Chapter 23 SoonerLater
SOONER OR LATER
Jack
The ball slammed the backboard and wobbled once on the rim before sinking through the net.
“I won!” Nate declared, thrusting his arms high in the air as the sun rose higher in the morning sky.
“Right,” I said, shaking my head as I laughed, since the two of us never really kept score.
I grabbed the ball and tucked it under my arm as we headed out of the court and onto the street.
New York City was already bustling. Families were out pushing strollers and grabbing bagels, and twenty-somethings were spilled over small tables at cafés, nursing lattes and wearing sunglasses.
“I scored Comets tickets from a client. Third baseline. Two rows up,” Nate said as a cab screeched to the curb to pick up a fare. “You up for it?”
My ears pricked. I was always up for the Comets. “When?”
“Tonight. Game’s against Boston. It will be epic,” Nate said. The Comets were down by two games in the division, and the pennant race was on. But none of that mattered.
“Can’t. I have plans,” I said, as we neared the avenue.
Nate rubbed his knuckle against his ear. “What’s that? I didn’t hear you. Sounded like you said you had plans.”
“Can’t go. But thanks.”
Nate held up his finger, his brow crinkling. “You never turn down Comets tickets. You must really like this woman.”
I slowed my pace, the observation Nate had made dawning on me.
My friend was right. The Comets were sacrosanct.
You didn’t mess with a chance to go to the temple of baseball.
And yet, I had no interest in the game. Time was limited with Michelle.
The clock was ticking, the second hand racing by faster than I’d like.
It was a Saturday morning now, two weeks after our night on the Met Life Tower when we’d agreed to a start and a finish.
I could already see the end in sight, and I wanted to make the most of every second with her, especially since she’d be in Paris for some of our thirty days.
“You never even turned down Comets tickets when you were with Aubrey,” Nate added, and the reminder was like a slap in the face.
“Yeah, well. It’s not like I was some role model for how to be a great fiancé,” I muttered.
Nate clapped me on the back. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, man. Nothing that happened was your fault.”
That’s where Nate was wrong. Everything was my fault. Completely and absolutely, and I was ready to linger on that reminder, let it gnaw its way through me like a daily exercise, when I heard a familiar voice.
“Jack fucking Sullivan.”
My eyes snapped up. My sister was marching up to us, slapping her smartphone against her palm, her lips set in a tight line, her nostrils flaring.
She wore a short skirt and high-heeled boots.
I noticed Nate checking out her legs before he too looked up at Casey, her blond hair bouncing high in a ponytail—something I planned to address later.
Nate raised an eyebrow. “Looks like someone is in trouble with his little sister.”
“What else is new,” I mumbled.
When she stopped, she stabbed me in the chest with a finger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I gave her a confused look. “Tell you what?”
“Yeah. Tell him what?” Nate chimed in, staring at me and playing along with Casey’s indignation.
“Oh hi, Nate,” she said in a normal tone, shooting a friendly smile to my buddy.
“Hey, Case. Good to see you.”
When she turned back to me, her eyes narrowed again, and I swore I could see smoke billowing out of her ears.
Nate must have too, because he cleared his throat and clapped me on the back. “Looks like you two have lots of catching up to do,” he said, then tipped an imaginary hat to Casey, whose expression softened once more for Nate as he said goodbye and turned the corner. Casey glared at me again.
“What do you want to chew me out for, Case?” I asked, holding my hands out wide. I had no idea what her deal was.
Stabbing her finger at her phone, she said, “Why didn’t you tell me you were screwing your therapist?”
My jaw dropped and my eyes widened. I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d said she was joining the circus. “What?”
“Right here. It’s on Page Six.” She pointed to the phone once more, brandishing it like a weapon. I peered at the screen to see a post on a NY tabloid site.
“Allow me,” Casey continued. “One of New York City’s most eligible bachelors, Jack Sullivan, was spotted having dinner with a lovely brunette at Sushi Den near the Chrysler Building.
The brunette was later identified as Michelle Milo, and a quick Google search tells us she’s a therapist who specializes in intimate relationships.
Can you hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth of all the single women in New York?
Is she catering to your intimate pleasures, Jack? If she doesn’t, we will!”
