Chapter 37

Jake

 

When was she going to get here? I settled onto Mark’s armchair, pushing the annoying thought out of my head for the third time. I barely knew what I was going to say to Brooke when she did arrive.

Sure, Mark and I had figured out the situation easily enough. Calling the patients and explaining that there’d been a work emergency had gone over surprisingly well. As had the mad football-like dash through the parking lot to our cars. Even shoving our way through the massed crowd of photographers and reporters had been easier than expected.

Now came the hard part—talking it over with Brooke. Seeing her as upset as she’d been had broken me. Even just remembering it now sent a new stab of guilt into my chest. I had failed her, failed all of us. I had literally made Brooke’s worst fear come true, all because I’d been stupid and unthinking. How could I ever make it up to her?

I glanced at my phone. “Text me as soon as you’re five minutes away—we’ll help you come in.” Yes. Getting her into Mark’s place without too much stress would be a start.

Just then, my phone went off, “Almost there.”

“She’s coming,” I told Mark.

“I’ll join you,” he said.

Together, we threw on our coats.

“Hang on a sec,” Mark said, disappearing upstairs.

He returned with a big white sheet. We laughed.

“I guess her coming in as a ridiculous sheet ghost is preferable to the other option,” I said.

“Exactly,” Mark agreed.

We waited by the door, peering through the glass window. Outside, the mass of reporters and photographers chatted amongst themselves, while some tried getting pictures of us through the glass. Mark and I ignored them. Our eyes were peeled for what we saw after waiting for about a minute—a little navy-blue Toyota. As it pulled into Mark’s expansive driveway, we opened the door and raced outside.

“Dr. Teller! Dr. Sawyer! Is that your mystery woman? Dr. Sawyer is that her?”

Mark had frozen at the driver’s side.

“What is it? Help her!” I urged him, pushing past.

I stopped dead when I saw who was inside Brooke’s car. It was an old fat lady. She wore a green and pink tulip-flowered dress, and a mighty scowl. She had a big mop of grey hair, thin pressed-together lips, and, behind thick black glasses, dancing hazel eyes.

“No,” I said under-my-breath.

“Yes,” she said in a gruff matter-of-fact voice, “I am Jake’s aunt. Move aside you filthy rodents.”

With her cane, she knocked two reporters out of the way as she strode forward. Cameras still flashing, one reporter called out, “Jake’s aunt—what do you think of the scandal?”

She paused, a thoughtful look coming over her wrinkled features. Finally, she smiled with an evil look and shook her cane in the air.

“Why don’t you come over here and I can show you what I think of it?”

No one took her up on her offer, so she wobbled up to the door, and inside, Mark and I close behind.

“What the fuck?” Mark said, immediately.

Brooke giggled.

“What, did Karly really do that good of a job?”

All I could do was gape at her—at the ugly, wrinkly, fat old woman that was, improbably, Brooke.

“Karly’s always loved doing makeup and costumes—and she jumped at this opportunity. I had some old Halloween stuff lying around—and then magic happened.”

As we stood there, still gaping at her lumpy form, she sighed.

“Are you guys going to help me out of this, or what?”

Leading her into the kitchen, I pulled off the dress. I laughed at the Spanx and pillow combination that had made Brooke really look fat.

Yanking down the Spanx caused the pillow to tumble to the floor.

“That’s better,” I said.

Mark had pulled off Brooke’s wig and was now dabbing at her caked-on face with a wet paper towel.

After a few minutes of this, Brooke was reduced to her bra and panties and thankfully, bare and pretty skin.

“So,” she said.

“So,” Mark said.

“I’m sorry,” I cut in, “Guys, I feel awful. Like a complete idiot. This is all my fault. I should’ve told you two at the first sign of trouble, and not just dismissed it. If I could go back, I’d take it back—a hundred times over. I hope you can forgive me.”

My eager gaze went to Mark, who nodded.

“Yeah, we’ve all made mistakes. It’s okay, buddy. And really, by the time you saw them, they already knew, so it still would have come out, we just might have been more prepared for it.”

Now my gaze went to Brooke. My hands were shaking I was so nervous. She smiled kindly at me, then wrapped her arms around me into a hug.

“He’s right, Jake. And of course I’ll forgive you.”

I buried my head into her sweet-smelling hair, relief flowing through me. Thank God for Brooke and Mark. For a minute there, I’d thought I’d ruined everything.

“If there’s anything I could do,” I said.

“Actually,” Mark said, “There is something.”

I separated from Brooke to see him smiling mischievously. He swept his hand over to the marble countertop.

“You can serve the pizza. I’m starving.”

We all burst out laughing.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brooke said.

“Be quiet, you,” Mark said, “And please, put on some clothes, if you want us to actually eat some of it.”

A smile played at the corners of her lips.

“I may be hungry for something else, though.”

I patted her.

“You and me both. But we want to eat and talk first—and we’ll just pass out if we go do that first.”

She nodded.

“Good point.”

Mark took Brooke’s hand.

“I’ve got a too-small pajama set that might fit you.”

While they headed upstairs, I set out some slices onto plates. Two pepperoni and green pepper slices per glass plate.

Once they returned, Brooke was wearing baggy black and white striped PJs. Seeing the contents of his plate, Mark frowned.

“I was hoping you’d make a leaning tower of pizza—about fifteen slices or so.”

I elbowed him.

“Do it yourself then, Marky-poo.”

He snatched the pizza box in his hands.

“Fine, I will.”

And so, as Brooke and I munched on our slices, Mark began his stacking enterprise. One after another he stacked, until he actually did have fourteen.

“Now take one out of the middle,” Brooke joked.

When Mark grabbed a particularly thick one near the center, we cried out our protest. So, laughing, Mark took the top one, and started eating. And that was how we devoured the rest of the pizza, slice by slice from the top of the pile.

