IMPROMPTU LOVE (GP)

by mylalisanity

There is no rehearsal for true love. JENLISA ADAPTATION (GP)

56. Reconnected

J

Lisa nodded her chin at me. "Who's that?"

"Joe," I whispered, both to answer Lisa and to assure my brain that I was actually talking to the man who fathered me. I had almost convinced myself that he'd never call.

Lisa pulled her sunglasses off, hooking them over the front of her T-shirt, and focused all of her attention on me. The man on the other end of my phone sounded close to tears as his breath stuttered in my ear. I knew how he felt; I wanted to cry with him.

"Yeah," he choked. "Oh God. I, um . . . never thought I'd . . . that we'd . . . Oh God, I don't even know where to begin. It's been so long. Please, let me hear your voice. Say something. Anything."

"I don't know what to say. How are you?"

Joe laughed uncomfortably. "I'm good, sweetheart. I'm good. A little speechless right now, though."

"Me too."

It was hard to concentrate. Airport security officers were surrounding us, moving a section of the nylon barricades out of the way to usher us through into another pathway toward a TSA security agent.

Lisa nodded at me. "Jen, you're going to have to call him back."

I knew I needed to move, to get through security and away from the spying paparazzi, but my feet didn't want to move. My hand gripped my phone tighter, fumbling through an awkward apology for our bad timing. Joe nervously chuckled in my ear, being quite understanding that I was not able to give him any more of my time at the moment while going through baggage scan.

As I stowed my cell away in my bag, sadness mixed with my elation. The most important part was that he reached out to make the first connection. That was a huge step.

Lisa pulled her shoes off, dropping them into a plastic bin. I slipped my purse from my shoulder and followed suit, hating with a passion this part of flying.

It wasn't until we were in the air and getting served our first beverage that Lisa asked me about the call. "Talk to me. What did he have to say?"

It was hard to talk with several passengers blatantly gawking at us. "He mentioned getting together."

Lisa's expression said that's good and is that something you want to do?

I answered her nonverbal question with "Yes. I need to."

She squeezed my hand and gave me a resolute nod, assuring me that she'd make that happen.

--

"Oh my God, Jennie. I'm gonna choke her," Hyunji announced loudly and in no uncertain terms into my ear. After spending a few hours on a plane, a forty-minute drive to the hotel, and a restless night's sleep on a very stiff hotel mattress, I was not awake enough to understand her reasons. I set my coffee cup down and held my cell away and could still hear her clearly.

Lisa was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she took the silver lid off the omelet that room service had just delivered. We had slept in, since Lisa didn't have to be anywhere until one o'clock.

"You know that girl Gary has been seeing? Well, I just found out that she's a friend of Tammy's."

I winced as my stomach felt drop-kicked. "You're kidding?"

"Nope. I wish I was. I am so mad I can kill them both."

"How did you find this out?"

Hyunji scoffed. "Because the whore is in your pub kitchen right now helping Tammy out, that's how. I just came down to prep and stock and there she was, baking and shit like it's no big deal. I cannot believe Tammy would do this to me! I thought we were friends, but friends don't hook up their other friends with my scumbag soon-to-be-ex husband."

I pulled the sheer curtain back, looking out at the gray skies over Vancouver, thinking about how quickly wonderful things can turn to shit.

"Did you say anything to her?"

Hyunji hemmed. "No. I thought she looked familiar, until it dawned on me how I knew her. She'd better stay the hell out of the pub, that's all I have to say. She sets one foot in here and I swear to God I'm going to hammer-fist her. As a matter of fact, screw it. I'm going back there and giving both of those hags a piece of my mind."

I could hear her on the move. "Wait a minute! Stop! I don't think you want to do that."

She groaned in anger. "Oh yeah, I do. She crossed the line by bringing her here. I'm gonna—"

"Wait." I scrambled, watching Lisa saunter in her boxers over to the dining table. "I have a question first."

She huffed. "What?"

"Boxers or briefs?"

"What?"

"Mike. Is he a boxers or a briefs guy?"

Lisa's eyes glared up over the top of her laptop screen while she chewed her breakfast. I held out a finger for her to hold on to that disapproving thought for a second—I had a point to make.

Hyunji sucked in some air. "Boxer briefs. Best invention ever. With that elastic band riding real low."

She sighed a bit. "He's got those Ken doll leg-hinge muscle-gap things going on. You know what I mean? The V pockets?"

I'd just so happened to have been staring at my own set of amazing leg hinges, which disappeared like an arrow into her shorts, moments before. "Yes, I do." Lisa smirked at me, apparently taking my dirty purr and hungry eyes for what they were worth.

"Thanks," Hyunji whispered out, sounding a bit calmer. "I know you're trying to calm me down but I still want to go back there and confront her. Bringing that girl here is not cool, Jen. I don't care how you color it. Is she doing this to rub my nose in it? I mean, why?"

"I honestly don't know, but I promise I'll find out. Just swear to me you'll stay out of the kitchen until I get to the bottom of it, okay?"

