leep with him.”
“Urgh… How long is that going to be?”
I paused. “Um…a couple of months?”
“Fuck,” Melody said, looking at me as though I had just revealed that I was an alien. “That long?”
“Sex means something to me.”
“Evidently.”
I smiled, wondering how she would react if I told her that I was still a virgin. She would probably go into conniptions right here in the restaurant. It was almost worth doing just so that I could see her reaction. I stayed silent and let her regale me with the choicest titbits of her many sexual escapades, but the whole time, I found myself thinking of Jake Middleton.
Chapter Three
Jake
No matter how hard I stared at numbers on my laptop screen, I couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of them. Instead, I reflected on how focusing on one thing for too long seemed to make it lose all meaning. My head was spinning, and my body was tired, but I knew I needed to crunch the numbers before my morning meeting.
I hated leaving certain things up to other people because something inevitably slipped through the cracks when I did. I preferred to be on top of things so that I knew exactly what was happening at all times. That had been the main reason I had risen so fast in the company. The board of directors had noticed my work ethic, and when a candidate needed to be put forward for the position of CEO, my name had come up. I reflected on the moment when they had offered me the position. It had felt like validation somehow.
The steady drum of Noah’s toy blocks was also getting in my head. We were seated around the low coffee table in the living room. Noah’s side of the table was a mess of toys and blocks and crayons. He was trying to build something, but I wasn’t sure what. His face was twisted up in concentration with his tongue sticking out like he needed it to think.
I closed my laptop and sat back to watch my son. When I had first arrived back in the States, my first and foremost priority had been finding a job in order to support Noah. I had been so consumed with being able to provide for him that I’d sacrificed on the time spent with him. It was a sad choice to have to make, but it needed to be done. The important thing was that he was healthy and happy, and he was doing well in school.
I glanced up at the wall behind Noah. There was a framed picture of Daphne there, and right next to it was the framed flag I had received at her funeral. Still to this day, I could barely remember much about her funeral or the days that followed. What I did remember was the sound of Noah crying. It was constant and desperate, and there was nothing I could do to calm him down.
“Noah…buddy?” I said. “How has school been going?”
Noah didn’t look up from his blocks. “Good.”
“Yeah?” I said, knowing I had to draw his concentration away from his blocks. “How are your friends?”
“Good.”
“What’s your best friends name again… Jordan?”
“Jaime,” Noah said, giving me a glance.
“That’s right,” I nodded. “How is he?”
“Jaime’s a girl,” he said.
I smiled. “Ah, that’s right, sorry, buddy.”
“Jaime’s mommy makes the yummiest cookies,” Noah told me. “Chocolate chip—and she puts extra chocolate chips in them.”
“Wow, sounds good.”
“I want a cookie now.”
“You’ve already had your treat for today,” I reminded him.
“How do you know?” he asked, looking up at me with his big blue eyes.
“Because Janet told me you did,” I said.
His face fell slightly, and his cheeks drooped. I was sorely tempted to break my own rule and give him something sweet to eat, but I suppressed the urge. That was another thing about being a single parent: you could never take a break from the discipline. There was no way you could drop the ball because you didn’t have a partner to pick up the slack.