I seethed. I’d never been bothered by the things the press said. I’d never cared. Not about myself, and not about Aubrey. We were both used to it. We didn’t even notice. But Michelle belonged to me, not the public eye. I hated that she’d been thrust there without her permission.
“Jack,” Casey said in a measured voice, “this was not the plan when I made that appointment. How did this happen?”
“Oh, right,” I said, addressing my sister’s concerns. “She’s not my therapist. I told you that. Weirdly enough, I met her before the appointment and neither one of us knew who the other was, and then when I realized who she was the next day, we agreed I’d see someone else.”
“But you’re seeing her?” she asked skeptically.
“Yes.”
“Romantically?”
Sexually, I wanted to add. But somehow, romantically fit too.
“I suppose you could call it that.”
“And you like her?”
“Well, yeah,” I admitted.
Then Casey squealed, her expression shifting instantly, and she jumped up and down. She threw her arms around me. “I can’t believe you met someone you like. I’m so happy.”
I hugged her back. “Let’s not get too excited.”
“I am though. I am.” She pulled back. “I want you to be happy.”
As Casey moved into chatting about ideas for work, including Eden, I could hardly focus. I was finding that I was with Michelle. Which meant I was sure to fuck it up sooner or later. Knowing myself, I’d be betting on sooner.
Casey
I’d tracked down everything interesting I could find about Conroy Commercial Solutions online, and that had still amounted to a whole lot of nothing. Besides, Leo, Henry and Marquita had access to the same Internet and they’d found nothing either.
So instead, I had become a stalker. In large sunnies and a saucy wig borrowed from Eden, I trekked to Conroy’s block to conduct some recon.
My cover story was that I was collecting signatures to force developers to work with residents.
By three-thirty, I’d paced up and down his street more times than I could really excuse with my little clipboard petition, although I’d collected enough signatures to tell me I should pass it on.
Maybe Leo the lawyer would want to take up the good fight.
But after all that, I’d still found nothing. The door to his brownstone had remained closed. I’d snapped a few photos and sent them to my brother with silly captions.
And even if Conroy had emerged, what did I hope to learn? That he started drinking early on a Saturday afternoon? That he had a mistress he was stupid enough to screw at his own house? All of this looked much easier in the movies—or when my brother was doing it, for that matter.
I left, shaking my head at myself, annoyed that I was coming up short. I walked up Third Avenue, yanking the wig off and releasing the bun my real hair was pinned in.
Maybe I didn’t know how to run counterintelligence like my brother did.
But Joy Delivered was my baby too, and I’d find a way to protect my business somehow.
Fine, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t saving the whales or solving world hunger.
I was damn skilled, though, at selling pleasure, because I was a big believer in the power of intimacy, and its potential to do good.
The world was a nasty, violent place, and if I could bring about happiness through more orgasms, then that was my small contribution.
More pleasure instead of more cruelty. More bliss to blot out the urge to do harm.
The world would be a better place if people made love, not war.
That’s why this battle mattered to me.
Besides: no one, and I mean no one, messes with my friends.
I headed in the direction of one of Henry and Marquita’s clubs.
For a sliver of a second, I hoped I’d see Conroy, or his assistant, or his dogwalker for heaven’s sake, slipping out through the black unmarked door.
I imagined them furtively glancing side to side, trying desperately not to get caught in having indulged in that particular predilection on a Saturday afternoon.
I laughed privately at the image. How fitting would that be? Also, how convenient. Life didn’t work that way. I wasn’t going to catch Conroy with his pants down, literally or figuratively. Now that’d be the answer from one of my movies. Sadly, this was real life.
As I walked away, I spotted a Clean Up The Neighborhood flyer resting atop a trash can. Conroy’s innocuous sounding pitch was plastered all over. For a better Upper East Side. I stuck out my tongue at it, but as I boarded a subway to head to my downtown apartment, I was more determined than ever.
This guy was all about the marketing? Maybe I hadn’t found any dirt yet, but I could go toe-to-toe with anyone when it came to marketing.
Michelle
“Are you sure I can’t interest you two in a Long-Distance Lover?” Julia directed the question to my brother and his wife, Jill.
