Chapter 6
James
“I fold.” James tossed his poker hand onto the table and leaned back to sip his cognac. It didn’t come close to bourbon on a scale of It’s acceptable to I’d rather drink my own piss, but when a man was at a country club, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. The old guard passed out cognac. He would bloody well drink cognac.
His best friend Ian Mathers hooted in surprise when it turned out he won that round of poker with nothing but two pairs. James grumbled that the dealer had been shoddy, but he soon realized he meant himself. Me. I’m the dealer.
Cognac and poker was the flavor of the day at the monthly meeting for Beta Kappa Phi, the fraternity most of the city’s well-bred males joined once they reached undergrad at select universities. (If a man was well-bred enough, there were only a few undergrads he could attend. That went double for men like James and Ian, who were the only children of their families’ great business ventures.) The fact most of the old brothers lived in the same city only leant to them meeting up once a month to relive those so-called glory days.
Gwen was here yesterday, wasn’t she? James thanked his lucky star that his mother didn’t ask to see Gwen on a Saturday, when her husband and son would be tearing up the lounge with their old frat buddies. The cigar and cigarette smoke alone were enough to kill the sensitive lungs in the room. Luckily, that was mostly relegated to the balcony area, and James was free to breathe in the far corner of the room where the poker games were afoot.
He didn’t have time to ponder what his mother and Gwen had talked about the day before. Not when Ian demanded another round, complete with his chips piling high before him.
“You’re going to clean me out.” James didn’t gamble often, but when he did, he made sure to gamble no more than ten thousand dollars. That was enough, since that was a mid-range weekend vacation with Gwen. If he lost all his money? Oh, well. He supposed that meant they were staying in for the weekend. Whatever would they do? “How am I supposed to explain to Gwen that I’m a poor man if you feel it in your heart to steal my last dime?”
Ian shuffled the cards. Probably injected an extra ace in there. “I don’t need your money, Jim. I need your soul.”
“So that’s how you stay looking so good in your thirties?”
“Says the man as old as me.”
James stacked his chips into a wobbly tower. “You’re the one known for your ghastly good looks. I always had a different method for charming the ladies.”
“You think my looks were good enough to bed as many women as I have?” Ian clicked his tongue as he dealt the cards for another round of poker. “You have to be charming, you fool. That’s the one thing you’re probably better at than I am.”
“We all have our strengths.”
Ian downed the last of his cognac before looking at his hand. “Ah, shit.”
“I’m not falling for that.”
“Nah. It’s bad. You’ve got this one.”
“You haven’t even exchanged cards yet.”
They played through two more hands, James losing every one. My head isn’t in the game. All he could think about was Gwen, and how she joined him for dinner at home the night before with only a sullen tug of her lips.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ian pushed the cards to the side when James lost his fifth hand in a row. “You’re usually not this bad at poker.”
“I’m usually not this distracted.”
Ian opened his mouth but closed it as quickly. Probably because whatever he wanted to say was uncouth enough to get a smack across that mouth. Instead, he cleared his throat, finished stacking the cards and chips, and said, “How’s the kid?”
James shot him a look that implied he knew Ian really meant, How’s Gwen? That was the problem with knowing someone for as long as he knew Ian. The two of them had been inseparable since they rushed Beta Kappa Phi together. Ian was the first person to learn about Gwen’s existence after James left that bar with her face imprinted on his memory. “There’s this girl at that bar on the other side of town. Vermillion, I think it’s called. Ever been there? Hottest bartender I’ve ever seen.” Ian didn’t bother remembering Gwen’s face or name until James swore he had never been so in love.
That was years ago. Since then, James had seen his best friend go through a string of women until finally hooking up with Kathryn, the one woman he had wanted since he was a horny teenager. Yes, he told me all the embarrassing stories. In college, no less, when they were so drunk during midterms that James shared his homoerotic fantasies and Ian confessed he once tried to hook up with Kathryn, but prematurely… arrived. Crazy to think that back then, those were deep, dark secrets we both kept. Aging and maturity had granted them some perspective.
“He’s getting big.” James dug into his pocket before the inevitable follow-up question arrived. “Saw him on Monday, and he was as big as a preschooler.” That was an overstatement, but James couldn’t hide the bit of pride that hit him when he realized his genetics contributed to that. That doesn’t make sense. I can’t control my genetics. I didn’t even control his creation. Sometimes, the male ego didn’t have to make sense, let alone to the man in possession of such an ego. “Look at him.” James passed his phone to Ian. An album of Patrick’s pictures and videos were ready for swiping. “Looks like me, doesn’t he?”
