“Have you ever done a gallery show or anything like that?” he asked, flipping through one of the many canvases stacked in the corner of the room. She let out a chuckle.

  “No way. I’m nowhere near good enough for any of that. I do these in my spare time, which I seem to have a lot less of lately. But I mainly do it for stress relief. To feel that connection to my mom and to put things down on paper or canvas that I’ve seen when I’m out that I can’t help but draw.”

  “They are truly amazing. I’m not blowing smoke. You’re a remarkable artist.” He turned back to her and she was on her way down the hallway off the living room.

  “The remote’s over there. Grab it and pick us out something good. I’m going to take a quick shower and get into my pajamas, if that’s cool with you.”

  “It’s cool with me. What kind of movie are you in the mood for?”

  “Something with explosions or there’s no way I’ll stay awake. I’ll be right back.” She yawned as she walked back into her bedroom. Mark sat on the couch, which was the only surface not covered with art, and wondered what exactly he was doing here. After what Rox said that morning, he started to feel like maybe he was slipping into a pattern. He always seemed to jump into things too quickly because he didn’t want to be alone. Not that she seemed anything like Cheryl, but he didn’t want to push to spend time with her when his life resembled a dumpster fire.

  Resting his arm on the back of the couch, he paged through movie after movie before he found the perfect one. After more than twenty minutes, he checked his phone. The shower turned off ages ago. Where was she? A thud made him get up, walking back toward the bathroom. Had something happened to her? He made it to the hallway bathroom and found her on her hands and knees in the bathroom with two towels drying the floor. She was in the tub on her hands and knees drying everything in sight.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Startled, she looked up at him. “Don’t step on the floor!” Mark stepped back.

  “Okay, I’m not. What happened?”

  “Nothing, I’m just cleaning up after my shower.”

  “Did you have a spill or something?”

  “No, no spill. I just have to make sure that the floor is completely dry.”

  “But it’s the bathroom. You have bath mats everywhere.” He pointed to the three that practically covered the entire floor.

  “I know, but I have to make sure that it’s completely dry or it will drive me crazy. Sorry I took so long, I’ll be out in a couple of minutes,” she said, flicking her hair that escaped her bun, out of her face.

  “Okay, I’ve got the movie all ready to go.”

  “Great, can’t wait.” She smiled up at him and went back to drying every surface in the bathroom. He backed up down the hall and went back into the living room.

  She breezed back into the room in a pair of pajama pants with puking cartoon animals all over them, carefree, like the weirdness in the bathroom hadn’t happened. She pulled the pins out of her bun and let her blonde hair cascade down from the top of her head to just below her shoulders. She ran her fingers through her hair and left herself with a rumpled bedhead look. No longer the militant dryness freak from the bathroom, she relaxed and plopped down on the couch.

  Pulling his eyes from her hair, her stretched t-shirt made his mouth water. He remembered vividly what was underneath. Her pert, handful-sized boobs were showcased perfectly in the snug shirt that fit her like a glove. He continued to stare until eye to boob contact was broken when she plopped down next to him.

  “Oh, I love this movie! Great choice!” She snapped him out of his trance when she pulled the remote out of his hand and pushed play. She sat back and tucked her feet under her butt, which pushed her chest out toward him. He had to stop himself from looking down and trying to figure out if she wore a bra or not.

  “Do you want popcorn?” She stared at the screen, and thankfully hadn’t seen his blatant ogling of her chest. He cleared his throat and readjusted himself in his jeans.

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Okay, cool.” She hunkered down in her spot, resting her back against his arm that was along the back of the couch.

  The movie progressed with loud explosions and crashes and from the side of his eye, he noticed that her head kept dipping and shooting back up as she kept nodding off. She readjusted herself and leaned against his shoulder, tucking her arms underneath her. Letting out a gentle sigh, her head dipped, her eyes fluttered, and she drifted off to sleep.

  Pulling his head back, he smiled down at her as she started to snore almost immediately. He shifted himself, so that he leaned against the arm of the couch and she followed him, lying on top of him as she grumbled and he watched the rest of the movie. She sighed and he leaned down, breathing in her scent.

  “I can’t believe I’ve found someone as great as you, Jen. You’re more than I ever could have wanted in a woman. I’m sorry that I’m such a mess right now. Had I known that you were out there, I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes in my life, but I have, and I need to fix them before I can be the type of guy you deserve.”

  He put one hand behind his head, wrapped another around her, and let out a contented sigh before turning his attention back to the TV. It was almost the end of the movie. Once it finished, he’d wake her up and be on his way back home. Yup, once the movie finished, he’d leave. Just rest his eyes until the credits rolled.

  16

  Standing in the lobby of the lawyers’ office, Mark was hit with all those angry thoughts that had run through his head when they were getting divorced. There was so much betrayal and rage that it had taken everything in him not to dive over the table at her lawyers as they would go through all the ‘issues’ they had had in their marriage. Apparently, working really hard and giving your then-wife everything she wanted sometimes wasn’t enough.