As soon as I hung up with Hyunji, I took a deep breath and scrolled down to Tammy's number, knowing loyalties were about to be tested. Right off the bat she greeted me with a snarky snip to her voice, which didn't bode well.

After getting a quick update on how Fred was doing, I got to the second purpose of my call.

"I don't know how to ask this so I'm just going to come right out with it. I know you have someone there with you today, and I want to know if it's the girl that Gary is seeing."

Tammy sighed—loudly. "What difference does it make?"

Cocky was not the way to deal with me right now. "Are you kidding?"

"I have a business to run and I needed the help. What do you want me to say?"

If I could have climbed through my phone and shaken her, I would have. "And you didn't think that this would be a problem? My God, Tammy. Are you that insensitive?"

"I'm not trying to be insensitive, Jennie. Fred is laid up, I've got orders to fill and a wedding to cater tomorrow, and I don't see anyone else offering to help. You know with Fred out of work I'm the only one earning any money. And now we have hospital bills piling up and ambulance bills to pay. I'm sorry if that upsets people, but I had no other choice."

Now I was rubbing my forehead. "And your only choice was to enlist the help of the girl who broke Hyunji's marriage apart?"

Tammy growled. "Amy didn't do that. Look, I don't have time to talk about this now."

I wanted to scream. "Fine. But I would prefer if you didn't rub it in Hyunji's face."

"I'm not rubbing anything—"

"You brought her there, Tammy! Are you forgetting that Hyunji lives upstairs now because her cheating husband locked her out of her own damn house?"

I could hear her frustrated huff. "I didn't think she'd care. She's moved on with Lisa's bodyguard, hasn't she?"

"That's not the point. No woman wants to see her replacement, Tammy. Ever."

"Well, she's going to have to get used to it sooner or later. I might as well tell you now that Fred and his brother, Jim, are not speaking to each other and Fred's had it this time. He wants Gary to be his best man now, which means that I don't have a maid of honor since my sister-in-law, Deb, was it. So I've asked Amy to be my maid of honor so Hyunji doesn't have to feel obligated."

"Unbelievable . . ."

"What? She said she didn't want to come if Gary was going to be there anyway, so I don't know what the big deal is."

My anger bumped up to an entirely new notch.

"I thought Hyunji would be relieved since she's busy running the bar now that you're not around much," Tammy said. "She doesn't have time to help me anyway. Neither do you. You're never home anymore."

I didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why she was being so pissy, but her tantrum was uncalled for.

"That's a little unfair, Tammy."

I heard what sounded like a metal tray hitting the floor at the same time Tammy said, "Oh, shit . . . Hyunji, just wait a minute . . ."

I could hear Hyunji's voice loud and clear. "It's a simple question. I just want to know how long you've been fucking my husband, that's all."

Oh, shit was right. "Tammy, get your friend out of there." I heard the girl, Amy, stuttering in the background, saying something about not knowing he was married when they met.

"Hyunji, he never told her he was married—"

"Don't even fucking talk to me right now, Tammy. You mean to tell me your friend didn't know he was married? You think I'm that naïve to believe that you didn't have a hand in this?"

"I didn't," Tammy pleaded. "I didn't know about it until after they'd met."

"We went to L.A. together and you didn't think to tell me that he was screwing around?"

I felt like I was in the middle of a war that was being broadcasted over cell phones. I felt completely incapable of fighting for the cause.

"It wasn't my place to tell you that."

What? Oh, bullshit.

Hyunji's voice got even louder. Good. "Wasn't your place? I thought we were friends, Tammy. Friends that have each other's backs through the good, bad, and ugly. But I guess I was sadly mistaken."

"I am your friend! You are blow—"

"Not anymore!" Hyunji shrieked. "And you . . . You even think about setting foot inside my pub and I will beat you to within an inch of your life. Understood?"

I heard the girl mumble something.

"Good. I hope you two are very happy together. He's a cheap bastard and a lousy lay and he's all yours."

And that's when Tammy hung up on me, leaving me rattled and riled and hanging in the wind three thousand miles away.

"I was afraid of this," Lisa said, staring at her laptop while waiting on a call of her own.

I was clutching my cell, chewing on the edge of it, wondering when and how everything started falling apart. "Afraid of what?"

She glanced over the opened screen, then went back to doing what she was doing. "Friends. Fights. Anger. Jealousy. All of that shit."

I was scratching my head, trying to figure out what she meant.

"I didn't think that it would happen, though. I mean, one of the reasons I even considered pursuing you and pulling you into my crazy life was because I saw how tight you were with your core friends. I didn't think that they'd break their bonds once we started getting serious. Guess I was wrong."

Either she was speaking man mumbo-jumbo or I was still dazed from my call and missing the point. I squinted at her. "Um. Huh?"

"The fighting. It's started. I used to have a huge group of friends, but once the first movie came out, one by one they started dropping like flies. Things get fucked-up. Same shit is happening to you."

