Jake
I’d always known that she’d run at some point. But this wasn’t entirely about her fear of letting me get too close. I was distracted. I had Millie making demands on me that I knew must have been difficult for Haven to stomach. And how could I expect anyone to live through me having a baby with another woman? I had been stupid to think that it could end any other way with Haven. I had hoped the way I felt about her would shelter us from everything else. That we could ride out the storm together. I wanted to look after us both and keep our hearts safe for each other.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked as I walked through the door to our apartment. She knew me too well; there was no hiding anything from her. I’d left the office just after Haven in the hope of finding Beth at home. There was no point being at work.
“Not really.”
“What’s going on? Is it Haven?”
Why had she assumed that I would be upset about Haven? Had they spoken? Could she tell that Haven had never been mine at all?
I nodded and collapsed on the sofa. “She ended it. She doesn’t want to be an additional pressure although she needs to be my priority. Or something.” I couldn’t remember everything she’d said. The conversation with Haven seemed to be over before it began. By the time I caught my breath and had finally managed to find some words, she’d already left.
“So, you’re going to fight for her, right?” Beth asked.
Despite, or perhaps because of, what was going on with me, it was so good to see Beth. She looked great. Her eyes were bright and she seemed more relaxed at the core of her somehow. I smiled, but shook my head. “What do you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been fighting for her every day since I met her. I can’t make her feel about me the way I do about her. It’s not mandatory. And she’s right. I can’t expect her to stand by me while another woman has my baby. Like she said, it’s not fair to her. I was a fool to think we were going to be okay.”
Beth pursed her lips. “I don’t believe this is about her lack of feeling. If anything, it’s the opposite. She sounds like she doesn’t want you to be torn between her and Millie. She’s sacrificing herself for you. Of course, if she knew Millie, Haven would realize what a lunatic Millie is and that you were a dick for ever putting your dick anywhere near her. Scratch that. If she knew Millie, Haven would think your judgment was so off, she’d walk anyway.” She elbowed me, trying to elicit a smile.
“You’re not helping. You know that, right?”
“I am too. I’m making you feel bad about yourself and that’s important because—and I’d know—you need to hit rock bottom before you can start recovery.”
I rolled my eyes and she laughed. It was good to have her back. Haven had asked whether Beth was back today. Had she been waiting for Beth to return to end things? Had she been that careful with my feelings? I didn’t know if it would be better or worse if she had. My stomach churned with the loss of her.
“So do you have a plan?” Beth asked.
“A plan?”
“Yeah, to win her back. You always have a plan. That’s what you do. You plan, you fix, you make everything better.”
I let myself consider her analysis of me. Was that who I was? I suppose it was. But this situation wasn’t fixable. Maybe Haven had been right. It wasn’t our time.
“Of course, it will help when you get that paternity test back to prove that baby isn’t yours,” Beth continued. “But what else are you going to do?”
“I’ve told you. I can’t make her do anything, and what makes you so sure that Millie is lying? She’s vacuous and a bit cold, but she’s not a monster. And she’s not stupid. She’s not going to tell me it’s mine if she’s going to get found out eventually. Why would she bother?”
“I’m not saying I understand her, I just think she’s got a game plan. But time will tell and then I’ll take great delight in saying that I told you so.”
Beth getting to gloat would be worth it, but the instant I had the thought I felt guilty. If the kid was mine, I didn’t want to be wishing it away.
“I can’t think about that. It seems wrong that I’d be hoping that the baby is another man’s. And I don’t think she’d lie. I really don’t. I’m going to concentrate on Elemental Energy. It needs a lot of time and attention from me. We’re also going to move.”
“We are?” Beth asked.
“We are. There’s no room for three of us in this apartment.” I put my hand out to silence Beth from saying anything else about paternity. “And I need to move on. This place is a dump, you’re right.”
“Oh my God, breakthrough! You see? Every cloud has a silver lining. You might have lost the love of your life, and you might never be happy again, but I’ll be cooking in a nicer kitchen.” She grinned and I threw a cushion at her.
“I saw some places this weekend with Haven.” I stood up and headed to my desk in the corner of the living room. “These. I think two were ones you’d picked out.”
I handed her brochures from the apartments that we had visited. She grabbed my hand and pulled me down onto the sofa.
“Have you considered sharing your feelings with her about everything you’ve got going on? Rather than just trying to keep everyone happy, you could explain to her the pressure. If you don’t let her see the strain, how can she trust you when you show her the good stuff, when you tell her how important she is to you? You have to reveal all of you, and trust her to love you anyway.”
I closed my eyes and let what Beth was saying sink in. “Stop with the making sense thing, just for a little bit.” I exhaled. I was exhausted.
“Okay, but if you love her, Jake, you can’t just let her go. I’ve never seen you give up on something you really wanted. Don’t let me think that giving up is an option.”
