The Someday Jar (28 page)

“What are you doing? Turn around,” Kit says.

I walk past her.

“Lanie?” She hurries after me, grasps my wrist, and stops me. “Where are you going? He wants you. Go get him.”

“Julie. He has Julie. I can’t do this, Kit. I can’t.” I drop my head into my hands. “What was I thinking?”

“Lanie?” Wes says.

I look up. Damn him. Why can’t he be more
forgettable
?

“Where are you going?”

“Why did you write this?” I show him the slip.

“You asked me what I’d write in my Someday Jar. It’s what I want.” He reaches for my hand.

I stumble half a step back from his touch, his hand wrapped around mine. I can’t tell where his fingers end and mine begin. A perfect fit.

No. No. No.
“Julie.” Like a Band-Aid ripped off skin, I tear my hand away and dash toward Kit’s car.

“What’s going on?” She slides into the driver’s seat.

“Drive.”

“Where am I going?”

“Just drive.”

For twenty minutes we circle through the streets of downtown Phoenix before she says, “Should I stop for gas?”

I exhale. “No, just head back to the office.”

“Okay, sweetie. Want to tell me why you ran?”

“Julie.” I drop my head into my hands.

Kit rubs my back. “Oh.”

I avoid Mom’s inquisitive eyes as I step inside my office. I don’t feel like explaining.

“Lanie, there’s someone here to see you.”

Shit. I don’t feel like meeting with a client now.
“Mom, can you please make an excuse for me? I’m going home.”

“Hi.” Wes stands from the couch.

“What are you doing here?”

He steps toward me and it’s then I notice that he holds my fractured Someday Jar in his hands. But it’s no longer broken into pieces, it’s together. Cracked with a sliver missing from one side, but together.

I step toward him and reach for the jar.

He holds up his hand. “No, not yet. It’s still drying. Thank you for the glue.” He peeks at my mom.

“No problem.”

“I’m Lanie’s best friend.” Kit jumps in, her voice a bit higher than normal. She thinks he’s cute. I can tell by her pitch.

“Nice to meet you, Lanie’s best friend. I’m Wes.”

“She likes you,” Kit says, nodding toward me with a rise in her eyebrows.

“That’s good,” Wes says, not taking his eyes off me. “I like her, too.”

Kit giggles and says, “Um . . . Jane and I are going to get a coffee.”

“You go on ahead. I’m fine,” Mom says.

Kit grabs my mom’s hand and pulls the resisting woman out the door.

“You can’t be here. You have Julie. I saw the picture.”

“The picture? Oh, right. You mean when you stalked my room?”

“You have a beautiful family.”

“I do.”

“Julie wouldn’t appreciate me chasing after you. You need to go, I need—”

“Are you chasing after me, Lanie?”

There’s a sexiness in his tone and it rattles every nerve in my body.

“It’s not her concern,” he says.

“What? How can you be so heartless? You think your wife would want you standing here, smiling at me like this?”

He laughs.

“This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not married.”

“Fine. Your girlfriend wouldn’t—”

“She’s not my girlfriend, either.”

“Jesus.” I’m frustrated, feeling more and more like a fool with every passing second, and he stands there, mocking me. “Fine. The mother of your child—”

“Nope.”

He’s enjoying this. He
does
like to watch me squirm.

But I’m confused. “The picture?”

“Will you?”

I pretend shivers don’t trail up my arm as he slips the jar into my cupped hand.

He digs into his wallet and retrieves the photo. “This picture is of my nephew, Trevor. And this”—he points at the woman—“is Julie. My sister.”

“Sister?”

He nods and stares at the photo for a moment before returning it into his wallet. He shifts his feet and says, “She married a wreck of a guy, took off a year ago once Trevor was diagnosed with autism. I like to keep an eye on them because Trevor has trouble sometimes.”

“I had no idea.”

Fixing on the tiny scar above his lip, wanting to outline the curve of his face with my fingers, I process what he says. He’s not married.
Not married.

“Evan told me about the breakup and that you opened your own business. I told him he was a self-righteous jackass and pissed away the best thing he’ll ever know. I’ll probably never work for Evan’s parents again. Or him, for that matter.” He steps closer. “But I don’t care. And I don’t want to talk about him.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t want to talk at all.” He traces his finger from my shoulder, along my arm, down to my fingertip, sparking
more goose bumps along the way. He grabs my empty hand and kisses inside my palm.

“What do you want to do?”

Wes draws me close with his hand at the nape of my neck. His thumb strokes my cheek. “This.” He opens my lips with his, pressing his mouth on mine.

