'*' Diary of Jane '*'
Feigning
I know. I am a terrible person. It has been far too long ... feel free to throw a various array of objects at me. But this is an extra-long chapter, just for you, that has taken me an age to write because I just couldn't get it right, so I hope you like it. Next update should come sooner (I know I always say that :/) but no promises because I've been looking at colleges and all that crap really eats up your time.
*'*''*''*'*
It is only after spending half an hour chugging water, crying, peeing on sticks, crying, and purposely not looking at the result windows of said sticks does Addison realize how small her office bathroom really is. She kind of hates it. Maybe she'll turn it into a closet.
She's sure the reason for Naomi and Violet's patience stems from the wine and chocolate they are enjoying outside her door, and if she didn't know better, she'd think all the giggling and moans of chocolate delight indicated other inappropriate activities. Such as the ones, on that very floor, that had landed her in this bathroom.
She could be a mother, right now. In nine months, give or take, she could be cradling an infant, caressing soft, downy hair, breathing in the scent of her child. She could also be, conceivably, in one or two months devastated as the pregnancy halts by nature's hand. She's not yet forty in actual years but her fertility, according to Naomi's tests, is a few years ahead of her.
"Shouldn't she be done by now?" Naomi's voice sounds from the outside and Addison cringes. She knows that there's only a small window of time before the results become indecipherable, but she can't bring herself to look. She's been pregnant by Mark once before, and while these circumstances are marginally better for bearing a child, he's still off with another woman.
There is a knock. "Addison?" Violet calls. "I just took one of those a year ago, I know it doesn't take that long!"
Addison doesn't respond. To look, or not to look? Frantically, she stands, because the pregnancy tests around her are starting to make her claustrophobic, but she knocks a couple off the counter, so they're facing up. She quickly closes her eyes.
"Do you think we were wrong?" she hears Naomi mutter to Violet.
"She's been leaving morning meetings to go throw up in the bathroom for more than a month now," Violet reasons. "Also, Pete felt the need to inform Cooper the other day that her boobs are bigger. I think we're right, I just don't understand. I thought she wanted a baby?"
"She does. Or did. I told her it was unlikely, and it was true, based on the tests I did. What this pregnancy says about that, well … stress could have played a factor in it, made it seem worse than it really is. But having a baby like this … you had two guys there for you. She doesn't have anyone."
"So it's Mark's?" Violet infers.
"It would have to be. I know she was sleeping with Pete a few weeks ago, but this has been going on longer than that."
"And Mark is in Seattle."
"Yep. With the sister of the woman Derek left her for."
"Ouch," Violet whistles.
"Yeah," Naomi sighs, pushing herself off Addison's couch to solve the problem at hand. A sharp, rapid rap on the door garners no response, as Addison is curled up on the floor and virtually catatonic. "Addison!" she shouts. "You need to come out of there. Pregnant or not pregnant, this isn't doing you any good!" All she receives is a muffled sob in response.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" the shrink inquires of the fertility doctor.
"Yes," Naomi states definitively. "We need reinforcements."
"I was actually talking about the credit card in the door trick," Violet says to an empty doorway. "But that works too. More wine for me!"
"What did you need me for?" Pete asks Violet a couple of minutes later as he and Naomi reenter, Sam at their heels. "Naomi won't tell me."
"No, I wouldn't tell you where half of the practice would hear. We need you to open that door," Naomi says through her teeth. "Right now."
Pete frowns. "Who's in there?"
"Addison," Violet answers." And she won't come out because -"
"Oh my God," Sam, who had been until that moment, a silent lurker, says loudly, picking up a wayward pregnancy test box off the floor. "Is she pregnant?"
"Oh my God," Pete repeats, looking faint.
"She might be, and no, it's not yours," Naomi snaps at Pete, who visibly relaxes.
"Whose is it, then?" Sam asks, an edge to his voice. "I told her she shouldn't be sleeping around."
"She's not. She's slept with a total of two guys in the last seven months, Sam."
Sam mumbles something indecipherable.
"What was that? Why the hell do you care, Sam?"
"I just do."
"Pete, the door," Violet prompts, more interested in the possibility of another child, and more drama, this time not about her, arriving at the practice than about why Sam cares so much about Addison's bedfellows. Pete tries the handle halfheartedly for a minute before shrugging.
"If she's not going to come out on her own … maybe you should just give her some time," he suggests casually.
