A Touch of Spice (13 page)

He seemed to understand and he rocked her until the worst of it had passed. There was nothing else he could’ve done. A birthday surprise had turned into a half-committed friends-with-benefits sort of thing and now Jackie’s heart felt like it was being shattered in two, with one half bunking with another woman and refusing to give her the time of day and the other considering taking refuge in Seattle. She didn’t know how to deal with that. A couple of months earlier, she had been fantasising about a man she’d only seen in soft-lit porn—now she’d had him, fantasy made flesh, and lost him.

Marten fell asleep with an arm thrown across Jackie’s midriff, his fingers occasionally rubbing the skin there. She knew he was asleep from the soft caress of his breaths against her nape. At least one of them was at peace. Jackie couldn’t follow suit. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Tony in the restaurant. She’d close her eyes and see him sitting there, morose and brooding, like a romantic hero in some historical romance. Only this hero wasn’t exactly pining for the pale, fragile beauty. Insofar as Clara fitted the role, Tony had already won her heart and hand.

They would make a beautiful couple, Jackie thought despite herself. They could have beautiful children together. Their daughter was probably all kinds of adorable.

Who was she to get in the way of their happiness? It was selfish to cling, and Tony had enough of that with Clara in his life.

Careful not to wake Marten, Jackie pulled back the covers and slipped out of bed. She found her phone in her handbag, in the living room, and tapped it to light up the screen. One password-lock later and she had a message draft open and waiting. She stood poised with thumbs hovering over the keys for a long moment before she could decide what to type.

You win. I hope you’ll be happy together. Take care of him.

Goodbye, J & M
.

She clicked send before she could think twice about the wisdom of sending Tony a message intended for Clara’s eyes. After this morning’s ‘
I’m not giving up on us’
, it felt like a betrayal, but what was the use in appearing consistent if she wasn’t wanted? She’d caused enough problems for Tony—first by dragging him into a half-baked attempt at a threesome with and for Marten, then by playing with his heart and implying he was somehow beholden to them just because he had a kinky streak. Best to cut her losses now, before she did them both any more harm.

The city lights blurred before her eyes, but Jackie blinked the tears away before they could spill. There had been enough weeping for one night.

She was about to pad back to bed and give sleep another chance when her phone shrilled on the table, vibrating so hard it made her heart jump into her throat. It didn’t get any easier once she’d checked the caller ID, except now the phone was vibrating in her hand, sending vicious little tremors up her elbow as she stood there, in the dark, at a loss as to what to do.

She picked up, expecting to hear Clara’s voice on the other end. It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility—the girl had a way of elbowing her way into things that did not concern her. But it wasn’t.

“Can you meet me for a drink?” Tony asked, doing away with ‘
hello’
and ‘
good evening’
and ‘
I’m sorry’
in one fell swoop.

Jackie considered her latest resolution and weighed resolve against the wine roiling in her belly. She felt heavy and sluggish. She knew she didn’t look her best with her eyes so red and puffy. She’d make a bad impression. “Okay,” she said, resigned. “Where?”

Tony named the coffee shop where they’d first met, then recanted. It wouldn’t be open at this hour. He suggested a bar, instead, rather than meeting some other time. He must have known that Jackie’s temporary insanity wasn’t going to last past sunrise. She’d be back to her old self again in the morning and she would stick to a decision made. She wasn’t like Marten to change her mind at the flip of a coin.

“I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” she told him, and hung up. Dressing without waking her boyfriend proved doable only because Jackie hadn’t hung her work clothes in the closet. She could do nothing to tame her hair, or risk turning on the light to blot concealer under her eyes. Tony would have to suffer seeing her looking like death warmed over and that was that.

The streets were empty, as was normal for half past midnight, but Jackie had cab companies on speed dial. She made do.

Tony was waiting outside the bar when she arrived, dragging vigorous puffs of cigarette into his lungs to fortify himself.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Jackie noted, as she drew her trench coat tighter around herself. She suppressed a shiver—it wasn’t the cold so much as exhaustion. If she’d had any sense, she would have stayed in bed, beside Marten, in the life she’d built for herself brick by brick. Instead here she was, glancing around for a mousy-haired wraith that was sure to pop around the corner any second now.

