Illicit: A Forbidden Romance (14 page)

J
oss
and I went home a few hours later, after the nurses urged Joss to get some rest. She drove her car and I followed close behind to make sure she made it home safe.

I stayed in the truck as Joss parked and walked up the stairs to her apartment. But instead of going in, she just stood in front of the door, staring at its brown surface with hunched shoulders. I watched her, my heart quietly breaking. Then she turned her head and looked at me and next thing I knew, I was jumping out of the truck, taking three steps at a time, and gathering her in my arms. “Ssh, I’ve got you.”

She held onto me like her life depended on it. “I can’t lose her.”

“You won’t,” I said, knowing there was a good chance it was a lie.

Gently, I took the keys from her hand and unlocked the door, ushering her inside. I left her standing in the living room, looking lost, and went in search of the bathroom. I turned on the water in the tub and set the plug in the drain.

“What are you doing?” Joss asked at the doorway.

“Drawing you a bath.” I stood up and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Why do they call it that anyway? There’s no actual drawing involved. Unless you want an actual sketch of a bathtub.”

But the smile I was trying to coax out of her never appeared. “You don’t have to do that,” she said, her voice hoarse from crying.

“What? Taking care of you or cracking jokes?”

“All of it,” she said. “I’m fine, Jake. Really.”

I turned off the faucet, suddenly at a loss. I stared at this young woman before me, taking note of how much she’d aged since we first met. Gone was the innocence and joy in her eyes. “Did I do that?” I whispered.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Do what?”

“Did I take away your light?”

She blinked up at me for the longest time, neither one of us daring to move. A million silent words passed between us, things we badly wanted to say but couldn’t. When she broke the connection and looked away, I got my answer.

Nodding in resignation, I came towards her and kissed her forehead. “Goodnight, Joss.”

I
halfway expected
Joss to ask me to come to the hospital again, but she didn’t call. I spent the afternoon in my workshop at the back of the store, my phone kept in my back pocket just in case. I tried to focus on the task at hand but my mind was elsewhere, at the hospital miles away and the two women inside who were fighting battles together and apart.

It wasn’t fair that Amanda would get cancer. She, who worked so hard, who loved with her whole heart.

She and I had met through a blind date. A client of mine had told me about her single friend. “She’s a little older but gorgeous. She’s settled, her kid’s grown. She’s a real catch.”

I had never dated an older woman before, but I’d agreed to be set up anyway. It had been some time since my last relationship—one that I’d unwittingly sabotaged by thinking she was cheating on me at every turn, the remnants of my relationship with Eleanor still coloring my every thought.

But when I met Amanda Blake, when I saw the kind of person she truly was, I decided I was ready to give love another chance. I no longer wanted to be held back by the fear of infidelity.

My love for her had come slow and steady, like a rowboat drifting to shore with the tide. The first few times she’d traveled out of town, I had to tamp down the inner demons that demanded to know where she was and whom she was with. But Amanda taught me to have faith in someone once again, to know that my trust was not misguided or abused.

And in return, I had destroyed it all by upending the boat and drowning in her daughter.

I
closed
up shop at six. After tidying up, I got in my truck and hurried to the hospital, hoping I hadn’t missed visiting hours.

I knocked on the door and listened for the soft “come in” before entering Amanda’s room. She was alone, lying in the bed with a television remote control in her hand.

“Hey,” I said, hesitating at the door. To see her so pale and so weak desiccated my mouth.

“Jake.” She turned off the TV and set aside the remote control. “What are you doing here?”

I stuck my hands in my pockets. “I, uh… Joss told me. She called me after you were admitted.”

Her expression shuttered, trying to hide the hurt that her daughter would turn to me in her time of need.

“She didn’t know who else to call. She was freaking out.”

Amanda shook her head gently. “You don’t have to rationalize her actions. I’m not surprised she called you.”

“You’re not?”

Her green eyes flashed with some emotion I couldn’t decode. “No. You’re the closest thing she has to a father.”

Ouch.

Now that the first shot had been fired, I took a few steps closer. “How are you?”

A smile touched her lips. “Dying.”

Her reply, said so boldly, brought tears to my eyes. I crossed the space between us and took hold of her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t give me cancer,” she said, staring down at our hands. “Though I’m surprised you didn’t give me an STD after all your sleeping around.”

“Amanda…”

She dug her nails into my skin, her lips tight with anger. “Why her? Why my own daughter?”

I bore the pain, gritting my teeth as she started to draw blood. I deserved every possible punishment she could mete out.

After several moments, she finally loosened her hold.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I don’t know if I can be sorry enough for what I did to you.”

A sob escaped her throat. “You never even thought about the baby. You just went straight for Joss.”

I dragged a chair to the bed and sat down. “You’re right, I did go straight to Joss.” I sighed. “But I did—do—think about that baby, Amanda. I think about what could have been, what our lives would have been like if that baby had been real.”

