Carly Sevens
“What the hell, Jack? I cancelled our session.”
I was waiting for Jake’s cruiser to pull up at the house, but when I spotted Jack’s coupe instead, I felt, well, murderous. I thought we’d been getting along okay this week. I went my way, he went his, and when we actually got together in the library it was as normal as could be expected.
In all of this, what hurt the most was when I realized that I had been right all along. He was able to switch off what had happened between us, and move past it. There was no awkwardness or indication that he missed messing around with me. He was just Mr. Griggs—my mentor. Even when I wandered round the college, I found it hard to distance myself from him. Jack may have looked moody and unapproachable, but I knew different for a brief moment. If only I’d spotted his true nature before I’d freely spread my legs for him, things would have been a whole lot easier.
“Jake is tied up. He knew I was visiting Hawkstown this weekend so he asked if I could give you a ride.”
The way he said ‘ride’ and swallowed deeply around the word was not funny. If he thought I was going to sit in a car and let him mess with me, he was wrong.
“I’ll get the train.”
His eyes flashed with anger and maybe panic. “Don’t be crazy. It’s just a ride home. We’re not going to be able to avoid each other for the rest of our lives. Come on, Carls.”
The car engine was idling. My heart was telling me to leave, my brain was telling me to grow up, and my feet were itching to get to the station and put as much distance between us as possible. When he leaned over to look at me through the open car door, I saw him smile and raise his brow in a challenge that cancelled out everything else. There was no way I was going to let him think I was turning tail and running from him. It was him who regretted what had happened, not me, and I could make him feel just as uncomfortable.
I swung my bag in the trunk and climbed inside the car. I heard him exhale and it made me smile. He was dreading this as much as me and that meant I could have some fun.
Jack was listening to some sports bulletin on the radio and it was boring as shit. We only had a few hours to survive together, but music would still have been better. “Can we have some music on?”
“What, you don’t like the ball report?”
I shook my head and gave him a look that let him know I did not like the ball report. “Forget it, I’ll just read.”
I bent forward slowly to dig through my purse for my kindle. The top I had on was low cut and I knew I was stretching more than necessary when he swerved just a little after being distracted. “Jesus, steady, some of us want to arrive in one piece.”
“Yeah, sorry, mind was elsewhere,” he mumbled. I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing out loud.
It was hard to concentrate on the novel I was reading. I kept rereading the same page because he was having a conversation with the asshole reporter from the radio show and I became engrossed in the normality of sitting beside him. I was transfixed because he was acting like the Jack I’d always known and it bothered me where this Jack had disappeared to. The car’s radio system was interrupted and a loud dial tone made me jump. I saw Jake’s name appear in the car’s display screen and then watched as one of Jack’s fingers pressed a button to open the call.
This was why I couldn’t concentrate on my book. I was noticing stupid things like fingers pressing buttons, or indicators, or his hands caressing the wheel and the way his thigh muscles contracted and flexed when he pressed the gas pedal or brake.
“Yo, bro, whaddup?” Definitely a different Jack.
“Just checking you’re on schedule,” Jake mumbled.
Whatever Jack needed to be on schedule for had him looking nervously in my direction. “Yep, all good this end.”
“Great. Keep packing, honey!” Jake shouted.
“I’m trying, but your daughter keeps trying to pack your handcuffs.” Rebecca laughed in the background.
“I don’t mind if you wanna take them, babe,” he whispered.
Jack interrupted him. “Seriously, it’s enough that I have to listen to your porn talk, but Carly is here.”
“Shit. Sorry, Carls. Handcuffs are for police work only and at least I know you’re in the responsible care of my brother this weekend.”
The words that permeated my ear drums were being translated into unwanted phrases. It sounded a lot like Jack was going to be helping me out this weekend with Livvy.
“Gotta go!” Jack shouted. “Bad signal area. Later.” And then he hung up.
“Tell me you didn’t?” I snarled at him.
“I didn’t what?” He grinned, looking really pleased with himself.
“Orchestrate this whole weekend to fuck with me.”
“Define ‘fuck with you’?” he asked, trying to rein in his cheeky grin.
I responded to him by losing my temper and smacking his arm.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“I can’t believe you’d do this. This is too much. You can’t mess with me like this. You don’t want me. You just want to torture me!”
Jack slowed the car down and I watched those expert womanizing fingers flick the indicators the way he flicked parts of my body. When he pulled to a stop on the roadside, I continued to glare ahead out of the windscreen.
“Carly.”
I did not answer.
“Carly.”
I would not answer.
“I promise I did nothing of the sort. There is some illness thing with my mom and she can’t stay with Livvy at night, so I’ve been roped in at the last minute. Apparently you’re day shift and I’m night shift.”
