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“You wanted to know how I was doing,” Jacob said now.
Not for anything would Alec say he’d made contact on Audra’s behalf. “I wanted to confirm you were properly miserable, you snake.”
Jacob hung his head, his dirty blond hair flopping forward. No expert on male attractiveness, Alec had to take his sister’s word for it that Jacob was what she termed a “California dime.” Jojo used a bunch of weird-ass lingo possibly understood only by herself, but he was told it meant a ten on the apparently higher, California scale of handsomeness. Then she’d told Alec, generously, that he qualified as a “California twelve and a half.”
Sisters.
Jacob’s head came up and he swooped his bangs off his forehead with his left hand, a boyish gesture that he’d been making as long as Alec knew him. “You think I should have gotten married when I didn’t want to?”
“I think you shouldn’t have gotten engaged when you didn’t want to get married.”
With a sigh, Jacob dropped his gaze to his toes. “Audra’s beautiful.”
“I hear she’s doing just fine, by the way.” Alec wouldn’t let the true nature of things slip. “Counting her lucky stars.”
Maybe he sounded harsh, but Alec felt no remorse. The pair had been engaged for fourteen months. Surely Jacob could have worked out his true feelings before the very day of the wedding.
His old friend began rotating a braided string bracelet at his wrist. The color of the twisted fibers looked bright and new and the thing reminded him of something an eighth-grader exchanged with his first crush. “Geez, Jake, are you seeing someone else already? You were just days ago engaged—”
“And that was a mistake,” Jacob said defensively. “Anyway, it’s not like you’re rushing to put a ring on anyone’s finger.”
“Me? Don’t bring me into—”
“How many times have you claimed you’re never getting married? Like three thousand times since Simon died and you started plowing through women.”
Oh, hell. Not this again. “Fuck, Jacob—”
“Maybe I just started seeing things your way. The stats are against it working out. Marriage, I mean. What is it, a fifty-percent failure rate?”
The numbers guy in him wanted to point out that anything involving statistics could be interpreted many ways, but Jacob was still talking.
“In ten years we’d likely divorce anyway,” Jacob said, his expression going dark. “Sharing the kids between two households. Arguing about who has to take the dog or whose idea it was to get a cat…”
Alec could only stare at his friend. “What about a more optimistic outcome?” His parents had been married thirty-five years and though there’d been friction over his father’s long working hours at times, no doubt Vic adored Miranda and their family had amassed good memories that involved shared jokes, holiday traditions, meals that failed spectacularly, and dicey vacation adventures.
Good memories that still survived even though Simon was no longer here to sift through the old or to make more of the new. Still there…even though Simon was not. That thought fell over Alec, another sweet spring rain. Damn. A thought to examine at a better time.
Jacob had wound down with whatever dire outcomes he’d projected for himself and Audra and was peering around the column in the direction of the patio again. “Hey, that’s Lilly Durand. That was Lilly I saw with you earlier.”
Again, Alec decided against mentioning Audra. “She’s taking a few days off before going back to work.”
“Yeah? I’m surprised she can afford this place. She’s got a good job, thanks to the Montgomerys, but I get the impression she comes from trash.”
His old buddy’s offhand classism made Alec want to punch him in his California dime mouth. “I don’t know, Jake, but it seems to me that what people do, not who they come from, determines whether they’re garbage or not.”
The other man flushed. “I didn’t want to hurt Audra,” he mumbled.
“Just stay out of her life,” Alec advised, then stepped around Jacob to return to the patio. Though he scooped up a plate and took his place in the buffet line, his gaze automatically moved to Lilly. Her hair, shiny waves and curls that went this way and that, framed that piquant face of hers with its mysterious eyes and the unforgettable mouth.
