Pulling the dress over her head, she mutters an irritated, “He’s not my friend.”
“You told me you’ve been training together since you were kids. Isn’t he in that picture?” I point to the one where Marion is around nine or ten. I can’t tell. I’m bad with ages. Rising up, I snatch the pink frame and hold it out. “He’s in this, right? That’s a long time to know somebody.”
“We’re not friends! We are acquaintances. He’s Samantha Cocker’s best friend. Not my friend.”
I set the memory down and lean against the wall by it. “You’re a stubborn woman, you know that?”
Her huge eyes flicker and she glances away from me. “Thank you for not saying ‘girl.’”
Glancing over to the cute kids dressed in western-wear, I can’t tell which is Samantha. “You know a Cocker? I’ve met a few at my old bar. Good people.”
Marion groans dramatically. “I am so sick of hearing how good they are! So what?! So what if they are nice?! They’ve never been hurt! They don’t have infidelity in their lives! Their parents are all fucking perfect!”
My eyebrows go up and I walk over to sit across from her, picking up the ottoman and sitting on it even thought it’s too short for my long legs. I can see Marion’s face better this way. And I’m starting to see other things more clearly, too. “You think you’re the only one who’s been hurt?”
She frowns, lips tightening. “They—”
“—How do you know, Marion? You think they’d publicize it if they had problems? Everyone knows who they are in this city. There’s so damn many of them, and some are even famous! You think they’re giving out their secrets? That family is so tight that I bet you if they had problems, they’d handle them quietly amongst themselves. You think there’s no infidelity anywhere there? I have a hard time believing that. And even if they don’t, they’ve had other issues. We all have them. In pretty much every family alive, there are addiction issues, infertility, psycho lovers, lost jobs, and nobody can escape death. Hell, we all lose people.” Reaching out for her leg, I clasp her bare knee. “You lost your Dad, in a way, right?”
Mar’s staring at me with the most fragile look I’ve ever seen. She wants to trust me with what she’s really feeling, but she’s too scared to try. “My Dad’s around. I haven’t lost him.”
“Your mom.”
“She’s…around.”
My eyes narrow. “It’s your mom. You lost her, is that it?”
Marion’s tongue goes sharp again. “I said she’s around. You’re not my shrink!”
I stand up, rub my legs to make my pants smooth out, and walk away on a frustrated, “I wasn’t trying to be your shrink. I was trying to be your friend.”
As I head down our hallway she calls my name, and her voice cracks. “Troy!”
I spin around, make good time back into our living room. “Yeah?”
Quietly, she confesses, “I did lose her. I lost my mom a long time ago. The person I thought she was vanished on me! How do you trust someone when you can’t trust your own mom?”
I know the basics of the story. David leaked most of it over poker nights. Jack explained the rest when I moved in and we were the only ones left after games ended.
I sit on the couch and pull her to me. She lays on her side, head in my lap as she stares out at nothing. No tears come this time. She just stares off like someone in shock. I stroke her hair and whisper, “It’s okay, Mar, I’m here.”
Her voice is so quiet I wouldn’t hear it if I wasn’t listening really closely. It’s just a breath, a near silent admittance of a fact she might never have faced before today. “Don’t know how to have friends.”
It’d be so easy to make a joke right now…say, No shit, and try and get her to laugh. But something stops me. It’s just too huge. I have a lot of respect for it.
Nobody has to tell me that I’m the first person she’s ever confessed that to. I know it in my gut. This ice queen has melted.
And I lit the match.
12
MAR
J ack opens his door two days later, wearing a blue t-shirt and dark blue jeans, matching eyes made more spectacular by his body-hugging wardrobe. “What are you doing here?”
I chuckle, “Nice to see you, too,” and thunk past him, entering his penthouse without invite. It’s a loft with fifteen-foot-high ceilings and at least twelve-hundred-square-feet of wide open space. “You decorate this?”
“I hired someone,” he informs me, his voice cautious. “Gutted it and rebuilt.”
Hmm, well, the space was definitely designed by a professional who knew Jack is a man’s man. It’s sleek, minimal, with modern yet rugged decor. Leather and steel. Dark wood to add grounding. This is the home of a billionaire, and the doors leading off in different directions inspire curiosity about what they might hide.
His exhale is deep and impatient. With himself? Because it can’t be with me. I’m a saint.
“Mar, I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“Run away?”
“No, that I don’t regret.”
Flipping around to face him, I cross my arms and thunk my cast on the cherry-wood floor. “Let’s be friends.”
He matches my stance, minus the yellow dress and fucked-up appendage. “Friends? We are friends.” I cock my head and he admits, “Okay, I don’t know what we are, but what’s this about?”
“I realized I need more friends, Jack. And I want to choose people who interest me. That’s you.”
A huge sigh drops his arms and he walks to the kitchen. “Don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You’re really hurting my feelings here.”
He glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t stop walking. “I doubt that.”
“Excuse me?” I hobble over, silently cursing my leg out, and the fact that his perfect ass looks so delicious in those jeans it’s hard to not lick my lips. “I have feelings!”
“You’re a rock and you know it.”