Lisa squatted down in front of me and leveled her eyes on mine. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry? My friends are fighting, Lisa, not us. I don't know what you caught of that conversation, but I just found out that the new girl that Gary is seeing is one of Tammy's friends, who just so happens to be in my pub kitchen helping Tammy out right now. Hyunji went down to open up and ran right into the girl."

Lisa frowned. "I thought maybe . . . Friends get weird and shit when all of a sudden you have money and they don't, you're traveling and they aren't. I just know that the petty shit comes to the surface and the next thing you know you're fighting and at each other's throats. So many people want fortune and fame but what they don't realize is that it comes with a ton of heartache."

I rested my taxed brain in my hand. "I still don't get where you're going with this. My friends are fighting—"

"And you feel compelled to pick a side."

"Well, yeah, to a certain extent. Especially when one is purposely causing hurt to the other. I'd take a stand regardless, and whether or not my future wife was über-famous shouldn't be a factor."

"Yeah, but—"

"Yeah, but what? You are who I've chosen to be with. If my friends have a problem with that—which I don't think they do, but regardless—if they can't be on board with my happiness and feel threatened by my choice, then they really aren't good friends to begin with. And if they are jealous, then I'd hope they'd keep it to themselves, as I am certainly not flaunting anything under their noses. Tammy is under a lot of stress and she's lashing out. I get that. We girls go crazy every now and then. I can even forgive her for keeping her nose out of other people's marriage problems. But what I will not excuse is her knowing that her friend is banging another good friend's husband and bringing that nonsense to my house."

Lisa put her hands on her hips. "I love you."

I smiled. "I know you do. I love you more."

That earned me a trademarked lip smirk nose wrinkle. "You think Tammy hooked them up?"

I hated to think the worst of people, especially friends in my closest circle, but over the years I'd seen so many show me their dark side that I now knew even the sweetest, the kindest could turn horrid.

Speaking of people turning horrid, I was just about to shut the lid on Lisa's laptop if I had to listen to another minute of her manager's condescending bullshit during their online video conference.

I was having my own conversation with our publicist, Trish, over some changes to Lisa's schedule when Lisa hammered her fist into the table.

"I lost forty-five grand in the last six months, so you can shove all of the 'let Mercer handle that' bullshit. Fucking people need a wake-up call that I am paying attention to my financial statements. If they are incapable of keeping me from losing money then I will find another firm to manage it."

I was updating my master calendar when Lisa's elbows hit the table. I heard her end her call and when I looked over, she was holding her head in her hands. She had so many people poking their noses into her business, telling her how to run her life, I wondered how long she'd be able to endure the constant pressure of it all.

I set my pen down and crossed the room. As soon as she looked up at me, I straddled her thighs, wrapping my arms around her warm, bare shoulders, and pulled her in tightly.

I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on her head, rubbing my fingers over her hair, her neck, while her arms cinched around me. We sat in silence for a long time, just breathing and being, chasing the insanity away as best we could.

Lisa's eyes met mine and we softly kissed, reassuring each other with weary smiles.

"Change your mind yet?" she asked warily, locking her thumb through the belt loop of my jeans.

I shook my head, knowing what she was asking. "Never. You're mine."

That definitely pleased her. She gave me a crooked, unsure look. "Till death do us part?"

I gave her a soft kiss. "Maybe just a bit beyond that."

"So, tell me. Tammy's stressing out. Makes me wonder what we'll be up against when we're planning our wedding."

I took a little breath. "Honestly? I really don't want a big to-do, Lisa. I'm thinking sweet and simple."

"Sweet and simple, huh?"

I nodded. "You know—family and friends. Romantic. Elegant. Maybe some twinkle lights in the trees."

She wiggled her thighs, bouncing me a bit. "Twinkle lights. Okay, what else?"

I paused to think about it. "Outdoors maybe."

"Like tents and stuff?"

That thought made me wrinkle my nose. "I don't think I want the big, white tent thing."

Lisa scratched her cheek. "You want to do the church thing or . . . ?"

I really had no preference. "I'm not set on anything and honestly, I haven't been in a church since my dad died, so . . . What do you want?"

Her noncommittal shrug was the easy way out. "Naked on a beach?"

I frowned and gave her a nudge.

"Really!" she went on. "I don't know. Outdoors sounds good. Or inside somewhere. I'm completely open to suggestions."

"I think we have time to figure it out. Maybe we should work on living together in sin first."

Lisa slid her hands over my rear, tensing her fingers. "I like that idea. I started drafting some designs."

Suddenly she was completely rejuvenated, as if she had a new fire burning in her gut. She flipped open the sketchpad she always doodled in.

"All right, time to start designing our house."

Lisa was back on set filming when I got to talk to my birth father again. We spoke on the phone for almost an hour, neither of us really minding the time. Joe was easy to talk to and although we kept the conversation light and informative, I could tell that his words were filled with regret.

