Chapter 28 Too Far Gone
TOO FAR GONE
Jack
“I don’t want to fuck this one up.”
I tossed a Nerf basketball up in the air, catching it easily on the way down.
I lay on my purple couch, feet crossed on the armrest, an afternoon coffee on the table.
Casey lounged on the chair with her cinnamon dolce latte and an iPad, as we reviewed our plans for the upcoming charity gala.
I also needed to talk to her about my meeting later this week in Los Angeles with the CEO of one of our online retail partners.
She shot me an inquisitive look, tilting her head to the side. “The charity gala? ‘Cause you’re good at fucking up a lot of things, but I don’t even know how you could mess that up,” she said, then the corner of her lips twitched playfully.
I threw the ball at her, but she caught it quickly. “Ha. Now I have your weapon.”
“To answer your question, no, not the gala. But things with Michelle.”
“Ah,” Casey said, and set down the iPad. “So you like her a lot?”
I took a deep breath, nodded several times and sat up.
This was not a conversation to be had lying down.
“I do. I really do. She’s…” I started, but let my voice trail off.
I shared more with my sister than anyone, but could I really say all the things that were forming on the tip of my tongue?
Amazing, smart, beautiful, direct, open, lovely, funny, and absolutely perfect for me.
“She’s great,” I said, and it seemed wholly inadequate, but when Casey flashed her winning smile I knew she understood all that was unspoken.
Casey drummed her hands on the coffee table in excitement. “You should bring her to the gala next month,” she suggested.
I narrowed my eyes. “It’s not like that.”
“What? How is it not like that?”
I didn’t want to dive into the finer details of my sex arrangement with Michelle either. So I deflected. “That event will be crawling with photogs. She’s a prominent therapist. I sell dildos. I should do my best to keep her out of the limelight.”
Casey laughed, then tossed me the ball. “Well, when you put it like that, you are kind of Captain of the Dildos.”
I caught it easily in one hand. “And you’re Queen of the Dongs.”
“I wear that title with pride,” she said. “So when do I get to meet the Princess of the Weiner Dealer?”
I cracked up, a deep, rumbling belly laugh. After my shoulders stopped shaking, I threw a question back at my sister. “Why are you so focused on my love life?”
She shot me a look, like I was crazy for asking.
“Because I don’t want you to wind up like Mom and Dad,” she said, as if the answer were obvious, and when she phrased it that way, it was.
“The last four years when you were already in college and I was still home were the worst. Dinners were painful. I’m just glad you were in school nearby. ”
Our parents had met in college, married soon after, and then proceeded to drift apart for the next twenty-one years they were together.
I swore they all but kept a calendar and marked with an X each day until they neared Casey’s high school graduation.
Bitter, snippy, unhappy people, they simply didn’t want to be together anymore, but they clearly felt it was their duty to do so until they got Casey out the door.
I had tried to come home on weekends as often as I could, to rescue Casey, take her to the movies, attend her swim meets, help her with homework and then college apps.
As soon as graduation came, our dad walked out the door, happily swinging his suitcase, and our mom threw a party.
Never had two people been so excited to sign dissolution of marriage papers.
“I’m glad I was nearby too. And I’d rather not end up like them either, but I think we’re safe in that regard, seeing as I have no plans to get married, or get serious, or anything like that.”
She rolled her eyes, huffing at me. “You’re already too far gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“You just said you didn’t want to fuck this up. She’s not just someone you’re dating. She’s someone you care deeply about.”
I didn’t want my sister’s observation to register, even though somewhere inside, it resonated, hitting a part of me I’d thought was broken irreparably.
Michelle awakened feelings in me I’d thought were missing from my very DNA.
Her vulnerability, her strength, her humor, and most of all, her openness on everything floored me, and had worked its way into my heart, that stupid organ that barely worked.
I didn’t know how to handle all I felt for her—but my desire for her went much deeper than the physical.
“And that’s another reason why you should do the story with my friend,” Casey added. I arched an eyebrow in question. “The one at the New York Press. I mentioned it before. It would be good for you.”
