“David told me he’s cut off ties with you. Advised this”—he shook his head—“service you use that he’ll no longer be seeing you due to personal time constraints and commitments.”
I sucked in a quick breath. It was an odd thing hearing him say it. Odd because I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. I didn’t care if I never saw David again. I didn’t. But it didn’t mean the message wasn’t strange coming from this man.
“Well, as long as he gives me a letter of recommendation and good references,” I finally resorted to saying.
“What?” Keegan stopped walking, turning to me.
“It was supposed to be a joke,” I muttered. “Well, I guess you won that match. Checkmate, huh?”
He cocked his head to the side and laughed quietly as he nodded, but there was something cool about his reaction, and he ended up looking down at the ground rather than at me. When he looked back up, his expression was even colder than it had been moments before.
“Yeah. It’s now open season on your pussy, Gabe. What man wouldn’t feel good about that?” His sarcasm was biting, his expression was intimidating, and he held his focus on me calmly, letting the words sink in.
I opened my mouth to respond, but then I closed it.
He finally started walking again. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know in case anyone mentions it to you.” He didn’t look at all happy about anything he was saying. In fact, he looked downright uncomfortable.
“Okay.” I watched him for a moment, and when he looked at me, he nodded.
At just that moment, Jessa walked out of the house. “We’re going to miss the ever-lovin’ bus if you don’t wrap up this nonsense with Mr.
GQ
soon.” She hurried down the sidewalk toward us.
We were standing near the curb at that point, just past the old brick retaining wall.
Keegan laughed, finally smiling at me. “You sure have your hands full with that little lady.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered. “She can be…special.”
“Where are you guys going?” he said as much to the approaching Jessa as to me.
“Chicago,” she responded. “Shopping.”
“I said museums. Not shopping.”
Jessa shrugged. “It’s not up to her,” she said to Keegan.
“It
is
up to me. I control your finances.”
Keegan’s eyes narrowed for a moment as he watched me. “Why don’t you let me drive you?”
“That’s not necessary,” I cut in quickly.
“Is that your piece-of-shit car there?” Jessa asked, pointing to the sleek black sedan at the curb.
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “You have something against Infiniti in general, or is it just the Q70?” Which happened to be parked five feet in front of Jessa’s 1992 Honda Accord.
Jessa ignored his question, turning to me instead. “Oh, come on, G-Dog?” Jessa begged.
Keegan was still chuckling. I looked at him, and he smirked. “Come on, G-Dog,” he repeated. “I’m going to Chicago. Why would you take the bus?”
“Why would
anyone
take the bus? Oh yeah, we would. Why? Because, according to Gabe, my car isn’t safe to take into the city because it’s going to die a fiery death at any time. And dumbass here”—she cocked her finger in my direction—“decided to sell her car a year ago.”
Keegan looked at Jessa’s car. “Your sister might have a point,” he said to Jessa.
“Whatever.” But then she turned to me, her eyes big and swimming in pools of desperation. “Please,” she pleaded.
I sighed. “Fine.”
“Shotgun!” she shouted, and I shrugged as Keegan started to laugh.
I climbed into the backseat behind Keegan when he opened the door for me, and Jessa started literally pushing every last button she could find, including the latch to the glove box, which she then proceeded to empty. She studied the owner’s manual as if it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen, and Keegan adjusted his rearview mirror, focusing on me when he found my reflection.
“Where to?” Keegan asked as he pulled away from the curb.
“Art Institute.”
Jessa groaned. “Boring,” she sang as her eyes still scanned the manual.
“You two should come to my place for dinner tonight once you’re done sightseeing.”
“No—” I started to say.
Jessa cut me off. “Where do you live?”
“Uh…Trump Tower. I’m staying in a condo there while I’m in town.”
“What?” Jessa whipped around to face me. “We have to.” And then, turning her attention back to Keegan, “Trump Tower?”
“Yep.”
I shook my head, even as Keegan still stared me down in the mirror.
“We have to,” Jessa repeated, looking back at me again. “It’s Trump Tower. Have you seen that place?”
I had actually. I had a regular I’d not seen since David entered my life who’d always been quite preferential to fucking me there.
