Chapter 14
The apartment Jack had chosen to show Brett and Diana turned out to be—I hated to admit it—nice. It was a three-bedroom, three-bath contemporary condo surrounded by some of the best schools in Brooklyn. It would almost be perfect for them. But it wasn’t Aria’s listing, and I knew Diana wanted an extra bedroom for the third kid they planned on having when she found time between being a dentist to the stars.
“I love these walls,” Brett remarked, stroking the plaster.
Diana wrinkled her nose. “It looks like they’ve left it unfinished.”
“The wallpaper in the Brooklyn Heights apartment seemed much more your style,” I hinted to Diana as we walked into the third bedroom.
She nodded. “Yeah, and this is too small. How could we fit a crib plus furniture?”
“Don’t they sleep in your room for the first year?” Jack looked toward me as if I should know the answer.
Having childbearing hips didn’t mean I knew anything about using them to push out a baby. Ugh, the indignity. The mess. The crying.
I stayed silent, and Diana and Brett exited the room for a second look around.
Diana hated the kitchen, but Brett loved it. Brett found the primary bathroom too small, but Diana adored it. The entire showing became a ping-pong match with girls against boys. By the time we reached the front door, they’d hit a stalemate.
“Why don’t I take you to Brooklyn Heights again so you can compare?” I offered, sneaking a look at Jack.
He knew my game. “Or what about the loft I sent you on Thirty-Second North?”
“Thirty-Second North? That’s practically in Queens,” I scoffed.
Brett looked stressed. “I think we’ll need to take a couple of days to figure out what we want.”
Diana did not look amused. “We already know what we want, and it’s not this.”
“And it’s not Brooklyn Heights.” Brett shoved his hands into his jean pockets.
Diana looked on the verge of tears. “You always like what I like. What is happening?”
Brett sighed and gave Jack a see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with face. “Nothing is happening. I don’t like the place, that’s all.”
Oh my God, we were about to get a couple divorced.
“Look, take a couple of days and give me a call. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye out for something else,” I told them.
Jack couldn’t let me have the last word. “I’ll give you a call later about watching the game this weekend, buddy.”
He might as well have stuck his tongue out and sang nah-nah-nah-na-na.
Both embraced us before heading down in the elevator, a heated argument brewing in the air between them.
“That is why I don’t want a relationship.” Jack walked back inside. “If you don’t like what the other person does, it means there’s some”—he made bunny ear quotes—“deeper issue. Like no, sweetheart, I just prefer watching basketball to Sex and the City.”
“I feel you,” I said, following him. Or I’d like to. Today he wore a narrow pink tie with black zigzags. I found it oddly fascinating despite its ugliness.
“You agree?”
“Yes, I’d also rather watch basketball than Sex and the City.” As long as the Knicks weren’t playing.
He ran a hand over his tie, smoothing it against his blush shirt. “I’ll be damned. We agree on what a pain in the ass the opposite sex is.”
“I’m as surprised as you are.”
I walked past him to lift my handbag from the couch and search for my coconut lip balm. Dry and chapped lips were not attractive. My fingers clasped around it at the bottom, and I pulled it through an assortment of paperwork and my bulging purse. Not that I cared if Jack thought my lips looked dry.
He went silent as I reapplied the balm, his eyes dropping to my mouth. Note to self: Buy more lip balm. “But who’s a bigger pain in the ass, men or women?”
Jack regained the power of speech. “We could ask your ex—what’s his name again? Danny?—about how accommodating you were?”
“Denzel.” Why as I even correcting him? He probably had a poster of Denzel above his bed.
He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Maybe he could give me some tips on how to stop that vein in your forehead from throbbing. It’s like your tiny, conjoined twin is trying to break out.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m twice as successful as you.” My voice wavered. “And smart enough to figure out when I’m being played.”
He began walking around, clicking the lights off. “Meaning?”
I stared him down. “I know you told them a different time.”
“Did I? Maybe they got mixed up.” He smirked. “Or you did.”
“I don’t make mistakes.”
Both of our phones chimed. A message from Diana.
Hey guys, sorry to waste your time, but we’ve decided to stay put for now until we can figure out what it is we’re looking for. Maybe the four of us could do dinner next month? xxx
“Well done,” I said, typing out a fake response about how nice that would be.
He frowned. “For?”
“Screwing up a sale for me,” I huffed. “And in an effort to save time, I’m going to let it go—this time.” I eyeballed him. “Because I have bigger priorities, like deciding who we’re inviting to the Crystal open house.”
He perched on the edge of the Chesterfield sofa. “I’ve got a list of potentials. What about the brochures?”
“Ready to send to the printers by Thursday at the latest.” Once I pulled an overnighter to triple-check every letter. “Meet me at the building tomorrow?”
“I have a showing on the Lower West Side, but I can be back for eleven?” he said.
“See you then,” I clipped, hating the frisson of energy running through me.
* * *
“A barbecue? We might as well hand out warm beer and white tank tops,” I remarked.
