Vince

I’m at McGreevy’s with Davis, but he insists on sitting at a table. Grace is behind the bar and side-eyes us as we walk by. Because I don’t know what’s going on (if anything), I wave and attempt congeniality.

Davis doesn’t.

“Did you two have a fight I should know about?” It’s an echo of a question I’ve asked before but never received an answer to.

Davis pulls out his chair and casts a look in Grace’s direction. “No. Why?”

I let it go. He’s not in the chatting mood, and besides, I’m the one with issues tonight. I texted him to see if he’d be here, and he said he didn’t have plans to go out but would if I wanted him to.

I called in the cavalry because Jackie didn’t come back to work. Sandy, the front-desk temp, said Jackie had called after lunch to say she wasn’t feeling well. “She sounded bad,” Sandy told me.

I don’t know what to think, save for the obvious. Jackie went out with J.T. for lunch and didn’t come back. By four o’clock I was certain she’d gone out with J.T. for lunch and he’d convinced her to go home with him.

I doubt that happened, but my imagination has been running amok all day.

Grace appears at our table with two beers we didn’t order.

“Welcome back.” She greets both of us—though her eyes are on Davis.

“What if I don’t want a beer?” Davis sneers.

“Then give it to Vince.” With that, she’s off, strolling back to the bar. I study Davis only to find him studying Grace, but he doesn’t look pissed. A hefty dose of longing seeps into his expression.

When he turns to me, he scowls. “You wanted me to come out tonight. Talk. What’s going on?”

“Jackie went out with J.T. today and didn’t come back to work after. I don’t think they did anything together, though,” I sort of lie. I follow up that sentence with a mini rant about how she never should’ve seen him again, since he banged some other woman after their date.

Davis sips his beer, then gives me a wholehearted “So?”

“So?” My eyebrows lift. “He’s a dick.”

“I knew that looking at him. You knew that looking at him. You told Jackie-O that he was an asshole. So my ‘so’ is to find out why you care that he screwed her over.”

“Because she’s my friend.” Frowning, I lift my beer. It may be the first time I’ve pouted while drinking beer before. It’s not easy.

Davis makes a “go on” motion. He isn’t going to accept half-assed explanations tonight.

“I upped my game,” I announce miserably. It didn’t do me much good.

“How many times did you up it?” Davis smirks. I like him cocky better than grumpy. Only one of us can be grumpy at a time or it throws off the balance of our friendship. Dudes don’t brood together. That’s a chick thing.

“Two times.”

“He shoots, he scores!” He offers me a genuine grin and raises a palm for a high five. I slap it without thinking, even though twice with Jackie is about one one hundred thousandth of how many times I want to sleep with her.

“She met him for lunch,” I repeat, unable to let go of my sour mood. “And I think it’s because I went home on Saturday instead of staying the night at her place.”

“Well, it isn’t like you could stay.” Davis sounds so reasonable, I want to hug him.

“Yes. That right there.” I point at him in triumph. See? I’m not crazy. “Besides, I already amended that rule once. She stayed at my house the first time.”

I miss my friend’s response since I glance up at the television as I take another swig of my draft. When I return my attention to him, he looks so horrified, I would swear he’s focused on someone behind me.

“What’d I miss?” A look over my shoulder shows an empty table.

“You let her stay at your house? And then you didn’t stay at hers?”

“She’s always at my house.” I’m starting to sweat. I missed something, all right.

“You set a precedent, then you walked out. You never should have let her stay.”

“Or I should have stayed Saturday,” I argue.

“Never would have been better.”

“Davis. This is Jackie. Someone I know, not someone I barely know or have only known a few hours. We know all of each other’s shit. We have talked about divorce in such depth, she could totally humiliate me if she started a blog.”

He stays silent.

“Point being, that D-bag should be out of the picture and I’m still competing with him.” God! It pisses me off saying it out loud as much as it chafes to hear myself whine about it.

“Clearly you’re not competing with him if you’re here with me.”

That comment settles in slowly.

“You’re right. I’m going over to her house. I’m going to find out what’s going on, and if I spot Jackie making out with him through his balcony window…” I blow out a breath and ask sincerely, “Will you bail me out of jail?”

Davis chuckles at my plight.

“I’m acting fifteen.” I rake my hands through my hair, unsure of how Butler tied me into knots this quickly.

“Call her, dipshit.” Davis palms his beer bottle and eyes the TV. “Call her and ask what the deal is. Don’t do this to her.”

“Excuse me. To her?”

Davis turns back to me. “Do you remember what you were like when Leslie first left you?”

Blood rushes to my face and I feel overly warm. Even under the A/C vent. “Remind me,” I bite out. I don’t want to relive it, but if his revelation gives me some measure of clarity, I’ll take it.

“You were borderline defeated.” I open my mouth to argue but he holds up a hand and says, “I’m not busting your balls. Hear me out.”

Because he’s a good friend, I hear him out.

“That feeling of not measuring up, of being overlooked by someone you love, of being left behind in favor of their grand new life…” Davis trails off, shaking his head. I know we’re not only talking about Leslie and me. He’s talking about himself and Hanna too. “Point is, that’s how Jackie is feeling now. Her ex cheated on her, right?”

I nod.

“And this J.T. guy did it and stirred up that old shit. Now she’s back at square one. In the game of Chutes and Ladders, she was closing in on Finish and took a very big slide down to Start.”