"Are you the therapist here?" Violet demands. "No. You are not. She doesn't need time, she needs to face this."
"All right, all right," Pete backs off, hands raised. "In that case, does anyone have a credit card?"
"Hey! Why wasn't that a good idea when I suggested it?" Violet pouts.
"A credit card?" Naomi complains. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of macho gladiator cowboy."
"That was a fantasy, Naomi," Pete scolds. "Besides, if Addie needs a gladiator, maybe you ought to call Mark Sloan, as he did succeed in knocking up an infertile woman."
"God, no," Sam says. "Can we not mention Mark Sloan, like, ever again?"
Violet snaps her fingers. "Credit card!" she demands, and finally, out of sheer annoyance, Naomi produces her gold-plated specimen, which Violet proceeds to swipe through the crack of the door. Apparently Addison's bathroom is not high security, as the lock gives and the two women are able to wrestle it open.
"Oh … oh my," Naomi breathes.
"Pete, Sam, out! Right now!" Violet commands, pointing toward the door.
"What - ?" Pete asks before he is pushed out the door by a concerned Sam, whose eyes meet those of his ex-wife's indiscernible chocolate ones before he disappears.
"Oh, Addie," Naomi sighs, and Addison imagines she knows what her friend is talking about. She always seems to end up doing things in messy, alternative ways that result in feelings with compound fractures and self-esteems with permanent puncture wounds. The ending of her marriage, her affair, her childhood, her parents, even her very entrance into the world was fraught with the same adversity as every one of her proceeding milestones.
Addison watches motionlessly as her friends gingerly collect the pregnancy tests and sort them, depending on their results, before picking up the water and juice bottles along with mascara-stained toilet paper tufts and disposing of the mess she'd made. The willpower to look, however, to find out how she will spend the next eighteen years of her life isn't there. There are three piles of pregnancy tests, one large, the other two quite small and sparsely populated. She knows one is for those with no or illegible results, but the other two tell whether she is sharing her body with another living, growing human being that will henceforth be her life.
Unfortunately for Addison's lack of preparation, Naomi feels obligated to inform her of the results. "Consensus is … you're pregnant, sweetie."
*'*''*''*'*
Apparently rain is not universally confined to Seattle, Mark discovers as the sky releases her tears in a sudden soft drizzle that coats the shoulders of his grey t-shirt in a dusting of droplets. He knew this, in theory, but up until a few days ago when Callie's fated words had disrupted his assumptions, he'd seen her lying in the sun, warmth hugging every familiar curve, glossy red waves highlighted by the endless luminescence.
But just like his illusions of her happiness and his own, this is easily dispelled in a sudden downpour of reality.
The last time his feet found purchase on this cobblestone pathway he was so worried about Sloane that his memories of miniature green plants lining the cute walkway are dim, but now that he's hesitating and clutching the lilies he'd purchased a little too tightly he sees every little detail, every quirk that to him screams Addison.
Mark swore when she left for Los Angeles in the first place that he would never chase her again, that he was done trying to make her want him. What he didn't see then and what is clear to him now is that they both needed time, she to recover from the dissipation of eleven years, and he to grow up, to prove to himself that he could be what she needed. Unfortunately their development has never been in sync, he was ready when she was not, then she was ready when he was not. Or something like that.
There's a car in the driveway even though it's midday so Mark presses the doorbell surrounded by decorative wrought iron and waits, shifting his feet, to see her. Apparently all his restlessness over the past few years, all the doubts, the drunken nights, have been due to him trying to live a life he doesn't belong in. He always saw domestication with her and when he tried to adapt it to other relationships it never quite fit.
He stands fidgeting on the porch, wishing he hadn't brought the pouring crystal droplets with him from Seattle, until all too quickly the chime of a lock unhinging signals that there is someone at the door. He doesn't know what he'll say if it's her husband, because truth be told the thought that it might be him is never fully conceived of nor acknowledged. White wood and rippled glass give way to his life's missing piece, and finally, he can breathe again.
Addison's hair is as fiery as ever, but pulled haphazardly back, framing a face with bones more prominent than he has ever seen them, even more so than the her days of abandonment in New York. Her beauty is still without flaw, but touched with tragedy now, and different from the carefree, vibrant girl he first met in medical school. One hand rests on the brass doorknob as she stares at him, the other hangs limply by her side, accentuating the shock in eyes the color of summer in the Mediterranean.
