Susan Mallery - Sweet Trouble

She laughed. “Maybe next time. You’ll have to get used to the attention first, then you can start to enjoy it.” She ignored the menu and leaned toward him. “So, tell me. What’s new at work?”

“We’re brainstorming a new game. The theory behind it is really advanced, but there’s a-” He paused as she dropped her head to the table and groaned. “What?”

“Do I look like I care about game theory?”

“No, but you asked.”

“I asked what was new at work. That means with the people.”

“Oh.” He reached toward his face, as if he was going to push up his glasses, then dropped his hand to his lap. “It’s different.”

She straightened. “How?”

“People are talking to me.”

She smiled, knowing he was already getting results. “Women, right? You mean women.”

Matt grinned. “Yeah. A lot of the secretaries are saying hi to me now. And this woman in Finance asked me to help her carry some stuff to her car, only it wasn’t that much and she could have done it herself.”

“Did you ask her out?”

“What? No.” He looked shocked. “I couldn’t do that. She was, you know, older.”

Jesse raised her eyebrows. “How much older?”

“Maybe five or six years. She wouldn’t be interested in me.”

“Oh, honey, you have so much to learn about women. You’re tall, you’re in great shape, you’re good-looking. You have a good job, you’re basically sweet and funny and smart. What’s not to like?”

He flushed. “That’s not me.”

“It’s exactly you. It was all there, all the time, just hiding behind a pocket protector.” She narrowed her gaze. “I told you to throw them all out. Did you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes. I said I did.”

“Good.”

Her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse and looked at the screen.

“Andrew or Zeke?” Matt asked.

“Joe.” She turned off the phone. “Sorry.”

Matt studied her. “How many guys are there?”

Not a question she wanted to answer. “This isn’t a very interesting topic.”

“It’s interesting to me.”

“I date but I don’t get serious. It’s no big deal.”

“You meet a lot of different guys?”

“Sure. It’s easy. They’re everywhere.” And men were not the least bit challenging to attract. Not that she was interested in keeping them around for any length of time.

Their server appeared. Jesse was relieved by the interruption. Talking about her personal life would only depress her and it might make him think she was…

What? Slutty? Isn’t that what her sister called her? Stop thinking about Nicole, she ordered herself and opened her menu.

Matt waited while she placed her order first, then he listed his selection, even including a glass of wine.

“Very smooth,” she said when they were alone. “The glass of wine is a nice touch. You know, we could go to the Chateau St. Michelle winery sometime. They have tastings. You could practice being snobby.”

He laughed. “You want me to be a snob?”

“You never know when it will come in handy.”

The server brought their drinks. Jesse stirred her iced tea. “You’re making some great changes. How do you feel about that?”

“You’re not going to get me to talk about my feelings,” he told her. “It’s a guy thing.”

“Good answer.”

“Are you playing me?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I can handle it.”

There was a quiet confidence in his voice she hadn’t heard before. It matched his straight posture and the way he looked her directly in the eye.

Still looking at her, he asked, “What’s your story? I know you’re not really a lifestyle coach. So who are you and what do you do when you’re not hounding me to go to the mall?”

At least they weren’t talking about her personal life, Jesse thought as she wrinkled her nose. Not that the rest of her world was in much better shape. “There’s nothing much to tell. I work in a bakery that my sister and I own. Well, my half is in trust until I’m twenty-five. I don’t especially like working there, but that’s more about me not getting along with Nicole than anything else.”

“Why don’t you get along?”

Jesse considered how much to tell. “I have a second sister. Claire. She plays piano and is kind of famous. She went off to tour the world right after I was born, so I don’t really know her. When I was six, my mom took off to be with Claire and Nicole got stuck raising me. My dad wasn’t much help. I was a handful, as they say. Nicole thinks I only ever screw up and I think she’s the queen bitch of the West. Like with the bakery. I’ve begged her to buy me out so I can just leave, but she won’t.”

“What would you do with the money?”

“I have no idea.”

“Maybe that’s why she won’t give it to you.”

Jesse smiled. “If you’re going to be reasonable, we can’t have this conversation.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay. Enough about me. I know you live with your mom. What about your dad? Are they divorced?”

“They were never married. My mom doesn’t talk about him at all. It’s always been just the two of us. She worked really hard when I was young. Money was tight. She did everything for me.”

A possibly scary thought, although Jesse decided not to judge until she knew all the facts. “She sounds nice.”

“She is mostly. She didn’t care that I was into computers. She never bugged me to go outside or worried that I didn’t have a lot of friends. She kept saying I’d grow into who I was meant to be and not to worry if things weren’t how I wanted them now.”

“Good for her,” Jesse said.

“When I was fifteen, I got really frustrated by this computer game I was playing. I broke into their system, accessed the code and rewrote it. Then I took the new version to them. They licensed it from me. Our money situation got better then.”

Jesse stared at him. “You licensed a computer game when you were fifteen?”

He nodded.

“For a lot of money?”

“It’s a couple of million a year.”

If she’d been drinking she would have choked. “So you’re rich?”

“I guess. I don’t think about it much.”

“You’re rich and you wore a pocket protector?”

“You’ve got to let that go. I said I threw them all out.”

“You’re rich.” She couldn’t get her mind around that fact.

“What’s your point? Does it change anything?”

More than he knew, but warning him about women only after him for his money was something they could talk about later. She laughed. “It changes who’s buying dinner.”