Jack and I were taking advantage of the white aluminum patio furniture with plump yellow cushions on the terrace in Penthouse One. His tanned skin turned darker as we sat at the table, while I nestled under a patio umbrella. My translucent skin refused to do anything except burn and accumulate freckles in the sun.
“Never took you for a snob.” He turned his face up to the sky.
“I’m anything but a snob. However, there’s a certain expectation with high-end properties like this, and a hotdog on a paper plate won’t cut it.” I watched the veins in his neck flex as he swallowed.
“You act like I’ve never sold anything before.” He brought his face back down to take a sip of water.
I sniffed. “Have you?”
He looked pleased with himself. “I did ten million in sales last year.”
My turn to gloat. “I did twenty.”
“I don’t concentrate on that stuff,” he told me. “I care about helping people.”
I cackled. “Bullshit. You’re in this for the money.”
His eyes searched mine. “That what you’re in it for? The money?”
He had such a knack for turning it around on me. It felt like playing chess against myself. I pulled my sunglasses down to shield my eyes. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“I don’t believe you. But since you’ve sold more, what do you suggest?”
I looked around at the elegant surroundings. “Cocktail party.”
Jack leaned back in the chair and snored with his eyes closed.
“What?”
He startled, popping his eyes open. “Sorry, that idea put me to sleep faster than Valium.”
“Better than your idea of having a mechanical bull.” I shifted around in my seat. “That might be good for a bachelor party, but not this.”
“A ride on that bull might loosen you up.” He took another sip of water. “You must live at the chiropractor with those shoulders.”
I dropped them. “All we need is the richest people in New York suing us for whiplash or careering off a balcony. A cocktail party is safe.”
“Safe is boring.” He leaned forward on the table. “We need to do something that hasn’t been done before.” His tongue clicked on the roof of his mouth. “An orgy?” He winked.
“We’re talking about an open house, not your Friday night.”
“I do enjoy my Friday nights,” he said, eyes glazing over.
I wondered what he did do on the weekend. Not that I cared. It was just natural human curiosity.
A faint ping from the entrance made me sit up. David wasn’t due to stop by, and the builders were banned, lest they traipse dirt and dust in.
The gait of the heels told me the shoes’ owners before Viv announced, “I brought you lunch.” She held up a bag from Mr. Chow. The perfect woman. Too bad I wasn’t gay. What a lucky girl I’d be with Viv on my arm.
“Oh, hello again.” Viv shook Jack’s hand as she took a seat at the smoked-glass table. “You two playing nice?”
“Always.” Jack smiled at me.
“How did you know I would still be here?” I asked, digging a dumpling out of the bag and biting into it without hesitation. I offered the box to Jack, who declined. I guess he doesn’t eat carbs so he can stay looking like Captain America.
Viv held up her phone. “Find my iPhone, and I knew you wouldn’t stop for lunch.”
“You track me?” How did I delete that thing?
“Not track, keep an eye on. Like a sheepdog, I herd you back into line if you go off-course.”
My second dumpling went down even better than the first. “So I’m a sheep now?”
Jack guffawed so hard that he almost went backward onto the slabs. “She does bleat a lot.” He stood up and brushed down his trousers, and I averted my eyes from his crotch.
“Something I said?” Viv asked, stealing a dumpling.
Jack pointed inside. “I need to make a phone call.” He disappeared through the glass door, and Viv kicked me under the table.
“How are you not jumping on that?” she squealed, helping herself to another dumpling.
I concentrated on opening my orange chicken. “Self-control.”
We chewed in silence until Jack returned. Time to get back on course.
“We’re trying to decide what to do for the open house,” I told Viv, knowing she’d be on my side. “Davy Crockett here wants to throw a barbeque.” Jack’s ass in chaps. My, my.
Through his aviators I could see his gaze drifting down to my chest. The current heatwave had given me no option but to pop open an extra button on my white sleeveless shirt. “And Marilyn Monroe here wants a cocktail party.”
“Why don’t you do both?” Viv stirred the ice in her watermelon smoothie.
Jack and I looked at each other. “Nah.”
“No way.” he agreed, staring up at the cloudless sky.
Viv scrolled through her phone. “Why not? Half and half. We could call it…”
“A cocktail cookout,” I suggested, discreetly wiping a drip of sweat from between my breasts with a napkin and putting it back on the table under my glass of water.
Jack rolled up his sleeves to reveal his forearms again. “I don’t hate it.”
They were even more tanned and thick than I remembered. Behave. “Could this be that compromise thing other people talk about?”
He reached over and lifted the napkin, wiping his brow with it. “It might. So what? We have a pig on a spit while people sip on martinis?”
Jack had no idea he’d rubbed my breast sweat over his face. Ew, why am I turned on?
Viv balked. “Might need to draw the line at that.”
“As long as there are burgers, I’m in,” he told me, rolling the napkin into a ball and pocketing it.
Part of me felt joyful that a little piece of me now lived in his pocket and he didn’t know it. “So cocktail cookout?”
“Cocktail cookout.” He reached for my hand, and we shook on it.