Page 78 of Mic Drop

“Sex.”

“Need I go on?”

“No.” I right my chair and retake my seat.

“Has it been the same with Jenna?”

Shit. Have I been such a manwhore and didn’t even realize it? Not with Jenna.Because of your groin injury, dumbass. Perhaps that’s what drew me to her so hard? I actually got to know her, as a person, a woman, before we even had our first kiss. She intrigued me talking aboutThe Godfatherwhen I first met her before I knew she was dating Darren. The last time we met I didn’t want anything to do with her and physical therapy. But she pushed on. And helped me. When we finally kissed, it was electric. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.

“With her, things were very different. Ass backward even. I got to know her really well before our first kiss.”

“She broke your pattern.” He takes a triumphant last bite of his steak.

“I guess she did.” I stab a piece of steak and deposit it into my mouth. All this isn’t to say I didn’t want to have sex with Jenna, because I did. It was the best I’ve ever had, bar none, but not simply for the physical act. It was our connection. She understood me and, I thought, I got her too. Clearly, I was wrong on that account.

“Which brings me back to my original question. How are you going to get your wife back?”

The steak lodges in my throat, but I manage to choke it down. “For one, I’m not letting her serve those divorce papers to me.”

“Good start.”

What can I do to actually get Jenna to change her mind? For my whole adult life, I’ve never needed to chase a woman, but I need her to remember she loves me. Buried beneath all of Jenna’s emotions about her mother, I know she does. “I heard her, you know. In the hospital when her mother died. She blamed me for not forcing Faith to seek out more doctors who might have had some treatment options.”

“Did you?”

“What? No.” I reply. “Well, I did convince her this was Faith’s decision to make and she couldn’t control her mother. Jenna’s a real control freak, you know.”

Luke smirks. “You don’t say.”

I take another bite of the potato salad. “She was so angry at me.”

“The first stage of grief.”

His statement rings true. “I need to help her through her grief over Faith.”

“Now we’re talking.”

I play with my potato salad, making cross marks across the mayo. How? “What else can I do to make her come around?”

“Good question. How’d you do it the first time?”

“She had to give me physical therapy.” I whack my thigh. “All good now.”

He tosses back his beer. “I don’t think she’d believe you had a relapse. What if you do something about Michelle and Lissa? Get them off her clinic’s back?”

I pick up my beer, only to find it empty. Replacing it on the table, I say, “That’s not a bad idea. UC’s PR team’s been doing a good job handling Michelle. Jenna told me about Hayden’s idea and how well it worked.” I grin. The bumper sticker with physical therapists adjusting all the spider legs was genius.

“Probably why Michelle felt the need to come up with something else,” Luke remarks. “We’ve shut her down pretty well on the Black Widow front.”

“Until her mother died and reignited the shitstorm.” I push away from the table and gather the empty beer bottles. “Want another?”

“Sure.”

All the way inside, I ponder Luke’s suggestion. How can I get them to back off Jenna? Tossing the empties into the recycle can, I bring a few more cold brews outside.

Clinking the necks, Luke says, “To Operation Jenna.”

“Here, here.”

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