Tony caught her looking. “Clara isn’t coming.”

“She’s not?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t know I’m seeing you.”

“How brave.” Jackie didn’t mean it to come out so sarcastic, but she couldn’t help the bite of her words. There was a point beyond which she could not muster compassion, a threshold that had been crossed a couple of days back, when Tony had more or less confirmed he was through with them. Seeing him again was a bit like worrying an old wound—it hurt, yes, but it also felt good to scratch open the healing scabs.

“Do you want to go inside?” Tony asked, crushing the cigarette butt under his ratty Converse.

That’s littering
, Jackie mused detachedly and nodded. At least it was bound to be warmer inside the bar.

They found a table far enough from the watering hole that the mating calls of single men and women on the prowl didn’t quite carry. Tony ordered a dry Martini. Jackie couldn’t make out if he was trying to impress her, or if this was the
real
Tony and the man she’d known and slept with, the one obsessed with healthy living, had been just a mask he put on. After seeing Clara go from office gossip-monger to single-minded schemer, anything was possible. She stuck with Coke.

“That’s all?” Tony prompted. “Are you sure you don’t want something more—?”

“I’m sure.”

“But—”

Jackie sighed, curtailing the question. “Why am I here, Tony?”

“Let me get our drinks first.” He was so fidgety it was a miracle he managed to bring back the glasses without spilling anything. Jackie left hers untouched, though Tony didn’t hesitate to dip his lips into the Martini, apparently in search of a little liquid courage. “I got your message,” he blurted out, fiddling with the glass. “I thought… It sounded very final.”

“It was supposed to be,” Jackie acknowledged.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Why not? You have a kid with Clara, you told Marten and I in no uncertain terms that you love her…” She left out the part where he’d obviously been struggling because it was late and kindness was more than Jackie could handle right at that moment. “Because I’m not a home-wrecker in any capacity and I thought you were being honest with us. If I’d known you were involved with someone else…”

“What? You would’ve stopped checking my website?” There was something still raw and hurt in his voice when he brought that up. Jackie swallowed back her guilt.

“I haven’t looked at your website in a while, actually. Since you started sleeping with us, I think. But hey, why am I explaining myself?” she drawled, grinning mirthlessly. “Apparently lying to your sexual partners is all kinds of fashionable these days.”

“I didn’t lie,” Tony protested weakly.

“Really? I must have been drunk during the whole
I forgot to say, but oh by the way, I’m dating the mother of my child
chat. When did that happen?”

“That’s not…” Tony heaved a breath. He looked like he would have rather been anywhere else, but he had invited Jackie out for this heart to heart. He wasn’t going to get off so easily. “I’m not dating her.”

“That’s not what she says.”

“Yeah? Well, Clara also tells me we have a kid together, but guess what, I’m actually pretty good with numbers. We had been broken up for almost a whole year when she showed up in Rotterdam with a belly the size of the Berliner Dom. What was I supposed to do? Turn her away?” He shrugged, a violent gesture at odds with the hushed, animal-hurt cadence of his voice. “I said okay, she could come live with me. Our parents are pretty old-fashioned. They wouldn’t have taken kindly to Clara coming home with a baby and no husband, especially at that age. Plus, I’d left her in fucking Minsk when we broke up. It was my fault she got in trouble.” 

“Go on,” Jackie said as she sipped lazily at her Coke, too tired to be magnanimous.

“The first video we did together, we didn’t know what we were doing. Lighting was bad, focus was off… You could barely see her. Me, though…” Tony swallowed hard. “I was pretty recognisable. I didn’t know she’d sold the tape until I got a call from my then boss. I was bussing tables in an Irish pub, could barely make myself understood—and my boss calls me in to say that he knows a few people if I’d like some serious work. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He was nice about it, though. Don’t think guys were his thing, but he helped me out anyway. So that’s how it started. Clara got me my first job, I took it from there.” He shuffled a little in his seat, tilting forward with both elbows on the table, as if by reducing the distance between them he could stand a better chance of persuading Jackie. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me and her. She didn’t hold my feet to the fire.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it?” Tony blinked, confused. “But your texts…”

“Were obviously a mistake. You’re in love with her—”

“I’m not.” His answer was immediate, overloud. It grabbed at parts of Jackie that wanted to believe him so badly. “I’m not—Jesus, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Clara thinks I’m still with her after all this time because I owe her…or because I’m—” He shook his head, hunting for the words, “—infatuated or something. But I’m not. I feel sorry for her. She chose to walk a very hard road and she chose to do it on her own. I’m just…a passenger until she finds someone better.”

