THIRTY Still Here
JEROME
There’s a sizable portion of me who nearly marched right out that front door without giving a damn about these past weeks or how much I thought this woman meant to me. Yet, I didn’t. And that’s because despite her betrayal and the furious sentiments she spat at me, I’m a pragmatist. I don’t like to behave rashly no matter how egregious the scenario.
So, I’m still here.
I wouldn’t say I’m hiding, but I’m purposely not in plain sight. There’s a nook that I discovered one time when we first arrived here, and it’s this location where I’ve positioned myself crouching inside an intersection between two tall shelves. In my hands is a book. It’s not just any tome, either. It’s something that’s always been significant to me.
My father isn’t perfect, but anytime I was down as a child, he’d pick me up, give me a cookie, and read to me from this story. I need the comfort now, too, so I seek out one of the quotes that I’ve read so many times.
Some people care too much. I think it’s called love.
A lump forms behind my Adam’s apple. That’s why this disaster has impacted me more than I care to admit. I do care too much, and the woman I care the most about isn’t returning the favor. My gaze glides further through the pages, this time snagging on this...
I used to believe in forever, but forever’s too good to be true.
This entire situation with Sadie has been too good to be true from the beginning, and I should’ve known better. I’m not the bitter type, never have been. But perhaps being too optimistic is just as much a mistake as swinging toward the opposite side of that pendulum.
I’m not sure where to go from here. While Zach and Dom now understand the same things that I do, asking them to up and abandon her feels wrong. Not that I’d ever suggest such a thing. They need to speak to her themselves, to come to their own conclusions about her, Elegance, and the circumstances as a whole.
It’s not my place to attempt to persuade them. I just wish things could’ve been different.
For a while, I let the book fall open in my lap as I sit here staring without focus into oblivion. Maybe someday I’ll be able to look back at this and not feel my heart being slashed open, chalk it up to a lesson learned. But right now, I can’t.
I’ve never been in love with anyone before, never been a part of a family unit like this one. It felt good to have that be the case, to not only give support but to have it returned. Better yet, it’s been returned by more than one person.
But that’s all over now.
It’s just as I happen upon one last quote, one that’s far too apt, that I realize I’ve been sitting here for so long that my ass has gone numb.
You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
Winnie the Poohgives surprisingly sage advice, all things considered.
I’m thinking about doing just that, of going to Dom and Zach to let them know I’d like to stay in touch, when footsteps tell me company’s on the way.
I don’t want it to be her. Dealing with the woman at this particular moment wouldn’t be ideal, not with my patience compromised and my thoughts a messy web. But as par for the course, it’s her who strolls in. And behind her are my compatriots. My friends.
I can’t decide if that’s a positive development or a negative one.
“Jerome?” It’s her who speaks my name, and while I don’t wish to reply to her, not doing so would make me look like a coward. And that is something I refuse to do.
I stand up from my secluded spot here in this tucked-away corner of the library, revealing myself. And I’m not gonna lie, I feel half ill when my eyes latch onto hers. The other half of me feels something I’d rather not say.
“Hey,” she speaks in that familiar tone that once made me melt and now makes me seethe. How could she do this to us? Break us all apart like this? “Will you let me apologize? I’ve already talked to Zach and to Dom. Explained everything. I hope you’ll hear me out.”
I glare at her. I’m not keeping her from expressing whatever she’s got up her sleeve, but I’m also leery and on guard. I consider myself a savvy, well-informed person yet she still managed to get one over on me. I loathe the fact that she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and that I didn’t notice until it was too late.
As if she recognizes my silence for the fury it is, she squares her shoulders to meet it.
“I’m sorry for withholding important details, for lying through omission. I was afraid of things turning out badly if any of you knew about my ownership of the company, and even though that’s been proven correct, it doesn’t make my decision the right one. But I want you to know—I need you to know—that I didn’t intend to perpetuate any kind of deception on you. It was a mistake, and that’s all.
“So, I’m asking you, whether it’s at the end of the month or before, to accept the new contract I’m offering you.” She retrieves her phone and mine, I realize. She hands mine over, and I make absolutely certain our fingers do not come into contact. Then, she fiddles with her screen, making mine vibrate with a message. So do Zach’s and Dom’s. “I’m offering it to all of you.”
The other two glance between me and whatever’s she sent, their faces milling through so many reactions, I feel compelled to find out why. I read through the contract, the whole time telling myself it doesn’t change anything.