That wasn’t surprising. First thing James did after hearing Cassandra’s confession was order a paternity test. When it came back positive, he resigned himself to this sudden fatherhood.
“Good Lord. He really does.” Ian swallowed his next observation.
“Go on. Say it. I know what you’re thinking, man.”
Ian shook his head. “He looks exactly like you and Cassandra.”
That also wasn’t surprising, since James and Cassandra both possessed dark hair and similar facial features. Those facts helped fuel the rumors that they shared the same father. Luckily for them, Patrick’s paternity test had also debunked the rumors that he was inbred, not that either the Meranges or the Welshes needed proof of that.
“Beautiful kid, James.” Ian swiped through some of the photos, most of them taken as recently as that Monday. “You’ve gotta be proud.”
“I am. I want to do right by that kid, you know.”
“Of course you do. I hope the Welshes aren’t stonewalling you.”
James considered that for a moment. “They’ve been quite accommodating at including me in my own son’s life, although Sarah made sure I knew I had little say in his upbringing. Unless I wanted to make him my heir, of course.”
“Well? Aren’t you?”
“Aren’t I what?”
Ian cocked his head. “Making him your heir. I thought you and Gwen weren’t having kids, and you’re gonna need an heir at some point.”
“I’m sure that’s what they’re hoping for. I haven’t decided yet. Would rather see how he turns out, you know?”
“Of course.”
James could’ve used the opportunity to flip the script on Ian. Maybe goad him about what he would do about heirs, since Kathryn was not the baby begetting type, let alone a motherly personality. Even if the Alison family died out with her – since God knew they didn’t do anything with their money anymore – there were still the Mathers, who had a healthy and thriving hospitality company. Ian was set to take that over, but where did that leave future generations? It was a conundrum James was too familiar with.
But James was too absorbed in his thoughts to play games with Ian. “I’m worried about Gwen,” he said.
Ian sighed, as if he had known that was coming. “She doesn’t look that happy anymore.”
“Can you blame her?”
“No. Now she knows for sure that your family hates her.”
“She’s always known that. Besides, my mom doesn’t hate her. My mom’s too spineless to do anything about how my father treats Gwen. That’s why I have to pull double-duty on that front.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well…” Ian didn’t understand. His parents loved Kathryn, and her father was quite fond of him. He rarely dealt with the kind of familial drama that resulted in destroyed bonds and terrible rumors that haunted children for life. Do you know what it’s like for everyone to know your dad’s fucking some other married woman? Do you know what it’s like for people to joke that you’re half-siblings with the mother of your child? James had walked into many rooms of quieted laughter that past year. He knew he was the object of every joke. “I think Gwen’s gonna leave me.”
“Nah. No way.”
James tapped his forehead against the card table. “You don’t get it. I’m not sure how we’re going to get past what’s happened. She’s like this otherworldly creature now. I see her, I hear her, God knows I feel her vibes every time we’re in the same room… but I can’t penetrate the veil she’s drawn. I think she’s girding herself for breaking up with me. Cut me off now so it doesn’t hurt as much when she actually does it.”
“She knows this shit isn’t your fault, right? She can’t possibly think you actually had an affair with Cassandra.” Was that a hiss in Ian’s voice?
“You say that like you didn’t enjoy dating her.”
“There’s a reason I broke up with her.”
“She dumped you.”
Ian shrugged. “It wouldn’t have worked out. She’s the wrong kind of emotionally volatile for me.” He grinned. “I like my mates running themselves ragged because they’re overachievers, as you may have noticed. Lot easier to get those kinds to calm down.”
“Cassandra is volatile, all right.” Volatile enough to think it was a good idea to steal her childhood friend’s sperm and ride off with his baby. “She’s lucky I don’t want to fight for custody. I would make her life such hell if I wanted. Probably kill her.” James didn’t say that with any joy. The thought of doing that to a woman he once held so dear hurt his poor, empathetic heart. Dad always did say my ability to feel things would be the end of me. Albert would know all about that.
“Why didn’t you ever go out with her?” Ian asked. “God knows everyone thought it would happen before you ended up with Gwen.”