While Lisa filmed, I stayed in her trailer, going over everything from our latest financial statements to picking out front doors for our future house.

Lisa's set trailer rocked a little when she bounded in. "Hey babe," she said, eying me over. "What's going on?"

I watched as she set some papers on the counter. "Oh, where to begin? You sure you want to hear this?"

Lisa took a bottle of cold water out of the small refrigerator. "Not when you start off that way, Jennie. But yeah. Start sharing."

"You have time?"

She took a sip and tilted her head. "I have fifteen minutes. Can I have the abridged version?"

"Okay . . . Hyunji and Tammy are still fighting, Fred is miserable being laid up on his couch and out of work, your mom said that she's throwing our engagement party at their house on July twenty-second, which is on both of our calendars now, and somewhere in the last week Asahi started sleeping with the new waitress Hyunji hired." I wiggled my cell. "Oh, and I talked to Joe."

She looked a bit surprised. "Wow. I thought all the drama was out there." She pointed. "Asahi nailing that short blonde I met, or did Hyunji hire someone else?"

"No. It's the one you met—Kara."

Lisa nodded. "Well, good for him, I guess."

"Not so good for me. Especially if there's a dramatic breakup."

She slid into the dinette and sat across from me. "That's the shit you have to deal with being a business owner. Although it's really Hyunji's problem, I suppose."

"It's my bar. It's my problem. One that I've been avoiding for weeks now. She's got her own drama to deal with."

Lisa scratched her eyebrow with her thumb and frowned at me. "I can't tell you what to do, but you know you can't be in two places at once. And Mike is so miserable, I'm about to send him off to Seaport if he doesn't get to see Hyunji soon."

He was rather grumpy lately.

"She wants to become a bodyguard."

I was surprised when she didn't seem fazed by that. She took another swig of water and I watched her swallow. Something about that was quite sexy, actually. "Mike told me."

The news that Mike talked to her about it was also surprising, since Mike wasn't one to share much.

"Mike told you?"

She nodded. "Yeah. We talked about it quite a bit."

"According to Hyunji, he's being extremely supportive about it."

Lisa twisted her lips as if she were hiding a secret. "Love will do that to ya."

That surprised me. "He's in love?"

"Isn't it obvious? She's very attractive, but she also is a bit of a scrapper. Feisty little thing, ya know? That's exactly what he needs."

I smiled. "Yeah, I know. She doesn't take a lot of crap. She's worse if she's been drinking."

She crawled out of the bank seat and sat down on the couch, putting her feet up. "And what are your thoughts on all of that? You'd lose your bar manager."

"I think she should do whatever makes her happy."

She rested her head back into her hands. "I agree. Especially if she and Mike stick. Would be best if their jobs complemented each other. That's just a win-win for us."

"Win-win?"

She gave me her isn't it obvious? eyes. I wasn't about to ask. I was sort of stuck on her other innuendo.

"You want me to sell the bar." It wasn't a question, but it definitely came out of my mouth as a whispered realization.

Her frown said it for her. She took another drink of her water, eyeing me before she spoke. "I want you to do what's right for us. Having the business is great but you being constantly worried about it isn't, so something needs to give."

She was right, in a way, but then again we'd been engaged only a few weeks. Was I wrong for wanting a fallback plan? One ace stashed up my sleeve in case of emergencies? After all, I had my own sense of self-preservation.

"Can we discuss this some other time?"

Without hesitation, she said, "Yep."

"How are things on set? How's Jisoo doing?"

Lisa seemed undecided. "She's been toeing the line."

"You think she's staying clean?"

She scratched her eyebrow. "She doesn't have much of a choice since I insisted on her getting weekly drug screenings. She can be pissy toward me all she wants; while she's here working on my film, she will keep that shit out of her body and her head in the game."

I nodded. "Did you talk to her about getting some drug counseling?"

I knew she was not keen on intervening. "No, but I did have a private chat with her. One slipup and I'd see to it that she'd get hauled off set in cuffs."

"You didn't?"

"I most certainly did. I don't have time to babysit. She has to deal with her own shit or else. Anyway, that's not our problem. I have to go back soon. I came to get you. I need you there."

"You need me there?" I gave her my best are you for real? look.

She picked at her costume, which was a blue pair of very cool rock climbing pants, a look that I'd be sure to buy for her the next time I went shopping. "Yeah. I like knowing you're there."

"I don't want to be in the way. I figured I was a distraction."

"Jennie, you just breathing is a distraction. Knowing you're on the lot, holed up in my trailer doing God knows what that I can't see, is a distraction."

Ditto.

And here I thought I made her nervous. Hearing that she wanted me there made my insides warm. I was learning so much by being a silent observer and I'd much rather be out there than in here. "Well, since you need me . . ."

Lisa knifed her body up and then she was inches from my face, letting me know her thoughts. "I need you. You're my muse."

I knew she was messing with me but her sexy lips made me think about how damn lucky I was, especially imagining her being all athletic and sweaty on set. "Your muse, huh?"