"Mark," she says finally, almost helplessly, and he knows how that feels because he has maintained the impression that fate threw her in front of him one day just to prove he could be knocked off his feet.
"Addison," he replies, a wry smile tugging at one corner of his mouth as he holds out the lilies for her observance and hopefully, acceptance. Her hands wrap around the crinkly gauze, eliciting screams of inanimate protest, and the bare ghost of a smile touches her lips as well before she turns toward the interior of her house.
"What are you doing here, Mark?"
"I needed to see you."
She walks further into the house, a thin, diaphanous sweater floating around her slim form and proud posture. "You shouldn't be here," she says, but offers no further protest when his expensive Italian dress shoes find home on her plush carpet, next to those that undoubtedly belong to another man (his stomach clenches painfully, he still, unrightfully, perhaps, but verily regards her as his).
"Tell me to leave and I will," he challenges, because he knows her, can sense when she's in pieces inside. She whirls around, eyes flashing turquoise, but doesn't answer. He smirks.
"What do you want, Mark?"
"You."
A bitter laugh escapes her angel-kissed lips. "Right. You painted some fantasy, left me here for Little Grey, and didn't call me back. I'm supposed to believe that you want me now?"
"I wrote you a letter saying I wanted you back, saying I always loved you, and you ignored me, and yet here I am."
As if pulled by invisible strings, her brow scrunches. Words attempt to pass through her lips several times only to be retracted before they can reverberate for him to hear. When she is finally able to form coherent communication, she says, "a letter?" faintly, as if unable to comprehend such a concept. "You sent a letter."
"A couple months after I left, yeah," he retorts defensively, as if she is doubting the verisimilitude of his statement, but the truth is he can't apprehend the emotion clouding her sky blue eyes.
"That's funny, because," she gives a small, humorless laugh as she gazes at over his shoulder, as if trying to keep from crying, "because I called you. About three months after I left, I called you because … I had something to tell you. I needed you too, and … you never called me back."
"Who answered the phone?" he inquires, confused.
"Lexie Grey."
"Damn it," Mark swears suddenly, because Fate seems determined to mess this up, and Addison cringes. "Addie, I swear to God I didn't know. If it had -"
"If you had, what?" the crimson haired goddess demands in a weary voice. "What do you honestly think would have happened, Mark? You would have miraculously changed your mind and come down to LA? Swept me off my feet? We would have lived happily ever after? I'd already met Jack by that point, Mark, and really, after all that's happened, I don't believe in happily ever after anymore."
"What happened to the girl who still had her collection of Disney princess videos?" Mark demands from one side of her living room. A spectator ignorant of their past, watching through the rain stained window, might have assumed they were just another married couple engaged in a fight, judging by their mannerisms. "What happened to the girl that made snow angels in Central Park, who told me that she believed I had a soul mate out there, if I just stopped sleeping around and looked for her?"
"She chose the wrong guy, and now she realized her and her soul mate were never meant to be together and –"
The rest of Addison's tragic anecdote is cut off by the urgent press of Mark's lips against hers; she didn't even see him move across the room but then the sharp edge of the counter is digging into her spine and it is disregarded in favor the ecstasy of his mouth moving with hers, with every hard muscle creating a livewire of her abused body. Adultery was a path she never intended to walk again, but Mark is her continual downfall, and sweet as he tastes, he's her ultimate sin and resistance, in the end, is futile.
The tempo of their connecting lips slows, each soft union is tender and meaningful and Addison's not sure she'll be able to stand any time in the near future. It's not about finally feeling loved, or the wonderful things Mark said, it's about blue-grey eyes of storm that somehow have a calming effect, it's about the gruff voice that is kind of like a lullaby to her soul, it's about feeling complete. The experience is so poignant that liquid diamonds gather in the corners of her lashes, and when Mark spins her around so the island is no longer mauling her, they fall.
His thumbs, marked more by their gentleness and precision than size, of course catch the tears before they fall far, but this most affectionate of gestures has repercussions neither of them could have ever predicted.
Jack awoke Addison at 8:06 that morning. He was out the door with Marin, a little less sick than the day before, by 8:29. Addison covered up her day-old bruises, in addition to completing her usual morning routine, by 8:47, and arrived at work at 9:02.
It began to rain at 10:14.
Her make-up isn't waterproof.
