“You’re sweet,” he smiled. “I didn’t really expect you to forgive me so willingly.”
“I could tell that you meant it when you apologized to me…at least the second time around,” I smiled.
He nodded. “You’re not from San Diego, are you?”
“No,” I replied, tensing slightly. If I wasn’t careful, this line of questioning could lead me into real trouble. “I’m from Michigan.”
“Tell me about your family.”
I suppressed the urge to bite my lip. Instead, I smiled and shrugged. “Nothing much to tell… I had a non-existent father, a naïve mother with her head stuck in the clouds, and a pet rabbit that I called Thumper.”
“Thumper?” he repeated. “As in Bambi?”
“Wow, you know your Disney.”
“I have a four-year-old,” he replied. “I have to.”
“Still, it’s impressive,” I said. “See? You’re obviously doing something right as a father.”
Jake smiled at my compliment, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he picked up the last thread of conversation seamlessly and ran with it.
“So, you were an only child, too?”
I nodded. “I was,” I said. “It was lonely growing up without any brothers or sisters. Which was why Thumper was so important to me. My father moved back in with us when I was about eleven. And since he hated all animals, Thumper had to go.”
“That’s awful.”
“I cried for weeks,” I admitted. “It was honestly like someone had died.”
“He was in and out of your life, huh?”
“Pretty much,” I nodded. “He was one of those guys leading a double life… He used us when he needed to and then left us high and dry when he had better opportunities on the horizon.”
Jake’s eyes were gentle all of a sudden. “It must have been hard growing up like that.”
I shrugged awkwardly. “Thank you for this dinner,” I said because I was grateful, but also because I wanted to change the subject.
“You don’t have to thank me; this dinner was more than deserved.”
“Does this mean you’ll stop being an ass to me at work?”
He smiled. “I can do that.”
“Good,” I said. “That’ll make my life a whole lot easier.”
We spent the whole night talking and laughing about different trivial things. And the more time I spent with just Jake, I realized that I was in real danger of falling down the rabbit hole.
Chapter Thirteen
Jake
After dropping Kristen off at her tiny little apartment block, I drove around the neighborhood a couple of times. I don’t know why I did; I suppose it was because I knew that Noah would be sleeping and I needed to calm down a little bit.
I wasn’t wired or anything. I just had this little surge of adrenaline running through my system that was making me think of things I hadn’t really thought about in years. I kept remembering the way Kristen’s white blouse had opened a little at the neckline every time she leaned in. It was a modest amount of cleavage that I’d glimpsed, but it had been enough to get me a little hot under the collar.
I hadn’t been that affected by a woman’s cleavage since Daphne. And that was at the beginning of our marriage. I remembered the first time Daphne and I had had sex. She had entered my bunk one night while my bunkmate had been at dinner and climbed into bed with me. She had undressed me silently, and then we had fucked quickly before we could be interrupted. Then she had climbed off me, gotten dressed, and disappeared from my room.
The memory had held me through some tough nights when we had been separated over the first few years of our career. But now, it brought my only sadness. It felt like a lifetime ago—and it felt as though the girl who had snuck into my room just to seduce me had disappeared long before her death.