Eden’s eyes widen. “Oh, shit. Jacob, Jacob.”
Joanna leans forward and whispers, “Is his name really Jacob Jacob? Because that’s weird but fascinating.”
Eden’s still wearing a stunned expression. “Last time I heard about Jake, he was off backpacking through Europe and Asia.” She claps her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God. All those pictures of famous landmarks on the professor’s timeline.”
“Yep.”
She points at me like she’s Inspector Poirot at the end of an Agatha Christie novel. “He took those photos on his travels. Jacob’s the professor!”
“Oh, my God, Eden. Could it have taken you longer to get there?”
Now she seems even more confused. “But Jacob is all gangly. Long hair. Looks like an urban vampire. Not tall, ripped, and inked.”
“Well, apparently, he’s been hitting the tattoo parlor and gym while he’s been travelling, because he was huge.”
Joanna is starting to get frustrated. “Who the hell is Jacob Jacob? Please spill.”
“Damn,” Eden says, shaking her head. “Of all the assholes in all the gin joints in all the world, you had to develop a literary crush on The Butthole Next Door.” She throws a look at Joanna. “That’s what Ash used to call him.”
“For the love of Hera’s boobs,” Joanna says, throwing her arms in the air. “Would someone please enlighten me about this Jacob Jacob person before my curiosity gland explodes?!”
Eden picks up the wine bottle and distributes the remaining contents between our three glasses. “Jacob Stone used to live next door to us. He and Asha were besties when they were little.”
I nearly choke on my wine. “Slight exaggeration.”
“Really?” Eden says, fixing me with her sarcastic expression. “From the ages of three through eleven you were practically joined at the hip. People thought you were brother and sister, for God’s sake. He spent so much time at our house, everyone in the neighborhood thought mom had three kids. He was like family.”
I pull my legs underneath me so I can wrap the cover around them. “Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.”
“Oooh,” Joanna says, her eyes lighting up. “So, give me the juicy gossip. Was he the boyfriend-next-door who broke your heart?”
“No,” I say, a little too defensively. “Jake and I never had romantic feelings for each other. We were just friends. The boyfriend-next-door was his step-brother, Jeremy.”
Eden gets up and goes over to a nearby bookcase. “Oh, the tension in our neighborhood between the three of them. It was straight out of a John Hughes movie. Former best friends turn into bitter enemies when girl starts paying attention to boy’s despised brother.”
“Step-brother.”
“Whatever. Even before the smack-talk started, I had no idea how anyone could be friends with Jake. He was a little shit to everyone except Asha. But then, when he became an angsty teen rebel, he stopped being nice to her, too. I mean, I know he had a crappy family life and all, but he really turned into a prime slab of A-grade dick.” She grabs a thick photo album from the bookcase and comes back over to the couch. “Make room, bitches.”
She squeezes her narrow butt between me and Joanna before flipping the album open. “Now, let’s see if we still have some photographic evidence of Mr. Teen Dark-and-Stormy.” She flicks through the pages until she comes to a picture of me and Jeremy. We’re standing in his front yard, our arms around each other, beaming like teenagers in love generally do.
“Here we are,” Eden says, as she carefully pulls the photo free. Then she unfolds the left side of it to reveal a young Jake, standing behind his brother’s shoulder, sneering and flipping the bird.
I remember the day this picture was taken. Jeremy had just told me he loved me for the first time. It was also the day I let him touch my boobs for the first time. I’m guessing those two events were linked.
In that moment, I thought no other girl on the planet could love a boy more than I loved Jeremy. Now, the thought makes me cringe. If that was as good as it gets as far as my love life goes, I might as well just give up now.
I flick my gaze over to Jake. Flipping the bird was his main hobby in those days. I don’t think I have a single photo of him over the age of twelve in which he’s smiling. Not that he smiled much before then, either, but it was around that time we drifted apart.
Looking at his face, I can recognize the scaffolding of the man I saw tonight, especially in the darkness of his hair and eyes, the strong eyebrows, and the sharp cut of his jaw. But in the picture, it’s clear he’s still a boy. I don’t think teen-Jake had even started shaving when this photo was taken.
I turn my attention to the other face in the picture. Ah, Jeremy––the boy who looked like he belonged in a Disney movie. The blond-haired, blue-eyed jock. A picture-perfect boyfriend.
As it turned out, also a total prick.
“Wow,” Joanna says as she takes the photo to get a closer look. “Look at you, Ash. Always gorgeous, of course. And this Jeremy guy … wowzers. He was quite the babe.”
I sip my wine and look away from the photo. “Yep, but as my aunt Judy always said, it’s the good-looking ones you have to watch out for.”
“How long were you guys dating?” Joanna asks as she glances up from the pic.
“For most of high school.” It’s annoying how tight my throat still gets when discussing Jeremy. I always believed there was special innocence to first love, like it’s a pristine notebook in which you write an epic love story. Then you realize there are faint scribbles between the words. Hidden messages that you could probably read if you tried hard enough, but you don’t, because they’re not the story you want to tell.
That was my relationship with Jeremy. His fine print was unexpected and painful, and now, whenever I think about the bright, shiny book of my first love, I realize it’s the crap in the margins that tell the true story.