“Are you asking from a place of genuine curiosity?”
“Naturally.”
James held up one of his blue chips, the rigid edges tickling her fingertips as it rolled between his thumb and forefinger. “It wasn’t ever like that with her. We grew up together. Some people see growing up together as a precursor for adult romance, and guys like me… well, those girls become sisters, not dates.” He put the chip down. “In another life, if I were still single and she was desperate…”
“Yeah?”
“All she had to do was ask, and I probably would have made that baby with her. Just not the old-fashioned way.”
“I see.”
“Yeah.” James glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of his father on the balcony, having a cigar and laughing it up with men his age. “Gwen changed everything, I guess.”
“Hey, if you guys break up, it’s not only your hearts that will be broken. You’ve got a bunch of fans, my friend.”
James tossed the chip into the air and caught it with his fist. “Don’t think your heart compares in any way to mine.”
“I remember when you were one of the most noncommittal men I had ever met.”
The same could be said about you. Kathryn had changed that for Ian, who had been crowned the city’s biggest playboy before he fell in love. “Like I said.” James let the chip in his hand fall to the floor. “Gwen changed everything.”
***
He approached her from behind, careful to make sure she acknowledged his presence before he wrapped his arms around her.
“Let’s go somewhere tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t have anything going on Monday until the early evening, so we could spend the night somewhere. How about it? We could drive up to New York or fly down to Miami. What’s your poison, lovely?”
Gwen scoffed, her fingers dexterously buttoning up the rest of her sleep shirt. It was like she firmly said, “We are not having sex tonight.” Last Monday had been a fluke, apparently. And the fooling around they did a couple days later… didn’t that mean something? Apparently not.
“Can’t say either New York or Miami appeal to me right now.”
“Then where do you want to go?” James gently rocked her back and forth, careful to keep his awakening manhood from making a fool of them both. “We could rent that cabin in the mountains. You remember the one. From our ho…”
“It’s too cold for that,” Gwen snapped. “What if it’s snowing up there?”
“Fine. Let’s at least go out to dinner tomorrow. I know it’s Sunday, but The Dark Hour might have something fun going on.”
Gwen gently freed herself from his grasp and sat at her vanity, where she brushed a few tangles out of her long hair. James pried his eyes from how her sleep shirt clung to her torso. The highlight of her breasts was not helping him seduce her. Not when all he could think about was getting her in bed, preferably on her hands and knees. The sex-starved parts of his brain wanted it hard and fast. And to pull her hair…
They hadn’t been that wild in months. James recalled a time when they were considered the kinkiest couple in town, because there was barely a thing they wouldn’t try. Bondage and power plays were only the tips of the iceberg. Everyone at the BDSM club had seen them naked more than once, and it didn’t bother James any more than everyone seeing him limp after twisting his ankle at the gym.
Those were the real glory days of his youth. Every time he and Gwen did something outrageous or brought a smile to some stranger’s face were the memories he wanted to treasure until his dying day.
How could he make her see that?
“You don’t want to go anywhere?” he asked her.
Gwen hesitated on her twentieth brush stroke. “Not really. Maybe when it gets warmer.”
“Yeah.” James sighed. “Warmer.”
The definition of warm was making love in front of the fire. Or laying half-naked in the sunlight on some white, pristine beach somewhere in the world. Either way, they better be sweaty and naked. Are those jungle treehouses still renting down in Costa Rica, or were they wiped out in the last storm? Now there was an idea. James had enough money to pay everyone to look the other way while he and Gwen ran around in their birthday suits.
He turned toward the bed. Gwen put her hairbrush down and said, “I really did like that cabin in the woods. It was cozy, but still had all the comforts you’ve spoiled me with these past few years.”
James met her halfway across the bedroom, Gwen’s hair down and her body bedecked in cotton shorts and that blasted button-up shirt she wore during the winter. How many times have I unbuttoned it for you, Gwenny? “Me too. To think, we found it on a total whim after we hopped in my car and asked Siri where the hell we should go for the weekend.”
“Siri always comes through. She’s like the third-wheel around here.”
“I thought that was Rebecca.”
Gwen chuckled. “I’m not asking her where to buy lube when I’m on the other side of town.”
“Who are you lubing it up with these days?”
“Your ass.”
“I think I would remember that.”
Gwen grinned. Then, as if she hadn’t meant to show that level of mirth around her partner, she turned away, frowning.