Once we were finished, we flopped onto the cool kitchen floor side by side. My mind was hazy with our pizza overdose.

“By the way,” Mark said, “Before Jake and I left today, while we were calling patients to reschedule appointments, we got calls for six more patients.”

Silence. Then, “You know what that means?”

“This scandal isn’t going to hurt the business at all,” I said, “It’s going to help it.”

“Exactly,” Mark said, “Publicity is publicity—and this has given us a ton of free exposure.”

“That may be so,” Brooke said, frowning, “But that doesn’t change how I feel about it. I really wish it had never happened.”

“Me neither,” Mark said, “But since it has, I say we just make the best of it. Say fuck it—let them say what they want. I don’t know about you guys, but I know what’s important to me.”

“Me too,” I agreed.

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say,” Mark protested.

“So?” I said, “Doesn’t mean that I don’t know what’s important to me, too. Besides, I’m your best friend, so I pretty much knew what you were going to say.”

“Oh yeah?” Mark said, “Go on, tell us.”

I smirked.

“You were going to say, that the most important thing is us. Our relationship with Brooke and each other.”

“Beep—wrong,” Mark said, with a grin of his own, “I was going to say that the most important thing to me is to keep having hot kinky sex with Brooke.”

Simultaneously, Brooke and I smacked Mark on the chest.

“Ow,” he said.

“Okay, so maybe you were right, Jake. But you really stole my thunder there, man.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, well now’s your chance. Say away.”

“Now I feel stupid,” Mark said, petulantly. With a sigh, he said, “Oh fine. I was just saying that I don’t think you really realize, Brooke, just how much you mean to us. I mean, I can’t speak for Jake, but I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He didn’t even look at his ex, Alicia, like that. And me? Well, when I hold you in my arms, all I can think about is how different it feels. How I want to protect you from everything bad in the world. How I want to see you smiling like you are right now all the time.”

Embarrassed, Brooke covered her smiling face with her hands, but Mark pulled them down.

“Seriously though. Sometimes I think that you genuinely have no idea how fan-fucking-tastic you are. When you go into a room, it just lights up. You have this really genuinely engaging energy about you. And you’re kind and humble—actually. I mean, you talk to fucking Deidre for Pete’s sake.”

“Hey—she’s not that bad,” Brooke protested.

“She just quit today,” I informed her.

“What?”

“Yep,” Mark confirmed, “Packed her little purple cat bag and told us that enough was enough. That it was too stressful with—everything going on.”

A pause, then Brooke said, “Fuck Deidre.”

We all laughed, and Mark continued, “But seriously, do you have any idea how many girls I’ve dated? How many woman I’ve slept with and felt nothing? And along came you. To say that you blew me away would be the understatement of the decade. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that. That there’s nothing that can endanger what I feel for you.”

He exhaled deeply.

“Whew—this opening up thing is really a load off.”

I laughed.

“Welcome to being a human.”

He scoffed.

“Oh please, it’s not like you’ve opened up that much. Didn’t hear you saying anything just now.”

I leaned up on one elbow to glare at Mark.

“Is that a challenge?”

He shrugged.

“Fuck yeah it is.”

Brooke, however, shook her head.

“You don’t have to say anything if you’re uncomfortable.”

I grabbed her hand.

“But that’s just it, I’m not. I am totally one hundred percent comfortable. More than comfortable with you. And even Mark. I think that’s what has surprised me so most about this arrangement—how natural it feels. As if this was the way things would’ve ended up even if you didn’t propose the idea, Brooke. I don’t know, maybe it’s because of how strongly I feel for you. But these past few days, I’ve been waking up excited. Not for any particular reason, just because I remembered that I was going to see you that day. And whenever I’m around you, I find myself smiling stupidly. At nothing at all. Or just, that you exist. It’s ridiculous, but whenever I see almost anything now, I’m wondering what you’d think about it, if you’d like it. I didn’t know that developing feelings this strong in such a short time was possible. I guess what I really wanted to say was thank you. For caring for us, this crazy guy Mark, and me, and taking a chance on us, even with so much at stake.”

Brooke was blushing adorably.

“Speech, speech,” Mark said.

So, with a still-smiling sigh, Brooke spoke. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to compete with everything you both said. You two bring out the best in me, and show me a part of myself that I wasn’t even sure was there. I always thought something was wrong with me, for not finding a person I gelled with, after so many dates over the years. But you both were the answer. You are the men for me. When I’m around you, I feel completely accepted and more than safe. Throughout this whole process, you two have been more understanding than I ever could have dreamed of. A dream, that’s what this has all been like—even now. That I not only get to work at the job of my dreams, but I get to do so with the men of my dreams. All the while, I thought this was too good to be true. That you both couldn’t possibly agree to being a throuple. And yet, every step along the way, you surprised me with your openness and caring. I’ve never felt more cared for in my life. And I know this is still really early on, but I feel like we’ve been getting the most difficult things out of the way, and I really see this working out long-term.”

“Me too,” Mark said quietly.

“Me too,” I said.

I smiled at the ceiling. I’d said enough for one day; but if I’d been in the mood for talking, I would’ve told Brooke that she’d basically voiced my thoughts. Already, I was imagining the three of us, years down the road, holding hands and laughing together. It seemed at once both improbable – and the likeliest outcome of all.

“I’m still hungry,” Brooke announced, sitting up.

As I glanced over at her face, and those parted lips, her gaze flicked to my groin. No, there was no doubt what kind of hunger she was talking about. It was the same kind of hunger I had now, taking in her eager curvy form. Excitement raced through me, all the way to my hardening cock. Mark and I sat up, exchanging a look. It was time.