Forbidden (The Soul Mates Book 4) by Victoria Johns (9)

“I recognize that look, Jacky boy,” I heard from behind me. I spun around to look at Lila and glared. “Whoa, settle your shit down. This is a fun establishment, but I won’t hesitate to beat you. Again.”

Lila waggled her eyes at me, the intent in her words clear—a distraction. I looked down at myself and checked where I was at and what she was referring to. I was stood bolt upright, glaring in the direction of the motherfucker who had his arms around Carly. If that wasn’t bad enough, watching them kiss had nearly tipped my sanity over its limit.

“You need another beer?”

“No… yes… fuck.”

I’d forgotten what tonight was. Some of the students had been going on about it for a few days but that had never registered when I set off to ease my loneliness. Who the fuck was I kidding? I went out with the intention of trying to forget that she was going on a date with her fuckwad boyfriend just hours after I’d been with her.

This was fucked up. Even after I’d been inside her, she’d left me for him and come here looking like some seductive secretary in dress pants and heels, and I was the one who was bothered by it all.

I went to take the beer from Lila—the competition was on a break designed to build up tension before the final—when she whipped it just out of my reach.

“It’s none of my business but I figure sucking salty fluids from your body gives me the right to comment. Isn’t this a recipe for disaster?”

Finally pulling the bottle between my fingers and taking a more than a healthy first pull, I looked at Lila. “What?”

“You and Sansa Stark, the in-demand red head. The whole, student teacher thing. Dodgy.”

I loved that description of her. She was Sansa Stark alright. What you saw on the outside only hinted at the spirit buried within.

“That’s not even the half of it. How about the fact her mom is my best friend?” It took but a nanosecond for that statement to register, and when it did, she greeted it with the biggest laugh possible. “Fuck, woman, shush. You’re causing a scene. I’m the moody tutor. I don’t want those kids thinking I may actually be funny, or human for that matter.”

“My bar. I’m allowed.”

“I need to go before that pool cue finds itself wrapped around that cock sucker’s head.” I gulped down the last of my beer and as I put it down on the bar, she grabbed my hand to stop me from leaving.

“Not that I am ever one to kiss and tell, but I will let you in on something. I’ve more than kissed that boy and he has other shit going on. I don’t see him and her being long term. He’s not playing the field before he has to go home to Daddy. He’s ploughing through it. Roughly.” Lila waggled her eyebrows at me and the gleam in her eye was one I couldn’t miss.

“Definitely need to leave,” I mumbled.

As I lifted my ass from the bar stool, she smiled at me. “You want that, Jacky boy, get it. Life is way too short. Take it from me—live it or lose it.”

I made my way across the bar, taking the most diverse route possible. Anything was better than getting too close to the two of them. Carly was like a magnet, and feeling that pull while she was in the arms of that fuckwit was dangerous. I wouldn’t just end up losing my job; I’d end up in jail.

I stepped outside and felt a mist in the air that was refreshing and helped bring some clarity to the thoughts lurching around my head. The only problem was that those thoughts came frighteningly close to me admitting that she affected me, that I wanted her. The hammer blow loomed even closer because Lila had been able to spot it. I was so fucked up and I had no one close to turn to. I’d run from everything familiar like some martyr and had no clue how to shut all this down. The bigger problem was, did I even want to? Carly was six months from graduating. After that, she would no longer be a student and there was definitely something there. Some undeniable chemistry was zinging through me that I couldn’t ignore. So, why could she?

* * *

I walked home the long way, desperate to shake this off rather than bring it into my place with me. I was soaked through by the time I got there. I walked straight to the bathroom, stripped off and stepped in the shower. It was shower or look for a bottle of scotch and that seemed like a really bad idea.

I pulled on some lounge pants and saw the voicemail light blinking on my cell. “Bro, I guess you’re out partying. Livvy’s having a restless night so it’s gonna be long one. Skype?”

Hearing his voice calmed me. Jake had always been my anchor and when we fell out it was like I’d been sliced in two. I thought I was punishing him, but now I realized I was punishing myself just as much.

I grabbed my Mac, hit the right buttons and like a mirror, his face appeared.

“Yo!” he whisper-shouted. He looked tired as fuck. In fact he looked wrecked, but I could see still the upward rise of happiness in his smile and I was jealous as fuck.

“My niece okay?”

“Yeah, probably more teeth. Rebecca has been working her ass off and I’ve got a couple of rest days. Figured I’d do the night shift.”

In the background behind him, I saw Livvy shuffling round on her behind, surrounded by toys, babbling at them and chewing different ones at random. “She looks okay to me.”

