Enter The Black Oak: Chapter 9

“BABY…”

My eyes open to the sight of silvery early-morning daylight peeking through the drawn curtains in the living room.

I slowly awaken to find Jack crouching down next to me, freshly showered and naked from the waist up, a white towel wrapped low around his hips. His thick muscles flex as he leans towards me and droplets of water trickle down his blond hair and onto the light caramel of his neck. Despite my grogginess, my sex tingles at the sight of him as shimmering beads of water run down his sculpted chest, over his nipples, down the pronounced grooves of his abs and onto the towel that hides his large manhood. The sight of the man in just a towel is still unbearably arousing. Being in such close proximity to his warrior-like body feels like trying to resist some high-tech magnet pulling me in against my will.

Despite being half-tempted to ask him to make love to me just to relieve the yearning in my core, the touch of his hand caressing my face leaves me sitting up and pushing it away gently.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“About seven-thirty. You were so out of it when I came in I thought it best just to let you sleep.”

“Thanks,” I whisper, filling the gaping chasm between us.

“Jess, you didn’t take anything to sleep, did you?”

“You’re kidding, right? I’ve barely slept in a week. I could sleep in the middle of Times Square.”

He perches on the edge of the sofa next to me and tucks a wavy strand of my long chocolate-brown hair behind my ears. As I sit up, the skinny strap of my T-shirt falls down around my elbow, revealing my braless cleavage. As I pull the strap up quickly, Jack’s hungry eyes flit down to my breasts before meeting my gaze again. I swallow hard and pull the blanket around me, trying to ignore the restrained longing in his face.

“You need to get up and get dressed, beautiful. Joseph will be here in about an hour. I gave him a call last night. I have to go meet someone. Will you be okay?”

“Of course,” I nod, not totally sure what okay feels like anymore.

After taking a shower and eating half a papaya for breakfast, I see Jack off.

A while later there’s a knock at the door and I run to open it, excited to see Joseph. Instead, I find Sean standing on the other side of the doorway.

“Um, hi!” I exclaim in surprise.

“Hey. Sorry, my dad wasn’t feeling a hundred percent this morning, so I told him to stay home. I’ll finish the job myself. I hope that’s okay?” He raises both eyebrows adorably.

“Of course! Come in! Your experience yesterday didn’t put you off?”

“Put me off? Try spending a day with an Irish family in Brooklyn. The WASP-y stuff is nothing in comparison, believe me.”

“Oh, God, I’ve never been called that before,” I groan, beckoning him in.

He takes his jacket off to reveal pale skin and tight muscles under a short-sleeved white T-shirt with a grey stain on the front. He’s wearing ripped blue jeans and a thick leather belt that you can attach tools to. He looks a hot, grimy mess and frankly there’s something refreshing about it when you spend most of your time surrounded by men in designer suits.

“We’ve left everything the way it was so you shouldn’t have any trouble. Do you want a drink?” I ask as we head over to the kitchen.

“Still trying to get me drunk?”

“Well, let’s get the pipes done first and then we can break out the booze…”

His eyes sparkle mischievously.

“Just kidding. Tea? Water?” I offer.

“Water’s fine.”

“Still or sparkling?”

“I’m flattered you’re asking. Where I’m from, sparkling is what you drink at funerals. Do investment bankers not drink tap water anymore?”

I wonder if it was Joseph who told his son what Jack and I do…

“Um, no, we’re a champagne-only lot… in between lines of coke and caviar eaten off our assistant’s asses,” I jest.

“Well, that sounds fun. You feeling better today? You look better.”

“Yeah”—I serve him a glass of spring water—“I just needed a good night’s sleep.”

“Did you get it?”

“I fell into a coma on the sofa again and didn’t wake up till the morning,” I respond as I make myself a cup of matcha.

“Your husband didn’t drag you into bed?”

“Uh, no.”

“Nice of him,” he responds, a sliver of sarcasm hanging in the air.

“I hope he wasn’t rude to you yesterday? I mean, on the phone when I was asleep.”

“He’s a straight-shooter, I’ll give him that. I take it he doesn’t like seeing men like me in his house.”

“What do you mean, men like you?”

“Well, I guess I mean from the wrong side of the tracks. Well, more like wrong side of the bridge.”

“No, that’s not it. I guess he can just be kind of an asshole to a lot of people in general, to be honest.”

He rubs his freshly shaven jaw, an expression of wicked amusement animating his face. “Did that line make the wedding vows?”

I try not to laugh. “No, I mean he can be— He’s a very self-confident guy. Doesn’t really care what other people think of him. He just says what’s on his mind all the time.”

