Finding Jack, page 2
He stepped in and hugged me. He leaned down for a kiss, but I turned my head, and he dropped it on my cheek. “Don’t want to smudge my lipstick. You can do that later.” His easy affection was another one of the things I liked about him. It was also the biggest reason I could ignore Ranée’s complaints that he was too uptight. He was so comfortable with open displays of affection—little touches, long hugs, kisses regardless of who was watching. Uptight men didn’t do that. Uptight men—like my dad—were stingy with their hugs and affection.
“You ready for dinner? I checked the traffic and we need to get on the road if we want to make our reservation on time.”
He lifted my coat from the hook by the door and held it for me. He didn’t say anything about my dress, a sleek black number. But when I turned and tied my coat, his eyebrows rose as his glance fell to my red stilettos.
“Are those new?” he asked.
“Yeah. A little treat for getting the promotion. Do you like them?” The glint in his eye said that Ranée was wrong, and that Paul was very capable of appreciating these shoes, but then the glint disappeared as worry clouded over it.
“They’re nice, but it’s kind of a walk from the car to the restaurant. Are you going to be okay?”
So…maybe a small part of me wished that the glint would have stayed, and that he would have offered to…I don’t know, carry me up to the restaurant door or something so long as I kept on the sexy red shoes. Not that I needed help walking in them. I was well-practiced in heels. But it was sweet in its own way for him to worry about my comfort.
“I’ll be fine.” I smiled and scooped up my purse and locked the door behind us.
On the drive over, we talked about work. He asked me about my new duties and caught me up on what was happening at his accounting firm. At the restaurant we ordered and went right back to shop talk, something that was easy to do with jobs as similar as ours.
The plates the waiter set in front of us looked delicious, but the excitement of the week had finally caught up with me, and I struggled to focus on the conversation until a series of electronic chirps broke through my end-of-the-week fog. Suddenly the flaky fish in my mouth tasted about as good as if I’d licked the tablecloth.
I gave my phone a quick glance. It was all Facebook alerts telling me someone had commented on a post Ranée tagged me in. I had a feeling I knew what was up, but I turned it to silent and tucked it back into my purse. I could deal with it—and Ranée—later, but then Paul’s phone—which of course he’d remembered to set to silent—started up with a persistent series of buzzes as it vibrated.
Paul frowned. “Why’s it going nuts? Something going on?”
“Let’s just turn them off and enjoy dinner.” Because now I knew for sure that Ranée had once again put her Jack friend up to no good.
Paul’s forehead was already furrowed as he reached for his jacket pocket. “I’ll just make sure that there’s nothing wrong.” He slid his finger across the screen and the furrows turned to gullies. He glanced from me to the phone and back again. Finally, he shook his head. “Why does this guy say he’s here with you right now?”
He turned his screen to show me a picture of me wearing a sparkly silver dress, sitting at a table very similar to our linen and crystal covered one, except in the picture I was leaning against a man with a face that was getting way too familiar way too fast.
There was Jack again, his stupid hair up in a stupid man bun while the rest of him was all business casual, striped button down with a sleek watch on an arm resting comfortably around my shoulders.
I snatched up my phone and found the photo. Emily Riker was with Jack Dobson at Pacifica.
I untagged myself while I offered Paul a tight smile. “It’s Ranée messing around again. I’ll text her really fast.”
He nodded like he wasn’t concerned but his hands stayed curled around his fork and knife.
STOP WITH THE PHOTOSHOPS. I typed like I was doing a keyboarding speed test. TAKE THE PIC DOWN.
I shot Paul another apologetic smile. “Sorry, should be handled in a minute.” He waved like it was no big deal but then his fingers curled right back around his knife.
But the alerts didn’t stop. I rolled my eyes at Paul to show him how exasperated I was and turned it off. “That should solve it,” I said. “Time to focus on relaxing.”
“And celebrating,” he added. “You’re a project manager now. That’s a big deal.” He called over the waiter to bring two glasses of champagne.
We toasted my rise through middle management and had a comfortable evening talking work and life, topping it all off with rich chocolate cheesecake. But somehow neither the bubbles nor the dessert was able to scrub the bad taste of Ranée’s newest prank from my mouth.
Chapter 4
“I’m really sorry,” I said to Paul again at my front door. “Why don’t you come in for a little while? We can watch some Fallon and shake off the weirdness.”
“There’s no weirdness,” Paul said weirdly.
“Are you sure? You still seem pretty unhappy about all of this.” Honestly, it was kind of getting on my nerves. I could understand being annoyed by the situation, but it made no sense to be annoyed with me. I’d obviously had nothing to do with it, and I’d clearly tried everything I could to fix it.
“I’m just tired,” he said. “And yes, it does bug me that Ranée won’t let this drop.”
“But why?” The more I thought about it, the better I thought the question was. “Do you feel threatened by it? It’s just a prank.”
He sighed and ran his hand over his face. “You’re right. But I’m worn out enough from work for it to irritate me more than it should, and that’s as good a reason as any for me to head out. Sorry I’m being lame. I think I need a good night’s sleep.”
