How Forever Feels (15 page)

“You sure?”

“Stop frowning. Once you meet him, you'll see.”

“Doubt it.” Jack lifted his brow and sat back in his chair. “Since we seem to have this whole honesty thing going on between us now, Snip, I should probably tell you I'm not keen on meeting any guy you think is the sweeter than me.”

“Ha! Trust me, you'll love him, too. So what do you want to do? Hike? Something else?”

“Doesn't matter to me, just let me know when you want me to pick you up.”

“Any time after twelve.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” The view jiggled as she rearranged herself on the couch, then nodded slowly. “I guess I'll see you then. In person this time.”

“Wait!” He didn't mean to say it out loud, and worse, he didn't mean to shout it so loud that he startled poor Pete, but he hadn't talked to her since, well, okay, he talked to her yesterday, but it felt a hell of a lot longer.

“What is it?”

“Oh…I um…”
Shit
. “Okay I got nothin'; I just didn't want you to hang up yet.”

He didn't even care that she could see him blush. And he could have kissed Steve Jobs and the phone company for making it possible to not only see her smile like that, but for being able to hear her sigh his name.

“Okay,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don't know. Want to hear about the chick who hit on me today?”

“No!” The look of disgust she gave him made him laugh, especially when she rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “Who was it?”

“Delilah someone-or-other. She's an artist.”

This time when Maya snorted, there was no laugh to go with it. “If by artist you mean slut, then I know exactly who you're talking about and feel I should warn you that they probably don't make antibiotics strong enough for what she'll give you.”

He'd started laughing when she used the word “slut” and was still laughing long after she'd finished. Hands down that had to be one of the harshest things he'd ever heard her say about anyone—and that included Stella, though he guessed calling her a skank was pretty much on par with calling Delilah a slut.

“Sorry,” she said. “But you should know the facts before you go putting yourself out there.”

This was just too good not to push.

“So you think I should double bag it then?”

“Wha—?” She clamped her mouth shut and glared at him, but he could tell she was trying not to laugh. “It's shit like this that keeps you from being as sweet as Alec.”

“I'm sorry.” He laughed. “But come on, you walked right into that one.”

“Maybe, but I'm not kidding, Jack, she's—”

“Yeah, she made it pretty clear pretty fast what she's like, and you can tell your pharmacist to stand down, because I politely refused her suggestion that we find ways to inspire each other.”

“Oh my God,” Maya growled. “She's just awful. And it doesn't matter how polite you were; Delilah doesn't usually take no for an answer, so you should probably brace yourself for a few more offers while you're here.”

Her face went in and out of view as she stretched out on the couch and pulled a blanket over herself. Apparently the flannel tent wasn't warm enough. Using the armrest as a pillow, she lay on her side but kept her phone vertical so she was sideways on his screen.

“What else did you do today?” she asked, tugging the blanket up under her chin. “How'd it go with Nick?”

That made Jack laugh.

“Well,” he scoffed, kicking off his shoes as he spoke. If she was going to get comfortable, so was he. “We all made it out alive, so I guess that's a good thing.”

“It couldn't have been that bad,” she said. “What happened?”

Jack propped the phone up on top of the TV cabinet, so it sat right at his eye level, and proceeded to get into his “pajamas,” too.

“I was helping to hang trim today,” he said, tugging off his jeans, “and there might have been an issue with the finishing gun. It wasn't like I actually shot anyone with it, but Delmar refused to come back in the room until I put it down. Hang on.”

Dancing around on one foot at a time, he tugged off his socks and tossed them on top of his jeans.

“Uh, Jack?”

“Just a sec.” He ducked to the side, yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it on the pile too. He was going to have to do laundry again soon. “There.”

When he finally picked up his phone again, Maya was grinning ear to ear.

“Oh, don't stop now,” she said. “It was just getting good.”

“What are you—?” Turning, he found himself staring straight back at his reflection in the mirror above the bed, Iron Man underwear and all, and if he was guessing right, his phone had been high enough on the cabinet to catch the full show in the mirror. “Shit, Maya, I'm…I didn't mean—”

“Oh please.” She laughed. “Don't apologize. That's the most action I've seen in a long time.”