I’m getting impatient, because this is all stuff I know.

“And so are you.”

I blink as my brain registers the unexpected comment. That I didn’t know.

“She’s telling you that you’re not good enough, and you’re keeping your distance to stay safe. Quit doing it. You crossed a line with this one, Carson. If you want Jackie for real, and for longer than a few rolls in the hay, you have to show up for her.”

I think of the kiss in her office today. That moment of grabbing what I wanted. I liked it. She liked it. And yet she went to see J.T. immediately after.

I’m letting my ego call the shots and it could cost me. I’m being a pansy.

Heart hammering, I dig my phone out of my pocket and call Jackie. I’m expecting her voicemail. Instead, she answers on the second ring.

“Hello.” Her voice is thick with misery and laced with pain. Every petty, stupid argument I trotted out for Davis drifts away.

“Where are you? I’m coming to get you, Butler.” I stand from the table, aware of Davis watching me with interest. I can’t give him the thumbs-up yet because I don’t know what happened.

“I’m at the rec room.” She sniffs. “Of our apartment complex.”

Our. As in hers and J.T.’s. I don’t want that to sting, but it does.

“Is he there?” I ask. Davis’s lip curls, reflecting my distaste.

“No. I’m in the game room. No one comes in here on Tuesdays. I came over here to…I don’t know.”

I’m already on my way out the door. I don’t explain to Davis and he doesn’t ask. Just like I know he’ll pay for my beer and I don’t have to worry about that either.

“You don’t have to know, Butler. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Then we can talk.”

She sniffs again and exhales into the phone. I feel that like a physical blow. That I can’t be near her. That I can’t console her. She was there for me whenever I needed her after the divorce, and there were some nights it got ugly.

“Okay?” I ask, climbing into my car parked along the curb.

“Okay,” she finally says.

“Don’t move.” I hang up the phone and floor it.

I’m there in seven minutes.

The rec room at Jackie’s apartment complex is like a really nice sports bar. I key in the four-digit code Jackie texted me and let myself in. The main offices are dark this time of night, the shadowed windows lit by a few safety lights. There is a business area up front with two desks outfitted with top-of-the-line iMac computers with enormous screens. An aquarium full of colorful saltwater fish stands between the front room and the rec area. I walk by a library packed with books, past a pool table, and through a stocked kitchen set up for any resident who wants a snack or coffee, before I finally make it to the game room.

Jackie is sitting at a chess table, the pieces set up for play, her feet on the seat of the chair and her arms wrapped around them. She looks small and lonely and my need to pound Jaundice’s face in takes the place of my desire to comfort her.

“Where is he?” I growl, fists balled at my sides.

“Who?” She scrunches her face for a second before her features soften. “J.T.?”

“Yeah.”

“I told him off at lunch. I don’t know.”

She told him off?

Nothing defuses my anger better than knowing she didn’t spend the day with him. I snag the chair from the other side of the table and pull it close to her. Once I sit, she lets her feet hit the floor and her eyes meet mine. Her mascara is smudged. Her nose is red. She’s a beautiful mess.

“He told me I wasn’t going to put out that night so he met up with a girl he sleeps with, no strings. I swear as long as I live I will never understand how men can compartmentalize sex.”

Rage fills my field of vision. Her hand on my arm calms me in an instant.

“I need you to be you,” she tells me.

I take a breath and close my eyes. I’m who she wants me to be. Her best friend, Vince. I allow a smile I don’t feel to slide across my face.

“Does it make you feel marginally better that he was dead wrong about you not putting out?” I ask. After all, she slept with me that night.

The side of her mouth tips and falls. “I tried things your way. I can’t do it.”

“What can’t you do?” My heart skips a necessary beat. If she says she can’t see me anymore, I’ll…I don’t know what. Beg her to reconsider?

Maybe.

“I can’t play the game,” she says. “Stay, don’t stay. Call, don’t call. I don’t get how you guys keep it straight.”

“First off, Butler, stop lumping me in with that asshole.” I’ll go apocalyptic if she keeps talking about us like we’re the same. “Second, you and I aren’t playing a game.”

“No?” She looks hopeful.

“No.”

“But the coaching…”

I swallow thickly before dispensing much more honesty than I’m comfortable with.

“The coaching was an excuse to get closer to you without admitting I wanted to be closer to you.” There it is. Laid out.

She’s watching me but doesn’t know how to respond to my blast of honesty. I’m not sure I do either, but I follow it up with more.

“This is bringing up old wounds from when Lex left you, and to be honest, it’s bringing up the shit between Leslie and me.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t look so sad. I’m not accusing you of being like Leslie.”

“Good. I hate her.” Jackie’s weak smile goes a long way toward making me feel better.

“She’s not my favorite person either, which is weird because for a long time she was.” Jackie has since dominated the list of faves for me. How about that?

“I know what you mean,” she replies, looking cute and befuddled.

“Come on.” I stand and she stands with me. “I didn’t even tell you where we are going.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She wraps her arms around one of mine. “Anywhere is better than here.”

“Your couch or mine?” I tease. But her eyes are searching, the question in their depths deserving of an honest answer. “Let’s do this, Butler.”

I mean it. It’s scary and big, but I mean it.

“Do what?” she whispers.

“Us.”