She grinned and nodded. "Uh huh."

"I thought I was your sex slave."

That got me a wider grin and a sexy-as-hell kiss. "That, too," she breathed, tasting of the mint gum I had slipped into her pocket.

I wanted her tongue again. "You taste good."

"I'll let you taste me all over if you want—later. Reminds me, there's this one position we haven't tried yet and I was wondering if you'd be game?"

Her face was so close; I had to lean back. "Just one?"

Lisa's eyes narrowed. "You have a dirty mind and a mouth that makes me have all sorts of ideas. That's why you're perfect for me."

I met her lips and gave her a wicked kiss, growling from the strain of having to separate us. "Before you get carried away . . ."

"Then you better come up with another distraction besides putting your tongue in my mouth."

I fought her pull and murmured, "I talked to Joe for almost an hour."

She looked surprised, edging back a bit. "Yeah? And?"

I fought back my disappointment and sudden sadness, trying to stay positive on the subject, but it was hard. The man who fathered me was keeping me at arm's length, and well, it hurt. I felt more rejection than acceptance in that hour.

"It was good, but . . . well . . . He told me about his wife and his family. He has two young daughters who apparently are huge fans of yours."

Lisa's eyes narrowed, reading me like a book again. "Is that so? Apparently he also said something that upset you. I can see it in your eyes."

I sat back. "He said that he'd always regretted giving me up but he was young and didn't know the first thing about raising a baby and . . . I can tell he's full of remorse."

Lisa sat down next to me. "I can imagine. So we going there to meet him?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"Lisa, I have not been a part of his life for a very long time."

"So?"

"It's not that simple. We talked and, well, he's glad I know the truth about him but said he's not ready to tell his wife about me yet. He's not sure how she'll take it since he's never told her about fathering a child when he was a teenager. He's afraid the news will upset her too much."

Lisa rubbed her forehead, appearing annoyed. "Well, that's too fucking bad."

"Lisa, it's his choice. I can't expect him to put his family's happiness in jeopardy, no matter how much I want to meet him."

Lisa shrugged a bit. "A man should own up to his situation."

"He was a kid when I came along. I can't put that on him. He's got to decide what's best for them."

He seemed to disagree. "What's he do for a living?"

For a moment, it sounded like he was being protective, like he needed to know if Joe was good enough to be my absentee real father. "He's a master electrician. He owns his own company. He said he does a lot of new construction and they're so busy they can hardly keep up." There, that ought to be good enough.

Lisa's lips twitched and she nodded her silent approval. "Good, honest job. Sounds like a hard worker."

Who are you and what happened to my twenty-seven-year-old fiancé?

"Does his wife work?"

I nodded. "She's a dental hygienist."

That got an eyebrow raise and a few more head bobs of approval. It was almost like saying she was related to her dentist father, in the way she seemed good with that information.

"And the girls? How old are they?"

"Abby is fourteen and Eli is eleven. They sound like great kids."

With that Lisa seemed to relax a bit, but still she said, "Listen. I know that you've been dealing with this . . . this shock. And I'm going to continue to be patient and supportive, but I will not allow someone you barely know to upset you. Before you opened that box, things were fine. Well, as fine as they could be considering, but now this has tossed you for a loop and I don't give a shit if he's the king of Siam. If he doesn't bring goodness and happiness to you, then he's going to be cut off very quickly. Mark my words, Jennie. I won't let this eat at you. If he doesn't want to own up to his shit and be a man about it, then he can go back to being unknown to us. You've had enough hurt for one lifetime and I won't stand for someone bringing more sadness on you. I won't."

"I know," I grumbled quietly.

"No, I don't think you do. Your entire life you've been obliviously happy. Now you question everything more than you did before. But what you need to focus on are the things that are right and true in your life. Me. My family. We are constants. I'm not going anywhere and you know that. But some guy you don't know who donated some sperm is not worth the head space he's taking up. Dan and Jennifer were your parents and I know they were taken way too early from you but you need a mom or a dad; my parents are all too willing to step up and give you what you need.

"This guy . . . this Joe person, he makes no difference to our lives. You and me—that's all we've got. And if your friends want to make choices that don't include a future with us, I've got no problem with that, either. None. Cut that shit clean off and we'll make new friends. We surround ourselves with people who care and love us. That's how we roll."

She was right. So freaking right, as usual. I'd recognized my fears of abandonment when I thought Lisa's parents were moving her out of the apartment right before we got engaged. Everyone I loved eventually left me. Everyone. And now some guy I didn't even know was tugging on my emotions and twisting my thoughts just because I needed to get something back; needed to validate why this information about me being adopted was even dropped on me.

Still through all of that, I almost wanted to laugh at her. "That's how we roll?"

"That's how we roll," he said, serious at first until the edge of her mouth tipped up. "You have no relationship with him. He doesn't want to make one with you, no problem. One less person fucking with our happiness, as far as I'm concerned."

