The Santillian Triplets

Chapter 10 Jasper #5

When a knock sounded at my door the next morning, I was one leg into a pair of slim black trousers.

I hop-stumbled toward the front of the house as I wiggled into the other leg.

As much as I adored my dresses and the disequilibrating power of knife-sharp femininity, there was something about a pantsuit that said, I am in fucking charge here. Try me at your own peril.

Even though this attorney was on my side, I felt the need to walk in with some ass-kicking armor in place. A bit breathless from struggling into those trousers, I pressed a hand to my forehead as I opened the door.

I'd expected to find a delivery person with another fruit bouquet from my mother (and Martin) on the other side.

Maybe one of the salvage and reclamation companies I'd contacted about hauling away the assortment of bricks piled up in the backyard.

Those puppies sold for as much as a buck a brick, which could add up to enough to replace the water heater and electrical panel.

I did not expect to find Linden. "Ready to go, Peach?"

"But—what are you doing here? What about your schedule? You said—"

"Everything can be moved," he cut in, twirling his key ring on his index finger. "I'll be in the truck when you're all set."

Without any further explanation or—or anything, he turned, hulked down the steps, and disappeared around the driveway. Still frozen in the threshold, I heard a door open, then shut, and the roar of an engine followed.

The damp morning air wafted over my bare feet and I shook myself back into action.

I had to locate shoes, run a brush through my hair, and dust on enough makeup to disguise the shadows under my eyes from sitting up all night, wondering what to do with my life now.

Busy with those tasks, I didn't allow myself to form assumptions or acknowledge the warmth coursing through me at Linden's appearance.

He was driving me because he expected I'd get lost. That was it.

There was nothing special or significant about this gesture. Nothing.

After checking my hair one last time, I joined Linden in his truck. He was tapping out a message on his phone while I settled in beside him. "You really don't need to do this—"

He held up a hand. "I got it, Jasper. I know."

"Oh. Well. Thank you."

He draped his arm over the back of my seat to glance out the rear window. "No worries."

"I didn't say I was worried. I said thank you."

He cut a piercing grin in my direction as he drove up the street. "It's all good."

"But you know how I feel about people doing things for me. I'll have to fire up the crockpot."

I was aiming for some self-deprecating humor but it was clear I'd missed the mark when Linden said, "I know you won't let anyone help you. I know you see it as a liability, a weakness."

Still hoping for humor, I continued, "I'll have to whip up another batch of biscuits. Maybe a banana bread."

"Oh god, please don't. The bananas deserve a better fate than your baking."

We shared a laugh at that and fell into comfortable silence by the time we reached the interstate. Though I wasn't about to announce it to him, handing off the task of navigation was a treat. One less thing to worry about today.

I wasn't worried, not in any true sense of worried.

It was more like the feeling of standing on the end of a diving board, toes curled around the edge, heart racing in your chest as if anything could happen when you jumped, anything at all.

It could be fun and perfect but it could also hurt.

It could be an embarrassing, uncoordinated splash of limbs.

Even if you wanted to dive, even if you'd climbed up there because you wanted to go through with it, getting to the edge was something else altogether.

I fished my phone out of my bag and checked the notifications. Nothing new—and that came as a thin, mild relief coupled with unspeakable confusion. I needed to figure out my next steps sooner than later.

Linden reached over, covered my hand with his. "You're nervous," he said as he stilled my fingers. I wasn't sure when I'd started tapping my nails against the screen.

I nodded. "A little, yeah."

He shifted his hand to lace his fingers with mine. "About the lawyer or something else?"

"I don't know. I have a lot to figure out. The lawyer and…everything else."

"Not today you don't. One thing at a time." He turned into an office park and stopped in front of the last building. It was low and gray, and completely ordinary. "Here we are."

I stared at the shingled building and the sign announcing the practice partners, and it struck me that I'd never told Linden the specific location.

He must've looked it up in advance. I didn't know how to react to that.

I wanted to take it as proof he cared about me—he cared much more than he was annoyed by me—but that seemed foolish.

When I boiled it all down, it didn't matter that much and it probably mattered nothing at all to him.

"Would you like me to come in with you?"

This was nothing. I meant nothing to him. He was just very neighborly. "Um…"

"Let me put it to you this way: Would it make you uncomfortable if I walked you inside?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Would you get stressed out if a receptionist made an offhand comment referring to me as your significant other?"

"I don't want you to deal with—"

"I asked if it would stress you out. Would it?"

Again, I shook my head. "No."

"Then that's what we'll do." He squeezed my hand. "Stay here. I'll come around."

I watched him kill the engine and disengage his seat belt, and I wanted to honor his request. I wanted to stay in my seat, I wanted it more than anything, but my entire body rebelled against the notion of sitting here and waiting.

I couldn't let him help me out of a vehicle when I was perfectly capable.