My body curves into his as Wes’s other hand finds the small of my back and pulls me closer, the Someday Jar snuggled between us. My head spins, mindless from the heat shared between our bodies, dizzy from the desire Wes stirs within me. Our kiss is sexy, solid, seamless.

Never have I felt so certain and confident in a moment and yet so completely powerless. Wes is like a drug. At once, I’m addicted. I want more.

Minutes—hours—days?—pass before we part. After I exhale a long satisfied breath, I smile at him.

“Just so you know.” He carefully sets the jar on the desk beside us, squeezes me closer, our bodies pressed tight together, his lips a fraction of an inch away from mine, and says, “I prefer you to a hundred milk
cows.”

Read on for a special excerpt from the next novel by Allison Morgan

Can I See You Again?

Coming Summer 2016 from Berkley
Trade!

“What’s wrong with this one?” I aim my cellphone toward my approaching client, Nixon Voss, and show him the lengthy text from another of his disappointed dates.

He settles into the chair across my desk in smooth dark jeans, nearly swallowing the leather slingback with his long California-tanned frame. Nixon tugs at the cuffs of his pale pink button-down shirt, a color not many men can pull off. “It’s nice to see you, too, Bree. You look good. Beautiful morning. Don’t you think?”

“Forgive me.” I match the tease in his voice. “I figured we skipped the pleasantries once you started breaking hearts in the double-digit range. How many does this make now? Eleven?”

“She’s hollow.”

I glance at her text and count three rows of crying face emojis. Okay, so she’s not a nano-physicist. She is, however, a blue-eyed San Diego Chargers cheerleader whose toned thighs make me regret the wedge of Oreo-crusted cheesecake I
ate for breakfast today. And yesterday. “You know, there’s no bonus for the most dates. No, buy eleven get the twelfth free.”

“Now you tell me. All this time I’ve been holding out for a Bree Caxton and Associates keychain.”

“Where’d you take her? And don’t say for coffee.”

“Then I won’t say it.”

“My God, Nixon. You’re impossible.” I flick a stray paperclip in his direction. He reaches for it, but the wire fumbles through his grasp. “You do realize you’re trying to impress these women?”

“Why suffer through dinner if we can’t muster a decent conversation during a cup of coffee?”

“Because women like dinner. Women shave their legs for dinner. Dinner shouts to the world that you chose her, above all others, even if just for the evening. And trust me, a valued woman is ten thousand times more likely to open up. In all ways.” I arch an eyebrow in his direction. “Dinner is the slow seduction.”

“‘Slow seduction,’ huh? I’ll try and remember that.” He laughs and pulls his chiming phone from his pocket. “Excuse me, one sec?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

I flip my phone end over end and think about how revealing ringtones are. When waiting for a dentist appointment or pedicure, I try and peg other people’s chosen signals based on their magazine selection, shoe style, tattoo, or haircut. It’s judgmental. Based on conjecture. But given that my livelihood depends upon my ability to read energy and body language, I’m happy to report that nine times out of ten, I nail it.

Hard to say if my sixth sense stems from my psychology degree, books I’ve devoured on human behavior, college
parties where I bet my friends twenty bucks I could hook up total strangers, or because I was born on Halloween.

Whatever the reason, I’m grateful for the intuition and over the last six years, I’ve capitalized off of people’s unique characteristics.

Nixon remains focused on his screen and I consider my own ringtone, realizing I don’t differ much from the predictable. My hair is draped around my shoulders in loose curls and my makeup is minimal: peach lip gloss, mascara, and a dusting of bronzing powder. I’d rather suffer a kick to the liver then eat a McRib—real pork, my ass—all my cleaning products are paraben and phthalate free, and, I’m a pointed toe away from conquering an eight-angle yoga pose.

So, it’s no surprise that my ringtone is a Fratelli’s song, an organic indie rock band I fell in love with after my boyfriend, Sean, took me to their concert last spring. We drank too many Amber Bachs, danced until a blister formed on my pinkie toe, then wired and giddy—likely from marijuana smoke blanketing the air—fooled around like teenagers in the back of his Audi A4. For two weeks, I had a cup-holder-shaped bruise on my left hip.

“Sorry,” Nixon says, pointing at his phone, “small fire at the office. Give me a minute?”

“No problem.”

Nixon types his reply and I spin around to face my computer. I delete a few junk e-mails for last-minute Ensenada cruise deals and detox vitamins, suppressing my giggle when I come across an offer from Size Matters that reads:
SMALL PRICE, BIG PENIS
.

