“Uh-oh. That sounds like sex to me. You had sex with him, didn’t you?”
If closing her eyes wouldn’t result in death by taxi cab, Jamie would have stopped in the middle of the street and done just that. She needed an emergency yoga session. She needed to find her center.
It seemed to have stayed behind in Jack Davidson’s bed. No one had ever found her center quite so successfully as he had.
“I did have sex with Jack…who just happens to be Caroline’s brother.”
“What? Jonathon? The goofy guy Jack you met on the subway is Jonathon? Good-looking, Darien High School class president, financial wizard, millionaire Jonathon? How is that possible?”
That was the question of the day. “I have no idea. But Jack is Jonathon and I had sex with him by accident.” Jamie winced as she glanced around. Where the hell was she? She never came to this neighborhood. Too professional. Expensive.
“An accident? How the hell could having sex with him be an accident?”
Jamie rubbed her temples, the air hot and muggy. “It…” God, she didn’t even have any words to explain herself. “Well…”
“So, what, the wind blew your clothes off, and then you tripped and fell on his penis?”
The image was so ludicrous she almost laughed.
“An accident is something you have no control over, like sneezing when you’re driving and you rear-end someone. Sex isn’t an accident, Jamie, admit it.”
“You’re right.” Jamie stopped in front of a bagel shop. “I wanted to have sex with Jack. We went to dinner, we got talking and talking, all night, and I thought…it seemed…he was so…it was like it was just so right.” And she had been so wrong.
Jamie propped the phone on her shoulder and wiped her hands on her shirt. Jack’s shirt. “Oh, dang it. Caro’s going to croak.”
“Well, you’re not going to tell her, are you?” The horror in Allison’s voice showed her opinion on telling the truth. “It’s not like you’re going to do it again, right?”
Obviously not, since she’d just turned tail and run. “No, of course not.”
“Not that it would be a bad thing, I guess. I mean, Jonathon, Caroline’s brother, is much better than Jack, the stranger on the subway. Jonathon has some serious cash, Jams.”
That’s what she was afraid of.
“You could do a lot worse. And obviously you were compatible.”
And then some. But everything was different now, skewed and twisted. “We are not compatible in any way. This is Caroline’s brother, for God’s sake. Mr. Corporate. And I’m Jamie, the social worker, from Kentucky. We might as well be from different planets.”
“Don’t go quoting that women-are-from-Saturn, men-are-from-Pluto garbage on me.”
“I don’t think that’s how it went.”
“Whatever.”
Jamie rubbed her temples and fought confusion. She didn’t know what she was doing, she just knew what she’d done, which was make an ass out of herself. “I’m not seeing Jack ever again, and I’m certainly not having sex with him.”
“So then why tell Caroline? What she doesn’t know won’t gross her out.”
That just wasn’t the way Jamie worked. “But I can’t lie about it. It will become like this huge, burdensome secret, and if it ever eventually came out, then it would be like a thousand times worse because of the lying.”
“If Caroline finds out in five years that you had sex with her brother once I don’t really think she’s going to give a crap. She’ll be too busy changing diapers by then.”
Jamie wanted to be changing diapers in five years, too. She sighed and stuck her hand up to flag a cab that was approaching.
“If you tell her now, it will just weird her out, and she’s getting married in exactly two weeks. If you have to tell her, at least wait until after the wedding.”
“I can do that, I guess.” The last thing in the world Jamie wanted was to add to the stress Caroline was feeling in the final countdown to her wedding.
She got in the cab. “Sixth and Greenwich, please.” Slamming the door, she shifted the phone. “But I am begging you to run interference for me at the wedding…I don’t think I can look Jack in the eye without blushing.”
“That good?” Allison asked with scandalized glee.
Oh, yeah. That good. Just the memory made her inner thighs feel zapped by lightning.
With a whisper, Jamie said, “Over a chair, Allison. That’s all I’m going to say.”
“No way.” Allison gave a delighted laugh. “Why don’t accidents like that ever happen to me?”
Jack came out of sleep slowly. He turned a few times, tangled himself up in the sheet, yawned, and forced his eyes open, anticipating the sight of Jamie asleep, naked, beside him.
He was disappointed to find the bed empty, despite a quick glance at the clock showing it was only five o’clock. So much for waking Jamie up with a kiss and a strategically placed hand.
The smell of coffee floated into the bedroom and urged him to sit up in bed. Jamie had been up long enough to make coffee already, and he was wasting time sleeping. Time they could be together.
As he ran a hand through his hair, he noticed the closet door was open. He must have left it open last night in his haste to get to his dinner with Jamie.
He hoped she didn’t have plans for the next few days. He had every intention of spending every minute with her, especially since tonight he had to go to Brad’s bachelor party and wouldn’t be able to see Jamie. A bachelor party lost hands down to a night with Jamie, but he couldn’t exactly get out of it. Brad was marrying his sister Caroline the week after next, and it wouldn’t be forgivable if Jack missed tonight’s party.
But that left the rest of today and hopefully tomorrow. And forever and a day after that. As he stood up and pulled on a pair of boxers and shorts, he wondered if it was possible to fall in love in twenty-four hours. Love was about the only word he could think of to explain how he was feeling.
The perfect rightness of Jamie in his arms, in his bed, in his heart.
It was crazy, but true.
He felt a little like he’d been run over by a semi-truck crashing through the Lincoln Tunnel.
Jack started down the hall toward the kitchen, popping into the bathroom to make sure Jamie wasn’t in there taking a shower or something. He could offer assistance if she was, but the bathroom was empty.