I Wish You Were Mine (Oxford #2) (19 page)

“Yeah, but it doesn’t count if it was your sister,” Cassidy stage-whispered.

“Wait, if we say yes to the party, do we still get to ask our question?” Lincoln asked suspiciously.

Jackson rolled his eyes as the drinks were delivered. “Yes.”

His phone buzzed just as the men began arguing about what the one question should be, and he shifted his weight to pull it out of his pocket.

“Okay, we’ve got it,” Lincoln said, as they all turned their attention back to Jackson.

But Jackson’s attention was still riveted on his phone.

It was an email from Jerry. He’d gotten the job.

Holy hell.

Jackson scanned the email, picking out the key details even with Jerry’s trademark lack of punctuation. The job offer was for offensive coordinator. Effective immediately.

Jackson fought the urge to bellow in victory, which was just as well, because the next sentence in Jerry’s email all but took his breath away.

Sorry I was hard on you, son. That pretty wife of yours stopped by, explained how everything was. Told me that it wasn’t true, and that you’re still the man I thought you were.

Jackson closed his eyes in misery.

He had what he wanted. He had his life back. His old life.
Almost
.

And he had his ex-wife to thank for it.

“I can’t believe you’re making me FaceTime in the dressing room,” Mollie muttered as she wriggled into a green dress.

“Well, only one of us could take the afternoon off. And if it makes you feel better, the terrible lighting makes you look slightly less bad than it makes me look.”

Kim’s voice was muffled, and Mollie had to dig through the pile of dresses on the small chair in the fitting room until she found her iPhone.

“Okay, how about this?” she asked, holding the phone as far away as possible so that Kim could see the latest possibility.

“Hmm.” Kim’s lips pursed. “The color’s kind of fun, but the neckline makes your boobs look small.”

“My boobs
are
small.”

“Yes, but so is the rest of you. Play up that tiny waist, girlfriend! And I think you should go shorter. Show off your long legs.”

“Got it. Legs good, boobs bad,” Mollie said, scanning the dresses she hadn’t tried on yet.

“No, no, it’s all good. I’m just saying, work your assets. And your assets are your thighs.”

“I hope nobody’s listening to this,” Mollie muttered as she set the phone down again and reached for another dress. The little black dress was such a cliché, but this one had caught her eye because it was deceptively demure from the front yet had a strappy, crisscross thing happening on the back that was both fun and sexy.

“I can’t believe you guys are cohosting a party,” Kim was saying.

“We’re not co-hosting. He’s hosting. It’s his party. I’m just there as his…date.”

“But it was your idea,” Kim said.

“Well, yeah.” Mollie pulled the dress over her head.

“And he agreed.”

“Reluctantly.”

“So let me get this straight: the guy you’re living with and sleeping with is hosting a party that was your idea, but you’re merely the guest.”

“Hell, I don’t know, Kim,” Mollie said wearily. “It’s not like anything Jackson and I have going on has a name.” Well, it
did
have a name, she thought. It was called “sleeping with your sister’s ex.”

Speaking of which, something was seriously going on with Madison. Not only had she come into town and seen Jackson without even telling Mollie that she was here, she’d gone and flown back to Houston…all without a word to Mollie. Considering that each of them was the only family the other had, it stung. Madison had texted her, true, but she’d been…different.

Mollie had really thought her sister would call today, at least. Today, of all days, she needed her sister. Madison was the only one who understood.

“Do you think Maddie knows?” Mollie asked Kim, pulling her hair out of the back of the dress and turning to face the mirror.

“Knows what? That you’re shagging her ex?”

“Shagging? You’ve been on two dates with that British guy. A little soon to be picking up his lingo.”

“Pick up the phone. Let me see the dress. And no, I don’t think your sister has a clue. She’s far too self-absorbed.”

Mollie ignored her friend’s jab at Madison and picked up the phone, holding it out so Kim could see the front of the dress before turning her back to the mirror and holding the phone so that Kim could see the best part.

Kim whistled. “Damn, girl. That’s the one.”

“I know, right?” Mollie smoothed a hand over the dress. It really was perfect. Short enough to show her legs without risking any panty shots. The front covered her fully but hugged in all the right places, and the crisscross pattern of the back was even sexier on than it had been on the hanger.

Belatedly she looked at the price tag and winced. “Ouch.”

“Isn’t this what having a rich boyfriend is for?” Kim asked.