Fat chance. Paul was a chronic insomniac who rarely slept more than four hours a night, but I nodded. “I totally get it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He hugged me and pressed a short kiss against my lips, so short that I could tell how tired he really was. Paul usually left me with pretty great goodnight kisses. I’d told that to Ranée once in an effort to defend him, and she said it was probably because he’d done an intensive kissing technique analysis complete with diagrams.
Okay, that was almost believable. But I didn’t care because I was the beneficiary of either his analysis, his experience, or his natural talent. Or all three. Good kissing was good kissing.
I fell asleep before Ranée got home, and she was still asleep when I woke up, so I set to work trying to crack the prank mystery without her. It was still up on her Facebook wall with about fifty reactions and a string of questions. “Who is this?” “Cute couple!” “Did she break up with Paul?”
I contemplated dragging Ranée out of bed for answers, but there were friendlier rattlesnakes than a just-woken Ranée.
I examined the picture more closely. It was another Photoshop, but how’d this Jack guy do it? I didn’t own a silver dress like the one “I” was wearing in the picture.
I did a Google image search for the restaurant name and hit the jackpot deep on the tenth page. Or the “Jack”pot. I snorted at my own joke. He’d stuck our heads onto another couple who’d celebrated on a different night at Pacifica. There was the sparkly silver dress but on a brunette, and there was the button-down shirt on some other dude.
He was tagged in the picture too.
Wait.
I didn’t even have to wait for Ranée to wake up to solve this. I clicked on his name to find the messaging link. Time to stop this idiocy.
EMILY: The photos are weird. Knock it off.
I got the “…” typing dots. Then they disappeared. Then they reappeared. It happened at least three more times. Finally, a message popped up.
JACK: Hi.
EMILY: Stop
JACK: Sure.
JACK: But
JACK: What are we talking about?
EMILY: The pictures on Ranée’s FB.
JACK: Uh…brb.
JACK: Those were not me.
EMILY: That’s not you in the picture?
JACK: No, that’s me.
EMILY: Did you Photoshop that picture?
JACK: Yes.
EMILY: Then take it down.
JACK: I didn’t post that. Isn’t Ranée your roommate? Can’t you take this up with her?
My fingers hesitated over the keyboard. It was a fair question. But Ranée had refused to delete it so far. And there was the whole issue of her being scary in the morning.
I dropped my hands to my lap. Now I felt kind of dumb for yelling at this guy for doing what Ranée had asked. I was about to close the laptop and wait for her to wake up so I could yell at her instead when another DM popped up.
JACK: Are they really freaking you out?
EMILY: Yes to the millionth power.
JACK: MILLIONTH? I could have understood to the thousandth power but the millionth is just hurtful.
EMILY: Funny…except not to my BOYFRIEND. Will you stop Photoshopping pics of us?
JACK: Sorry. Yes.
JACK: Wait, there’s an US?
I should have left it there. I really should have. But for reasons I couldn’t really explain, I did a fast and much sloppier photo edit on his mountain biking picture, cropping his head then pasting it onto the body of the first image I found under a search for “bodybuilders.” Now his bike-helmeted head was on top of a big old muscle guy in a tiny speedo. Then I pressed send.
EMILY: No more doing Photoshops for Ranée. You’re enabling her, and she needs NO encouragement. Stop supplying her or I’ll start putting up this kind of garbage all over the place.
JACK: Uh…that wouldn’t bother me. But I get why you’re bothered. Can we start over?
EMILY: ???
The longest chain of “…” in the history of modern communication disappeared and reappeared. At last a message popped up.
JACK: Hi. I’m Jack. Sometimes it’s short for Jacka…never mind. I kind of know your friend Ranée. Every now and then I take a joke too far. I think I recently did that to a girl named…you. So could we start over if I swear not to do any more favors for Ranée?
Was he serious? He wanted to be friends? I could understand that he’d only been doing Ranée’s bidding, but he’d caused some friction between me and Paul, and I was still irritated about having to smooth it over.
EMILY: That’s a nice offer, but no thanks. I just can’t deal with your man bun.
That should shut him down permanently. I closed the chat window and wandered into the kitchen for a bagel. When I finished eating it, I discovered I hadn’t shut down Jack at all. Another message was waiting for me.
JACK: I was going to let this go and stay out of your hair, but then you had to go and make a crack about mine. This man bun is my crowning girly. I thought you were a better woman than that.
I couldn’t let it go. Only an incredibly evolved human could have left such a perfect typo alone.
I was not evolved.
EMILY: Your crowning girly? I mean…you said it.
JACK: I MEANT GLORY. MY CROWNING GLORY.
EMILY: Your subconscious knows the truth even if you don’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You do you.
I waited for another smart remark, but not even the dots appeared, and I realized I’d spent a full two minutes waiting for them. Which was stupid. The whole point of sending a message at all had been to get him to stop paying attention to me, so mission accomplished.
I shut my laptop and took it to my room, then changed into my workout clothes for my kickboxing class. Or as Ranée called it, my “kickdancing” class. I had just scooped up my keys when my phone chimed with a DM alert. I didn’t like the little lurch my stomach gave because my brain told it that it might be Jack.
