Conner delayed not a moment before shutting it behind him and cutting his eyes to his father.
“She told Ellie that shit. Or got someone to do it.”
She did indeed, I thought.
“Yep,” Jake said.
“That’s why Ellie’s not calling me,” Conner went on.
It certainly was, I thought.
“Yep,” Jake said.
“I gotta go to her,” Conner announced.
He absolutely did, I thought.
“Yep,” Jake said.
Conner put a hand to the door.
“Son,” Jake called.
Conner looked to his father.
“Lesson,” Jake said gently. “Man’s got the power to break a woman’s heart. Women have their own power. Learn this and in future, choose better.”
Conner’s jaw got hard then he jerked up his own chin, threw open the door and exited the room.
Jake walked to the door, closed it again and turned to me.
“How’d you know?”
“She’s an immensely unpleasant young woman and a terrible actress.”
He tipped his head to the side. “She gonna cause more problems for my boy?”
I drew in a deep breath and lowered my voice when I replied, “Unless her father successfully imparts wisdom through appropriate punishment, it’s highly likely she’ll do that every chance she gets.”
“Conner shares, not everything but we’re tight and he gives a lot to his old man,” Jake told me. “He made no promises of exclusivity to any of them, not until he told Ellie she’s the one. I’m a man so I’m gonna think this kinda punishment doesn’t fit the crime ‘cause I’m not sure he committed one.”
I said nothing.
“You got a take on that?” he prompted.
“It wasn’t like he was dating five women in a large cosmopolitan city, Jake. He was dating five girls in a small high school. This was a recipe for disaster. But, in essence, you’re correct. If he made no promises, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. He simply chose poorly.” I paused and finished. “Very poorly.”
“And how does he deal with this girl, she keeps f**kin’ with him?”
“He gives her what she deserves,” I told him.
His brows went up as he asked, “And what’s that?”
“He ruins her.”
“Come again?” he asked, brows still high.
“I am not a man, or a teenaged boy becoming a man, and I’ve never been either. But I would guess if I was, if it was known a girl would go to these extremes simply because her non-exclusive boyfriend of three months broke up with her, she would not be high on my list of girls I’d wish to spend time with.”
“So he spreads this,” Jake said.
“No. That would make him look tactless and it would be obvious. But the Taylors could do it. However, in all honesty, in high school with his station in it, I don’t believe it would be untoward for him to do it himself. That was an extreme, completely uncalled for and utterly overdramatized reaction to a breakup. Young Mia has a lesson to learn too.”
Jake shook his head. “Unless he asks, I think I’ll let him come up with that. Even if he asks, not sure I’ll give him that option.”
“Pity,” I replied. “Although he was quite angry and it’s unlikely he’ll keep this to himself, she came to his home with her father demanding to see his father, dragging you both into something exceptionally unpleasant and she did something that is utterly inexcusable. I, for one, hope she gets what she deserves.”
At that, Jake grinned and moved to me.
He had his arms around me and had drawn me close to his front before he muttered, “Momma bear.”
“I do not like that young woman,” I declared, my body stiff even being held in his arms.
He kept muttering and grinning. “Total momma bear.”
I stared up at him and noted, “This must be excruciatingly difficult for you, to be close, for matters to mean so much, but to be mostly powerless as your son and daughter learn how to make decisions in their lives and sometimes are forced to face the consequences.”
“It ain’t a walk in the park,” he agreed.
“Hmm,” I mumbled, looking at his shoulder just above where I’d placed my hands on his biceps.
“Babe.”
I looked up at him.
“You’re the shit.”
I stopped thinking about Conner and Ellie and Mia and Amber and boys with motorcycles and smiled.
“Wish like f**k I could strip you bare and f**k you on my couch right about now.”
I stopped smiling and experienced a rather intense and exceptionally pleasant tingle.
His mouth dropped to mine and I felt as well as heard his next words. “Sucks the kids are in the next room.”
It most certainly did.
“Yes,” I breathed.
His lips brushed mine and then slid along my cheek to my ear where he whispered, “Take you again in your bed when I take you home tonight.”
My fingers clenched into his biceps when I whispered back, “Yes.”
“Really lookin’ forward to that, Slick.” He kept whispering.
“Me as well, Jake.”
“You gonna give me somethin’ to go on until then?” he asked.
I absolutely was.
I didn’t tell him that.
I gave it to him. Turning my head, he felt it, turned his, and our mouths collided.
In the end, it wasn’t entirely correct that I gave it to him. It was more that he took it from me.
But pressed tight to Jake Spear in his living room with his kids’ laptops and tablets and backpacks all around, being kissed dizzy, I didn’t mind him taking anything he wanted.
No.
I didn’t mind at all.
Because I’d give him anything.
I’d give him everything.
If I had the power, I’d give him the world.
* * * * *
“Um…that sweater…no,” boy Taylor decreed.
It was over an hour after the day’s latest debacle had finished and we were watching an interview with a quarterback who was wearing a cream lapelled cardigan that did him no favors.
Conner had not yet returned.
Jake nor I had shared what had occurred in the living room with the kids in the family room, although we did receive speculative glances.
I’d turned attention away from this curiosity by asking to see the photos of the Spear house prior to renovation and Ethan had run to get the envelopes of pictures. I’d then seen that Ethan was indeed correct. The house had been a “dump,” completely ramshackle. I shouldn’t have been surprised, yet I still was, that Jake had wrought miracles.