Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Nobody deserved to be happy more than Jake. He’d been to hell and back, and I wouldn’t stand in the way.
Once Sandra improved and I wasn’t alone with the kids to this degree, I’d step up and be a more supportive friend. I wanted to ask about his therapy and simply be there for him, but right now, I couldn’t. It would hurt too much. It was painful enough to let him go. I couldn’t stomach encouraging every step away from me that he took.
A couple minutes later, Jake pulled into a parking spot a few houses away from where we were going. I took a deep breath and felt somewhat composed, and then I stepped out of the car and looked up at the trees that lined the street.
Late June wasn’t brutal in New York. July and August, on the other hand…
That reminded me, though. Before we went back home, I had to pick up a birthday gift for Sam. She turned three on Thursday.
I’d asked if Sandra wanted to come to the party. Big mistake.
If I asked her, I was insensitive and thoughtless to what pained her. “How can you possibly think I’m ready to attend a children’s birthday party, Roe? God!” If I didn’t ask her, I was the dick who wanted to exclude her. “Why didn’t you tell me about Jake’s birthday dinner? Admit it—you didn’t want me there.”
“I think I’d give a million bucks to know what’s goin’ on inside your mind,” I heard Jake say.
I side-eyed him and noticed we’d reached the right address, the building on the corner. Humor was the best approach, ’cause I knew very well I lived in my head most of the time now, and people close to me weren’t used to that.
“I think about the same things all men think about,” I said casually and trailed up the stoop steps. “Crossword puzzles, the best songs by Simon and Garfunkel, snickerdoodles, and who’s gonna pay for that wall.”
He snorted softly and, instead of pressing someone’s buzzer, dug out a set of keys.
Oh God, what had he done?
“Jake, what did you do?”
He flashed me a faint smirk and led the way inside. “Nothing yet.”
But he was about to? I was so lost. Yet, suspicious, because I didn’t have many options here, so maybe I just didn’t wanna connect the dots. It was impossible, though. These buildings weren’t for rent, so to speak. We had briefly discussed renting a small space on the East Coast, a conversation that’d started and ended in less than ten minutes, and it had to have been a year or two ago. Yeah, because it’d been Seth’s idea. He wanted us to break into the European markets more, at which point it made sense to have an East Coast location.
We had a small but growing following in Europe already, thanks to our social media presence and our big-network productions that’d been dubbed in other languages, but Seth’s visions were larger than that.
Jake bypassed the stairwell and the old rickety elevator I wouldn’t trust to carry a grocery bag, much less my own body weight, and he aimed for the one and only door on the first floor.
“Come on in and make yourself at home.” He smiled and opened the door for me.
He was serious, wasn’t he?
I went inside and immediately drew in a breath, because I couldn’t help but envision what this could be for us. The fact that it was fully furnished and looking like a hotel suite helped. Past the little entryway with a… I opened the door to a half bath. After that waited an open space, a living room and kitchen with a bar that separated the cooking area.
A narrow hallway went alongside the kitchen to my left, down to—
“Two bedrooms, one and a half baths, and this right here—it can be a living room, an office, a place to hold meetings, whatever we want,” Jake said. “We could fill one of the bedrooms with bunk beds for the kids.”
I really liked that the bedrooms were out of sight, because it made the place look more like a workspace, if decorated right. Seth would certainly approve.
“This isn’t for rent, is it?”
He shook his head. “The owner is a friend of Ortiz’s. It’ll hit the market for one point one next week unless we’re interested. It can be ours for a million.”
Jesus Christ. I mean, I knew what living cost around here, and we wouldn’t find anything under a million in this area, but it was still nuts. A lot of money. I came from a family who’d bought their spots in Brooklyn in the sixties and seventies when these numbers didn’t exist outside Manhattan.
“We can afford it, Roe. I’ve already talked to our bank.” Jake came up next to me and rested an arm on my shoulder. “What do you say? Seth would have free rein to expand our business, you and I would have a place to stay when we visit your family, not to mention all our layovers in between shooting.”