Page 72 of Look What You Made Me Do

She pounded on the door this time, almost falling into his apartment as the door opened abruptly and Jake stood before her in a pair of jeans and nothing else.

Bare chest, bare feet, a Corona in hand.

He looked scruffy and disheveled and like he’d hadn’t slept in days. But he still looked better than any cleanly shaven, well rested guy she’d ever laid eyes on.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” he said belligerently, his gaze boring in to hers as he took a slug of his beer.

Ella swallowed hard, hoping Daisy was right. “Or maybe you do and you just don’t know it?”

He regarded her for a moment. “I have company.”

Company? Did he mean…?

She’d been trying not to ogle his shirtless chest but now its very presence made sense. His inference was like a rusty spoon scooping into the center of her brain.

“You’re… having sex?”

Ella blanked for a moment as the thought of him doing to another woman the things he had done to her, scooped out more of her gray matter. She had no claim to him – she knew that. They’d had sex twice. Well, two sessions of sex, anyway. Yet in this moment, how quickly he’d moved on was deeply wounding.

“Everything is falling apart,” she hissed, the emotional whammy turning to an icy kind of rage. “And you’re… tumbling around between your sheets with a woman?”

“Jake? Who’s there?”

Ella tensed as a distant female voice reached them. Horrified, she glanced over his shoulder, every cell in her body preparing to flee. God. She did not want to come face to face with some bar hook-up who had perky everything.

As if he was taking some kind of sick pleasure from her obvious consternation, he didn’t take his eyes off her as he called, “Wrong number,” over his shoulder.

Suddenly though, Trish appeared from behind.

“Ella! Did Pete send you to talk some sense into him too?” Giving Jake a playful shove, she ordered, “Go put a shirt on,” as she grabbed Ella’s hand and ushered her inside.

On autopilot, Ella followed Trish through Jake’s open-plan apartment minimally decorated in what would be best described as industrial chic. Gun-metal gray rugs littered the cavernous floor space while ceilings with exposed ducting and sleek chrome fixtures, soared overhead. A staircase with wire railings and black metal treads lead to a mezzanine level.

They entered a massive black marble and stainless-steel kitchen. “You look like you could use a drink,” she said.

It was the second time today she’d heard that and it had been right both times.

Trish opened the fridge door and pulled out a bottle of white wine, placing it on the marble top of the central island. Next, she opened a cupboard, produced a glass that twinkled in the chrome down lights and poured a generous slug. The other woman clearly knew her way around Jake’s apartment which shot an itch up Ella’s spine.

Maybe Jake had been in bed with a woman? With Trish?

Confronted with her domestic familiarity, the questions Ella had always harbored about Trish and Jake’s relationship resurfaced.

“C’mon.” She handed Ella the glass. “We’re out front.”

Ella followed again, passing a theater room where she glimpsed black leather recliners and a TV screen that would have been right at home at an Imax. Ahead though, the unimpeded view dazzled as Trish led her into a sunken area that ran the length of the apartment, large windows showcasing the vastness of Lake Michigan.

“Wow.” There were no other words.

Trish laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I said when he bought it at the beginning of the year.”

It was almost too much to take in as Ella wandered over to stand in front of the display, her head moving from side to side like a carnival clown just to absorb the scale of it. There was more leather and chrome scattered throughout the space but it was the greenery at one end that eventually caught her eye.

Crossing to it, Ella admired the way the wall had been turned into a vertical garden with all kinds of potted herbs splashing green against the austere graphite paint. Beneath them, sitting on the slate flooring, were several terracotta pots sporting a range of plants from a fiscus to a red chili to a dwarf lime tree groaning with dark green fruit.

Smart investment for someone who drank so much Corona.

It appeared to be the only corner of Jake’s apartment that hadn’t been decorated by the United Steelworkers Union.

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