Page 55 of The Secret

Yeah, okay. Yes. I could do that. I think.

I hoped.

No, I could. Of course I could. I’d never been a boyfriend before, let alone acted like one, but I’d never been or acted like a dad before either, and I seemed to be doing okay at that.

But this one would also require help.

Seeing as none of us had had serious girlfriends since we’d left college, I needed some actual and sage advice from someone way more seasoned at it that any of us were.

Out of my two brothers-in-law, Jasper was the one who put in the time and effort, more than I ever gave him credit for. Whereas Cooper and Freddie got together in secret over the course of a week, then almost broke up for good due to their own stubbornness. If I needed help with this situation, Jasper was the one I had to ask.

I punched his number into the phone on my desk, the ring coming through loud on the speaker.

“Hey, bud, what’s up?”

“Not much, have you got a minute?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m just in the car on the way to pick up Floss from preschool.”

“Just wanted to ask you something actually. Um…” Now I was about to say it out loud, it sounded fucking stupid. “When you first met Wolf, it was a while before you actually got together, right?”

The silence on the end of the line told me that yes, it was fucking stupid.

“Murray?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s this about?”

“What d’you mean? I was just wondering is all.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.” He laughed loudly before continuing, “But yes, it was. Three months. Three long fucking months.”

“Right. Right. And while you were trying to get to know her, how did you do that exactly?”

“Well, I used to go and meet her after work, which you can’t do with Kit because she lives there already.”

Penn and Rafe started laughing hard. “Yes, dude.”

I rolled my eyes. I mean it wouldn’t have taken Columbo to crack the code, but still, the less it got around my family the better.

“But I cooked her dinner a lot which meant we had to spend time together. I used to send her flowers to work, and organized her favorite coffee to be delivered to her every day. I brought her to the games. She really wanted to go around the city, so I was her tour guide. That kind of thing. I listened to what she liked doing and made it happen.”

Those all sounded like reasonable and achievable goals. I could listen. I could make stuff happen.

“Excellent. Thanks for the advice. And it was worth it, right? Did you ever think about quitting, seeing as she took so long to give it up?”

“Never. Your sister is the best thing that ever happened to me. I knew it the day I met her, and I know it right now.”

“Good to hear. But Jas, don’t say anything to Wolf about this, will you? Even if she is the best thing that ever happened to you, can I trust you to keep your trap shut? I don’t want this getting back to Wolf and Franks.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. But I want the full story about this on the weekend, and I’ve decided we’re going to have a boys’ night out; you, me, Jamie, and Coop.”

“Sounds good to me. See you Thursday.”

“Cool, have to go; pulling up at the school.”

“Bye, mate. Give Floss a kiss for me.”

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