I then order three rolls of Christmas-themed wrapping paper from my landscaper’s daughter who’s fund-raising for
a field trip to the San Diego Zoo. They’re $18.95—per roll—but who can say no to a pigtailed second grader with a gap between her front teeth?

Allowing Nixon a few more moments, I open the
New York Times
webpage, clicking on the bestsellers list. The familiar black-and-white page fills the screen.

It’s surreal to think that in two months’ time my very own book—which is without a doubt my hardest fought and proudest accomplishment—will hit the shelves. My self-help debut
Can I See You Again?
chronicles a handful of my most memorable matchmaking love stories, funny anecdotes about first meetings that didn’t go well—one guy arrived in a U-Haul, tossed his date a pair of gloves, and asked her to help him unload—along with tips and suggestions to find the one-and-only.

Not only will a successful book explode my business, but the bags under my eyes from late nights fixed at the computer, tears of uncertainty pooled on my keyboard, and calloused fingertips from typing, deleting, and typing again will culminate into something tangible. Something I created.

As I scroll down to this week’s current number one bestseller,
Fallen
, a twinge of wistfulness prickles my heart.

Jo.

My grandmother’s smiling face and apple-wallpapered kitchen flash through my mind as I recall the countless Sundays we spent together during my early teenage years, lingering in bookstores or lounging on her sofa, soaking up every number one novel on the list, even those with saucy parts. We shared a yellow highlighter and marked our favorite lines, writing comments in the margins.

Then, anteing with raisins, Ritz crackers, pretzel sticks, or her
favorite—liqueur-filled chocolates—we’d wager on the upcoming week
Times
bestseller rankings. We’d bet which novel jumped to the top spot, which fell below twenty, how many authors were female, the number of times
Love
,
Forever
, or
Dead
was used in titles, how cute we thought the male authors might be.

It never mattered who won. We combined our snack piles and munched on the winnings, laughing at nothing special, enjoying the afternoon with just us two before my parents came to pick me up. I can still smell the hint of black cherry on Jo’s breath when she kissed me good-bye.

It’s hard to believe that fifteen years of Sundays have passed. Its even more disheartening to admit that since the day I moved out for college, my visits became less frequent, less welcome, more guarded. Worst of all, Jo’s smile has faded into a thin line of disappointment and it doesn’t take a body language expert to recognize the layer of regret clouding her eyes.

So along with sidebars and strategies, curse-filled rants, doubt and resurgence, I’ve invested my heart and soul into
Can I See You Again?
—not to mention a sizable chunk of my savings account for a publicist—and there’s nothing I want more than to earn the coveted ranking.

Ease the sting of all that I’ve ripped away.

With a cleansing breath, I clear my thoughts and return my attention to work. My book means nothing without a successful business to base it upon.

Nixon remains concentrated on his screen and it occurs to me that he’s a capable guy. The woman he marries will never need to call a plumber to fix a leaky toilet or a handyman to repair a screen door. On top of his handiness, Nixon’s a sharp, diligent businessman with an iron-will dedication to his company. So, it seems fitting, as he
tap-tap-
tap
s at his keys, that
his phone’s alert is a series of three rigid bumps.
Thump-thump-thump
. Like the knocking on a door.

Given that I appreciate his work ethic and value his account—especially his on-time monthly payments—I don’t mind waiting another minute or two for him to finish his conversation.

He’s still typing.

Okay, that’s long enough. “Medical emergency?”

He says nothing.

“Beached whale?”

“Mmm?”

“Have you been called to deliver a baby on the freeway? Should I take cover because we’ve launched into WWIII?”

Nixon lifts his focus to offer a what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about scowl.

“We’re discussing your life, remember?” I point at his phone. “What’s more important than love?”

“Look.” Nixon tucks his phone into his pocket. “I appreciate your help. I really do. But you know this whole arranged dating thing isn’t me. I’m here because my mom forgets I have a business to run and insists . . . actually, commands . . . that I have a date on my arm for my cousin’s wedding. If I don’t, she’ll have to explain to friends and neighbors and the caterer that the Voss family name is in jeopardy because I haven’t married and spawned a grandchild, which in her eyes, is equivalent to the earth slipping off its axis. So, according to my mom, if I don’t have a girlfriend at the party, I’ll be responsible for the end of humanity. And, I’m man enough to say, my mom scares the shit out of me.”