The saline moisture folds under his fingertips and is dispersed across her porcelain cheek, where it erodes careful, artistic layers of foundation and face powder to reveal a deep plum bruise on her right cheek. He doesn't notice at first; neither does she, both are too occupied with the way his lips brush hers, so gently that if not for the heat coursing through her veins, she might have thought the caress was naught but the wind.
No matter what Jack has done, it is still wrong, and Addison is squirming in his arms, trying to convince herself to stop him, but he is such a tempting vice. Marin, she thinks. If Jack found out … I have to stay strong for Marin. But she never knows whether she would have possessed the ability to pull away from Mark, an unknowing threat to her daughter's safety, because when the pads of his fingers find the damaged skin he inhales sharply and drops his hand.
"What the fuck …"
"What is tha – Addison, did he hit you?" She's a marble statue of shock and shame before him, eyes cast down, and the answer is plain enough. "Does he hit you?" Mark repeats, changing the context of the question, his touch gentle as he explores the skin disbelievingly and his eyes burn behind their icy hue.
This wasn't how she pictured him finding out, not with Marin's life hanging in the balance, not with him still not knowing of his daughter at all. Her body shudders as she breathes, still in his arms because his hands are resting on her hips, as if she'll shatter to pieces in his arms.
"I -," she chokes, but she can't get out the words that will save her, because they will simultaneously damn Marin. "I, um …"
"I can get you out of here, Addie," Mark says, stepping forward and grasping her hands, apparently her predicament is obvious, or perhaps he can simply still read her like an open book. "We can leave right now, go anywhere you want, anywhere away from here. And I can protect you, I can -"
"No, Mark," she whispers, and the words are so hard to say, because the illusion he has painted, a fairytale escape from her pain, but she can't leave without her child and can't tell Mark until she is sure he will behave in a way that won't endanger her (the Sloan's are passionate people, but Jack is the master puppeteer in this situation).
Mark looks like she's slapped him and all these feelings, like little slivers of glass in her heart, become too much to bear. She pulls away, flees outside and into the pouring rain, watches as ocean water and fresh water mix, pounding into the vulnerable sand (she knows how the sand feels, she thinks). Droplets oozing from the clouds soak her, drowning her strawberry curls and making her light cashmere wrap translucent, but not even the downpour can rid her of shame, of fear, of pain, of longing for Mark.
Sliding glass is wretched open behind her, footsteps of expensive shoes echo, and she knows it's him, ready to play out the next scene in their heartrending fairytale.
"Addie …"
"I can't leave."
"Listen to me, Addison. What we did to Derek, it was wrong, but this … you don't deserve this. You can't stay here, you can't be hurt, you just … can't. He could kill you and I … I can't live knowing you're in danger."
"I can't go with you, Mark."
"He doesn't deserve you."
"I'm not in love with him."
Mark runs a hand through his hair, ruffling the grey-blonde strands, a classic frustrated move for him, and Addison's eyes can't help but trace the flawless plains of his muscles underneath the thin charcoal t-shirt. "Then why?" he demands and she hears the crack in his voice as he tries to fight back tears.
"I – it isn't something I can just explain," she says desperately. "I would kind of have to … show you, and I can't do that right now because …"
Mark is frowning thunderously, and, misinterpreting his anger, Addison falls silent. These days, whenever she witnesses marital fights, or fights at all, she can hardly keep from cringing and often needs to make sidetrips to the bathroom to try and breathe. "Please," he breathes, reaching out to pull the thin sweater from her shoulders, so her bruised arms and shoulders are visible. "Please, Addison." The straps of her tank top and bra fall down her arms, urged on by his palms, until she is standing in the rain almost bare-chested as Mark evaluates the damage done to her body at the hands of her husband.
The only time she has ever seen Mark Sloan cry is when she told him she aborted their baby, and seeing tears in glacier-hued eyes now nearly undoes her, knowing that Marin is alive and well, for the time being, at least, somewhere in a twenty-mile radius.
He bends and presses dry, cracked lips to the dip in her collarbone, over dusky pink skin dyed sickly yellow by a week old bruise. She gasps a little as he moves lower, kissing a bruise on the swell of her breast and then her shoulder, her neck, her back. "Come with me," he pleads. "I'll do anything, Addie. I'll never hurt you again."
"I can't," she sobs. "I can't, Mark, because he has -" the words intending to reveal her daughter die as a jangle of keys is heard in the direction of the front door. Quickly, Addison pushes Mark away, adjusts her clothes, and steps toward her back door, Mark close behind.
"You have to go," she hisses.
