exhale. I need to talk to Jake as soon as possible. I was going to give him one last chance to come clean with me before I told him about Symanski.
Call me when you’re free, I texted him
I puttered around the office for an hour or so before he texted back. Just got done with mom. Need to go back to the hotel and get some clean clothes. Touch base with my clients. What’s up?
How’d it go with your mom? She gave me a heart attack this morning.
He sent back some laughing emojis. Me, too. Good, I think. Talk more later?
Yeah, meet me at my house? I didn’t want to do this over the phone and definitely not over text.
Sure. An hour and a half?
See you then. I exhaled and set the phone down. Now I had an hour and half to think of what I was going to say to him.
Jake showed up at my house, hair still damp from the shower, with a half-eaten box of donuts and a solemn expression. “Here’s your sweatpants,” he said, placing a plastic bag on the counter. “I’m keeping the T-shirt.”
“Good.” That way, no matter what went down in the next few hours, he’d have to think of me. I opened the box, picking through the offerings. “You ate all the good ones,” I complained, scraping up the remains of maple icing from the sides of the box.
“I saved you a sour cream,” he said, reaching over me to pull out the ring of cakey goodness.
“Give it,” I said.
He did, minus one bite.
“Hey, you must have eaten three already.”
“I did. But I’ve had a stressful day. I need more,” he said.
“Was Aunt Momo hard on you?”
He tilted his head in a yes-no motion. “She actually pulled the car over to yell at me. And then gave me a lecture on safe sex.”
I held out the donut.
He took another bite, and then looked directly at me with such a serious expression, the donut sat heavily in my stomach. I put it down on the counter.
“What?” I said. “Should we have used condoms?”
“No, schmuck. Wait, should we have?”
I shook my head quickly. “Not on my account.”
“Mine, neither.” He made an impatient gesture. “You distracted me.”
“You’re the one who mentioned your mother and sex in the same sentence,” I pointed out.
He sighed, and then picked up the donut, breaking off pieces of it and eating them slowly, apparently deep in thought.
I stopped the last piece on the way to his mouth. “Jake. What’s going on?”
“And then after she dropped me off, I did some soul searching.”
“That must have been terrible,” I said.
He handed me the last bite of donut. “It was awful. I hated it.”
Grabbing a glass from the cabinet, I poured us both some milk. “And?”
“And, we need to talk.”
“Yeah, we do,” I agreed.
We passed the glass back and forth until it was empty. I rinsed it in the sink and then turned to Jake. “Want to go for a drive?”
“Absolutely. But I’m driving.”
19 Eric
Jake’s car turned out to be a Lexus sedan like mine, but the current model in contrast to my ten-year-old one. It also looked as if he’d gone all out with the luxury package. “Nice car. Very bougie.”
“It’s a rental,” he said dismissively.
“Yeah? What do you normally drive?”
“Depends on what I need, what my…client needs.”
“What do you drive when it’s just you going for a drive? When you’re driving just for the fun of it?”
He gave me a sheepish grin. “Don’t laugh.”
“I make no promises.” If it was some kind of minivan or something sensible like a hybrid, I was going to give him such shit for it.
“I got a seventy-three Challenger.” His eyes sparkled.
“Dude! No way! You’ve wanted that since, like, forever.”
“I know.” He glared at the grey Lexus as if it offended him.
“I’m so bummed we’re not driving that right now.” It was the perfect day for it. “Is it red? Tell me it’s red.”
“It’s red. V-8. Four on the floor.”
“I can’t believe we have to suffer with this.” I shook my head in mock sorrow.
“And yet somehow, I think you’ll survive. Besides, there’s no eating or drinking in Big Red. You can do whatever you want in this.”
I waggled my eyebrows. “Oh, really? Whatever I want?” Around Jake, my heart and my body would always, eternally, override my mind. Con artist or not, I wanted him.
“Anything,” he said with a flash of heat.
I admit I gave the backseat a quick evaluation. We’d fooled around in a car