I smiled at that thought; how she was able to make me love her more and more every day.

Her eyes dropped down to my lips, her head tilted in the opposite direction, and she murmured, "C'm'ere" as she leaned down to kiss me. I wrapped my arm over her shoulder so I could pull my body even closer while my other hand found those soft curls of hair by her neck. She groaned in my mouth as I tugged on her hair.

"I need to spend an entire day kissing you," I breathed out on her lips.

She pulled on the tips of my hair hanging right next to my breast. "Tomorrow. All morning. No phones, no computers. Your mouth and your body are mine."

Someone banged on our trailer door. "Ten minutes, Lisa."

Her shoulders slumped, as did mine. Her eyes skittered over to my laptop screen. "What you got there?"

I'd forgotten about my Internet searching. "The totally awesome front door for our new house. You like?"

"Yeah, let me see it." Her lips curled just a bit and she sat up, moving the computer closer to get a better look. "Nice. Add it to the list."

Well, that was easy.

"You want to see more?"

"Why? You design the whole house?"

"No, but Hyunji sent some pictures. She said this is where we should get married." I opened the email and made the attachments full size on the screen.

Lisa's eyes scrunched together before going wide. "Wow. No, scroll back. Back. Stop. Holy shit, that's cool. Where is that?"

"Italy. A place called the Grotta Palazzese. What do you think?"

Lisa's smile widened, taking in the restaurant. It was located inside the opening of a cave and had breathtaking views of the vast Mediterranean Sea. "That's wild. Italy? Is that what you want? Something like that?"

I shrugged, not firmly decided on anything. "I don't know. But that definitely looks like a cool place to have dinner."

She gave me her look, the one that said she'd fly me anywhere I wanted and give me the wedding of my dreams as long as I said yes along the way.

"I think we need to go there and check it out, even if it's just for dinner. Brings us back to freeing up your responsibilities, though, Jen."

"I know. And I think I have a solution."

Lisa raised a brow. "You do?"

After I told her my idea, she was more than happy. She was downright relieved.

Going to Italy was easier said than done. After spending another few days with Lisa in Vancouver, I flew back to Rhode Island by myself. The month of June was almost over, Hyunji was slightly miserable, Tammy wasn't really speaking to either of us, and Fred was drowning in debt, his days of climbing ladders and doing manual labor for a living on hold indefinitely.

To say I was looking forward to returning to all of this would be a lie. At least the paparazzi and gossip rags were being somewhat nice, printing photos of our happiness when they caught Lisa and me out shopping a few days ago.

Lisa and I had a nice time wandering around, taking in some sights and spending some money on stuff we didn't need but could afford. I was sporting a gorgeous antique diamond bracelet that Lisa spent a small fortune on and she bought herself a nice platinum chain with a stainless steel dog tag that had a tribal design on one side and my name engraved on the other.

But now I was sitting in the passenger seat of my car, Hyunji behind the wheel, since she picked me up at the airport, and the amazing time I had with Lisa sadly becoming another memory.

I watched the landscape zoom by once again, feeling a sense of déjà vu, and wondering if things would settle.

Going back to Kim's Pub was starting to feel like a burden, and that was not good.

"Did you book your flight?" I asked, wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.

Hyunji glanced over quickly. "Yeah. Class starts July ninth."

My mind flipped through the calendar, knowing I already had a problem, but I wasn't about to let it halt her plans.

"You're going to miss Lisa's wrap party because of me."

I felt my shoulders tense as I glanced over at her. "Mike needs to keep his big mouth shut."

Hyunji barked out a laugh, "I know you're supposed to be in Pittsburg at her parents' on the twenty-second as well, which you failed to tell me about."

"I wasn't keeping it a secret." Well, I was, but I wasn't going to tell her until after she'd left.

She passed a slow-moving camper in the center lane. "Liar. You said you didn't have anything firm until the Teen Choice Awards on August seventh."

And therein was my problem, right in a nutshell. Since cloning wasn't possible, something had to give, just like Lisa had said. "You need to worry about your schedule and leave me to worry about mine," I growled, teasingly of course.

"I thought you were trying to go to Italy the week before that?"

"No. Lisa's not sure if she'll have to go to L.A. earlier. She's waiting to hear."

I dug around in my purse for my calendar. "When are you coming back then?"

"July twenty-eighth." Her voice did an excited upswing, making it sound like a question. I could tell she was treading lightly. She also knew that I had no one to fall back on.

"You'll come back a lean, mean fighting machine," I joked, trying to let her know I was totally supporting her decisions.

Hyunji gave me a weak smile. "I don't have to go for this session, Jennie. I could put it off. Give it a year, maybe. I dunno. I know I'm putting you in a tight spot."

I adjusted my ring. "No. Definitely not."

"Jennie, I'm rushing this. I don't even know if Mike wants a relationship with me. I'm fighting with Gary over who gets to keep the damn toaster and shit. I shouldn't be making any big moves."