"No. I won't leave you."
"Mark, go."
"No."
"Go," she pleads with such raw pain in his voice that he can't bear to cause any more and wrenches himself away, hurrying down the porch steps in the pounding rain and into the sand. He forces himself to walk toward his rental car, hating himself as he does, but angry at her as well, for not being strong enough to leave.
He fails to notice the two-year-old, still in pink triceratops pajamas, watching him through the glass of the front door, breath condensing around her perfect cherry lips as a fight commences behind her.
*'*''*''*'*
She knows it is coming but is unable to quench her dread nor act to conceal the evidence of a day not spent in a manner Jack would approve of. The usual cry of, "Addison!" is heard from the entryway along with the pitter-patter of Marin's feet, but her frozen limbs don't react in time to hide the water-dampened lilies resting on the kitchen counter, her brain can't connect neurons quickly enough to conjure up an explanation for the state of her clothes.
"You're home early?" Jack asks as he discards the jacket of his Armani suit on the nearest barstool and stretches his toned body. Marin has already been dropped from his arms but is occupied down the hall with a ladybug that fluttered in along with them.
"I didn't feel very well at work, so I took part of the day off," Addison explains dully. Jack's eyes finally graze over her figure and notice the rivulets of water enveloping her skin, and as he steps closer he stumbles over one of Marin's toys left under the counter and grabs at the counter for support. His fingers instead meet the crinkly bouquet of flowers.
"What the … what is this?" he demands angrily as he seizes them, searching for a card or any other source of identification regarding the sender. Inhaling sharply, Addison prepares herself for what is coming, checking that Marin is unaware, now engaged with something she spotted outside the window. "And why the hell are you all wet?"
"Don't yell," Addison beseeches softly. "I stopped by the store to pick up some Tums and thought they looked nice …"
"And you're wet because …?" Jack prompts in his court voice, so she can't tell whether he believes her or not.
"Well, it started raining and -"
"Honestly, Addison," Jack chuckles. "I deal with lying, cheating criminals every day. Compared to them, you can't lie worth shit. Where were you today?"
"I was here, I told you, I -"
Swiftly, Jack spins on one heels and stalks toward the front door, where Marin has allowed the ladybug to crawl from her finger and to escape in the carpet upon discovering its rank smell. She yelps when Jack lifts her and struggles as her stormy ocean eyes produce desperate tears. Jack places her unceremoniously in the downstairs bathroom, locks the door from the inside (which he knows very well she can't reach) and shuts it, leaving the toddler trapped before he rounds on Addison.
"Who brought you the flowers?" he growls. "Are you cheating on me? Because you and I are both familiar with the whorish tendencies that landed you here in the first place."
"Why would you care if I was cheating on you?" Addison snorts derisively. "You fuck the brains out of some new bimbo each week and you make sure I know it -" Her words are silenced by his slap, the humiliation of which stings more than the actual pain.
Heart pumping double time, Addison attempts to step around Jack to assist Marin, who is banging on the door and sobbing. His hands grip her wrist before she moves even one step and he forces her against the wall, trapping her there with his much larger body.
For one wild, confusing instant, when his finger meets her lips softly, she almost believes he is going to kiss her. "You kissed him," Jack says as he traces the outline of her swollen mouth with the tip of his index finger, and she supposes he knows what she looks like after she's been kissed, especially since Mark has never been exactly subtle (at least he didn't give her a hickey. This time).
"What else did you do?" her husband hisses with deceptive reserve. "Did you touch him? Did you let him touch you?"
"No," Addison breathes.
"Then why the hell," Jack inquires, "are your clothes askew? You always have to look perfect, and right now, you look far from perfect."
She doesn't answer.
"Did you have sex with him?"
"No."
"I asked," he roughly places his hands on her hips and spins are around, so the zipper of her skirt is visible, "did you have sex with him?" Violently, Jack pulls the zipper of the designer pencil skirt down, so it is loose around her hips, and makes her face him again.
"Last chance."
"I didn't, I swear, I -"
"Too bad I don't believe you," Jack sighs. Then he forces his hand between her silky skin and the material of her skirt, causing her to gasp and squirm. Ignoring her discomfort, he pushes his fingers inside her panties, where he proceeds to grope harshly around, testing the wetness in-between her legs to try and prove her infidelity and determine whether she recently had sex or not.