Mollie gave her friend a glare. “I’m hanging up now. Thanks for the help.”

“What? You just drop me the second you’ve found the one? You used me, Ms. Carrington!”

“Please. You
begged
me to do this stupid FaceTime thing.”

“And a good thing too. You would have bought that yellow one that matched your hair, and it would have been platinum banana city.”

“Remind me again why you’re my best friend.”

Kim blew her a kiss. “You love me. And I love you.”

“I do. But I’m still hanging up.”

“Fine. But text me the second the party’s over. Let me know if any of your guy’s hot friends are single.”

“I thought Mr. Britain was the one,” Mollie teased.

“A girl’s got to have backups. Especially since my mother actually used the phrase ‘peak fertility’ today.”

“Yikes.”

“Right? Okay, love you. Bye.”

Kim hung up, and Mollie smiled as she put her phone away, grateful that she had at least one constant in her life in the form of Kim.

She’d never needed a best friend so badly, with this thing with Jackson getting too intense too fast, and with her sister completely ignoring her…

Mollie paused in the process of hanging the dress back up on the hanger.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to give Madison so much crap for not calling her. Mollie hadn’t exactly been calling her sister nonstop either. Maybe there was miscommunication on both sides.

Ten minutes later Mollie had bought her dress and was walking the few blocks from Bloomingdale’s to Central Park. The afternoon was cool and crisp. Not exactly sit-on-a-park-bench weather, but Mollie wanted to talk to her sister before she got back home—it seemed weird to talk to her sister from the same place where she’d had sex with Jackson.

Mollie felt herself exhale the moment she stepped off Fifth Avenue and entered the park. Central Park was one part of New York that the movies got exactly right. It was everything she wanted it to be. The right amount of busy and quiet, of city and escape—a place where you could feel like you were alone even when you weren’t.

She found a vacant bench and, tucking the bag holding her overpriced dress against her side, pulled out her cell phone. Mollie blew out a long breath as the phone rang. And rang. And rang.

Madison’s voicemail came on, her voice low and smooth and to the point. “You’ve reached Madison Burke. Leave a message, and I’ll call you. Maybe.”

Madison
Burke
. Mollie had never thought much about the fact that Maddie hadn’t changed her last name back after the divorce, but she supposed it made sense now. Madison had always been shrewd. Perhaps on some level she’d always been thinking that Jackson would be her backup plan.

Mollie hung up without leaving a message. What could she possibly say?
I love you…I need you…Please forgive me…
None of those seemed right.

She sat there for several long moments, waiting for the hollow feeling to dissipate, but it didn’t. It just stayed there, lodged in her chest. Growing. Aching.

Maybe she should have talked to Kim. Kim could be a little bit abrasive and a lot flippant, but she was also a good listener when Mollie needed her to be.

But Mollie didn’t text Kim. She didn’t text her sister either. Because it wasn’t just Kim who had always been there for her. There was someone else in her life who had been there for her, even when her sister wasn’t.

Mollie texted Jackson.
Can you talk?

She waited impatiently for him to text back, hoping he wasn’t in an hour-long meeting. She’d taken the afternoon off to get ready for the party, but when she’d asked if he was doing the same he’d merely stared at her and said, “Why?”

Men.

Jackson texted her back within minutes.
Sure. What’s up?

No, I mean in person.

There was a long pause before he wrote back.
Where are you? Everything okay?

Central Park. East side, about 60th.
She didn’t answer the part about being okay. Didn’t really know how to.

Give me ten. I’ll call you when I’m close.

Mollie closed her eyes in gratitude.
Thank you.

Jackson didn’t respond, and Mollie tapped her feet and pressed her hands between her thighs to keep them warm as she waited not so patiently for his phone call.

Ten minutes passed.

Then fifteen.

He didn’t call.

And just when the pain was welling up, threatening to bubble out in an ugly public cry, he was there.

He was wearing a navy wool coat over the usual suit, laptop bag over his shoulder, hands in his pockets.

The biting wind ruffled his hair just slightly, and even with everything else going through her mind, her brain registered the fact that he’d changed. This was not the Texas Jackson. This was the New York Jackson. For the first time, he looked like he belonged here.

And then he quietly sat beside her, and he belonged there too. Next to her.

Jackson set his bag aside, moving her shopping bag so it was no longer between them.

He pulled her to him gently, both arms cradling her on the park bench as he pressed his lips to her hair.

