May the Best Man Win (18 page)

“So you're trying to convince her she's your friend, so she'll trust you enough to let you nail her?”

Molly whistled out a breath and, eyeing Jase like he was a festering boil, mouthed “Douche bag.”

“Jesus, do you seriously think I'm trying to scam her into the sack? I want something with her. Something real.”

“You talking more
real
than what you had with Tiffany or Camila?” Brody asked, the look on his face no less disapproving than the others. “Because
real
usually implies lasting, Jase. Which isn't exactly your MO. And Emily's had enough of your shit.”

Jase got it. Tiffany and Camila were the last two women he'd dated, Tiffany before Skolnic's wedding and Camila about three months before that. He'd had to work on Camila to go out with him. Something about his reputation preceding him, if memory served. He'd convinced her, but not by promising something he had no intention of delivering. He'd convinced her that what he was offering—all he'd been offering—was something she wouldn't want to miss.

And when they'd broken it off—amicably, he might add—she'd told him he'd been right.

Tiffany? Well, he could still remember that slap landing across his cheek, but he'd known she was drama going in. He hadn't offered her anything more than he had Camila, but somewhere along the way, Tiffany had gotten it into her head that he should have. Their parting hadn't been quite so amicable. It happened.

Both were fairly representative of his relationships in general, but neither of them could be compared to what was happening with Emily. Nothing could.

He didn't know why things were so different with her.

Why she pulled at the places other women couldn't touch. But when he was with her, it wasn't just about want. It was about
need
.

And whatever that pull was, it had already taken him beyond the limits he'd set for every other relationship he'd gone into. He was now in uncharted territory. He didn't know where it was going to lead, but he knew he didn't want to be there alone.

“She's different.” That was all he could say. His only defense. Well, that and… “I invited her to Belfast on Wednesday.”

Silence.

The weird kind.

And then Molly clutched her hands together, her lips pinched between her teeth. Sean grunted, grabbed the sack of trash, and walked out to dump it. Max reopened the fridge and resumed his grumbling over the jelly being hidden behind the milk and what they were doing on the same shelf. And Brody… Brody stepped in close so the others couldn't hear.

“No more fuckups with this one, Jase. She doesn't need it.”

Okay, so they were good.

* * *

Wednesday night took its sweet time rolling around. The week was rough. Jase was worried about Janice, who still hadn't had her baby and to his consternation had continued marching into the office each morning like she wasn't walking around with a stomach so big and round it looked ready to pop. Only these days, that belly didn't always look so round. This morning it had been disconcertingly off-center. A little oblong. And damn, was it hard.

He wanted her at home with her feet up and a nurse standing at the ready. A phone in her hand with Labor and Delivery set on speed dial.

But no. That wasn't Janice.

So he'd spent the better part of his workweek hovering around his assistant, trying to come up with quality, on-the-spot lies to cover his actions. Because the hovering? She didn't appreciate it. Just like she hadn't appreciated the arugula salad he'd tried to get her to eat when he read it helped start labor. And she didn't like the yoga ball he'd replaced her chair with for the same reason.

She'd disliked it so much that she'd all but shoved him into his office that afternoon, closed the door behind her, and then done the unthinkable.

“You brought this on yourself, Foster,” she'd hissed, pulling up her stretchy maternity shirt to just above her belly button. And that straining, mottled orb… Holy hell, there were some things a guy just couldn't unsee.

No more yoga balls. Check.

The only thing that had gotten him through the day had been the idea of confessing his arugula sins to the one woman whose laugh might make the trauma go away.

But here he was at Belfast at quarter to ten, surrounded by friends who'd officially transitioned from upbeat assurances she'd be there to sympathetic looks mirroring what he already knew. She wouldn't.

The only question now was what was he going to do about it?

“Rafe, you know I love what you did here. It's genius, like everything you touch,” Emily assured him, stroking an ego that was already on the brink of going supernova. “But for Basker Bourbon, we're looking to work an edge in with the old-school feel. I think if we—”

“Emily?”