Jack dropped his arm so she couldn't see his face, then realized he'd waved the screen right by his crotch.

The whole time Maya's voice continued to taunt him through that tiny little freakin' speaker.

“Nice undies, by the way. Never pegged you for an Iron Man; I would've guessed you were more of a Hulk kind of guy.”

His face blazing, Jack headed straight for the bed and climbed under the blanket, propping himself up with the pillows.

“Funny,” he grunted. “But remember I've seen what you're wearing, too, so if I were you, I'd think twice about offering any kind of fashion advice.”

“You misunderstand,” she said. “That wasn't a judgment, merely an observation. Next time, though, maybe give me a heads-up so I can make popcorn first.”

“Next time?” Jack ground his teeth together to keep back the rest of what he wanted to say. Like how next time it'd be her turn to put on a show, or like how next time she saw him undress it wouldn't be over a video chat.

Yeah, probably not a good idea to take this there or anywhere else for that matter.

Instead he did a complete 180 and switched gears to something completely safe: the sandwich he had for lunch. It was a good sandwich, too, but he'd barely gotten ten words out when Maya interrupted him.

“Jack.”

“Maya.” Grinning, he flopped over on his side and used the other pillow to prop his phone up.

“Why don't you ever talk about the Carsons?”

“Uh…wow, okay, is that a trick question?”

“No,” she said, smiling gently. “They're a big part of your life, you just spent most of the weekend with them, and yet you never talk about them.”

“I don't know, I guess I thought it would be weird.”

She looked down at her fingers, wrapped around the edge of her blanket and sighed. “Yeah, it would be, and I know this is going to sound crazy, but I miss them. Not Dickhead, but Tammy was always nice to me. Even Genie…well, she hasn't spoken to me since I left Will, but she was still my mother-in-law. I still care about her.”

Jack wished he could reach through the screen and touch her, maybe ease that loose strand of hair back, or just smooth his fingers across her frown.

“She's good,” he said. “Tough old broad still. She's been at it with old lady Reynolds because Genie put bird feeders up on the fence posts between their yards and Mrs. Reynolds says they're attracting rats.”

“Right,” Maya snorted. “Has Mrs. Reynolds considered it might be the giant compost pile in her own yard that's attracting rats?”

“That's what Genie said but you know what they're like when they get each other going.”

“Yeah. I thought for sure they'd come to blows over Mrs. Reynolds's dog—d'you remember that? What was its name?”

“Ginger.”

“Right. Ginger. Mrs. Reynolds never did figure out why it kept digging under the fence to get to Genie's place.”

“Nope, and to this day Genie'll deny coaxing it over with chunks of steak.”

A small smile pulled at Maya's mouth. “She always liked to stir it up a little, didn't she?”

“Yeah, she did.” He told Maya about Tammy's new boyfriend, Cliff, and some of the things Genie not only said about him, but to him, too, and the whole time Maya cringed.

When he finished, there was a moment of silence before Maya looked straight into her phone and sighed.

“What's Stella like? For real, I mean.”

“Come on, Snip, don't do this.”

“I'm just curious. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing you can say that'll make me like her, but the non-crazy part of my brain realizes she can't be all bad, right? Jack?”

He did not want to have this conversation, not then, not ever, but she just kept staring at him, so he finally gave in and sighed.

“No, she's not all bad,” he said. “She seems nice, at least to me, and from what I saw at Thanksgiving, it looks like she and Genie are pretty tight.”

“So I take it the wedding's still on, then.” She smiled, but it obviously took some effort.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think…” She trailed off, expelled a long breath then shook her head, or tried to, but since the side of her face was pressed against the armrest of the couch, it didn't work out very well. “Never mind.”

Damn right “never mind.” He knew what she was going to ask and there was no way in hell he wanted to be the one to hurt her like that. Yes, Will and Stella were already talking about starting a family, and by the sounds of it, they weren't going to wait long.

When Maya had talked about having a baby, Will just about lost his mind; when Stella talked about it, he wrapped his arm around her and smiled so big you'd think he just won Lotto Max.

