves into my heart that still hurt when I think about my childhood.
My father died when I was ten. I missed out on things little girls shouldn’t miss out on. I also missed out on things grown women shouldn’t miss out on. I do not want to miss out on things a woman in love shouldn’t miss out on.
Jack knows this.
If I dig deep enough, I know it’s why he walked away from me years ago.
The thing I know now?
He won’t ever do it again.
He’s shared some of his hardest truths with me over the last week. He wants to do better, and be better in his work, in his relationships, in his life.
Jack will never quit on himself because he finally sees all the things he wants in his life that he can have if he’s healthy and sober.
I also know he doesn’t want me to miss out on anything.
He wants to give me the world.
And he wants me to know I can go to New York while he stays here not quitting on himself.
I take hold of his face; gently, tenderly, lovingly. “I know you aren’t ever quitting on yourself, baby.”
I kiss him, taking my time to do it thoroughly like he did a minute ago.
When I drag my mouth from his, he says, “You had to call me baby, didn’t you?”
I smile at the pained expression on his face. God, I love this man and how affected he is by me. “For once, I didn’t do it intentionally.”
“That’s beside the point. You’re still leaving me hard as hell while I stare at five days without your mouth around my dick.”