Page 57 of Love Out Loud

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Dude. You’re a mess,” Marcus said, taking a bite of his second slice of pizza. Jake stared unseeing at the game on the TV, holding his untouched, warm beer.

“I’m worried about you,” his friend said, reaching for the remote and turning off the game.

Jake put his beer on the coffee table and shrugged. “I’m okay.”

Marcus touched his arm to get his attention. “See, here’s the deal. You’re not okay. You’re totally fucked up.”

Yeah. That about summed it up. He was totally fucked up because he was a total fuck-up.

A knock came on the door, and Marcus jumped to his feet. “Good. They’re here.”

“Who’s here?” Jacob asked, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin.

The answer came immediately when Charise and Elaine descended on his sofa like a swarm of colorful, fragrant locusts.

“This is an intervention,” Charise announced, brushing away an imaginary crease in her skirt. Elaine sat next to her, hands on knees, eyes sparkling with excitement.

Jake stared at them, trying to figure out exactly what needed intervening. Him? “What do you want?” he asked Charise.

“You’ve been MIA for almost two weeks. I want Jake back in the office.”

“What are you talking about? I come into the office almost every day.”

“Yeah, but you’re not really there, and you’ve declined new clients.” She held up her perfectly manicured hands. “I’m not complaining about that, necessarily, since they are my clients, now, but come on.”

“You look like shit,” Elaine said.

He felt like shit. He’d hurt Fiona. It wasn’t intentional, but it might as well have been. He should never have written it. Hell, hewouldn’thave, had he known that her parents had written articles about her. God. No wonder she was so angry.

He ran a hand over his face, several days’ worth of whiskers rasping his palm. The parents weren’t the real problem, though. He was. Writing the article showed a callous disregard for her feelings. She thought he’d used her as some kind of experiment, which was laughably far from the truth, but there was nothing here to laugh about. He’d hurt her, regardless of his intentions or feelings for her. She’d never forgive him for this, and he didn’t blame her. He’d never forgive himself.

“I’m good,” Jake lied.

“Tell us all about it,” Elaine said, leaning forward.

“Nothing to tell.”

“Bullshit,” Marcus said. “You were spending every day and night with the vet, and then, poof, the thing just ended.”

“Poof!” Jacob repeated, opening his fingers like fireworks.

“What happened?” Charise asked. “Maybe we can help.”

“You’ve helped plenty,” he said, not trying to disguise the bitterness in his voice.

Charise straightened her spine. “You say that like I had something to do with this.”

“It was your suggestion I write up Fiona’s story as aPygmalionanalogy.”

“And?”

“And she read it and was furious.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I should have known.”

“You can’t pin this on me, Jake. I had no idea you were dating her when I suggested it. I would never advise you to do something that stupid. And speaking of stupid—why would you leave it somewhere she could see it?”

They hadn’t been dating at the time he’d decided to do it, but that was irrelevant. They were dating when he turned it in. “Stupid is right,” he mumbled. He should have known better.

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