“Yeah,” Eden says, sensing my discomfort. “Jeremy was gorgeous, but he turned out to be a cheating asshole, so he can go suck on a bag of dicks, forever. Jake may have been a douche, but he never pretended to be anything else. Jeremy was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If I ever see him again, I owe him a spinning fan-kick to the face for the way he treated Ash.”
Joanna looks crestfallen. “Well, crap. So, your former-best-friend-turned-Frankenteen shows up tonight and admits he’s Professor Feelgood, and … what? He’s still an ass?”
“Very much so.”
“Does this mean you won’t be editing for him?”
“Unfortunately, he had it written into his contract just to annoy me.”
Eden makes a disgusted noise. “That little shit.”
“You could go to Serena,” Joanna says. “Tell her the real story.”
“And say what? That I don’t want to work with the guy they just spent a fortune securing at my request, because we have a rocky past? She’d laugh me out of her office. Oh, yeah, and the other nugget of news I discovered tonight was that Jake didn’t sign with us because our advance was the largest. No, apparently, another publisher offered to make him a millionaire.”
Both girls’ jaws drop.
“What?!” Eden expression is so gobsmacked, it’s comical.
Joanna’s eyebrows have disappeared into her hairline. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not kidding. Clearly, I’m not the only one to see the potential sales in his millions of followers.”
“Holy crap,” Eden says, her eyes glazing over. “A million dollars.”
I nod. “That was my reaction, too.”
Joanna’s expression morphs into awe. “So … he chose passion over greed. You over the money. Are you sure this man hates you?”
“Very,” Eden and I say in unison.
“So what was the big event that turned you two against each other? I mean, apart from dating his brother.”
“Step-brother,” I say, more out of habit than anything else. “There was no big event. Just years of escalating animo
sity. The constant drip of our ill-will slowly wore through any bonds of friendship we’d built.” I sip my wine. “And this whole book situation is some form of sick vengeance. I’m trying to find a way out of it, but in the meantime, I have to figure out how to work with him without hiding all sharp implements.”
“You’ll be fine,” Joanna says. “I have a feeling it will all work out in the end. Just keep reminding yourself that he’s there for the right reasons. If he was an unredeemable dick, he would have taken your book idea to another publisher and trashed your name around town. The fact he didn’t is a point in his favor. Remember that when the urge to hurt him arises.” She gives each of us a crushing hug. “Goodnight, sweet Tate sisters. See you on the morrow.”
We bid her goodnight, and after she leaves, Eden and I fall into silence and gaze dumbly at the TV.
“You wanna talk about him?” she asks, not looking at me.
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
Talking about Jake and all the ways he annoyed/hurt/humiliated me was never my strong suit.
After draining the rest of my wine, I retreat to take a quick shower. Any lingering cold is melted away by the hot water, but my simmering tension remains.
When I’m done, I wrap myself in my robe and head into Eden’s room. She’s writing on her laptop, but when she sees me, she stops. “Want snuggles?”
“Do you have time?”
“Sure. Max will be doing staff training until late.” She pulls back the sheets. “Jump in.”
I climb into bed and rest my head on her shoulder as she goes back to her work.
“You okay?” she asks, while tapping out some story ideas for the coming week. “You’ve been pretty subdued since you got home. Are you disappointed about the whole Jacob thing?”
“Of course. I mean, I thought I’d finish the night in triumph, having signed a brave new literary voice, and instead I ended up being transported back in time and having a shouting match with Jake in the middle of the sidewalk.”
“Ugh, really?”
“Yep. I don’t think we know any other way to be anymore. Old habits die hard.”
“Are you sure you can’t convince him to get a different editor?”
I push myself up on my elbow. “Edie, it’s Jake. Even if I had an extra million dollars to offer him, he’d still insist I be at his beck and call, just to spite me. You know how he is.”
“Yeah, he always did get some sort of sadistic pleasure from pressing your buttons.”
“The thing I’m most afraid of is that we’ll implode in an atomic cloud of toxicity, and not only take the book with us, but put Whiplash out of business in the process. That’s a lot of freaking pressure on a first-time editor who hates her author.”
Eden shuts her laptop and puts in on her nightstand before snuggling down and wrapping her arm around me.
“Ash, if anyone can do this, it’s you. Just try to remember what you liked about Jake when you were kids. Maybe you can even get back to being friends.”
I turn and look at her. “Seriously?”
She shrugs. “Okay, that’s about as likely as your Hemsworth body pillow being cast in the next Thor movie. But I’m trying to be optimistic.”
“I know.”
“If things get too bad between you guys, let me know. I’ll be only too pleased to come and insert a giant cactus up Mr. Stone’s ass.”
The mental image makes me laugh, and Eden gives me a squeeze before we both sigh and go quiet. For a few minutes, we just lay there, both lost in our own thoughts.
I’m starting to think Eden’s dozed off when she says, “Ash?”
“Uh huh.”
“Uh … I know it’s a touchy subject for you, but … your birthday is coming up, and––“
I immediately tense up. “Edie, please don’t go there.“
“… Nannabeth thinks you should have a party.”