She turned to find Avi, her new intern, blushing at the threshold of the art director's office, trying to keep her eyes from roving over the admittedly attractive man. She was failing. Miserably.

“What's up?”

“Um, sorry to interrupt, but there's a Jason Foster for you in the lobby.”

Emily bumped her knee on the edge of Rafe's drafting table, then turned a heel navigating through the cluster of sleek, red club chairs.

“I'm coming,” she croaked, bending to rub her ankle. “Just have him wait in my office. I'll be right there.”

Turning back to Rafe, she apologized for the interruption, finished her thought, and after some more heavy petting regarding his unparalleled talent, she started back through the maze of thirty-second-floor hallways toward certain…friction.

She should have called. Texted.

Something to let Jase know she wouldn't be there last night. But she hadn't really known herself until the back-and-forth indecision that had been eating her up since Sunday—and had her vacillating between standing at the door with her coat on and stalking back into her bedroom—eventually ate up all the hours of the evening. Doing nothing had made the decision for her. Because the night was over and she hadn't gone.

It was for the best. Right?

Probably not, if Jase was sitting in her office.

Outside her door, she stopped and smoothed her skirt. Her hair. She took a breath and pressed a hand against the spot in her belly where the butterflies had started to build.

Shoot. That never ended well.

Pushing through the door with a confident smile, she braced for whatever was coming. Then froze when she found Jase kicked back in the chair across from her desk, a spread of sandwiches, chips, and sodas laid out in front of him.

“Thought you might be hungry,” he said by way of greeting with no indication of any feelings, hard or not, about the night before. “You free for a few?”

She looked over the spread and felt her stomach grumble.

Jase waved her to her desk. “Sit. Relax. It's only from the deli around the corner from my building, not takeout from Spiaggia. Eat.”

“Friend food?” she asked quietly, her guilt over ignoring Jase's offer of amity the night before making her squirm.

“
Celebration
food,” he corrected, then held up a couple of cookies she hadn't seen as if they clarified things. “Janice had her baby at 3:01 this morning. Little monster's a boy. Seven pounds, five ounces. Nineteen inches long.”

Emily rocked back in her chair, delight washing through her.

“Jase, you must be so proud,” she teased, warming at the smile she'd earned.

“Actually, I am.” And then he proceeded to tell her about the arugula salad he thought might have cost him his manhood yesterday, and then the text from Wayne, Janice's husband, informing him that she'd actually brought it home with her and eaten it for dinner. Two hours later, they were in business.

Emily laughed until she was wiping tears from the corners of her eyes with her deli napkin. And Jase was sitting back in his chair wearing that sexy, satisfied grin on his face.

They talked a while more, and then Jase gathered the trash from their lunch before heading for the door. No last lingering look, no kiss good-bye, just a devastating grin, and as he walked out, a simple “See you around, Em.”

From behind her desk, she smiled and answered quietly, “That would be nice.”

* * *

Saturday morning, bleary-eyed and confused, Emily buzzed Jase up to her apartment, where he handed her a bottle of Gatorade and told her to get dressed. They were going for a run.

She wanted to take offense. To tell him where he could stick his electrolytes and demand to know where he got off showing up at her door like that. But they were looking at one of those freak sixty-five-degree March days, and a run sounded good. Almost as good as Jase looked in black-and-gray Under Armour that fit in a way that had her eyes going wide, despite the fact that she'd woken up approximately thirty-seven seconds before.

Plus, hard to scrounge up much outrage when she'd done almost the same thing to Lena the week before. Of course she'd had the good sense to bring doughnut holes instead of Gatorade, but still.

Ten minutes later, they were pounding down the lakefront path past Belmont Harbor, Jase bemoaning the shortcomings of his temporary assistant. By the time they reached North Avenue Beach, Emily had told him about the band she'd seen the night before and the girlfriend who'd been suspiciously absent for about thirty minutes following the show, only to return with a hickey the size of a quarter on her neck and a new appreciation for drummers' rhythm.