It wasn't fair that Will, who didn't even want kids a couple years ago, was now planning on having a couple, and Maya, who'd always wanted kids, wasn't anywhere near having one.

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“My battery's almost done.”

“You want to go get your charger?”

“No, I think I'll just go to bed.” She ran her fingers slowly down the screen and smiled. “It's really weird talking to you like this.”

“I was going to say it's pretty cool, aside from the Magic Mike show.”

“Best part.” She gave a soft, gentle laugh that landed deep in his chest. “See you Saturday?”

“Yeah.” He pressed his fingers against the screen over hers. “ 'Night, Snip.”

“ 'Night.”

The call ended, but it took him a second to look away, and when he finally did, it was to flop back on the bed with his fists pressed against his eyes.

“Fuuuuu­uuuuu­uuuuu­uuuuck.”

“I'm not great at the advice…can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?”

Chandler Bing,
Friends,
“The One with the Tea Leaves”

Friday night and all Maya had done for the last hour was pace. Actually, it was more like prowling. She'd thought things were complicated before, but now…now they were just ridiculous, and the longer she walked from room to room in her apartment, the more the walls seemed to be closing in.

She needed to get out of there. And she knew just where she needed to go.

“Maya! Come on in, is everything okay?” Jayne, always the worrier.

“Yeah.” She started to nod and ended up shaking her head instead. “No. I don't know. Do you have a minute?”

“ 'Course. D'you want some tea or something?”

“Sure, that'd be great.” She tugged her jacket off as they headed to the kitchen and tossed it over the back of one of the chairs.

“Hey Maya.” Nick walked into the room, kissed Jayne's cheek, then leaned over the island on his elbows. “No big plans on a Friday night?”

“Yeah right,” she snorted. “I was going to go to bed but…the thing is, I was hoping to get a little advice.”

“Oh.” He thumbed over his shoulder and started to back up. “Then I'll let you two—”

“Actually, if it doesn't weird you out, I wouldn't mind getting your two cents' worth, either.”

“Weird me out?”

“It's, uh, it's a relationship kind of thing.”

“You're in a relationship?” He must have realized how surprised he sounded, because he immediately tried to backtrack. “I just meant…”

“It's fine.” She laughed. “And, actually, I don't even know how to answer that. I mean, technically, no, I'm actually not, but I think I sort of am.”

Jayne set three mugs on the island but didn't let them go right away. “Are we going to need something stronger than Lemon Zinger?”

“Probably.” Maya laughed. “But I need to have a clear head while I try to figure this out, so tea's fine.”

“All right, then. Spill.” Jayne stayed on the far side of the island near the kettle, and the second Maya started talking, Nick pulled up a stool and plopped down.

“Okay. I assume Nick knows about the whole Griffin thing.”

Jayne nodded.

“And did you tell him about what happened when we had dinner here with everyone?”

No hesitation, just another nod. Jayne might be Fort Knox around everyone else, but not with Nick. He probably wished he didn't know half of what he did.

“Okay, well, here's the thing.” For the next couple minutes, while Jayne fixed their tea, Maya filled them in on the highlights of what they didn't know, starting with Jack misunderstanding what he thought he'd heard and ending with the FaceTime chat last night. The more Maya told them, the more slowly Jayne moved, and the wider Nick's eyes opened.

“So I need to know how you two did it.” Maya raked her hands back through her hair and sighed long and hard. “How did you manage to just be friends for so long when you wanted more than that?”

“Easy,” Jayne said. “It was completely one-sided; the idiot over there didn't get on board until a few years back, remember?”

“Hey!” Nick cried, but he was smiling, too. “I was on board, sort of, I just didn't know
you
were on board.”

“See?” Jayne asked, nodding over a smirk. “Idiot.”

Even as she said it, she leaned over and kissed him smack on the lips—something she never would have considered doing a couple years ago, especially with someone else watching.

“Honestly,” Jayne said. “I don't know what to tell you, Maya. It was just the way things were with us and I accepted it. I didn't question it, and I never expected more. Truth be told, I woke up every morning expecting it to be the day he finally realized how weird it was for him to be friends with me.”