I shook my head. “On that note. Let’s talk about the Conroy issue,” I said, tapping the newspaper spread out on my coffee table.
“It doesn’t look like Henry and Marquita have made any headway in the court of public opinion—there’s crickets here and still a lot of general negativity online.
You said you were going to do some digging on Conroy. Did you find anything?”
Casey’s lips quirked up. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
“I knew I wasn’t the only spy in the family. What did you find?”
“Well, it’s more like I found my inspiration.
He hasn’t been up to anything nefarious when I’ve staked him out.
But I don’t think he’s dumb enough to do his own dirty work either.
So I started thinking about that—about who you trust, who you know.
People in the neighborhood are really responding to Conroy’s message about cleaning up a bad influence on the area, right?
Even if it’s not based on the truth, he’s touching a nerve that everyone can agree with.
Everyone wants a neighborhood to feel like a neighborhood, the kind they see in movies. ”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“At its heart, that’s exactly what he’s trying to ruin.
So I got to work. Our graphics designer and social media manager were all too happy to work overtime once I let them know I had VIP tickets for a certain sold-out concert at MSG that I was ready to hand over.
So now Eden is the only place to get your…
” she turned her phone to show me a prominent window decal, “Upper East Original decal, if you’re a local business owner.
We’re making shirts too. Upper East Original tells customers you are invested in the neighborhood—and everyone who stops by to grab a decal gets an invitation from Henry and Marquita to join their social club of the same name.
We’re reminding people who they know. Who they can trust. It’s already gaining lots of curious followers online, and unlike Eden’s clubs, this one has no secrets behind a velvet rope. ”
The cogs in my head started turning. Slowly at first, then more quickly, and soon the train was racing down the path.
“This is exactly the right direction, Casey, and it’s going to change the conversation.
This isn’t about digging up dirt. This is about something better than dirt,” I said, snapping my fingers as the ideas whirring in my head came fully into focus.
The data points, the bits and pieces, the clues all came together, and I assembled them quickly into a strategy.
“I think I know exactly who your contact at the paper should talk to,” I said, then laid out the plan for my sister.
Her eyes sparkled with excitement as I shared my thoughts.
Casey would prep Henry and Marquita on the best talking points to amplify Upper East Original in the interview she would be setting up—for them.
And Leo would also speak to the reporter, off the record, about the rumors he’s heard, ensuring she’d use her access to talk to people we couldn’t about them.
“I love it,” Casey said. “Conroy’s not the only one who can get other people to do the dirty work!”
“My thoughts exactly. Can you keep me updated while I’m in California? I fly out in two days.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“She went into labor. Danielle Paige. You were meeting with Danielle, right?”
“Yes.”
“I was talking to her marketing VP earlier today. She said all of Danielle’s meetings this week are being postponed.”
“That does sound like a reasonable excuse,” I said dryly.
After Casey left a few minutes later, my cell phone buzzed, and it was Michelle on the other line. My damn heart thundered just from hearing her voice. Her sexy, pretty voice that I loved to listen to.
“Hey. I have a session in a few minutes,” she said. “But I just wanted to tell you I’m going to miss you a lot when you’re in California and I’m in Paris, and you better be able to handle that nine-hour time-zone difference because I’m going to require a lot of phone sex with you.”
Lust swamped my body, and I was hard instantly.
This woman affected me like no one ever had.
A dirty word, a sexy line, and I was at attention.
“It’ll only be a six-hour time difference.
My trip to California was canceled,” I said, and then the rational part of my brain bounded forward, knocking on my skull.
My schedule was clear. But just as I was about to speak and suggest we not have phone sex, she beat me to the punch.
“Jack, do you want to spend the night with me? Or really, five nights?”
It went against everything we were supposed to be.
But then, my time with her was already turning into more than I’d bargained for.
I said the only thing I could say. The only thing that was completely true.
No questions, no concerns, no second-guessing.
Besides, it was everything I wanted from her.
“Yes. So fucking much.”