Once they reached Navy Pier, the endorphins must have kicked in because she was feeling pretty good and couldn't help asking the question that had been plaguing her since Jase Foster started making nuptial headlines with his less-than-exemplary record of getting grooms to the church without incident.

“Okay, here's the deal with the Wallace wedding”—Jase's eyes cut to hers—“and I'm trusting this stays between us.”

Emily nodded, wiping the sweat from her brow.

“We didn't run out of gas,” he said, his words following the cadence of his steps. “I'd never make that kind of mistake with a wedding at stake. But Neil was freaking out. He didn't know if he could go through with it. I took him out to talk, figuring the best bet was to work through it with him and risk being late, rather than risk him not showing up at all. Hell, there's only so much a girl is willing to forgive, right?

“Neil got it together, and we made up the part about the gas in the boat so Maryanne could blame me instead of him. She never needed to know that on the most special day of her life, the guy she was pledging her heart to had almost bailed.”

Emily was stunned. It wasn't exactly how she would have handled things, but like the Jase she'd thought she'd known back in high school, this man took care of the people he loved.

“The eye patch on Jim?” she asked.

“That was my bad. Finger football seemed harmless at the time. Live and learn.”

Okay, that was all well and good, but she wasn't sure the antibiotics were going to be so easy to explain away.

“Trey? Oh, man, I told that guy it was a mistake to accept free tacos from a lunch truck. I said there had to be a catch, but did he listen?”

It went on like that a while, the two of them trading truths. Telling stories, pointing out their favorite spots along the path, and laughing.

God, being with Jase was fun.

And then the laughter eased as they stopped in front of Buckingham Fountain. Their eyes met and Emily could feel the moment tugging at her, asking her if this was what she wanted, because if she did, it was right there, ready to take.

But like the night he'd invited her to Belfast, she couldn't make herself reach for it.

Jase was amazing, but she couldn't quiet the little voice whispering in the back of her head, reminding her that was what she'd thought before. Maybe it was just too soon, and all she needed was a little time before she'd be ready to give Jase her trust. But a part of her wondered if any amount of time would be enough.

“You ready to head back?” she asked.

Jase searched her eyes a moment longer, and Emily thought she might have seen recognition in them. Understanding. But then he wiped his big hand over his face and gave her a smile. “Yeah, whatever you want, Em.”

* * *

Tuesday night, Jase still couldn't get it out of his head. Emily and that look in her eyes when they'd been standing in front of the fountain. That look he'd tried to dismiss but couldn't ignore.

She wasn't going to let him in.

He thought maybe she wanted to. Hell, he was pretty sure of it. But something in that look had told him that she just
couldn't
.

And the worst of it was that he couldn't blame her. Not a bit.

But even knowing he deserved what he had coming didn't make it any easier to take. So he'd hopped in the car after work, ready to do battle with the Eisenhower. It had been three weeks since Jase had been out to the house, which never happened. And yeah, his dad had made the drive into the city one night for dinner, so it wasn't like he hadn't seen the guy—but it wasn't the same as going home and sitting in the space that had been theirs, and theirs alone, for twenty years. Shooting the shit a while and throwing around a few good-natured jabs just to say they cared.

Maybe scoring a slice of banana bread if Jase was lucky.

Catching a game. He wondered if Emily would be watching a game.

Damn it, why couldn't he stop thinking about her? Why hadn't he been able to pull his head out of his ass for five minutes back in high school and listen to her? Look at her? Look at what the friend he'd been trying to protect was becoming and see who really needed protecting?

Slamming his hands against the wheel, he cursed. Why hadn't he fought for her when there'd still been a chance for any of them to win?

Jase cut the engine. If there wasn't any banana bread, he'd get his dad to show him how to make it.