“Nobody loves you like I do, Gwen.”
She bristled. “What’s that for?”
“Just reminding you.”
“You make it sound like I don’t know.”
James leaned against her vanity, arms crossed. “What’s wrong with saying how much I love you every day for the rest of your life? You make it sound like I’m gaslighting you or something.”
“That’s not what gaslighting is.”
“Are you the one gaslighting me about what gaslighting means now?”
“Not in the mood for jokes right now, James.”
He sighed. “I worry about us, you know.”
She said nothing.
“This whole baby thing… I know it’s messed with you more than it has with me, and I’m the surprise dad.”
“Do you have to bring this up right now?”
“Yes.”
Gwen slid her elbows across her vanity until they met the bottom of her mirror. Hands smacked against her face. Fingers pushed into her hair. “Now’s really not a good time to talk about it. I’m…”
“You should come with me next week to see Patrick.”
His interruption ensured that there were no more words spoken for a whole minute. Slowly, Gwen removed her hands from her face, both eyes looking at her partner as if he had asked her to marry his father.
“How can you ask me that?” she hissed. “God, James, sometimes I swear you’re the most tone-deaf person I know.”
“I want him to get to know you,” James continued, as if she hadn’t said anything. “The earlier he understands how it is in his family, the better. I keep worrying that the family is telling him that his mother and I are together. I know kids can’t really get things that young…”
“Trust me, James, they do. You think I didn’t understand that my parents divorced when I was three and I had a new dad a year later? Kids are smart. They pick up on everything.”
“Exactly. I want to make sure my son picks up on the right things.” James would be damned if the Welshes were telling his son that Mommy and Daddy were married. He didn’t put it past them. If they were diabolical enough to do what they had, then James had his work cut out for him in the fatherhood department. I don’t want to have to fight for custody, but I will if I think my son is being brainwashed by those heathens. James hadn’t signed away his parental rights, and he wouldn’t. Cassandra could marry the top lawyer in the state, and James would go to the next state over and hire their top lawyer to get him even half-time custody.
Gwen finally looked at him. Her eyes were dull and sleepy, yet James knew her fatigue came more from the pain in her heart than the wear on her body. “What are you going to do when he’s finally old enough to understand how he came to be? What do you think that is going to do to a kid?” Gwen pointed her head back down to her crossed arms on her vanity. “What if we had kids? How would we explain that to them?”
James raised his eyebrows. Gwen brought up children so infrequently, that hearing those words uttered from her lips was like surviving whiplash. “Got something you wanna share, Gwenny?”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
She sighed. “I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a stepmother. Not to a kid that came about like that.” Her hands formed into angry fists. “It would’ve been bad enough if some unknown baby mama came out of the woodwork… you know, one you actually slept with before you met me. Hell, sometimes I think I would handle you cheating on me better than… this.”
“If I had cheated on you,” James began, knowing that he poked the hornet’s nest, “you’d have grounds to break up with me. Cleanly. No judgment from anyone.” He walked toward their bed. “That’s what you’d love, right? A clean breakup.”
“Watch it.”
“Watch what?” James flopped onto the bed, hands behind his head. “Our relationship deteriorate because shit got real and hard?”
“It’s gotten ‘real’ before, asshole.”
“Yes, and you remember what we did when it got real.”
Gwen kept her focus on the mirror in front of her. “What clean breakup are you talking about? We lost our chance at that two years ago.”
James rolled away from her, facing the empty side of the bed usually reserved for Gwen’s form. “I wish you’d talk to me about what’s really bothering you. I want to work through this. I need you by my side, Gwen. You’re the only one with enough bite in my corner.”
“I’ve been trying for a whole year. I’m tired.”
“If you want to break up, fucking say so.”
She said nothing. He expected as much.
When Gwen finally came to bed ten minutes later, the lights were off and the ceiling fan turning on its highest setting. James waited until Gwen had settled in before scooting up behind her and saying, “I love you. We once said that was all that mattered.”
“I never said I didn’t love you. Why do you think this is so hard?”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to his chest. Gwen didn’t put up a fight. When her head rested upon his hand, James nestled his face into the back of her neck and said, “We’ll get through this. We’ve gotten through everything. Why would this be so different?”
He knew why. So did Gwen. His only hope was that his faulty bravado was enough to convince them that everything would be all right.