  Things were a little different now. At least he wasn’t in that same place anymore. Well, it didn’t feel like he was in that place anymore. There was more distance between how he felt now and how he’d felt then with everything that happened. Sometimes it seemed like all she’d done happened to someone else. But now she was entangling The Bramble in her web and that made it personal again. It was more personal now that she was screwing with the bar than it had ever been when she was just trying to screw him over. Now it involved his family, his real family. His parents and the family he’d made since starting up the bar.

  Jen was a beacon of safe harbor in the Cheryl storm. Their quiet night alone sitting on the couch had made him feel more content than he’d been in a while. And her legal referral was not too bad either. Their conversation had been short and to the point. This guy didn’t seem like he was only trying to run up a bill. He’d given him a flat rate and told him that if they didn’t win, he wouldn’t even have to pay. Sure, this was done as a favor to Jen, but he thanked his lucky stars she was on his side.

  He paced, unable to sit with all this nervous energy flowing through him. He needed to calm down.

  M: You passed out on me last night before we finished the movie.

  J: I know. I’m such a party pooper

  M: And you snore!

  J: I do not!

  M: Do too. I’ll have to record it for you next time to prove it to you

  J: Next time, huh?

  M: I mean, if there’s a next time that you happen to fall asleep around me

  His lawyer motioned for them to enter the conference room and Mark closed his phone, unable to finish the text conversation with Jen. Why had he said that about recording her? Was she thinking he was trying to push himself on her? The last thing he needed was for her to think that he tried to insinuate himself into her life when he didn’t even have his shit together. As much as he wanted to become a permanent fixture.

  Sit-down meetings with their lawyers were always fun—at least the divorce proceedings were finished. But that didn’t mean that this meeting was any easier. If anything, this meeting was more difficult. It amazed him how his marriage ending had once felt like the end of the world—a complete and total failure that reflected all the shitty decisions he’d made in his life. Now that paled in comparison to the possibility of losing The Bramble. It would have been a blow before when it struggled. But to lose something—partly—because it succeeded, that was a kick in the teeth. Cheryl had no interest in the place when he’d done the remodel and thought that it would fail.

  Once she saw how well it was doing, that was when she decided that they needed to renegotiate the terms of the divorce. He hadn’t even known you could do that. Instead of alimony, she wanted her half of the bar. When she’d thought it was worthless, she couldn’t have cared less, but now that it flourished, it was a whole other ball game.

  Sitting across from her, Mark wondered how he had ever fallen for her trap. It was obvious that beneath her perfectly coiffed exterior she was a viper and a user. He’d thought that her neediness meant that she would rely on him and he would be the provider. But it turned out that she was just a bottomless pit of need and greed when she wasn’t lashing out, in which case she was perfectly capable of blazing her own path. She’d go through anyone and anything that stood in her path. And right now, he stood between her and the golden goose of a nice fat lump sum payment over her monthly payments.

  “Do you know why I cheated on you, Mark?”

  Wow, straight to the point and aiming below the belt.

  “Cheryl …” her lawyer warned. She shrugged him off.

  “Because that place was always more important than me. And you were weak. I needed to find a man who would stand up for me.”

  “Because I loved a place my dead parents left to me and I wasn’t an overbearing asshole, you decided to cheat on me? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Exactly!”

  “You did me a real favor, Cheryl. I’m glad I got out early. I could have wasted decades dealing with your shit, but finding you fucking that guy in our bed made me see the light. Looking at it now, the money I pay you will be a godsend to finally be rid of you.”

  “But you’ll still have to pay me.” She smirked at him, glancing down at her nails and thinking she’d won.

  “Oh, you’ll get paid all right.”

  The lawyer Jen referred him to pulled out the case file and slid it across the table to Cheryl and her lawyer.

  “What’s this?” her lawyer asked, paging through the file.

  “It is documentation to prove that Cheryl forged Mark’s signature on the loan documents she took out on The Bramble.”

  He didn’t know how he’d done it, but the lawyer had been able to get hold of Cheryl’s text messages and emails. He was glad the guy was on his side. Reading those messages had made him want to puke. To think he’d thought of starting a family with this woman. What a poisonous viper she was. He was lucky to be rid of her before they’d had kids.

  Cheryl’s lawyer glanced at her and then back to them.

  “What’s your offer?”

  “The loans will be paid from the portion of The Bramble that legally belongs to Ms. Greene.”

  “But that leaves me with almost nothing!”

  “I would hardly call what you would still be legally entitled to nothing, but yes, that’s exactly the point,” he said, allowing himself a satisfied grin.

  “But … but … that’s not fair.”

  “You know what’s not fair, Cheryl? What’s not fair is you getting anything at all from me. You had the high life and when that wasn’t enough, you started cheating. Then you were getting alimony and half our other assets. And now you’re trying to come after me for more, but from these loan documents, it looks like you already spent the money you were coming after me for. So have fun when you walk away with nothing. Or this can go to court and you can go to jail for fraud.”

  He hoped that she wouldn’t call his bluff. While the texts and emails contained some information that could incriminate her, a long, drawn-out court battle and back-and-forth with lawyers could end up costing way more than the loans she’d taken out.

  “I can’t believe you would do this to your wife.”

