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Jack rolls his eyes. “No. It’s too late for that. Information only works up front. On the other side of lies like these, you only have one option: Groveling for forgiveness. On your belly. Preferably with some sort of expensive jewelry clutched in your pitiful lying hand as an offering.”
I sit back in my chair with a grunt.
Clearly reading my doubt, Jack doubles down. “Jewelry, my friend. The fancier the better. And don’t start telling me your girl is the lone woman on earth who doesn’t like jewelry or care about how expensive it is. It’s not just jewelry; it’s physical evidence of your interest in commitment. It’s putting your money where your heart is. That’s what they like about it. It’s not the money, not directly anyway. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I bite my lip, my gut still insisting that Jess isn’t that girl. She’s never cared about stuff like that, and when she asked me about being rich the other day, she didn’t ask in a covetous way, more…a curious way. And her dreams for having money didn’t involve expensive jewelry or fancy clothes. She just wanted… “A washer and dryer in her apartment,” I blurt out, sitting up straighter. “That’s what she wants.”
Jack frowns. “No, it’s not. I mean, she may want that, but first she wants expensive jewelry and groveling.”
Pushing back my chair, I pull a twenty from my wallet. “Okay, I’ll do that, too. But I have to hurry if I’m going to get that all in place before she gets back with the cat.”
“You’re not listening,” Jack says. “And you’re not ready to be a cat dad. You two are moving way too fast. Start with a goldfish. They’re hardy and easy to move out when one of you decides love is too hard.”
I put the money on the table, feeling more at peace than I have since Sunday night. “Jess doesn’t believe in ‘too hard.’ If she wants something, she goes after it with everything she’s got and doesn’t stop until she makes her dream a reality.”
Jack sighs and lifts his hands in surrender. “Okay. I hope you’re right.”
“Thanks, I do, too,” I say, promising to touch base before the picnic on Friday before heading out of the coffee shop into the still-cool morning air, determined to make things right.
But I should have realized that the only thing harder than finding a company willing to do a same-day installation on a washer-dryer combo in an apartment on the fifth floor with no elevator and no approval from the landlord is…love.
Love is hard as hell.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jess
Timing is everything.
If I hadn’t been half an hour late to pick up Handsome—subway delays are the bane of my existence and a good reminder why I don’t like leaving the house—I wouldn’t have run into Fake Boob Woman and her friend in the lobby of the Animal Rescue building.
I wouldn’t have attracted her attention by shooting daggers at her with my eyes for causing Sam to get run over by a bicycle or heard her weirdly husky voice say, “You’re that girl, right? Sam’s friend?”
I blink, my chin retreating into my neck in surprise as my copy of Cat Fancy drops to my lap.
Did Sam tell her his name at the event on Saturday? I don’t remember that happening, but maybe I was distracted by cute cats. Stranger things have happened.
“Um, yes. I am,” I say, still too new to the girlfriend gig to feel comfortable announcing that he’s actually my boyfriend and we’re totally going to have sex soon.
Maybe tonight.
Maybe this weekend.
Who knows, but we’re definitely headed in that direction and it’s going to beamazing.
But that’s on a need-to-know basis, and Boob Woman and her friend donothave a need to know. I haven’t even told Evie and Harlow yet, and I’m not sure I’m going to until after the deed is done. I don’t want to jinx it, not when everything is going so well.
“See, I told you,” Boob Woman says to her friend, a much younger blonde with equally large boobs, though I’m pretty sure hers are real. They fill out the top of her flowered summer dress with the ruffles at the bottom but don’t give that “about to poke your eye out” vibe Boob Woman has on lock. Turning back to me, BW adds, “Erica and Sam used to date. It was pretty serious, wasn’t it, Erica?”
The blonde—Erica—waves an embarrassed hand. “I’m sure Sam’s friend doesn’t want to hear about that. It was a long time ago, anyway.”
“Two years isn’t that long,” BW says, adding to the free-fall, tumbling-through-the-terrifying-void-of-space feeling in my stomach. “Not when you’re my age, at least. And Chaz and I got back together after five years.” She fluffs her perfectly curled hair. “It was like no time had passed at all until he cheated again. And if Sam’s in the country now, that would solve the long-distance-relationship problem.”
“You had a long-distance relationship?” I ask, a part of me still not wanting to believe this is what it seems. After all, Sam never said he hadn’t dated other people, just that he hadn’t banged anyone else. And yes, this woman is gorgeous and sexy and looks like the type of person who would be having lots of awesome sex with her boyfriend, but maybe the distance got in the way of taking things to the next level.
Or maybe she’s really religious and wants to save her hymen until marriage.
Or maybe Sam couldn’t get it up for her because he secretly loves short girls with cellulite under their butts instead of tall, athletic blondes with no pores and blue eyes like the prettiest summer sky you’ve ever seen.