It was probably a good thing Jayne had her head turned away from Nick just then, because it would have broken her heart to see the shame wash over his expression like that. The thought was still fresh in Maya's mind when Jayne reached back blindly and took Nick's hand in hers, like she'd somehow felt what he was feeling.

“It wasn't anything Nick did or didn't do,” she said, and while her eyes got a little glassy, she kept her voice even. “It's how I was raised, so it never occurred to me that I could have anything more. What you're dealing with, though, is different. Jack's tie to the Carsons adds a whole extra layer of crazy to your situation.”

“Tell me about it,” she snorted.

Jayne pushed the honeypot toward the middle of the island. “Do you think there's any chance that the two of you could make it work?”

“The Carsons are his family, Jayne. I can't ask him to give them up, and that's pretty much what he'd be doing, because they'd shut him right out. Besides, it'd be like him asking me to give you guys up.”

They both nodded solemnly for a second before Nick blinked and reached for the honeypot.

“What does he think about you having a baby with Griffin?”

“I don't know.” Maya winced. “I haven't actually told him yet.”

Nick's hand froze a couple inches above the honeypot, the honey running off the stick and right back into the pot.

“You have to tell him.”

“Why? If he and I aren't an ‘us,' why should it matter to him?”

“Trust me,” Nick said, nodding emphatically. “It'll matter.”

“But why? I want a family, Nick, he knows that, hell everybody knows that, and this might be my only chance to have one. It's not like he could ever be the one I have a family with, so it shouldn't make any difference to him.”

Nick just kept right on nodding. “Maybe not, but I'm telling you right now, it will.”

“So…what? I should give up my chance for a family because it might throw a wrench into a relationship I'm not even having? That's crazy.”

“You're right.” Jayne came around the island and took the chair between Maya and Nick. “You shouldn't have to give it up, and yet I just can't shake the feeling in my gut that this thing with Griffin isn't right. It's not what you really want.”

Maya couldn't even argue with her, because she had that same feeling in her gut, too. It wasn't exactly what she wanted, but maybe it would have to be enough.

Should she could tell Griffin no, and walk away from a very real chance at having a baby of her own simply on the off chance that maybe—
just maybe
—a miracle would fall out of the sky and some guy (
Jack!
) would sweep her off her feet and give her the family she wanted?

Or should she take a step back and look at it realistically? The chances of her ever finding a man (
Jack!
) to spend the rest of her life with wasn't exactly looking promising these days, and while she was still fairly young, she couldn't pretend her window of baby-opportunity would stay open indefinitely. How much longer did she have? Five years? Ten?

When she considered how fast the last ten years went by, it wasn't exactly a comfort to her, and sure, there were medical breakthroughs all the time, and with the options available now, women were having babies well into their forties, but Maya didn't want to wait that long.

In a perfect world, the choice would be easy; she'd simply listen to her gut, walk away from Griffin, and magically end up with the whole fairy tale, including her own Prince Loyal (charming was way overrated) and cute little woodland creatures who'd dress in tiny little outfits and clean the house.

This wasn't a perfect world, though; it was the real world, and she needed to at least listen to her head when it begged her to take what was being offered. To not only take it, but to grab it with both hands and hold onto it with everything she had, because the chance might not come around again.

“Ugh.” Pushing her tea aside, she crossed her arms on the island and dropped her head on top of them.

“Maya.” Nick's voice was low, soothing, and infuriatingly rational. “If you really think having a baby with Griffin is the right thing for you, and you honestly believe that Jack isn't entitled to an opinion, or that it shouldn't make a spit of difference to whatever your relationship is with him, then you have no reason to hide it from him.”

Infuriatingly rational.

“I'm not hiding it from him,” she muttered, her face still pressed against her arms. “I'm just waiting until I decide what to do before I tell him.”

“Maya.” Jayne's voice this time, but that's as much as she said before Maya jerked upright and pressed the heels of her hands against her temples.

“I know!” She didn't mean to yell it like that, but she hated knowing they were right. “I'll tell him. I will. It's not like I have a choice, do I? Whatever this is between Jack and me, it's not enough to make me think we could have a future, but it's more than enough to make it feel like I'd be cheating on him. How screwed up is that, I ask you?”