  “Ex-wife, and I can’t believe you would have done what you did to your husband. The end is here, Cheryl, and you’re reaping what you sowed.”

  “Bastard!”

  “And could you please stop trying to sabotage The Bramble. I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of blowing the place up, but it’s not going to work.” The stricken look that crossed Cheryl’s face made him second guess that it was her arranging for all the things that had been going wrong lately.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My car, the gas call, the gas leak. All those things.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I certainly wish I had blown that damned place up. I wish I’d done it a long time ago!” She stood, slamming her hands down on the table. Her lawyer pulled her back into her seat.

  “We’ll take the deal.”

  “Excellent!” His lawyer slid over the contract that absolved him of responsibility for the loans and detailed that her portion of the payout would be used to cover those loans. Now he just had to come up with the money to buy out her portion and he would be free of her forever. What a sweet day that would be. Then maybe he would be ready to move forward with Jen. Maybe then he would be ready to not screw this up again.

  Jen stared at her phone, not even sure where to go from here. She seemed to be once again friend-zoned by Mark. And she was pissed about it. Why did he always seem to back off when they were starting to talk about things in the future? She knew he liked her, but he seemed incapable of just coming out and saying it and going from there.

  She didn’t want to be throwing herself at him, but she liked spending time with him. She enjoyed hanging out at The Bramble and with Rox and even Keira. Although Keira scared the crap out of her sometimes with how intensely she took Jen’s work, she loved working with her and learning from her. His friends had become her friends in some ways. She was definitely not giving up Rox’s to-die-for dishes, even if things didn’t work out with him. Over her dead body! But she did want things to work out. She just didn’t know if he did too. The back and forth always made it that much harder when she tried to put herself out there.

  The meeting with Cheryl was today and hopefully there would be some kind of closure and he would be able to move on to the next chapter in his life. A new chapter that might possibly include her as more than a sometimes fake girlfriend. Now that she thought about it, he was pretty infuriating. Why couldn’t he let the chips fall where they may and stop being a roadblock to whatever it was they had? Or maybe it was all in her head. Did he actually want to move things along with her or was she pushing for something that was never going to happen?

  17

  Jen had become a semi-permanent fixture at The Bramble. It helped that it was close to her office. She would come in for a work lunch or a happy hour and other times after work to hang out. Mark looked forward to those times, more than he wanted to, but it completely transformed his day when she walked into the bar.

  She would come in with her co-workers or sometimes later in the evenings by herself. He found himself shifting the times he was in the bar to accommodate her later work evenings. He’d usually go home around seven, unless it was the weekend, but he found himself there more and more until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. in case Jen swung by after working late.

  He still couldn’t believe that she worked as hard as she did. He hadn’t made a move on her again, fearful that he would ruin whatever game it was that they were playing, and she usually came in so beat from work that she’d have a drink, some food and they’d chat and she’d leave. Her hours were insane, but she always came in with a smile for him that was a punch straight to the gut. Seeing her always brightened his days … well, his nights.

  That was, unless she was flirting with some pretty boy right in front of him like he was some moron! His blood boiled as the guy reached out to touch Jen’s hair. He wanted to vault over the tables in front of him and punch that fucker in the mouth. And she wasn't doing anything to stop him from touching her. He hadn’t even realized he stalked over to them, until he had the guy’s hand in his grip and attempted to crush it.

  “Dude, what the fuck?” the guy shouted, pulling his hand in Mark’s grip.

  “Do not touch her,” he growled.

  “Mark, calm down. It’s not a big deal.” She tried to placate him. She placed her hand on his shoulder and tried to push him back. "Seriously? Calm down!"

  He glanced at her and she seemed genuinely upset. The guy tried to pull his hand out of his grip. She immediately let go and the guy jerked back, almost falling from his stool. She slid off the stool and had her hands on her hips. He could see her lips pursed in anger, but he didn’t care. How dare she flirt with some guy in front of him? There he was trying to think of how he could get his shit together to maybe make a go of things with her and she was flirting with some guy. Typical!

  "You need to get yourself under control, asshole," the guy griped as he held onto his hand. He called to Charlie behind the bar. "Can you get this crazy guy out of here? He just attacked me for no reason."

  Charlie looked between Mark and the guy, frozen, unsure what to do. He glanced at Jen, who looked like she wanted to punch him in the face.

  "You shouldn't have been touching her," he growled.

  "What? Do you own her?"

  "Yeah, Mark, do you own me?"

  He turned to glare at her before taking her hand and pulling her with him toward the back of the bar. She trailed along behind him as he led them both up the back stairs to his office. Once they made it into the office he slammed the door. Before he could say anything, she rounded on him and let loose.

  "What the hell was that, Mark?"

  "You were flirting with that guy right in front of me. What else was I supposed to do?" he roared.

  "First, I wasn't flirting. I had some crap in my hair and he pointed it out and got the last bit after I couldn't get it. And I didn’t even get the chance to tell him not to touch my hair before you showed up all caveman-style and freaking lost it on that guy. Second, even if I was flirting, what gives you the right to go all Cro-Magnon on me? You don't have a claim on me."

 

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