Present day…

JESSE HAD ALREADY DECIDED to get all the reunions over as quickly as possible. It was like jumping in the deep end of a cold pool. Sure the shock nearly killed you, but it was over fast. So she did her best to shake off the conversation with Matt, ignoring the rapid pounding of her heart and the mass of memories that crowded her brain, then drove to a second unfamiliar address, guided by the trusty nav system.

This house wasn’t gated, but it was nearly as large as the one she’d just left. Yet instead of being a testament to great architecture, it was a rambling two-story house that proudly announced a family lived there.

A tricycle and several toys littered the wide covered porch, while a minivan was parked in front of the garage. One of those decorative wreaths hung on the door, which made Jesse wonder if she had the right address. Nicole had never been the wreath type before. Maybe she’d changed.

Jesse tried to imagine it, but couldn’t. Still, in the five years she’d been gone, not only had her sister married-a wedding Jesse hadn’t been invited to-but she’d had a son and twin girls. The information came compliments of Nicole’s fraternal twin, Claire, the sister Jesse had never really known.

She parked on the street and grabbed more pictures from her purse. Convincing Nicole who had fathered Jesse’s child was nearly as important as convincing Matt, although for very different reasons.

She got out of her car and walked up the main path. As she approached the front door, her shoulders slumped. The old feelings she’d thought she’d gotten over returned. The voices that said she was nothing but a screwup. That she ruined everything she touched, didn’t appreciate anything.

“Stop!” she said aloud, pausing in front of the steps. “I’m not that person anymore.”

She wasn’t. She’d grown up and changed. She was responsible, a single mother who’d made it on her own. When Jesse left, Nicole had claimed she would come crawling back in a matter of weeks. That hadn’t happened.

After squaring her shoulders and raising her chin, she walked up the stairs, then pressed the bell and waited.

She heard yelling from inside, and the sound of running feet. The front door jerked open and a little boy stared up at her.

“Who are you?” he demanded loudly, his voice competing with the sound of babies crying. Apparently both twins were awake and not happy.

“Eric, I’ve told you. Don’t answer the door without checking with me first. And don’t ask who the person is.”

Eric had blond hair and blue eyes like his mom. He was the same size as Gabe and just about the same age. He sighed and addressed Jesse.

“I’m not supposed to answer the door on my own.”

“I heard. So maybe you want to go get your mom.”

“I’m here,” Nicole said, walking around the corner, carrying a baby in her arms. “Can I help-”

She came to a stop. Her eyes widened and all the color left her face.

“Hi,” Jesse said, feeling awkward and unsure of her welcome. “It’s been a long time.”

Nicole stared. “Jesse?”

“It’s me.”

“I can’t believe it.” In the distance, a baby continued to cry. Nicole glanced in that direction. “It’s Molly. Holding them both when they need to be walked is impossible. Hawk’s out of town. He didn’t want to leave, but he and Brittany had planned the trip celebrating her graduation from college for a while and it didn’t seem fair to cancel it because I have twins who aren’t sleeping.” She rocked the crying baby in her arms and looked desperate.

“I can help,” Jesse said, stepping in the house without being invited. “Here. Let me take this one.”

“Are you sure?” Nicole asked, obviously reluctant to hand over her baby.

“I raised one myself,” she said.

“Right. Sure. Here.”

Jesse took the wrapped baby and smiled down at her. “Hello, pretty girl. How are you? Keeping mom up? She’ll remember and punish you later. You might want to think that through.”

The baby’s eyes focused on her face, then slowly began to close. Nicole hesitated a second, before retreating to the back of the house to collect Molly. Eric stared at her.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m your aunt Jesse,” she said as she closed the front door, stepped over several toys and followed him to a family room.

There was a sofa and television, along with toys and a couple of baskets of laundry. A stack of diapers sat in one chair. Shoes littered the hallway leading to the kitchen.

Jesse remembered Nicole’s house being mostly tidy and quiet. It was a place Jesse had never felt at home. While this place made her feel at ease, she couldn’t believe her perfect sister lived in chaos.

A small, hairy white dog raced through the room, followed by a slightly larger black-and-white dog. Pets? Nicole had pets?

“That’s Sheila,” Eric told her. “Rambo is her son. Like I’m my daddy’s son.” He seemed proud of the fact.

Nicole returned with a second infant and collapsed in a chair.

“Clear a space,” she murmured, rocking her daughter with a desperation that spoke of many nights without sleep. “Come on, Molly. It can’t be that bad, can it?”

Kim, the baby Jesse held, had quieted enough for her to ask, “Want me to put her down?”

Nicole shook her head. “She won’t sleep. She’ll wake right up.”

“We can try,” Jesse said, knowing getting the twins into their own cribs was the only solution that was going to let Nicole rest.

Nicole’s gaze narrowed, then she shrugged. “Whatever. They’re in the sitting area off our bedroom. They have a room upstairs, but it got to be too far to walk when I realized they weren’t ever going to sleep.”

Her voice was thick with emotion, as if she was inches from losing it all.

“I’ll show you,” Eric said. He’d been hovering by his mom. Now he led the way down a short hallway and into the master suite.

Jesse had the impression of space, large furniture and a view of a massive backyard. She followed Eric into what would usually be the master bedroom retreat area. A love seat and coffee table had been pushed to the side. Two cribs stood in the middle of the space.

“This one is Kim’s,” Eric told her, pointing to the one on the right.

She smiled at him. “Wow. You’re very helpful. I’m sure your mom is happy to have you around. You’re a great big brother.”