“Shut up, both of you,” I told them. And then just to break a ridiculous habit before it started, I swept my phone into my gym bag without even checking it.
Which would have been a totally boss move if I hadn’t checked it the second my kickdancing—BOXING—class finished. And there it was, a message notification from Jack.
Well. I wasn’t going to read it. Who cared? It wasn’t a big deal. I was in a relationship with a good guy, and I wasn’t the kind of girl who was going to get distracted by the next hot guy that came along.
Not that Jack was hot. Because man bun. Maybe if it weren’t for that he’d be the kind of guy I’d notice. But that was a moot point.
I drove home and threw myself on the sofa, trying to figure out what I wanted to do to relax. Normally simply walking through the door would do the trick. Ranée and I had met when she worked in marketing at my software firm. We’d clicked right away, and even though she’d taken a job with another company shortly after, we’d decided to share an apartment. Our personalities complemented each other, but so did our tastes. My preference for minimalist lines married with her love of bright pops of color produced an upbeat mid-century design scheme inside our cozy apartment.
I’d found the perfect charcoal gray vintage sofa and she’d livened it up with lime green throw pillows. It was like this throughout our living room and the dining nook/kitchen. The perfect symmetry of my furniture lines and the cheerful splashes of her color always calmed me when I got home, no matter what kind of day I’d had. But right now, I still felt buzzy with unspent emotional energy.
Maybe mindless celebrity stalking would do the trick? I curled up with a People magazine.
“Where have you been?” Ranée asked, padding out to the living room in bare feet. She had toilet paper shoved between each of her toes. They sported a shiny new shade of purple.
I sat straight up again. “Take that picture off your Facebook.”
“Why? It’s funny.”
“It’s not even kind of funny. I’ve already smoothed things over with Paul.” Probably. I texted him on the way to the gym to see about grabbing a movie later, but he said he was snowed with work. It had happened before, so it could be true. It was true. Probably? “But I yelled at Jack, and now I’m going to yell at you.”
“You yelled at Jack? Poor Jack. That’s not nice.”
“Neither is putting him up to stuff like this! Take it down, Ranée.”
“Fine.” She hobbled over to a kitchen chair, plopped down, and pulled her phone from her pocket to delete the picture. “There. Done.”
“Good. Now promise not to do it again.”
She gave me a “no deal” grimace.
I turned my back on her and settled onto the couch with People.
“What are you reading?”
I didn’t answer.
“Emily?”
I ignored her.
“You’re giving me the silent treatment?”
I licked my finger and made an elaborate point of turning the page.
“Very mature, Em.”
I’d learned through three years of experience that it was the only thing that would work. I turned another page.
“Ugh, all right. I won’t post any more Fabio Photoshops.”
“Aw, thanks, Ranée. How nice of you. You couldn’t if you wanted to. Jack won’t do any more of them.” I settled down to enjoy the magazine for real.
“I thought my magazines were too lowbrow for you.”
“They are. Unless they have Chris Evans on the front. Which this one does. Now shut up so I can concentrate on finding out what he’s looking for in a woman.”
“Why would you need Captain America when you’ve got Paul? He’s Captain All-American.” She grabbed her water bottle for a swig and set it down abruptly. “Wait. I just realized that Captain America is the most boring superhero. Of course he’s your favorite.”
“Uh, no, Superman is the most boring superhero.”
“Oh yeah. That’s right.” She took another swallow. “You know which superhero you really need in your life?”
I could already sense where this was going. “Don’t say it.”
“Thor.”
“Because big pecs and long hair. Got it.”
“Tell me he’s not hot.”
“Oh, totally. You know, after he got the haircut in the last Thor movie.”
She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue the point then shrugged and settled into the easy chair and drew her knees up to her chin so she could peer down at her toenails. “Will Paul let you have purple toenails?”
“Paul doesn’t let me do anything. Can you lay off him?”
She shrugged then drummed her fingers on the table for a minute. I refused to let her know it was bugging me. Suddenly the drumming stopped. “What do you mean Jack won’t do any more Photoshops? How do you know?”
“He said he wouldn’t.”
She hopped up and hobbled over to plunk down on the other side of the sofa. I moved my feet so she wouldn’t sit on them. “You talked to him?”
“I sent him an IM. He was really nice about it.”
“If he said he wouldn’t make any more then why did I get the silent treatment anyway?”
“I wanted to make you say it.”
“You’re the worst.” She pulled the magazine down so it lay in my lap. “Pay attention to me. Let’s talk about Jack. Did he say anything else?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the kind of thing you know or don’t know.”
I tugged at the magazine but she wouldn’t let it go. “He sent me another IM.”
“What did it say?”
I jerked the magazine back and leafed through it. “I don’t know. I haven’t read it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t care?” I wish I hadn’t ended that as a question. I hadn’t meant to.
She rested her chin on her knees and studied me as closely as she had her toenail polish. I didn’t like it so much. The staring. Her toes were cute. “Interesting,” she murmured. “Maybe not checking his message is making it more important than it actually is. It’s like…like Harry Potter! When he’s not supposed to look in that whatchamacallit mirror, but the harder he fights it the more he wants to.”