Mollie closed her eyes and let the tears fall. Not big racking sobs, just quiet tears of heartbreak.

They said nothing. Not for several long minutes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered gruffly, his breath warm against her hair. “I should have remembered.”

“It’s okay,” she said, sniffling. “I’m really getting too old for this.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever be too old to miss your mom.”

The mention of her mother made Mollie’s eyes squeeze shut tighter. “She wasn’t even a good one, you know? Not really.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to miss her.”

She knew he was right, and yet she also knew that she was right in thinking that Melissa Carrington (
M
names all around, because her mom thought it was cute) didn’t deserve to be missed.

She was a mother in the technical sense. She’d given birth to them. Had kept them fed, at least until they were able to make their own macaroni and cheese. But she’d started to check out of the whole mom routine when Mollie was eight and their father had left.

It would take many more years until Mollie realized that the trouble had started before then. That her dad had left because of her mom’s drinking and drug use. But that wasn’t the story Melissa had told the girls. No, she’d made sure they were good and poisoned against their dad, even before he got his “new family.”

Mollie turned toward Jackson slightly, tucking a hand into his big coat pocket to keep it warm. “You probably went through this with Madison every year, huh?”

At first she didn’t think he was going to respond, but then he cleared his throat. “Actually, no, not so much. There wasn’t much love lost between Madison and your mom.”

“But she must have mourned a little,” Mollie said, pulling back and looking up at his face. “I mean, if
you
knew what this day means…she must have told you, right?”

Jackson ran a thumb over her cheek. “I knew the date because of what it means to you. You called a couple of times. Years ago. Madison was…out. So you talked to me instead.”

“That’s right,” she murmured. “I’d forgotten.”

The memories came rushing over her. The way Jackson had always just
listened
. Said all the right things at the exact moment she’d needed to hear them.

“It wasn’t a couple of times that it happened, was it?” she said, her hand finding his. “Most times I called on this day, she wasn’t there.”

He glanced at their joined hands. “Madison…she hated that you mourned your mother.”

There was more he wasn’t saying. Madison had always been slightly impatient with Mollie’s need to talk about the anniversary of their mother’s death, but Mollie had never realized just how much her sister hadn’t wanted to hear it. Now she wondered if, all those years when Madison had been unavailable on this day, it had been intentional.

“Thank you,” Mollie said, a lump in her throat. “For being there.”

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

She sighed and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “That’s the strange thing about our history. You already know everything.”

He rested his cheek on her head. “Tell me anyway. Tell me as your…”

Jackson’s words trailed off, and Mollie wanted to beg him to finish the sentence. Lover? Boyfriend? What were they exactly?

But maybe that wasn’t what was important right now. Maybe what mattered was that he was here. With her. For her.

“I can’t believe it’s been fifteen years,” she whispered. Fifteen years since she’d come home from school, an awkward, geeky-as-all-heck eighth-grader, and found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, her cheek pressed to the scuffed wood.

Mollie had thought she’d merely been passed out—again. It was a common occurrence. Coaxing Mom to her bed before tackling the cleanup of vodka bottles and junk food. Putting the pill bottles back in the medicine cabinet, even though their contents were never used as medicine.

But this time had been different.

This time her mom hadn’t woken up.

Her once beautiful, once vibrant mother had been cold and stiff.

Dead.

The scientist in Mollie now knew that the technical cause of death had been a lethal combination of oxycodone, temazepam, hydrocodone, diazepam, doxylamine, and alcohol. But the little girl in her still thought of it as a crap cocktail. That was what she’d heard Madison say to her friends:
Melissa finally managed to mix the crap cocktail that would kill her.

Madison had always called their mom Melissa toward the end. But then, Madison had been twenty when their mom died. An adult.

Mollie had been thirteen. Thirteen, and motherless—save for Madison, who’d moved back home to take care of her. Who’d somehow managed to play mother and college student.

By the time Madison and Jackson had gotten serious, Mollie’s father had finally stepped up to the plate and reluctantly tried to bring Mollie into the fold of his new family. But it had still been Madison whom Mollie called when she had boy problems or homework trouble.

And Madison had always come—had always been there. Even when she was looking at her watch because she was late for a date, or annoyed because Mollie couldn’t get into the R-rated movie she’d wanted to see, she’d still been her sister.

“You want to call Madison?” he asked.

“I tried. She didn’t answer.”