"If this is what you want then you go for it now. Time to do what you want to do for once."

"But—"

"But what? Are you going to doubt your desires because you're unsure of Mike's intentions? You want to be a bodyguard, knowing what it entails, then do it. And no buts. I haven't seen you this excited about something in years. You want to forge a new career path, then now is the time. You're wasting your education and talents being stuck behind the bar."

"I'm not stuck . . ."

"Yes, you are. We both are. It's time for the next chapter."

"I need an income, Jennie," she countered. "I can't go without a job."

I sighed. "We've had this discussion already."

"Jennie, you can't pay me a salary that I didn't work for. You've already loaned me money for the lawyer. And it's going to be a while until I see a settlement from my divorce so I can pay you back."

"Hyunji, what did I say?"

She huffed. "It's not right. You can't keep bailing your friends out."

I turned in my seat to look at her, keeping the fact that I was going to cash out some of my inheritance to cover things if I needed to. The bar was making more money but not enough to cover several full-time salaries. "You would do the same for me and you know it."

"You're going to have to hire another bartender or two and someone will have to be there to manage the place. And I can't expect you to hire someone for only two weeks and then fire them when I get back. Asahi is great, but you know as well as I do that he's young and isn't ready to take on that amount of responsibility. And what happens if I get down there and find out I can't handle it? Mike said this is pretty intense stuff—like combat training, firing a gun while rolling on the ground and stuff. I mean, what the hell do I know about disarming someone or kicking someone's ass? Last time I was in a fight was when we were in high school and I punched Sophie Lithgow in the face for calling me a slut."

I laughed. "It's a start. And that was classic, by the way. She deserved that—calling both of us sluts."

"Yeah, but I at least earned the title," Hyunji boasted.

"No you did not."

Then she gave me a crooked stare, insinuating that she did.

We were silent for another half mile when I finally said what was swirling in my thoughts. "Lisa sort of hinted again that I should sell the bar."

Hyunji's mouth popped open. "Why?"

"Because I can't be in two places at once."

She groaned softly. "You sure you want to do that?"

My knee-jerk answer was no, but I said, "I don't know. I'm thinking about it."

She shook her head adamantly. "I don't think you should sell it."

I was thankful she said that. "Is it wrong of me to want to have a fallback plan?"

"Hell no! Look at me. Bastard locked me out of my own damn house! I barely escaped with the clothes on my back and now he's threatening to smash our china that his aunt got us just so I don't try to take it in the divorce. I don't know where I would have ended up if you hadn't taken me in. That's not to say Lisa would do any of that nonsense to you. Honestly, I think you'd be just fine doing something else if you did sell the bar but the part of me going through a shitty divorce says you should keep your safety net."

The smart woman inside me had been burned too many times by men, and so maintaining self-preservation was a moral imperative. "I hate feeling like that."

"I know," she muttered. "What did your mother always tell us?

"The one where you can find trash on any street corner, but you should always hold out for a man with a heart of gold?"

"No, no. That was a good one, too, but the one where she always said that you should make sure the man loves you more than you love the man," she said. "According to Lisa, the sun rises and sets on your ass so I think you're good."

Thinking back to those times when my mom gave me her little quips of wisdom spread warmth up from my heart. "My mother was a wise woman."

Hyunji grinned. "Yes she was. Too bad I didn't listen."

I scratched my head. "Yeah, that makes two of us. This time I am, though."

"Yes indeed. Trading in the bad boy for the badass one."

For some reason, a picture of a shirtless, beefy Mike Murphy flashed through my thoughts. "Mike's pretty badass."

"Yes he is." She smiled. "He's the reason why I'm sure things need to end between me and Gary. I didn't realize just how bad I had it until Mike came along. Gary has never made me a priority. Not once did he ever put my needs ahead of his own. When I look back at our relationship, even before we got married he never made me feel as if I was important. You've seen it. After a while, that shit starts to wear on you. But Mike . . . I know he's pulling in a few favors to get me into this school. He hasn't hesitated once about taking care of me. Not once."

"Mike's been really grumpy," I told her. "Lisa's ready to ship him here—soon. Fortunately, they're just about wrapped on Slipknot."

Her face lit up. It was such a beautiful thing. "Really?"

I smiled just as broadly. "He thinks Mike's in love with you."

"Really?"

"Really, really."

After a few seconds of grinning from ear to ear, she said, "Lisa's madly in love with you, you know. Still . . . please don't sell the bar."

I bristled a bit.

"I'm sad that I'm going to miss your engagement party at Lisa's parents'. I'm sure Ellen will stuff you full of food." She didn't have to tell me that those words hurt her to say.

That reminded me of one more thing I had to do: time to see if my next bright idea would pan out.

--

"I went to visit Fred today," I told Lisa when we Skyped later that night. Poor Fred. I could completely relate to the torturous itching that came from sporting a cast. His new limp also didn't go unnoticed.