I won’t be with her. Not now.
The updated form states her terms of one year with the option to extend for as long as her freelancing contractors might request. Then, there’s the matter of our pay, which has been more than doubled.
It’s an astonishingly good offer. Better than even the highest-paying adult film studios. But I’m not taking the bait. I can’t.
Fool me once and all that.
My dad went through that once with the woman who should’ve been my mom but couldn’t be bothered. Maybe this situation reminds me too much of that one.
“I have no excuse,” she continues. “I should’ve trusted you, gone into this with full transparency. If I could go back and do that, I would. Especially knowing what I know now. You’ve helped me so much, the three of you. You all healed me.” She reaches out and presses her hand first to Dom’s cheek, then to Zach’s. “Not just with the sex. Not just by staying with me, being there for me, but all of it.
“Every touch, every whispered press of your lips to mine, every time I woke in the middle of the night to find your hands on me, your arms wrapped around me. Knowing at any time I might need you, you would be there. That comfort, that knowledge that I could unconditionally trust that no matter what, one or all of you were there to catch me if I fell... it made me feel safe. Sealed the fissures that had torn through my heart.
“And you personally, Jerome, you’ve helped me live again. But there’s one piece to this I still haven’t told you...”
Here it comes. Some other truth bomb that’ll no doubt leave annihilation in its wake.
A tear glides down her face, but I don’t want to believe it. What if it’s another lie? Another manipulation?
“I love you. I love you and Dom and Zach. And I don’t mean just as friends, nor do I mean it only in that familial way. I mean it as lovers, as a significant other. I feel like that for all of you, and really, I don’t know what else I can say.”
Sadie ceases talking, her eyes lowering as she averts her gaze. For the first time in my thirty years, a woman has told me she loves me, and I don’t know whether or not it’s true. Something is tugging me toward her, but I resist, instead glancing at the two guys who’ve gone through this time with me. Men I’d never even met a short three months ago, yet now know better than anyone other than my dad.
Other than Sadie herself.
IfI know her. The real her.
Zach speaks up. “Listen, we know where you’re coming from. Sadie did make a bad call, and there’s no getting around that. But I think this just looks worse than it is. I don’t think she meant to pull some fast one on us. I really don’t.”
“I’m with Zach on this,” Dom adds on.
“But if we move in with Sadie without you, it won’t be the same,” Zach picks up the narrative again. “It won’t feel right. It won’t feel like a family. Not like it’s felt here.”
Zach’s right. This has felt like a family. Yet I still don’t speak. I’ve never thought of myself as an unforgiving SOB, but maybe I am.
Even if I don’t want to be.
It’s that notion that makes me break my silence. “Do you have other secrets we should be privy to?”
Her response stuns me.
“Yes, actually. I’m buying another residence as we speak. A three-story Edwardian. I’m selling the townhouse. There are just too many sad memories inside those walls for me.”
She extends something to me she’s been holding in her hand. Something I didn’t notice. It’s a framed photograph of her parents Craig and Bridget along with a little girl with caramel-brown hair and dove-gray eyes.
In the corner of the frame, sitting on top of the glass, is a key. A house key. A key that matches the ones Dom and Zach are displaying for me now.
“It wasn’t only the plane crash that happened when I lived there. I first comprehended that my parents’ marriage was on the rocks there, too. I need a place that’s less a museum showcase and more of a home. A place with memories that are happy. A place with the three of you in it. Because you’re not just employees to me. You never were.”
More tears brim in her eyes to glide slowly down either side of her nose. “And I truly am sorry for concealing my involvement with Elegance from you. I never dreamed I’d find a love as powerful as I feel for the three of you. But I have. And if you don’t return it, or if I’ve ruined what’s been between us, I’ll understand.”
Streams of saltwater cascade down her face, and my reasons for distancing myself from her are dwindling.
“Anything else you need to tell us?” I ask again, even as I take a step toward her.
“How about thank you?” She emits this sob that sounds like it’s shredding her soul. “Th-thank you for these three months. Even if that’s all I ever get with you.”
I stare into her face and see so much pain there, pain I myself have been feeling, that I just can’t keep away anymore. Pacing forward, I gather her in my arms. She embraces me back as if I’m her lifeline, the only thing tethering her to this Earth.
As Sadie grips me tighter and tighter, I wave the other two over to join us. And as we stand there together as a single unit, no one saying a word, I know—just like they probably do—that I’ll be staying.