“No.”
I should have known this was coming. Nannabeth has been dropping hints for weeks now, and no matter how many times I try to change the subject, she’s like a dog with a bone and refuses to let go.
“Ash, come on. Just a few people. Me, you, Max, Toby, and Joanna. We all want to celebrate with you. Nan has bought Moby a special party hat and everything.”
“Well, she shouldn’t have. You know the rule. No party. No fuss. Please.”
Dammit, Nan should know better by now. I don’t do birthdays. I haven’t since I was nine. Every year they try to change my position, and every year I shoot them down. I really wish they’d get the hint that birthday celebrations are a hard limit for me.
Sensing my familiar pig-headedness Eden relents with a soft sigh. When she speaks again, I can tell she’s choosing her words carefully.
“Ash, I know we all have our baggage, and God knows I have just as much as you. But one thing Max has taught me is that all that stuff from our past … we have to deal with it at some point so we can let it go. It’s not healthy to hang onto things like that. We tell ourselves it doesn’t affect our lives and our relationships, but it does. Sometimes we need to purge the past so we can achieve our future. I’m slowly learning how to do that, and I think you should, too.”
I don’t answer her, because I don’t have anything to say. I agree that we all have our issues, but telling someone to get over it is pointless. Some events are written in permanent ink on our psyche, and no amount of mental scrubbing will erase them.
I give her a final hug and climb out of bed. “I’d better go. Don’t want Max to come in and find me Goldilocking in his spot. The man has an impressive glare when the mood takes him.”
“Please don ’t be mad.”
I turn back to her. “I’m not. Honestly. I’m just tired. And for that reason, when Max gets here, please remember that these walls are thin, and I can’t un-hear certain sounds, even through my ear plugs.”
I can see the shadow of concern still coloring her expression, but she gives me a smile anyway. “I’ll try my best. Lord knows that man makes it difficult to keep quiet. See you in the morning.”
“Yep. See you then.”
I pad back into my bedroom and turn out the light before taking off my robe and climbing into bed.
I’m plugging the charger into my phone when a message flashes on the screen.
I shake my head and type a reply.
I smile as warmth fills me. After such a shitty, stressful day, that’s exactly what I needed to hear. He really is the sweetest man I’ve ever met.
Then why can’t you get past your crap and let him make sweet love to you?
I shake off my negativity.
After sending the message, I shut off my phone and let out a sigh.
My dad used to have a saying: “There are only so many machetes someone can juggle before they start losing fingers.” I later found out he was talking about attempting to deal with multiple women without mom finding out, but now I think that saying is relevant to life in general. I wonder how much longer I can keep my boyfriend in the dark about my sexual dysfunction before someone ends up getting hurt.
I flip onto my side and stare at the wall. After the clusterfuck of today’s insane events, all I want to do is sleep, but my brain is spinning with a montage of memories from my childhood. Three-year-old Jake, staring at me from his yard the day he moved into the house next door; five-year-old Jake who makes me giggle by making lightsaber noises while he spins and parries with a broken broomstick; twelve-year-old Jake who seems to get angrier every day and starts coming ov
er less and less; fourteen-year-old Jake who doesn’t talk to me anymore, and sneers the first time he makes me cry.
It’s hard to reconcile the twenty-four-year-old man he’s grown into with any of those memories, and it’s even harder to accept that any version of Jake is the hot-as-hell Professor Feelgood, but that’s the reality I have to live with, whether I like it or not.
The only thing that consoles me as I finally drift off to sleep is that tomorrow can’t possibly be any worse than today.
Predictably, I dream of falling machetes.
TEN
____________________
It Gets Worse
“SHIT.”
I wipe away a smear of eyeliner as I try to complete my makeup in record time. “Shit, shit, shit.” Of course, on the most important day of my entire career, I slept through my alarm for the first time ever. Just another addition to my ever-growing file of Random Things That Suck. I’m now running super late for work, and as usual when I’m in a mad rush, nothing is going my way.
“Here,” Eden says as she comes into the bathroom and shoves some toast into my mouth. “And Max has made you coffee. It’s on the bench.”
“Shanks,” I say, speaking around a mouthful of toast. I quickly stroke on a light layer of mascara and brush on some powder before running barefoot to my room to grab my shoes and purse.
“Oh, crap. Eden, I left my coat at the bar last night. Can I borrow one of yours?”
She flashes past my doorway and returns in a few seconds with her red trench. “Here. Anything else?”
“Nope. I’m outta here.”
She follows behind me as I dash into the kitchen to grab my coffee. I take a quick mouthful and set the cup down. “No time to finish. Thanks, though.”
Max is there bent over Eden’s laptop. “Ash?
“Yeah?”
“Uh, before you go, you’d better look at this.” He turns the screen so I can see it. “Forewarned is forearmed and all that.”
A popular publishing blog is splashed with the headline, Whiplash Steals Social Media Star from Major Publisher. In addition to the lovely headline, the article takes a swipe at me personally by saying that Whiplash is gambling their six-figure investment by “entrusting the high-risk project to a novice editor with no experience.”