Before I could come up with a way to snatch her away from this party and get her to the guesthouse, where I could slowly peel that clingy green material down and off her body, she turned to Syd and said, “So, how’d you get roped into this? And sorry, by the way, that you did.”
“Do you not want me here?” There was a chip on Syd’s shoulder that I recognized right away. Because I had one too.
“I don’t want anyone here,” Jane said. “I mean, I don’t want anyone tohaveto be here.” She took a bite of something from her plate, watching Syd as she chewed.
One day when we were in the garage while I was working on the cars, Jane had told me that she and Syd were sometimes oil and water. Jane had been sitting on top of the long counter that ran the length of the huge building, swinging those long legs, crossed at the ankles.
It was before we’d started having sex, and as she explained her sometimes complicated, but right now good, relationship with her third roommate, all I could think about was stepping closer and unlinking her ankles and wrapping those legs around my hips.
So, yeah, I didn’t get all the nuances of what she’d said.
But now, Syd seemed to accept Jane’s explanation and visibly relaxed, taking a few bites from her own plate.
“Why didn’t you tell us it was your birthday?” Syd asked Jane.
I felt her shrug next to me. “I’ve hated my birthday since I was ten. Honestly—and this is the truth—I kind of block it out. So, yeah, it wasreallya surprise.”
“So, you didn’t think something was up because of the double date and asking you to wear a dress?” I said.
“Asking me? More like telling me. And no, I didn’t even put it together that it could be birthday related. Because I didn’t think any of you knew it was my b-day.”
“Caro knew. She’s the one that got it all rolling, I guess,” Syd said.
Jane seemed to stiffen for a second, then relaxed. But I noticed she’d stopped eating. “Yes, Caro would know my birthday. When I was a little kid, she’d drag Joey and Betsy to some hotel—or at least a neutral site—and make them give me gifts and wish me happy birthday. They hated it. I hated it. But it was important to her that her kids knew me, even if it was for only one day a year.”
I held my plate with one hand and put the other at the small of Jane’s back. But she leaned forward, away from my touch, not wanting comfort. Not wanting to seem weak.
The move would probably piss off most guys, but it just made me…like Jane all the more.
Yeah, I waswaybeyond “like” with Jane. But, just as she’d moved away from my touch, I mentally moved away from that thought—that there was more than just a grudging mutual respect, and hot-hot-hot sex between me and Jane Winters.
“What? You think I’m going to pull out the violins and play for your sad story?” Syd said to Jane. “At least you had presents on your birthday—and from rich kids, no less.”
A moment passed where the two girls just stared at each other and I kept my mouth shut. Then Jane cracked a smile. “Bitch,” she said to Syd with no malice in her voice, almost as a tip of the cap.
“Takes one to know one,” Syd said easily, and the two of them smiled at each other.
We all ate in silence. The food—no surprise—was first rate, and I gobbled up my full plate.
“What I don’t get,” Jane said after a while, “was how Caro felt comfortable enough to have Syd and Lily and Lucas here. Seeing her in her condition.”
“What do you mean? I’m not going to say anything,” Syd said, the chip back firmly on her shoulder.
Jane waved a hand. “Iknow that. I can vouch for you and Lily. And I’m sure Stick vouched for Lucas. But if I were Caro and didn’t want news of how sick I was getting out, I wouldn’t take any chances.”
“It won’t matter soon,” Caro said from behind us. I started to get up, but she motioned me to stay seated so I did. She made her way around the couch and sat in the other chair, beside Syd and facing Jane and me, in the small seating area tucked away to one side of the mammoth living room.
“What do you mean?” Jane said. I could hear the fear in her voice. Did Caro mean she didn’t have much longer?
We’d talked about it a lot, and Caro still wouldn’t let me call Betsy or Joey and get them back here. Based on her physical abilities, and what I’d seen my father go through at the end, I would guess Caro still had several weeks left.
Not that I was any kind of expert or anything, but I’d done a lot of reading about it all when my dad was dying, and even more now that I was the primary caregiver to Caro.
I put my hand at Jane’s back again, and this time she leaned into it—wanting the comfort now. Needing it to hear what Caro would say.
But it wasn’t a death sentence Caro was handing down. At least not hers.
“We have the interview scheduled. You, Joe and I will be meeting with Amanda Teller on Monday to do the family interview. There will be no way around news of my condition getting out after that. We’ll try to control that, but…”