I pulled her into a hug. I didn’t know what to say. Haven wanted me to let her go, and I had to give her anything she wanted.
“But I’m great at house hunting,” Millie said, trying to convince me to take her to a second viewing that Beth had arranged that afternoon for one of the apartments that I’d seen a few weeks before. With Beth’s exams finished, she’d thrown herself into finding us a new place to live now that I’d finally agreed it was time to move.
“I’m going with Beth,” I replied. When I’d told Millie that Haven and I had broken up she hadn’t tried very hard to hide her glee. She dressed it up in concern, but I could tell she was delighted. I suppose it was better for her. Even though we weren’t together, Millie was increasingly demanding, asking me to pick up shopping and medication for her, and now that Haven wasn’t in the picture, there seemed to be less of a reason to resist.
“But I could see what would work for the baby. If there are danger zones and things.”
I sighed, wondering which was the lesser of two evils: Millie’s whining or Beth’s temper if I dared to bring Millie along.
Beth won. “No, Millie. Stop.” The thought of seeing her in that last apartment that Haven and I had seen together was just wrong. Haven owned that space.
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
I must have really snapped at her if she was apologizing. My stomach churned with guilt.
“We’re friends, right, Jake?”
“Of course, I didn’t mean to snap at you—” I pushed my hands through my hair.
“So friends can have dinner. Let me take you out, as a friend, and maybe I can get a smile out of you,” Millie continued.
I sighed. I didn’t have the energy to say no. “Okay. We can go around the corner for a quick, early supper.”
Millie’s face lit up and she smiled widely at me.
“I need to go,” I said. “I’ll see you here at seven. Be ready.”
“I like it,” Beth said.
I liked the apartment, too. The first time I’d seen it had been with Haven. I could still see her face as she walked from room to room, open-mouthed. She looked good in this place. It was comforting that she’d seen it and liked it. If I ended up living here, I would feel as if a part of her was always with me.
“By the grin on your face, it seems like you like it, too,” Beth said, snapping me out of my thoughts of Haven.
“It’s big,” I said.
“It is. The views are amazing . . .”
“And you don’t think I’d be better off in a house, a bit further out, rather than an apartment?”
“No. I think you’ve got great outside space here. A house takes maintenance, and if you want that, you can buy a country place. If you’re in the city, live with all the conveniences.” Beth was right, as usual. And I needed to be close to Millie and the baby.
“And you like your room?” I asked.
Beth’s chest rose as she took in a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking,”
“Careful, you might strain something.”
She gave me a hard stare. “I’ve been thinking,” she repeated, “that I might get my own place.”
My stomach dropped away from me. It was the last thing I was expecting her to say. We’d lived together for years.
“You want to move out?”
“I think it’s time. I dealt with so much stuff when I went back to Chicago. I’m so much stronger. I think I need to try to be independent. A bit.”
“You’ll still be nearby?”
She nodded, and her eyes danced as if it were Christmas, and we were kids. She was excited and it was so good to see. “I thought maybe I could rent somewhere for a while, close by, and then see.”
“I hate to interrupt,” my realtor said. “I couldn’t help but overhear. I don’t know what your budget is, but I have a lovely one-bedroom place in this building. I could show you that now, if you’d like to see it?”
Beth looked at me and smiled. I grinned back. This could be the perfect solution.
“It’s twelve hundred square feet, so considerably smaller than the penthouse that we’ve just seen, but that’s reflected in the price,” Debbie said as we walked into the open plan living and dining area.
“It’s a lot of money,” Beth whispered.
“But you have enough, and if you need more then you can have that, too.”
“Of course I don’t need more. You’ve been more than generous. I’ve never felt that the money’s really mine, Jake. It’s yours.”
When I’d sold Energy Trade, I’d given Beth a chunk of money that she wouldn’t touch other than to pay her college tuition. My dad had point-blank refused to take anything, so the fact that the money sat in an account with Beth’s name on it had felt like a victory at the time. I wanted her to use it.
“Can we not do this again? I want you to have that money. I have plenty. And buying this place would be a smart investment for you. The money’s not doing much sitting in the bank. Spend it, or invest it.”
“You think?” She looked up at me expectantly.
“I really do.”
“Does it suit me? Do I seem like I belong here?” she asked.
“I think that you belong anywhere you want to. We both need to move on and move up. An apartment is just the people that live in it.” I wasn’t sure if moving in here was moving on, it was more like a way of hanging on to something that had never belonged to me—my future with Haven.
“It wouldn’t bother you having your little sister living in the same building?” Beth asked.
“I think it would be perfect. I’ll have a built-in babysitter.”
She punched me on the arm. “You won’t need one. When are you going to realize that I’m always right? But it would be good, wouldn’t it?” She grinned.
I was sold. The realtor was about to make a killing from the pair of us.