“Because I’ll need it to get through the next few weeks?” Davis asked.
“Of course. Think of it as sublimation for when your wife leaves town for a month,” Julia said to Davis, that familiar playful tone in her voice as she handed him a scotch.
I was at Speakeasy, the bar in midtown that Julia was part-owner of.
I didn’t come around here too often, but my brother had asked me to join in a send-off round of drinks for Jill on Saturday afternoon.
She was headed to London to rehearse for a limited run in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and Davis was staying behind to finish up his work directing a new Broadway show.
“If a drink can get me through that, I’ll take ten,” he said, then planted a long and lingering kiss on Jill’s lips.
“Make that a double for me,” Jill said when he pulled apart.
Clay was there too, his eyes on his wife, Julia, the whole time as she mixed another one of her signature cocktails for him.
Julia set down the drink for him, whispered something in his ear, then laughed, and gave the drink to Jill instead, who promptly declared it delicious.
“And what will you be serving me tonight?” Clay asked his wife.
She leaned in closer, and mouthed the word myself.
He raised an eyebrow appreciatively. “My favorite drink.”
“But for now, a scotch,” she said and poured the amber liquid in a glass for her husband.
I waited for that familiar stabbing pain that came from watching them and their innuendo. A wince inside. An ache in my chest that hurt.
But none of those feelings arrived on the scene.
I felt nothing at all. Thankfully. That realization—of the lack of pain their interaction caused—was a rather lovely one. It was blissful to feel…nothing.
How I’d longed for this for years. Finally, I was having it—the moving on from him.
Julia turned to me, holding up the bottle in question. “Scotch for you, Michelle?”
“That’d be great,” I said. Julia remembered my favorite drink too. The woman was a bartender. It was her job to remember drinks. Still, I was touched.
Julia handed me the drink, and said in a voice just for me, “I’m glad you’re here. And incidentally, you have some kind of glow about you, so if you’re using some new moisturizer, I need to know what it is. Your skin looks gorgeous.”
I smiled, then blushed. “Thank you,” I said, and even though I hadn’t seen Jack yet today, I knew exactly what Julia was referring to. Sex—great sex—was good for the complexion.
As I took my first drink, savoring the familiar burn of the scotch, I pictured Jack here with me.
Would he fit in with my brother and his wife, with Clay and Julia?
Would I even want him to? We’d only spent time alone together, never with anyone else.
Our relationship—if you could even call it that—existed in a bubble of privacy and secrets.
Of nights together and days apart. Would we even play well together with friends?
With family? What did he wear on a Saturday afternoon?
I imagined Jack sitting casually on the stool next to me, looking sexy as sin in a pullover shirt that showed off the slightest bit of his strong arms and jeans that fit him delectably.
He’d drape an arm around me, unable to resist touching me, because he was like that.
He’d chat with my brother about the theater and musical composers, he’d talk with Clay about his latest deal, he’d ask Jill if she’d always wanted to play Blanche, he’d ask Julia for a drink recommendation, and then he’d happily take what she served, his eyes on me the entire time.
He’d fit in, I decided, and he’d be with me. Only me.
As I looked at my friends, I could see him there—part of the crew, but yet entirely mine.
A few minutes later, my phone buzzed.
Jack: How’s your Saturday? Are you having a good day?
Michelle: Great. Just hanging out with friends and family, having a drink.
Jack: Enjoy yourself, beautiful. Missing you. Will I see you soon?
Michelle: Yes. Very soon.
I tucked my phone back into my purse.
“What have you been up to lately?” Jill asked me. “We haven’t seen you around much.”
The corner of my lips quirked up, but I tried to rein in my secret grin. “Oh, this and that,” I said, and then the conversation turned again to London, and to Jill’s show, and that was fine with me as I listened to them chat.
When my eyes landed briefly on Clay, I saw him anew.
I saw him as he was when I’d first met him.
A friend. He was no longer the man I pined after.
Somewhere inside me, a heavy brick had been moved.
A weight had been shifted. My heart was no longer pinned down and foolishly handed over to someone who didn’t care for all I had to give.
It felt like mine again. And I could do with it what I wanted.