I scoffed at his explanation. This was a total play to screw with my head some more. When I refused to acknowledge his reasoning, he looked to the heavens for divine intervention and pulled out onto the road again.
* * *
A couple of hours later, Jack parked up outside the house he used to share with his brother. This was the first time we would be in the same space together with people who knew us and I began to worry that someone would be able to tell that we’d crossed a line. I mean, it wasn’t like I had a flashing red sign advertising it on my forehead but people were always intuitive when you least wanted them to be.
“Relax,” he said gently.
“Easy for you to say, player,” I mumbled back at him.
As we both climbed out and began to grab our bags from the trunk, Jake came rushing down the drive with his own luggage, desperate to get moving for some quality time with his wife.
“At last. Go in and say hello so I can drag my woman off like a caveman and remind her why she loves me. Shit, sorry Carls, again.” He smirked, seemingly unable to stop any reference to being thoroughly excited by the prospect of his dirty weekend.
Jack walked to his brother and greeted him before following me up the path and into the house.
Whereas Jake was keen to get moving, Rebecca seemed to be having second thoughts.
“I think maybe she’s coming down with something again,” she tried.
“No. No, she isn’t. Let’s go,” Jake persisted.
“But I haven’t had time to run through her schedule or anything with Carly, and what if Jack can’t cope at night?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he ranted, looking exasperated before returning to stand by the two girls in his life. “Sweetheart, come on. Carly has helped Lacey with kids more times than she probably remembers and Jack is… Well, Livvy will be asleep, so really, she’s having a lucky escape.” He snorted.
Rebecca stooped down in front of her daughter who was avidly trying to climb up the couch.
“Don’t tell her we’re leaving, baby. You do that and she’ll bat those gorgeous fucking eyelashes and the weekend will be off.”
I watched as Jake took his wife’s hand and threw a doll at Jack. “Amuse her so we can make a quick getaway.”
I wanted to giggle at the horrified look on Jack’s face. He’d never really done this before and I watched as he waggled the doll, just to test it, looking at it like it might explode or something.
“Carly, if that look on his face doesn’t change twenty minutes after we’ve gone, do not leave him alone with my baby. Promise me?”
“Hey, I’m insulted. Me and my niece will be fine. Quality time together watching Jackass, drinking beer and getting into mischief will be educational for her,” he joked.
Rebecca’s face paled and Jake looked like he was going to skin his twin alive. Even I could tell she was one step away from cancelling everything and hankering down in protest.
“You fucking idiot,” Jake grumbled before picking his wife up and physically carrying her out the door. I followed their progress and the last thing I heard as she was being forcibly manhandled into Jake’s truck was her shouting about emergency numbers, routine clock times and a list of dos and don’ts that had also been left on the kitchen counter top.
When I went back inside, Jack was still holding the doll, but this time he was pretending to walk her up and down the couch. Livvy was giggling and plodding up and down in time with his action. While she was firmly occupied, I went to the kitchen to hunt down the list. Everything was there—what she liked, how to get her down for her naps, instructions for feeding her at the appropriate times and a crazy list of emergency numbers.
“Okay, according to this list, she isn’t due to go down for the night for another two hours. You can leave now. Come back then when it’s your shift.”
Jack looked up at me bewildered. “I’ve only just got here and we’re playing,” he said, starting to pout and make silly voices with the doll.
“I’ll go then.”
Jack looked back up again, this time with sheer panic lashing across his features. “Wait! No. I’ve not done the night time bath before. Or fed her. Or changed her. I have no idea how to put her down to sleep.”
“You mean you’ve never actually done anything for her, Jack?”
He pouted again and waved the doll at me. “We need you, Carly. Can’t you just stay and we do it together?”
This was exactly what I was trying to avoid. Spending normal time in the same space as Jack wasn’t going to help me with my constant need to demonize him. He was the enemy and I needed that image to stay rooted deep, otherwise I’d break apart.
As I was about to ignore him and leave, Livvy took a leap of faith and waddled in my direction. When she got in close range, she stopped and dropped her diaper padded behind on top of my feet.
Jack smiled in triumph. “See, she wants you to stay, too.”
Going against all my instincts, I shook my head in resignation. I couldn’t leave him to fend for himself while he bathed her for the first time. “I hate that you’re guilt tripping me into staying.”
“I’m not. She is. Look at that face. She wants to spend time with Aunty Carly, too.” He goo’d and gah’d in a baby voice, heading over to crouch down at my feet with her.
My brain ignored all his reasons and all I could think was, I wanted to be her Aunty Carly for real, but only because that meant I’d be in his life and we’d have to be together to make that happen.