Tears spring into her eyes as he is intentionally inconsiderate, disgrace burns through her veins. Although Jack has never raped her, he still shoves his extramarital affairs in her face and treats her body like a ragdoll created to do his will, as if she wasn't even human. Finally, he withdraws and she collapses against the wall, mauling her lip with her teeth to keep from sobbing as he walks away as if nothing happened. Her innocence means next to nothing to him, simply that he has nothing to punish her for and can move on to other activities.
Shivering, she stands and crosses over to the door behind which her daughter is stuck, trying to ignore the ghostly imprints of two sets of fingers on her body; one set warm, gentle, caressing, hinting at the pleasure they could bring, the other cold, foreboding, taking little bits of life with them as they disconnect.
*'*''*''*'*
Jack looks around, interested, as he finally pulls up to her beachside home. It is nice, a wonderful place to raise a child, although doesn't betray the depth of the wealth he knows, after tonight, she possesses. But her money doesn't mean much to him – he has his own, both from inheritance and what he has earned being a top-rate attorney.
His experience with pregnant women is limited, except for the one case when he argued against a woman who strangled her husband because he refused to adhere to her cravings, and as she was hardly the norm, he observes Addison as she steps from his car, pulling a patterned wrap tighter around her dress-clad body. There is no obvious indication that she is pregnant, no telltale bump or effervescent glow, but something else, a quality he cannot identify, that assures him of the truth of her words.
Finding out that Vivi – Addison was pregnant was a shock, but after a few seconds of disbelief, he realized a better opportunity couldn't have been gifted to him on a silver platter. Not only was the baby an opportunity to gain her trust, it was also, later on, a pawn with which to control her. Pleased, he accompanies her to her door, and then inside when she invites him.
"Should I close it?" he asks as he steps inside. "Or was that not an invitation for an extended stay?"
"I have an early surgery," she says, tossing a grin, Vivian's grin, over her shoulder sultrily and allowing the turquoise waterfall of fabric to ripple over her body. "Rain check?"
"As long as you're not trying to get rid of me," he jokes charmingly as she disappears further into her house.
"Of course not. I'll just get that book for you," she promises, leaving behind only an imprint of fiery red hair in his brain. Jack walks farther into the house, trying to picture a baby amongst all her perfect, beige and cream furniture. He can't quite see it, but the illusion of one snuggled up to her shoulder manifests only too easily.
The baby is better news than he ever expected, the key to her undoing, he is sure. Addison will not be easy to manipulate, but a child will give him the upper hand he never had with Vivian, the control he grew to crave. Jack smiles as he traces a finger over the granite of her counter, brushing a few crumbs to the floor.
His eyes fall on her mail. There are a few bills, a postcard, a couple of catalogs, and, on top, a medical journal and a letter, a personal letter, written by an obviously male hand. She's already having someone else's baby; he doesn't need any other claims on her. Jack flips open the journal, barely glancing at the dreamy neurosurgeon on the front, and places the letter inside it, so he can pretend to be reading should she come down.
Then he opens the letter.
"Dear Addie,
I've never really been good at writing letters. The last time I wrote one was in fourth grade, when our class had to write to our senator telling him how he could improve things such as the environment or school or whatever. I asked him to put soda in fountains instead of water. I don't know about you, but last time I drank out of one of those germ-infested things, it definitely wasn't Coke coming out. So as far as letters go, I'm not an expert.
Derek would probably have some perfect prince charming way of saying this, but that's not who I am and you know that, so I'm just going to say it. I made a mistake, Addie. I screwed up. I never should've –"
Luckily her heels can be heard a mile away, and he manages to get the letter in the trash and under an orange peel before she arrives into the kitchen. She laughs merrily when she sees him with the medical journal open on his lap and tells him he can keep it before handing over a well-worn copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns, the book she had quoted as one of her favorites at dinner. He won't read it, but she will think they have similar interests.
She's really glowing now, under the soft porch light, beautiful, and his, and he can't help himself. He presses his lips to hers and she quickly reciprocates, throwing her arms around his shoulders and teasing his mouth open with her tongue. Jack sweeps his tongue quickly over her lips, barely dipping inside before pulling away to leave her out of breath against the front door.
As he leaves, he knows he has her.
*'*''*''*'*
Soo ... what did you think? Mark knows about Addison, but not about Marin. Next chapter is the three of them, Jack included, figuring out their next moves. I promise Mark will be back fairly soon (as Addie's knight in shining whatever) but you can predict what will happen in the mean time ... :D