“You wouldn’t have married me,” she said, her gaze direct and searing. “You would have still left me eventually.”

“You don’t know that.”

“What makes you think you would have made a good father anyway?” she asked, her face starting to flush. “You’re a thirty year old man with nothing to your name, no home, no real job.”

“I have a store now, in Hollywood. And I just closed on a house a few days ago. I’ve mostly got my act in order.”

She turned her head away. “Joss lives in Hollywood.”

It dawned on me what brought about the chill in the room. “Joss and I broke it off when I moved out. She’s not the reason why I moved to Hollywood.” I hadn’t even known she’d moved out until I caught sight of her walking alone in the dark one night, the same night a man had started to follow her home and I’d distracted him by bumming a smoke.

“I don’t believe you,” Amanda said.

“You really think I’d lie to you here, right now, while you’re lying in a hospital bed?”

I saw the glistening of a tear as it slid down the side of her face. “Why not? You’ve lied before.”

“Amanda—”

She reached for the nurse call button. “I think you’d better leave now, Jake.”

“Look, I get you’re still angry with me and that I have no business asking you to forgive me. All I came to say is that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did what I did, and I’m sorry that you’ve got cancer.” I stood up and walked to the door. “I know you hate me, but I’m here. Even if you just need a burger in the middle of the night, call me and I’ll get it with extra pickles like you like. Because despite what it seems like right now, I do care about you. Very much.”

She kept her head turned. “Just go. I don’t need anything from you.”

A
manda didn’t ask
anything of me but I went over to her house in Pembroke Pines anyway to at least bring in her mail and set the trash bin at the curb. But when I arrived, I found Joss’s car in the driveway.

I did what I came to do, then rang the doorbell. Joss answered a few seconds later, wearing the khaki skirt and collared shirt she normally wore to work.

“What are you doing here?”

I handed over the stack of mail in my hands. “Just getting your mom’s mail and taking the trash out.”

“I forgot about trash day,” she said. “Do you want to come in?”

I followed her to the kitchen, taking note of the changes in the house. The wall where Joss’s bookcase once stood was bare, its absence leaving a gaping hole in the room. “Does she have anymore trash that needs to go out?” I asked, taking note of the several tools on the counter by the sink. “What’s going on here?”

“Her faucet was leaking so I was trying to fix it.”

“May I?” I checked the likely culprit. “It’ll just need a new o-ring. Easy fix.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her watch. “It’ll have to wait until after work. I don’t have time to stop at Home Depot.”

“Wait here.” I jogged to my truck and rifled through the plastic bag in the passenger seat. When I found the package, I went back inside and fixed the leak.

“You just happened to have a spare o-ring in your truck?” Joss asked, folding her arms across her chest. “Like that’s something you always travel with for damsels in distress?”

I couldn’t help it; I chuckled. “As luck would have it, I just went there yesterday because I had a leaky faucet in my laundry room. I bought a few just in case there were a few more in the house.”

“You have a laundry room?”

I nodded. “I own a house now. I no longer live with my little brother.”

“Congrats.” She watched me quietly as I put the faucet back together. “Mom told me you visited her.”

I leaned against the counter, wiping my hands on my jeans. “Yeah. She wasn’t too happy to see me.”

“No, she wasn’t.” She picked up her purse and keys off the table. “Could you maybe not visit her anymore? I don’t want to upset her more, you know?”

“I didn’t go there to upset her.”

“I know. But seeing you is the last thing she wants, especially when she’s vulnerable like that.” Her breathing sped up as she blinked fast. “Just promise me you won’t visit her again.”

“I won’t. Unless she asks for me.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Joss said with certainty.

“And what about you?”

She swallowed, staring down at the keys in her hand. “I’m good, Jake. Really. You don’t have to worry about either of us anymore.”

“Sure?”

She lifted her chin and met my gaze, her jaw set tight. “I’m sure.” And with those two words, she ejected me out of her life.

T
he first week
I didn’t receive a call, I figured they were dealing with the cancer in their own way. But after the second week, it started to sink in that maybe they really no longer wanted me in their lives. And why should they? I was just the man who had almost successfully ripped apart their little family.

Still, this man wanted to be useful in some way,
any
way.

After I called the hospital and was informed that Amanda had been released, I was able to breathe a little sigh of relief. I wasn’t naïve enough to think she’d beat the cancer in a month, but at least I knew she was no longer at death’s door. There was still hope.

And I foolishly held onto mine.

I didn’t keep my promise to Joss, however. A few times after I closed up shop, I found myself driving through her street. The first night I only drove through at a slow pace. The second night, I parked but kept the truck running. The third night, I got out and stood on the sidewalk across the street, looking up at the dark window of Joss’s room. But no more than a few minutes passed when a silhouette appeared at the window to the right. The blinds slid up and Ashley, Joss’s friend, stuck her head out the window.

“She doesn’t live here anymore,” she called out, stopping me dead in my tracks. “She moved back home.”

