16. Jack
JACK
"This better be important," I say to the phone.
I've talked more to my best friend Adam in one day than I have in months combined.
After Alyssa fell asleep, I got up to get some water, and that's when I found my cell phone abandoned on the kitchen counter beside the door.
With multiple missed calls from Adam.
"I thought getting laid would have made you a little less irritable," Adam says.
"You don't know if I got laid," I say.
"Oh, but I do," he says. "I'm surprised you came up for air long enough to call me back."
"Shut up,” I growl.
"Look, you know I can't stand that fucking Toby guy, right?" Adam continues.
“I think you mentioned once or twice that he owes you some money,” I joke.
“Look, it’s not even about the four hundred bucks," he says. "I mean, the way he upset your woman really stuck with me, and I think everybody in town has a bad story about him. He needs to get the hell out of Wildwood, ASAP.”
"I don't disagree," I say. "I've just been trying to work out how to get rid of him in a way that's either legal…or illegal yet impossible to trace back to me. I can't be going to jail now that I've got a wife and a baby on the way."
"Excuse me. A wife and a baby on the way? When did this happen? You've accomplished a lot in the last two hours."
"She's pregnant," I say. "That's why she's back in town. The night we hooked up, we used protection, but I guess it wasn't enough."
“Damn. How do you feel about that?"
"Pretty damn good," I say.
"Really?"
"It's different with her," I explain. "I don't know why, but it is. She makes me believe that I could be a better man. That I could be a dad.”
“Glad you finally realized what the rest of us already knew about you," Adam says.
"What do you mean?"
He pauses.
"Look, man. You've been down on yourself ever since I met you, always thinking that because you came from the family that you did, that you were destined to repeat history.
It's obvious to anybody who knows you that you'd never repeat history.
Not like that, anyway. Sure, you'd probably screw up your life in some unique new way, but nothing like what you had to deal with when you were growing up. "
He laughs softly.
"You're gonna be a good father. Congratulations. When's she due?"
"I don't know," I say, realizing that I didn't get that far. We took off each other's clothes, and all of my millions of questions exited my brain as soon as I saw her bare skin and laid my hands on her curves.
He chuckles.
"Did you have something to say about Toby or what?" I say. "Otherwise, I need to get back to bed."
"Right, Toby. I contacted a friend in City Hall, and it seems like he's behind on his property taxes."
I groan.
"Man. I don't want to get him for property taxes,” I say. "You know it takes months to evict anybody. I need him gone now. I'm worried that if he stays in town, Alyssa's not going to want to stay in Wildwood. They might run into each other at the grocery store or some shit. It's a small world."
"Yeah, I know," Adam says. "Look, it's not just the property taxes. When we looked up the property taxes, we realized that the property isn't exactly his."
"What do you mean?" I say.
"We think he stole the house," Adam says.
"How the hell do you steal a house?" I ask.
"It's easier than you think. Lots of forged documents, stealing the identity of a dead person, things like that."
“Fuck,” I breathe. “That’s serious.”
“Uh huh. And it’s probably why he wasn't too happy to see your woman today on his porch," Adam continues. "She’s a piece of a past that he pretends he wasn’t a part of. She knows his real identity, and that spells trouble for him.”
He pauses.
"My guess is he looked up records of unclaimed property and dead people, found someone who matched his name, and assumed his identity. I've turned all the information into the police. They're conducting an investigation right away."
I exhale, leaning against the counter.
"Thank you, Adam," I say.
"No problem," he replies.
"Later."
He hangs up the phone without any formal goodbye.
That's our way. Looking out for one another, but without all the formalities and mushy-gushy shit involved in a traditional friendship.
I put the phone down and turn around, startled to see Alyssa standing in the doorway, with my quilt wrapped around her naked body.
She looks gorgeous, like some kind of goddess from heaven, like something out of a classical painting.
If a man was trying to depict perfect feminine beauty, if he was trying to describe a woman that he'd only met before in his dreams…he would paint a picture of her.
She frowns.
"Something wrong?"
"No," I say.
"What are you thinking?" she asks.
"I was just thinking about how fucking lucky I am to be with a woman like you. And I know that having a kid with me probably wasn't in your plans, but I'm damn glad that the birth control failed. I'm glad that fate brought you back to me."
I approach her, gently opening the quilt and wrapping it around us both, enveloping us in warmth and pressing her naked curves to my bare chest.
It feels right. More right than anything has felt in a very long time.
"I don't want to scare you off," I whisper.
"You won't," she vows.
But I'm not so sure.
"Then you won't think it's too soon for me to say that I love you?” I ask.
She smiles, glancing down at the slight bump between us.
"I don't think there's such a thing as too soon anymore,” she says. "We're kind of on the fast track to forever, aren't we?"
"The fast track to forever," I repeat. "I like that phrasing.”
She rises on her tiptoes, and her soft lips press against mine.
And all feels right with the world.