Page 90 of The Fallen Man
Aiden snickered and Evan frowned. “I’m confused. How long have you been seeing this girl?”
“We’re not seeing each other!” Evan gave him a skeptical look. “I don’t know. A month or two, maybe.” Had it really only been two months? Halloween. They’d met on Halloween. “We’re not seeing each other,” he reiterated.
“They’re just having sex,” said Dominique from where she was laying down in the chair across the aisle with a sleep mask on.
“You are napping,” snapped Jackson, irritably. “And it’s goddamn fucking fantastic sex.”
“Got it,” said Evan. “OK, but why doesn’t she want a boyfriend?”
“Probably for the same reason I don’t want a girlfriend.” Evan raised inquiring eyebrows. “Because she doesn’t want to deal with all the boyfriend shit. Holidays, families, where are we going, having to check in before planning anything. It’s bullshit. She doesn’t want it and neither do I.”
He didn’t add that Katie St. Cloud was a broke college drop-out who probably had some problems with the IRS. He’d come over one night to find her crying over a crumpled fist full of mailthat had an IRS logo on it. The second he’d asked about was the second she’d kicked him out. The message was clear. She didn’t want his help, she didn’t want his money, and she didn’t really want him involved in her life. It was Jackson’s guess that she didn’t want boyfriend shit because she had enough shit of her own to deal with. And he was fine with that. Mostly. It bugged him that she had to deal with so much on her own. He’d thought about digging into her life and arranging things for her the way he sometimes did for his cousins, but they were family. They had to accept his help. He had the feeling that if Katie caught even a whiff of interference from him that it would be a deal breaker.
“You just still wish she’d call while you’re out of town,” said Aiden.
“Shut up,” said Jackson.
“I think,” said Evan, then paused. They waited. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”
“Thank you,” said Jackson, glaring at Aiden, who chuckled in unrepentant glee. “You think it’s weird though, don’t you?” he asked, turning back to Evan.
“No. Not really. It’s just... OK, sex aside. Relationship status aside. Do you like her? As a person?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, notof course,”said Evan. “You’ve had lots of hook ups with women you wouldn’t actually spend time with if you had to talk to them.”
“Well, yeah, but I mean, she’s...”
Jackson hesitated. Katie was creative. One of his favorite post hook-up rituals was trying out one of her cocktail experiments. And funny. Her dead pan sarcastic commentary kept him in stitches. And beautiful. That went without saying. But most of all she fucking genuinely cared about people. Jessica, Jamal, annoying Mrs. Carpetti downstairs, Vince and Angela, even damn Rufus the drug dealer out in the park, she really worriedabout them and tried her best to look out for them. It frequently made him wonder who was looking out for her.
“She’s a really good person,” said Jackson, knowing it sounded lame.
“OK,” said Evan, with a shrug. “So, I mean, if this is where the two of you are at, then fine. But if you’re at a place where you would like to be able to, I don’t know, call her when you’re out of town, then you should just tell her that. You don’t have to put a ring on it to want to be able to talk to someone. If spending twenty minutes talking to you is too much effort, then maybe you’re not in the same place or maybe she’s not the person you think she is.”
Jackson and Aiden were both silent.
“Well, fuck Evan,” said Aiden. “You need to go back to drugs or something. I’m not sure I can handle you being insightful. It freaks me out.”
“Deal with it,” said Dominique. “It’s working for me.”
15
Caitlin
Caitlin’s Apartment
Caitlin passed by the window, then frowned and went back. The blue sedan was back. As she watched, a guy in khakis got out. They weren’t even good khaki’s—they had pleated fronts. As she watched, he walked along the sidewalk toward Mrs. Carpetti’s stoop. The same location she’d seen him in earlier in the day.
Caitlin felt her jaw clench. Mrs. Carpetti had a lot of nice and antiques, everyone in the neighborhood knew it and no one fucked with her because, in some ways, shewasthe neighborhood. Who did this guy think he was? He didn’t get to come in to her neighborhood and mess with people. She marched out to the living room and grabbed the golf club out of the shoe basket and went down the stairs. Someone was getting a five iron up-side the head.
“That is it!” She yanked open the door and raised the golf club. Jackson paused with his hand raised to knock. He looked surprised. “Ah!” She dropped the club and flung her arms around him.
She was most of the way through the hug when she realized that she had planned to be reserved with him and clear up any boundary issues by reinforcing all the boundaries. Instead, she had jumped on him. So much for reserved.
“Hi,” he said, hugging her back. “Am I getting beat with a golfclub?”
“I thought you were a weird white dude.”