Caught red-handed, I spun away and headed back for the truck.

“
J
ake
, you have to meet Mig,” Tristan said at my house the next night.

I took the pot of macaroni off the stove and poured cheese sauce over the steaming pasta. “I told you, I’m not interested in being set up,” I said as I stirred the concoction before taking a spoonful and shoveling it into my mouth, succeeding in burning the roof of my mouth.

“Dude, that’s sad,” Tristan said, watching me with something like disgust on his face. “How many times have you had mac and cheese this week?”

I shrugged. “Last night I went out for a burger.”

Tristan shook his head. “How about this: I’ll spring for dinner at Palme d’Or if you take her out for dinner?”

“I’m really not in the French food
or
dating frame of mind right now.” I didn’t bother with a bowl; I started eating straight out of the pot. Less dishes to wash this way.

“God, you’re so pitiful.”

I shrugged. Maybe guys my age who had their shit together ate dinner using real plates, but I never claimed to have my shit together.

“How about Fogo de Chao?” Tristan asked, going straight for the jugular. He knew my weakness was the Brazilian steakhouse.

I paused with the spoon halfway into my mouth, actually considering his offer. “How about you just give me her number and I’ll call her when I get the chance?”

He pulled out his cell phone and texted me the woman’s number. My phone chimed, letting me know I’d received the woman’s information. “Just make sure you call her,” he said. “And try to wait till the third date before sleeping with any of her family members, okay?”

“Shut up,” I said through a mouthful of pasta. A few moments later, I asked, “What’s wrong with her? Why is it so important that I meet her?”

“Because she’s money. You don’t want a woman like that getting away.”

I cocked my head, one eyebrow raised. “You still feel guilty about dating Joss, don’t you?” Tristan rolled his eyes, but I knew better. I reached out and punched his shoulder.

“Just go meet this girl, okay?” he said, heading for the front door. “Thank me later by naming your firstborn after me.”

T
wo weeks later
, I took out Tristan’s friend—a woman named Migdalia. Half Puerto Rican, half Swede, she had curly blonde hair, an easy smile, and a no-bullshit attitude. I liked her immediately.

“I don’t like to beat around the bush,” she said early on in the date at the Brazilian steakhouse in Miami Beach. “I say what I mean and I mean what I say.”

“I’ll toast to that.” I lifted my beer and she tapped it with her wine glass, smiling as she did.

“So your brother has been trying to fix us up for a few weeks now,” she said just as a man with a large skewer of meat arrived at our table. He cut us both a slice of filet mignon before moving on to another table. “Why is that?”

“Because I’m pathetic, is my guess.”

Mig tilted her head down and raised an eyebrow, letting me know she didn’t believe my bullshit.

“Pretty sure he just wants me to get over someone,” I said with a little more honesty.

“Funny. I’m trying to get over someone myself.”

We toasted again. “Well here’s to our exes. May they find the happiness they’re seeking.”

I watched as she cut into the meat on her plate, her movements relaxed but precise. “Why are you still single?” I asked.

Her eyes flicked up in surprise. “Didn’t Tristan tell you?”

“No.”

“I just ended a long term relationship. With a younger man.”

I shook my head, chuckling. “My brother’s a jackhole.”

“Why?”

“Because the girl I’m trying to forget?” Mig nodded and I went on, “She was nine years younger than me.”

She threw her head back and laughed, a reaction I was completely unprepared for. I had to admit, it was a little disarming. “Well, if nothing else, he has a sense of humor.”

A
fter dinner
, went out for a walk along the beach, though it was windy and a little chilly by Miami’s standards. Migdalia’s hair kept getting blown in her face and she had to hold her skirt together to keep from flashing her panties, but didn’t utter one complaint.

“You’re not enjoying this, are you?” I asked, reaching out and removing a strand of curly hair stuck to her lips.

“I’m not really a fan of windy, sandy things.”

“And you live in Miami?”

She laughed. “My entire family is here. I can’t move away.”

I took her home. We talked all the way back to her house in Kendall, the conversation flowing easily as if we’d known each other a long time. I walked her to her doorstep, and for the first time in a long time, Joss was far away in the back of my mind. I almost didn’t miss her.

“I had a lot of fun,” Mig asked, touching my chest. “I’d like to do this again.”

I didn’t know how to tell her that this would be our first and last date without sounding like a pompous jackass, so I said nothing.

Sensing my hesitation, she grabbed fistfuls of my shirt and pulled me in. Her kissing style was, much like her, honest and bold. She wanted me and she wasn’t afraid to show it. “What about now?” she asked after pulling away.

I took a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts. “Believe me, if circumstances were different, I would.”

She nodded, her gaze direct, thoughtful. “I get it. But if things ever change, call me.”

“They probably won’t. I’m kind of locked in on this one.”

“Okay.” Her hand slid off my chest. “Good luck with everything, Jake.”

I bent down and kissed her cheek. “Same to you, Mig.”