I fiddle with a file, trying not to laugh at Mrs. Voss’s expense even though Nixon’s not off base. I recall her unannounced visit several weeks ago. She fixed herself in the very chair where
Nixon sits now, wagging her plump middle finger at me, explaining that each passing day is one less she’ll be alive to spend with her grandchildren. And the Holy Lord can strike her dead before she’ll allow children without marriage. She’s giving Nixon until his cousin’s wedding before Mama-bear steps in and finds a daughter-in-law herself. She all but threatened to cut Nixon out of her will if he doesn’t produce a grandchild in the next couple of years. Truth be told, she scared the shit out of me, too.

No, that’s not true. Yes, her approach is abrasive, but I admire her conviction, her certainty. Who can fault a woman for pinpointing exactly what she wants from life? A woman who isn’t afraid to stand up and declare it. And though Nixon may disagree, he’s a lot like his mom, confident and steadfast. But the two differ in the sense that work is his baby. And, I imagine it’s hard to spoon-feed mashed sweet potatoes to a Fortune 500 Company.

“Let’s be honest.” I tuck my hair behind my ears and prop my elbows on my thick glass desk. “You’re not here because your mom said so. You’re here because you’re a thirty-six-year-old man with no one to share your life. Your house is cold and sterile. There’s probably expired milk in your fridge. And more than likely, grey hairs are sprouting up in inappropriate places. Your comfort zone is shrinking and, at the end of the day, you’re alone.”

“Shit, Bree. Don’t sugarcoat it. Give it to me straight.”

“I know it sounds harsh.”

“It sounds like you’re stalking me.”

“Only when your shutters are open.”

He laughs.

“Seriously, though, love isn’t easy. Don’t get discouraged
because we had a few misfires. I’m good at this. I know what I’m doing.” I thumb toward the wall behind me blanketed with framed pictures of some of my happy couples I’ve introduced over the last six years. “Seven of my clients have named their firstborns after me, three their dogs, and another his pet squirrel.”

“A squirrel?”

“Yeah, that guy was kinda creepy. So are squirrels. Anyway, my point is,” I scoot toward the edge of my seat and say, “I’ve facilitated relationships between aging lounge singers and triathletes. I’ve married pilots to prison guards, CEOs to sanitation workers, vegans to Paleo dieters. Bree Caxton and Associates is one of San Diego’s most prolific matchmaking companies. I’ve devoted my life to finding love and have a ninety-eight percent success rate.” I lean closer toward him. “Do you realize, Nixon Voss, you’re my two percent?”

“Are you really afraid of squirrels?”

“I wish you’d take this seriously.”

“Is it the soft, bushy tails or the doe-like eyes that terrify you?”

“Very funny. You know, if I had a nickel for every time you said a girl’s too dull, too fake, or too—”

“You’d have fifty-five cents.” He folds one leg over his knee and ties the laces of his charcoal suede oxford-style shoes, noticing my sneer. “Hey, now . . . my mom makes that face at my dad. You and I aren’t married. You’re not allowed to give me that look.”

I flip open his last date’s file, reaching for her headshot. “Here is a perky blond with a smile worthy of a Colgate commercial. She’s gorgeous. You chose her. But you don’t care to see this darling girl again, because . . . ?”

“She seemed too obvious, a little young.”

“Young? That’s what I’ve said for months. And for months, you’ve continued to override my choices and select girls, eleven to be exact, that aren’t your right match. And for some crazy reason, I’ve allowed it! But no more.” I wave her picture in the air. “You think you want a twentysomething model/actress with big boobs and a tight ass, but you’re wrong.”

“How are big boobs and a tight ass ever wrong?”

Fair enough.

“Fine. Think of it this way, you’re a venture capitalist who negotiates with financiers across the world, right?”

“Right.”

“You speak three languages and have a master’s degree in business.”

“I do.”

“How can you expect to find a connection with some barely legal play toy? It isn’t probable. You don’t share the same energy. Girls that age don’t care about exchange rates or investment returns. They don’t care about variances in sea levels or the shipping economy. They care about hair extensions, polishing their nails with the color of the season, and mango-flavored vodka. That’s who they are. That’s who they should be.” I point at Nixon. “But that’s not you.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s not. You need a thirtysomething, strong, independent, less obvious woman who is filled with a driving passion. Someone who challenges you.”

Nixon leans against the chair’s backrest and scans me from head to toe through my desk. My neck muscles tighten. Not because I regret my clothing choice. After all I’m dressed in Tony Burch buckle flats, dark-rinsed jeans, an ivory blazer,
and a grey v-neck cotton top with an oval stone pendant dangling from a long gold chain. I tense with hopes Nixon doesn’t recognize the outfit from the Banana Republic window mannequin across the street.