It was a pleasantry but it was also a doorway to leaning on him, relying on him, expecting things from him.

That was the last thing I needed, especially after—oh god—yesterday.

When Linden rounded the hood of the truck and found me standing there, straightening my hair in the side mirror, he blew out a breath, muttered something to himself, and gave me a slow up-and-down stare. "All right, Jasper. Let's get to it."

Linden was right about being mistaken for my significant other at the front desk, and his repeated insistence that it didn't bother him saved me from apologizing all over the situation while I waited to be called back into a meeting room.

"Why would it bother me?" he asked. "Why would I put any effort into reacting to the presumptions of a stranger?"

I wanted to provide him a thoughtful explanation as to why it was reasonable to feel some sort of way about this but all I could offer was, "I don't know. Sometimes men get weird about being misrepresented."

"Men get weird about being misrepresented?"

I threw my hands up. "Please don't goad me into a 'not all men' moment."

"No, that's not what I'm getting at," he replied, impatience thick in his voice.

"What I mean is, if someone can't handle being logically and reasonably mistaken for a significant other in a low-stakes situation, that person is probably forcing a lot of their own insecurities onto you.

So no, not all men. Just the ones too fragile to deal with the idea of significance. "

I studied him for a moment, his large body wedged into the chair beside me and his gaze steady in a way that made me feel extremely unsteady, like an awkward hatbox on the top of a precarious pile.

Like I could come crashing down at any minute and he'd go right on staring, waiting for me to do something better than fall to pieces before him.

"Ms. Cleary? We're ready for you." A woman with a tablet cradled in her arm smiled at me with expectant eyes. "Your partner is welcome to join us too."

He glanced over but kept his gaze on the floor. His voice lowered, he asked, "Will it make you uncomfortable if I go in there with you?"

"Seems a little intimate, considering I've only cried on your shoulder twice and gagged my personal problems all over you."

He bobbed his head as he laughed. "If it would make you feel better, you're welcome to come home with me after this and get naked. I'll also get naked. To balance things out. If you wanted, we could be naked together. That's about as intimate as it gets, Peach."

I smiled in spite of myself. "You don't need to do that."

"Maybe I want to."

"Are we talking about the naked stuff or the divorce stuff? I've lost track."

"Will it make you uncomfortable if I come in?" he repeated. "That's all I care about."

"Ms. Cleary?"

I stood, swung my bag over my shoulder. "I won't be uncomfortable."

Linden pushed to his feet and flattened his hand low on my back. "Then tell me if that changes."

I'd imagined doing this alone. Paging through the legal documents, signing my name a million times, handling it all with only myself to lean on—same as it always was.

Never in my mental calculus did I see a flannel-shirted man with thighs like tree trunks doing any of it with me.

It was tempting to rewrite my plans to include him but I'd learned that lesson the hardest way.

Moments like these didn't add up the way I craved, they didn't lead to the permanence I wanted, and they didn't last.

I smiled up at him all the same.

He was polite enough to distract himself by studying the trees on the other side of the window while the legal assistant identified the documents waiting for me and pointed out the information I had to verify.

It would only take a few minutes, she explained, unless I wanted to make changes to the agreement.

That would require another round of review by the other party—Preston—and we'd have to reconvene to finalize our dissolution.

It was such an unlikely word. Dissolution.

It made me think of ripping open a pouch of Jell-O mix and stirring it into boiling water.

It was the wrong thing to think about. Divorce and Jell-O had nothing in common.

This piece of me was falling apart and Jell-O only came together. It solidified. It even wiggled.

There was nothing solid in my life. Not even the house I called my home. Any day now, a good gust of wind was going to blow this little piggy's house right down. What would I do then? Where would I go?

Sign the papers, sell the bricks, sweep up the broken home. Keep moving. Don't look back.

I wouldn't need another round. There was nothing to change.

Preston and I had nothing to divide up, nothing shared between us but a friendship that'd once functioned as the very best thing in our young lives.

We didn't have joint bank accounts or property.

I'd moved out of our apartment and into a smaller, more affordable place after he followed his boss to Northern Ireland.

I didn't have a married name to erase from my driver's license and credit cards as I'd had no interest in the lengthy process of paperwork and filings to do away with my maiden name.

No, we'd dissolve this today and nothing would be different tomorrow.

The legal assistant left us alone, promising my attorney would be in shortly and offering us every variety of coffee and tea under the sun. There were also pastries and breakfast breads, if we pleased, and several brands of bottled water.

She only referred to Linden as my partner twice.

I only winced over it once.

After a pause, he asked, "You're sure you're not uncomfortable? I'll go. It's fine."

With my knees pinched together tight and a hand clutching the lapels of my blazer, I shook my head. "I'm beginning to think you're the uncomfortable one."

"I'll survive."

Because his presence, even as he gazed out the window with his back mostly turned away from me, was more reassuring than it was awkward, I replied, "Then I can survive too."