My brother turned and stayed that way for more than a few seconds, taking in the magic in front of him. “I’m tired as shit, but I wouldn’t trade. I’ve tried to do other stuff, but she has this built in radar and knows when I’m not focused on her. Screams bloody murder. I’m staying put so she doesn’t wake her mom. It’s like hostage training at work.”

When did my brother get so normal? Doing the right thing and feeling concerned for the women in our beds was never part of our deal. Granted, none of the women had stayed as long as Rebecca, but even so, that concern was something neither of us was used to. Yet, he’d sucked it up, grabbed a hold of it and made a life out of it. I was still stressing like a weak-kneed pussy that I had feelings directed at someone I shouldn’t want, couldn’t have and didn’t want me in that way anyway.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Jake interrupted my inner monologue.

“Nowhere, just thinking about how life can twist and turn.”

“Yeah.” He smiled again, ecstatic about his twists and turns.

“Rebecca okay apart from being tired?”

“Better now Carly’s coming on board at the studio.”

I was busy so watching my niece in the background that hearing her name jerked my gaze back to his face. “Coming on board?"

“Business Manager. We asked her when she came home. You’d have known this if you’d been here. I’m serious… if you don’t come home soon, I’m heading your way.”

So, Carly had her life planned after she graduated and she was heading back to Hawkstown. She’d be there, probably loved up with Lila’s plaything, and I’d be here, still alone, nursing a perpetual bad mood in a self imposed purgatory.

“What the fuck gives?” he said louder, regaining my attention. “Seriously, you’re starting to freak me out and I’m the sleep deprived one.”

“Long day. I’m gonna turn in. Take your iPad to my niece so I can see her before I go.”

Jake started to move and my old apartment bobbed around the screen, hitting me with sentimentality. He got on the floor with her so I was at eye level with the most beautiful, slobbering mess monster. “Tell Uncle Jack we’re not going to let him do this. Facetime is fake time and you want him here.”

Livvy began to bob up and down on her butt, like she was dancing, and then struggled to her feet before launching her chubby body at her dad’s mirror image. She was going to have her mom’s co-ordination and desire for rhythm, and the Griggs good looks. Her features reminded me of Jake, of me. “Hey, sweetheart,” I crooned.

She began to babble and flap her lips. Her cheeks were rosy red and she looked so happy. A stab of jealously poked at me. “Uncle Jack will be home soon. He needs to teach you how to drive your daddy insane.”

Livvy stopped still and stared, wide eyed at my face on the screen. Her red cheeks became redder and her forehead creased with a frown as she squatted and started to grunt.

“What?” I panicked, feeling concerned until the cutest little body I’d ever seen let one rip.

“Jesus, Jack, two seconds of looking at you and she starts taking a shit. I always knew you were uglier. Better go. No one needs to witness this. She looks cute, but when this kid lays a cable, I still have to wrap a dishcloth round my face to survive it. The trick is to get it changed before your eyes water so bad you’re in danger of being blinded. Love you, brother.” I heard the sincerity in his words amidst the now very prominent grunting. His finger got closer to the screen and the call ended before I had a chance to tell him goodbye, or that I loved him in return.

An email pinged into my mailbox just as I was going to shut down my Mac:-

Our college did this mentor program for hand-picked individuals, and it was part of the reason the business program was so successful. We used it as a way to judge where a cross section of the students were at before finals so we could anticipate who would need extra credit grades. Invariably, we’d end up tutoring someone from a different class. That way we could obtain feedback about other faculty members’ teaching methods and it gave us the chance to alter learning materials for the next semester and following year. It was all in the name of obtaining the maximum number of graduated business students, and it was good for the brochures and securing funding.

It was a fucking bind. It was like adding three more classes a week to an already hectic schedule. It wasn’t enough that you had to prepare, teach and grade for normal classes, but for the last few months you also had to tutor and mentor. And having to rate the other professors and report on progress was like having your own fucking assignments.

“I’m too grumpy for this shit.” I hated students, I missed home and I didn’t seem to get the same value or high from preparing some Barbie doll or dickhead for the business world.

After I’d finished banging my head against the proverbial wall, I read on.

I read down the list, thinking that some fucker should teach old man Kominsky how to write a true motivational speech. All this ‘ahead of the pack’ shit and ‘hunting’ nonsense was just—

“What the fuck…? No.”

I gripped the screen of my Mac so hard I could have been doing a strength and endurance test on behalf of Apple.

My brain flipped through the horror of what this would mean for both of us, but it didn’t last long. It was quickly overridden by the thumping of my heart and the stirring in my groin.

Fuck.