Lovers and Takers (28 page)

“
You.
. . were in bed with her?” she asked him.

Jake closed his eyes in shame, and then opened them again.
 
“Yes,” he said.

Roni could feel her heart sank.
 
“But I thought
we
. . . I thought we were trying to make it work between us, Jake.”

“We were.
 
We are!” he said in an anguished voice.
 
“You’re the one I want, Roni.
 
But she used to be my weakness, and it all just flooded back to me tonight.
 
I woke up and there she was.
 
Naked in my bed.
 
Fucking my cock!
 
And I didn’t think about you or me or what devastation I was causing.
 
I just went for it.
 
It was as if I was trying to prove some point.
 
She thought she’d made a chump out of me, but I was going to show her, with my sex, what she’d been missing.
 
I was going to use her and then cast her away from me.
 
I was going to take from her what she took from me, Roni.”

Roni’s face was still anguished.
 
“What did she take from you?”

“Hope.
 
She took hope from me.
 
And I was going to take it from her.
 
I know Dena.
 
She came back to us because she had run out of options.
 
She’s getting older now, and those heartbreaks aren’t as easy to deal with anymore.
 
She
need
me and her children now.
 
And I was going to give it to her, and then snatch it away from her.
 
It was wrong, I know it was wrong.
 
But I
realized,
when she called that other man’s name, just how much I hate her now.
 
And it scared me.
 
I had to get away from her.”

Roni found herself so stumped that she walked backwards a few steps, and sat down on the chair on her porch.
 
She looked out at the darkness around them.
 
The neighborhood was quiet, as only the occasional barking dog or passing car could be heard.
 
But everything felt painful.

“I was selfish, and wrong, and you ought to tell me to take a hike, Roni,” Jake said.
 
“I deserve nothing less.”

Oh,
Jake
,” Roni said in an anguished voice.
 
She looked up at him.
 
And his heart dropped when he saw how hurt she looked.
 
“How could you do it?
 
I thought we were doing so well.
 
I thought you were different.”

“I am different, Roni,” Jake said, now suddenly terrified of losing her.
 
He hurried to her side, and sat down beside her.
 
He took her hands in his.
 
“I would never hurt you.”

“But that’s not true.
 
What you did tonight hurt me, Jake.
 
I know we weren’t fully committed yet.
 
I know we were still trying to take it slow.
 
But I never thought you would . . .”

The enormity of what Jake had done bore down on him like a sledgehammer.
 
And he knew there would be no going back.
 
He had blown what he knew was the best relationship he had ever had.

 
“I don’t know what came over me,” he said.
 
“Why would I want somebody like her?
 
She doesn’t give a damn about me, or her own children.
 
But I still wanted to fuck her.
 
You and I were trying to build something real, but I was willing, at that one moment in my life, to throw it all away for some shiny object that’s as fake as a three dollar bill.
 
And I’m disgusted with myself for what I’ve done.”

Roni looked at him.
 
“Why did you do it, Jake?” she tried to understand.
 
“And don’t tell me that shit about getting back at her.
 
Because I don’t believe that.
 
It might have been a part of the reason, but that couldn’t be the main reason.
 
Why would you feel a need to prove anything to a woman you divorced all those years ago? I believe you did it because you wanted
her
.
 
A part of you wanted revenge, but the bigger part of you wanted her.
 
That was the real reason.”

Tears appeared in Jake’s eyes.
 
Because it was a truth he knew he had to face, and hated facing.
 
But it wasn’t as Roni thought.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“I didn’t want her.
 
I wanted her sex, but I didn’t want her.
 
And what I’m saying is also true, Roni.
 
In a twisted way I wanted to love and leave her the same way she did me.
 
I wanted revenge.”

But Jake could see the anguish in Roni’s soft eyes.
 
“I’m sorry,” he said to her, heartfelt.
 
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Stop saying that!” Roni admonished.
 
“You did mean to hurt me or you wouldn’t have hurt me.”
 
She stood up and folded her arms.
 
She walked over to the banister, leaned against it, and then turned around.
 
Sometimes she wondered if there was even such a thing as a good relationship.
 
Was Jake as good a man as she could ever hope to have?
 
Or there any faithful men out there???

“But it’s okay,” she said to him in a barely discernible voice.

Jake stared at her.
 
“
It’s
okay?” he asked her.
 
Was she willing to give him another chance?
 
Could she see beyond what he did, and find his heart?
 
“Are you telling me,” he asked her, “that it’s okay with you that I almost fucked my ex-wife?
 
Are you telling me something like that doesn’t bother you?”

Roni looked at him, offended.
 
“No, I’m not telling you that.
 
Of course it bothers me!
 
It bothers me greatly.
 
But what can I do about it?
 
Pretend it didn’t happen?
 
Tell you to get out of my life before you really do some damage?”
 
Her voice cracked, as she fought back tears.
 
“But because I care about you, Jake, the damage is already done.
 
You’ve already really done some damage.
 
I would have thought that what we were trying to do would have meant more to you, too, but it obviously doesn’t.”