Jayne's wincing only proved Maya's point. Nick just took a slow sip of his tea, then set the mug down and looked straight at her.

“Do you love him? Jack, I mean.”

“Excuse me?”
Maybe inviting Nick to stay wasn't such a great idea after all.

“It's a simple question.”

“Actually, Dr. Phil, it's not.”

She didn't know why Nick and Jayne were laughing, because there was nothing funny about this.

She really liked Jack—there was no question about that—but love? She loved the way she felt when she was with him, and she loved the way she felt when she thought about him, which happened more often than she was ever going to admit to Nick. She loved the way the greens and browns in his eyes melted together when he looked at her, the way he smiled so big and easily, and she loved that he'd rather laugh at himself than at anyone else.

She loved his dog, the fact that he wore Iron Man underwear, and yes, even though it pained her, she even loved the fact that he was so goddamn loyal to the Carsons.

This time when she dropped her head to the table, she dropped it to the table with a thunk and an agonized “argh!”

“Told you it was simple.” The laughter in Nick's voice was followed by the sound of Jayne thwacking him on the arm. “What?”

“I can't be,” Maya moaned. “That'll make everything worse. And besides, he's only been back a couple weeks…okay, almost a month…but it's too soon. It can't be that. Can it?”

Their silence reverberated through her skull, silently screaming what the three of them already knew, until she bolted upright again and grabbed Jayne's arm, jostling her so hard her tea slopped over onto the island.

“You have to help me, Jayne. Tell me how you did it. How did you stay sane for so long when he was right there all the time?”

Without even looking at each other, Nick and Jayne laced their fingers together and squeezed.

“I don't know.” Jayne laughed. “But I didn't live here for a long time, remember?”

“Ohmygod, that's it!” Maya cried, squeezing Jayne's arm tighter. “He's leaving! Oh thank God! We've got, what, another three weeks, maybe four if things go longer than expected, and then he'll be gone! Oh, that's beautiful. How soon can you get his office finished, Nick, for real I mean? And don't be shy to kick his ass out of there—I heard all about the finishing gun disaster—so if he's slowing you down, you should feel free to go all Donald Trump on his ass.”

She was acting crazy, she knew that, talking as fast as she was, but she couldn't help it.

“Uh, Maya,” Jayne said. “Just because he moves away doesn't guarantee anything will change; at least it didn't with me. You just need to find a way to live your life without him in it, and you also need to get used to the fact that he's going to hook up with some other woman.”

It was like Jayne had just doused her with a bucket of ice. “What other woman?”

“I don't know, I'm just saying. If you're off having a baby with Griffin, you can't really stop him from going out and hooking up with someone, too. And so he should!”

“But—”

“I'm not saying he'll love her, or that he'll ever stop loving you, but come on. Even if you don't have a baby with Griffin, can you really see yourself sitting around alone for the next forty or fifty years? No. So you can't expect Jack to do that either.”

“I know, but—” Maya clamped her mouth shut and forced it to stay that way. She'd come here, to Jayne specifically, for this reason. Jayne had stood by and watched Nick marry someone else, someone who didn't even like Jayne, so if anyone knew how to get through it, it was her.

“How did this even happen?” Maya asked, more to herself than either of them. “I mean, God, it's
Jack
.”

Nick's soft snort made both Maya and Jayne look over at him.

“No, it's just…” He shrugged and lifted Jayne's hand to his lips. “I used to ask myself that about Jayne all the time, too.”

“Awww.” She nudged up next to him and laid her head on his shoulder. “You never told me that.”

“Oh God. If you two are going to get all mushy and cow-eyed, I'm going to go.”

“Okay, see ya. Good talk.” Laughing, Nick pushed up from his chair, but Jayne just rolled her eyes.

“Never mind him. What do you think you're going to do?”

Maya threw up her hands and expelled a loud sigh.

“I don't know. I think about him all the time, and even though time just drags when I'm not with him, it's absolute torture when I am, because it's not like we can…” Smirking, she lifted her brow at Nick. “You might want to go find something else to do now.”

“Oh!” Surprise morphed straight to understanding and then a shudder. “Yeah, I don't need to hear about that. I'll be out back with Duke.”