It was Jackie’s turn to baulk. “Why would you put up with something like that?”

“Wouldn’t you? For a friend?” Tony searched her eyes, his gaze liquid and intense and so painfully earnest. “I loved her once. We were kids and she broke my heart… That doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

“So what was last night? That whole scene…
What was that
?” Jackie could hear her voice cracking, a sob tangling in her throat. It was a strange sensation, like floating outside of herself as hysteria mounted. She barely recognised herself, except as some crazy lady with her hair all tangled and her breaths coming short and stilted, her lungs burning. “How could you sit there and let her talk for you?”

“Because I thought she needed it!”

Tony had rounded the table. He dropped to his knees and Jackie wanted to tell him to get up, God only knew what filth was on the floor, but her tongue wouldn’t obey and she couldn’t form the words. Her hands shook when he twined their fingers together.

“I thought she needed to have one person in her life who would always be there for her. I thought she wanted me to make up for the mistakes I’d made. To atone. But she didn’t care. It wasn’t about me. She was just destroying what we had because she could. Because I didn’t realise it sooner—”

Sobs racked Jackie’s body, curtailing the rest. She didn’t realise she was crying until she saw Tony’s face blur and change before her eyes, a mask of despair twisting at his features. He gripped her tightly and she him. There were plenty of people staring, but this couldn’t be the strangest thing they’d ever witnessed in a bar at the witching hour.

“I’m in love with you,” Tony whispered against her ear. “I’m so in love with you and Marten.”

Chapter Eleven

“Jackie?” Marten’s voice was thick with sleep as he slowly made his way into the oblong of light streaming from the living room lamps. “What’re you doing—”
Up
, he might have added, but then he saw Tony and cut himself short. “Oh.”

“Hi,” Tony said, looking justifiably sheepish.

Jackie took pity on them both. “Apparently Clara pushed the envelope a little too far this time.” It was one way to put it. Another might have been to say that Tony had been too kind for his own good and this was the yield of that kindness.

Marten stifled a yawn behind his hand, gingerly picking his way to the ottoman. “What happened?” He may have woken suddenly to find his bed empty and his girlfriend missing, but he was alert enough now, hesitation present only in a half-aborted attempt to pat Tony’s knee.

Tony looped fingers around his wrist when Marten made to arrest the gesture. Youth had its advantages. “She nicked my phone.”

“Really?” Marten sounded more than a little taken aback, though he already knew that to be true from Jackie. Maybe it was the context—breaking up with someone as neurotic as Clara over something as petty as a missing phone—rather than her obsessive need to control who he could and could not see—was certainly a little peculiar. Then again, Tony’s entire relationship with Clara defied logic. They could marvel at it but they would never understand.

“It’s a little more complicated,” Tony admitted, “but yes. The bare bones of it are that she tried to stop me from contacting you by confiscating my phone. I’m not a toddler. I don’t take well to thieves. Anyway… It opened a can of worms we shouldn’t have left sealed for so long. We finally had a talk about our relationship.”

“And how did that go?” Marten asked, arching a brow.

“Worse than you can imagine. Clara can be—”

“Psychotic?” Jackie suggested helpfully from the couch.

“Creepy?” Marten offered in turn, not to be outdone.

Tony offered them a wry smile and ducked his head. “I was going to say overdramatic. She seems to think that if I’m not with her, I’m against her, that kind of thing… We had…words.” He circled his thumb over and over Marten’s wrist bone. “She’s threatened to cut me out of Joni’s life, but I don’t think she’ll do it. For one thing, my name is on the birth certificate. I’ve been more of a father to that kid than any other man in Clara’s life. And there
have
been others.” He seemed to want them to understand that. Jackie had already been told twice, as if Clara’s dating record played any part in what Tony was permitted to do with his own love life.