"How's he doing?" Lisa asked while lying on the bed with her laptop on her legs. She wasn't wearing a shirt and obviously had just gotten out of the shower, as her skin was flush and deliciously dewy. Damn, it was a beautiful sight on my computer screen.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to you while you're looking like that?"

Lisa's face scrunched. "Like what?"

"Naked and all . . ." My hand waved since I was at a loss for words.

Lisa grinned, running a hand over her bare chest. "You like what you see?"

"You know I do."

She flipped her laptop to the side, making sure the camera was showing what she was now stroking in her hand. Like a teenager watching a porno, I had my very own Lisa Manoban nudie show. "See anything else that you like?"

I blushed, feeling extremely nervous. "Oh my God, Lisa! What if some hacker can see you like that? That's how private sex stuff . . . stop! You want videos of you whacking off to go viral?"

She nudged her screen, aiming the camera back on her face, which now showed demanding authority.

"No one is going to see. Take your laptop back to our bed and take your clothes off."

I jumped a bit at her stern tone, feeling oddly compelled to comply. Still, I was very apprehensive to do anything so risqué over the Internet. "Lisa . . ."

Her expression was meant to show that she wasn't going to be denied. "Now, Jennie."

It worked.

Begrudgingly, I carried my laptop to my room and flopped down, still fully clothed.

We were both on our sides, one arm propping our heads up. I watched as her fingers moved toward the screen. "I miss you," she said softly, cracking my resistance as if it were made of tissue paper. "I miss the feeling of completeness I have when you're in my arms. Do you ever feel that way? Like a part of you is missing when we're apart?"

I wanted to reach through the screen and touch her back. "All the time. I sort of feel incomplete."

She wiped her finger over her lips. It was the sexiest damn thing, as if her hunger for me was palpable.

"Do you know what my favorite part of your body is?"

I swallowed—hard—figuring she'd go for the obvious. I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of guessing.

"No guess? It's your lips. And not for the act that you might think I love them for. The curve of them makes me always wonder what's going on in your head. Between your lips and your eyes I can more or less guess and I'm usually pretty accurate. You may not realize it, but they are the windows into your soul."

I studied her face—the softness of her cheeks to where they met up, the incredibly long eyelashes that framed those million-dollar bedroom eyes, the square cut of her chin. "Your eyes give you away, too, you know."

"If you were here, I'd kiss you right now. I wouldn't stop until you were naked underneath me, sighing in my mouth. I can almost feel the silky smoothness of your skin as I run my fingers beneath your undies."

I was beginning to believe there may be some wonderful advantages to video chatting. she was seducing me with the soft cadence of her words and the visuals she created in my thoughts.

"Take your finger, run it slowly down your neck, down to the base of your throat. I want you to feel me kissing you as I make love to you."

Obediently, I did as she instructed. Each time she told me to wet my fingers or pinch my own flesh turned me on more and more until I was drenched with excitement, panting and moaning. I'd touched myself plenty of times during those dry spells between dating, but this was a million times better.

A million.

Lisa had conveniently turned the screen so I could watch her clean up. My pounding heart was finally slowing when she nudged her laptop back to display her face on my screen.

Her satiated smile lit up my heart. "You should video-seduce me more often," I said.

She laughed lightly, finger-combing her hair back off her forehead. "I'd much rather do that to you in person, but we do what we have to do in the meantime."

"I didn't realize watching you would be such a turn-on."

Her lips twitched. "Oh, I did. Just hearing your voice is a turn-on for me; everything else was just a bonus."

I rolled over onto my stomach. "Yeah, right. My voice excites you that much."

Her expression said she was dead serious. "Future wife, we've had phone sex before and now not only can I see your face, I can also see your naked boobs. Trust me. Now tell me about Fred, unless you want to go for round two, which I must say I'm getting ready for." I watched her stuff a few pillows under her head and then she flashed her semi onto the screen again just to show me her exclamation point to that statement.

After I regained my ability to speak, I muttered, "Fred's miserable."

"You iron out that crap with Tammy?"

"No. But I will. I'm presuming we're still in the wedding. You still want to be a groomsman? she asked if you were still in. I'd understand it if you don't want to. You haven't known Fred that long and—"

Lisa interrupted me. "I already told him I would. I gave him my word. They should know that my presence is going to cause a stir, so if they're good with that, I'm in. They've been warned. Besides, there's no way I'd let some other guy walk you down the aisle, Jennie. No way in hell."

I loved her possessiveness. It made me feel safe and cherished. "Is that your final answer?"

She glared at me over my screen before saying, "That's my final answer forever. You good with that, babe?"

Considering that Mingyu had left me at a party once, not giving a shit who drove me home or even if I got home alive, I was more than fine with it. "Yes."

"That's my girl."

Say what you will, but I was damn glad to be hers in no uncertain terms.

"And what did he say to your other proposition?"

The memory of Fred's reaction when I asked him made me smile wider. "You'd have thought I'd offered him a miracle."

"So he's on board with it?"

"Yes. He starts training with me tomorrow."