At the front stoop, he heard the TV coming from inside and pushed through the door the way he'd been doing since he was old enough to reach the knob.

The first thing that reached him was the sound of laughter. Deep and booming, mixed with something…lighter. More melodic. He swallowed. Familiar in a way he shouldn't be thinking about because there was no way—

“Jase,” his dad said, jumping up from the couch at the sound of the keys hitting the floor.

His father lifted a hand in Jase's direction, one of those let's-everyone-just-stay-calm moves, but the nervous way his old man's eyes were shifting between Jase and the brunette who'd also risen from the couch but had yet to meet Jase's eyes said Joe Foster was anything but calm. Welcome to the club.

“Is this a joke?” Jase demanded, looking at his father because it was easier than looking at
her
.

“Jase, I'm sorry. I didn't want you to find out like this. I know it must be a shock. Your mom and I, we were just waiting for the right time.”

* * *

Jase couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like this. The last time he'd had this kind of hollow feeling inside. Or maybe he could, because that day twenty years ago had never really left him.

How could his dad—?

How was it possible that after all this time his mom—?

How?

He spent the next hour in traffic with that one word ricocheting around his brain as he kept his eyes on the road and paid attention to his speed and the cars around him. Basically making it his mission to live until he could get back to Lakeview where he would safely park his car and then go get blind fucking drunk. Because if ever there was a call for a bender, busting his parents on the couch after not seeing one of them for twenty years seemed like it.

But as he drove east on Belmont, instead of turning on Sheffield for Belfast, he kept going, past the turnoff to his place, toward the lake until he hit Sheridan. Where Emily lived. Was it even possible she'd be home at eight on a Tuesday night instead of neck-deep in whatever activity she'd committed to with whichever of her six hundred best friends she was making time for just then? Probably not. Just like she probably wasn't the right person for him to be going to anyway. But he couldn't make himself turn around.

He just wanted to see her. He wanted someone—soft. He wanted someone warm. He wanted someone he could count on.

He wanted her. Just to talk. Just for a little while.

He found a spot two blocks up and then walked to her place, feeling the cold leaching into that empty spot inside him despite not being able to feel it anywhere else. It was unsettling in a distant way. Within the lobby, he buzzed her apartment and waited. The seconds turned to minutes, and that cold empty space inside him grew.

She would have answered if she'd been there. Just as well.

Probably better for him to be alone.

He turned to go just as the security door swung open, and there she was. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and she had on a charcoal peacoat with some kind of lumpy, bright-colored scarf wound around her neck a few times.

Christ, she was pretty.

And clearly surprised to see him. “Jase, what are you doing here?”

“Sorry, I should have called. I was just… I thought I'd try my luck. But you're heading out, so I'll catch you another time.”

Feeling like an ass, he pushed a hand back through his hair and realized it must have been drizzling outside because his hair was wet.

Emily stepped closer. “I was going out for a beer with… Hey, are you okay?”

Then more urgently, “Jase, what happened?”

Emily had never met his mother. She'd moved to town years after his mom left. But she'd been close enough in high school for a while there to have gathered the broad strokes. Or to have heard the rumors. Hearing that Clara Foster was back, Emily pulled out her phone and told whomever she was meeting that she wouldn't make it.

And that hollow space inside felt just that much smaller.

Up in her apartment, Emily opened a couple of Heinekens and pointed him toward her couch.

“So when did you find out?” she asked, all that softness he'd been looking for right there in her eyes.

“About an hour and a half ago. I hadn't seen as much of my dad as I usually do and thought I'd drive out. I couldn't believe it was really her. It was like a flashback, Em. I mean, they were laughing. They were just sitting there laughing together like the last twenty years hadn't happened. Like she hadn't blown out of town with some douche while we stood there watching the exhaust fade, my dad's heart broken in half. Like she hadn't been the shittiest wife on the books even before that.” Jase looked up at the ceiling. “And I'll be damned if my dad didn't look happier tonight than I'd seen him since the day she left.”