“It’s just dinner, Gabe.” Keegan pulled to a stop sign, returning his eyes to me once again.
I sighed as I turned to look out the window. “Dinner,” I said.
“Yes!” Jessa squealed.
The remainder of the car ride was uncomfortable—at least for me. Jessa and Keegan made idle chitchat, and I spent the entire time worrying one of them would say something to the other that I didn’t want the other to actually know about. Essentially, it was one long-ass anxiety-riddled ride for me. Keegan kept meeting my eyes in the mirror, but his expression never really changed. It wasn’t flirtatious. It wasn’t even welcoming or nice. He just watched me for a moment before returning to whatever bizarre conversation Jessa had roped him into.
“Are you dating my sister?” Jessa didn’t shy away from much of anything.
We’d just hit the traffic of Chicago coming in on Interstate 94, and we were moving far slower now.
Keegan’s eyes glanced to me in the mirror before he turned to look at Jessa. “No. We’re just friends. I don’t actually live here. I’m from D.C.” And then he glanced at me again, his eyes flitting away quickly.
“That’s too bad. If you were my brother-in-law, you would have to let me drive your car.”
He hummed, playing along with Jessa. “I can guarantee you, if I was your brother-in-law, I would not feel the need to loan you my car.”
Jessa turned to look at me. “He’s pretty cool,” she said as though I was waiting for her blessing.
I smiled and looked out the window. Keegan was a number of things, and able to keep up with my little sister was definitely one of them. I supposed that did make him cool in some sense.
I thanked Keegan when he dropped us off right in front of the Art Institute, and he lowered his window, resting his arm there. “I’ll meet you in front of my building at five. Will that give you enough time?”
“Sure.” It was already pushing lunchtime, and not even I wanted to endure too many hours of Jessa complaining about being forced to expand her horizons.
Jessa and I didn’t make it any farther than the third floor of the museum, and that was after bypassing the first and second floors in search of the Terzo Piano. Jessa was starving. I couldn’t say I wasn’t hungry too, and seeing as we had dinner plans with Keegan that evening, getting lunch out of the way first seemed reasonable, even if I was fairly certain Jessa was just trying to avoid the museum.
The moment the maître d’ sat us, I started unwinding my scarf from around my neck and shrugged out of my fleece jacket.
“So…you’re having sex with him.” Jessa blurted out the statement as our waitress’s eyes bulged. The poor woman nearly spilled the water she was pouring for us.
I said nothing, but I glared at Jessa as I waited for the woman to leave.
“Oh, come on!” Jessa spat out the moment we were alone again. “I’m your sister. I’m literally your only living relative, and you won’t talk to me about this?”
“You’re seventeen. It would be inappropriate.”
“Oh bullshit.” Jessa was silent for a moment. “You used to talk to me.” The accusation in her tone was unmistakable, but the seriousness of it was too.
“I talk—”
“No. Like
really
talk to me. You don’t do that anymore.”
I looked away for a moment. She was right. Of course she was right.
“Don’t you remember when we were kids?”
I looked back at Jessa. Her expression was intense, concerned even. This was Jessa dropping the attitude, and when she did that, there was reason.
“You’d always tell me things when we were kids.”
“That’s different.”
“It is not. I’m still your sister, and I’m not a child.”
“You are actually,” I said sarcastically.
“Not according to the State of Wisconsin.”
I sighed, staring at her for a moment. “Fine. Yes, I did sleep with him. But it was a mistake.”
“Mistake,” Jessa repeated. “The man drives a Q70, is hot, clearly thinks I’m cool, and is obviously attracted to you.”
“Attraction really isn’t our problem.”
“Then what is?”
“Pretty much everything else.” There was no humor to my tone, no sarcasm whatsoever, and Jessa studied me seriously as I forced a smile to my face when our waitress returned to take our drink order.
We ate in silence, and Jessa didn’t try to perpetuate the conversation. She also didn’t bring it up as we wandered through the Art Institute Museum, the Field Museum, or even the Museum of Science and Industry. And by the time we were pulling up in front of Trump Tower, I’d spent a small fortune on cabs, and Jessa was near tears.
“Why do museums have to be so big? I can’t walk any farther,” she whined. “Carry me. I swear I don’t weigh that much.”