“But our relationship means everything to me, Roni,” Jake said in a desperate tone.

Roni shook her head.
 
“Don’t bullshit me, Jake, all right?”
 
She stared into his eyes.
 
“Don’t lay those tired lines on me that you lay on your other women.
 
You told me we were taking it one day at a time.
 
You told me nothing was settled yet.
 
So you don’t owe me shit.
 
I admit that.
 
But you don’t owe me bullshit, either.”

Jake hated the distress he was putting her through.
 
“I owe you faithfulness, Roni,” he said, “and I failed you tonight.
 
I failed you mightily tonight.”

Roni closed her eyes.
 
Why did it always have to go down this road?
 

“Normally, I wouldn’t even ask it,” Jake continued.
 
She looked at him.
 
“Normally I would just walk away because I know I was wrong and I lost a good thing.”
 
He stood up and went to her.
 
“But I can’t just walk away from you, Roni.
 
I need your forgiveness.
 
I need you to see
my
 
heart
in this.
 
I did something horrible to you.
 
To us.
 
And I need you to do something wonderful for me.
 
I don’t deserve it, but I need you to forgive me.”

Roni, however, wasn’t ready to go that far.
 
She could hardly digest what this all meant, and he wanted her to forgive him?
 
She shook her head.
 
Jake’s heart fell through his shoe.

She headed for her front door.

“Roni, please,” Jake begged.

Roni stopped at the door.
 
She remembered how much she loved Curtis once, and how hard she planned for their wedding day, and how he left
 
her standing there, in the church, looking like a fool.

She turned around.
 
“One day at a time,” she said to him, “is the best I can do.”

And Jake breathed again.
 
It was the best he could have ever hoped for.
 
“Thank-you, Roni,” he said to her.
 
“You won’t regret it.”

She inwardly snorted.
 
Was he kidding her?
 
She regretted it already.
 
Because it was moments like this that made her want to swear off men for the rest of her life.
 
But she was no kid anymore.
 
There would be no perfect endings for her and she knew that now.
 
She either had to stay in the game, and take a little bullshit along the way, or get out.
 
And stay out.
 
And do
bad
all by herself.
 
But that wasn’t an easy out, either.
 
Because doing
bad
all by herself
could sometimes be just as painful as doing bad with a badly flawed man in many ways, but a good man in many other ways.

 
“Goodnight, Jake,” she said as she turned, went back into her home, and closed and locked the door.

Jake fell against the banister’s rail as relief washed over him.
 
She had given him a second chance.
 
Undeserving as he was, she had given him a second chance.
 
And on the life of his children, he declared, he was going to do everything in his power to ensure she never have second thoughts about his second chance.
 
He thanked God.
 
He silently thanked Roni again.

He walked slowly to his car the way guilty men walked.
 
He got back into his car and sped away.
 
But he knew he would never escape that look of anguish he saw tonight on Roni’s face.
 
He caused that.
 
He had let her down mightily.
 
Now she was in pain because of him.
 
He caused her to contemplate life without him, when just hours before they were contemplating a life together.
 

But she gave him a second chance.
 
He almost blew the best thing that had ever happened to him.
 
He almost threw it all away.
 
And that would have been the end of life as he would have ever wanted to live it.
 
That was how devastated he felt about his own behavior.
 
Because if his foolish behavior would have meant the end of his relationship with Roni, an assassin’s bullet would have been more tolerable.
 

The next morning, after Jake had had a fitful night of sleep and had arrived to work ready to bury himself in his business, Aubrey came to his office.
 
When he told him what had happened with Troy, Jake couldn’t believe it.

“He
kissed
you?” he asked, unable to even begin to make sense of that.

“He kissed me,” Aubrey said, still trying to make sense of it himself.
 
“I turned around after opening this letter he had for me, and he just laid it on me.”

“But why?”

“He says Druce told him I wanted it.”

Jake looked at his son.
 
“You wanted Brackston to kiss you?”

“Yes, sir.
 
That’s what the guy told me.”
 

Aubrey then waited for his father to ask if it was true, and if he did have such leanings, but his father didn’t even
bother
.
 
He knew his son better than that.

“I’m not following this,” Jake said.
 
“Why would Druce tell that kind of lie on you?”

Aubrey shook his head.
 
“Damn if I know.
 
I’ve been racking my brain about it ever since it happened.”

Jake didn’t hesitate.
 
He pressed his desk intercom button.

“Yes, sir?” his secretary’s voice responded.

“I want Druce Lincoln in my office right now.”

“Right away, sir.”

Jake clicked off and leaned back.
 
Aubrey sat down in the chair in front of Jake’s desk.
 
He ran his hand across his soft hair.
 
“I wanted to kill the guy, Dad,” he said.
 
“I wanted to hurt him.
 
I felt violated by that joker.
 
And I know why Druce would think I’d be open to something like that.
 
He figures I must be gay because I don’t jump in bed with every woman I meet.
 
Because I go to church and believe in God and try to live as morally upright a life as I can manage, he just knows there’s something wrong with me.”