The cabbie eyed her strangely in the rearview mirror as I smiled apologetically.
Keegan was standing by the curb at the ridiculously grand entrance to the building, and the moment Jessa stepped out of the cab, her eyes went skyward.
“Whoa…” she exclaimed as she looked up along the tall glass spire that jutted up into the sky.
Keegan walked beside Jessa through the lobby as her eyes continued to bounce around.
“What floor are you on?” she asked excitedly.
“Uh…eighty-one.”
“How many bedrooms?” She was nearly tripping over her feet as she walked. I was following behind them.
“Two.”
“Square feet?”
Keegan cocked his head and looked over his shoulder at me as his brow arched.
“She’s going through an HGTV phase,” I offered.
“Ah…who hasn’t?” When he turned back to Jessa beside him, he humored her curiosity. “A little under two thousand I’m told. Keep in mind I don’t actually own this place. It’s on lease through the men I’m working for.”
“Where can I get a job like that?” Jessa asked emphatically.
He laughed.
“No, I’m serious, for real serious. Whatever you do, I’m sure I can do it too.”
I chuckled as I stepped up next to them at the elevators. “It requires the gift of persuasion, dear. You don’t possess that.” I smirked at her.
“Sure I do. I’m persuasive.”
“You’re demanding,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Keegan leaned down to speak directly with her. “Don’t worry. I’m not that persuasive. I can’t get your sister to do anything I want her to do.” He glanced up at me, winking.
I rolled my eyes and then stepped into the arriving elevator.
He used his key fob to access the right floor, and once we’d made it all the way up to the eighty-first floor, he led us down the hall to his unit. I wasn’t quite prepared for what we walked into. Now, I’d been in one of the hotel units about a gazillion floors below this one, and they were, without doubt, very nice. But this? This was just plain bullshit.
I followed Jessa down the foyer hall. All I could see was sky through the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran along the angled exterior living room wall. I’d never been up this high, and it was every bit like the notion of being in the clouds that one could imagine. I stopped still when I entered the living room with its tall ceilings and open kitchen sitting off to the left, and I just stared.
Jessa made a beeline to the nearest door and disappeared. Keegan’s hand found my lower back as he stepped up beside me, but he cleared his throat and pulled his hand back just as quickly as he’d placed it there.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“Wow is what happens when you actually walk up to the windows.” He passed me, crossing the room to the long angled wall of glass. I followed him, stepping to his side and looking down.
“Wow,” I whispered again.
I could see the Chicago River far below. My eyes followed it eastward. Navy Pier was visible, stretching out into Lake Michigan, and dark storm clouds were building out over the horizon.
“Yes,” I heard Jessa say from the other room. “I like this. An office nook here. That’s a very good use of space.”
“Where is she?” I asked Keegan absently, still staring at the view.
“My bedroom.”
“Oh!” I said in alarm as I turned and headed toward the door. “I’m sorry. She shouldn’t—”
He stopped me still with a hand on my upper arm. “She’s fine.”
I looked up at him. We were standing entirely too close, and his fingers tightened as he studied me. But he stepped back moments later, politely giving me space. He seemed to be going out of his way not to cross any physical boundaries with me, and I wasn’t sure if that upset me or was a relief. I understood it, of course. We had come to some sort of truce the week before, and if nothing else, I did trust that he wasn’t going to use what had happened between us to influence David in some way, but being physically attracted to someone who was going out of their way not to touch me was, in many ways, offensive.
“Double walk-ins.” Jessa was still talking from the other room. “I love the angle of the exterior wall in here. And more floor-to-ceiling windows…”
“She’s probably going to go through your personal items too. Just so you know.”
He nodded as he smiled. When he turned and walked to the kitchen, I followed and stood at the large kitchen island.
“Can I help?”
“No. Everything’s done.”
He pulled a casserole dish out of the oven and set it on the counter. “Cherry-and-orange-stuffed pork loin.” He glanced up at me as he started slicing through the meat. “Please tell me you’re not Jewish.”
I smiled. “No.”
Jessa crossed the living room to the opposite side and entered another door. She didn’t even bother speaking to us.