“That’s one way of looking at it I guess.”

“He does have some redeeming features…”

I shrug at the skeptical look Sean shoots me, realizing that I best not start discussing my husband with a near-perfect stranger. “Look, I’ll let you get on with things… unless you need my help?”

“I’ll let you know, miss.”

With that, I head to the study, sit down at my computer and read through an article I’ve been writing that I just can’t focus on enough to finish. I make half-hearted attempts to add another few lines until I realize that I hate every single sentence and frantically press the Delete key in disgust. My feet drum the floor as I flick through the research material I prepared, but within minutes my mind is darting again, dragged into skin-crawling thoughts about Jack and his lovers, wondering what he did with them, where they had sex, whether he brought one of them back here while I was recovering in hospital last month. I jump to my feet and start to pace around the study, pleading with the sadistic element of my mind that keeps torturing me with these nightmarish flashbacks to just let me be so I can get back to my once-productive life.

To no avail.

As I torment myself further, it hits me that I have no real clue where Jack is now. For all I know, he could be screwing Lydia’s brains out this very second… or another woman’s. And short of me turning up at his work like some sort of pathetic, insecure loser, there’s nothing I can do to ever really be at peace again. My nerves rattle as I realize that I may never feel at ease when he is away from me again. And that is not a way that I am willing to live.

I pick up my phone to call Maddie but put it down again. She warned me not to take him back, after all. I can’t exactly complain to her now. Despite my husband being nothing but gentle, devoted and just frankly ridiculously perfect since the second I agreed to try to work things out, the hope I felt those first few days is waning and, in its place, a seeping wound is forming. I need to know everything: every detail of every encounter, how many times, when, where, what position, what they said to each other—everything—until his affairs are exorcised from my mind. Either that or I need to never see him again.

Sean’s voice shatters my descent into madness. “Jess?”

I regain my composure in a hurry and leave the study. “Hey. Need anything?” I ask, feigning composure in full-on Stepford wife mode.

“Well, if you’re not too busy, I was wondering if I could take you up on your offer.”

“Offer?”

“To be my plumbing assistant. I need someone to hold something in place while I seal some joints.”

The unexpected jolt back to the prosaic reality of plumbing is a welcome relief. “Of course.”

Back in the kitchen, Sean lies down on his back, positioning his head through the open cupboard door under the sink. “Can you hold this pipe in place while I seal the joints?” he requests.

I kneel down right next to him so close that my knee is pressing against his chest. He takes my hands and puts them around the new U-bend. The touch of his strong fingers against mine leaves my skin tingling. “Keep a firm grip, okay?”

I swallow hard at his request as he proceeds to do various tightening and securing procedures which leave me wishing I remembered the faintest thing about basic plumbing and promising myself I’ll take a refresher course. He shifts position slightly and I find my left thigh now firmly pressed against his ribcage.

“That’s it. Keep a firm hold.”

Fifteen minutes go by in a flash.

“Okay, we’re done. I see a bright future for you in plumbing, young lady.”

“Oh, sure. I can picture the lawsuits now.”

I feel grateful that, for whatever reason, being near Sean makes me forget about my self-absorbed misery for a brief second—makes me forget the images of Jack and Lydia and whoever AAA is that are emblazoned on my mind like some kind of grotesque picture show playing endlessly in front of my eyes.

“Can I do anything else?” I ask, kind of hoping that he has more use for me so that I can avoid finding myself alone with just my lethal thoughts for company.

I don’t know why I feel safe with Sean. I feel more than safe. For some reason, I trust him way more than I should for someone I’ve known a little over twenty-four hours. Maybe it’s because of the way he carries himself; he looks like the kind of guy that’s been around the block more than once and seen enough of life not to judge other people. His face is youthful and vital, but his energy and the knowing way he looks at me are the marks of a man that is worldly and wise—the type that would be unfazed about predictable bullshit like affairs among investment bankers.

“I could always do with some help, but, uh, you getting a taste for washers and damp clothes?”

“Well, it never hurts to learn about plumbing. Plus, I’ve got writer’s block. It’s driving me up the wall. I could just… pass you stuff?”

“I’d be glad of the help.”

I spend the next hour sitting next to him, passing him tools and bits of plumbing accessories, the names of some of which I’d never heard before. I bring him water, get a small bandage for a cut on his finger, pass him a cloth, all the while alternating between moments of prolonged, remarkably comfortable silence and moments where he makes me laugh so much that I have to tell him to stop.

I glance at my watch. Somehow it’s already midday.

“Do you want some lunch?” I ask as he finishes replacing the old water-stained boards.

“I’ve brought a sandwich. I usually just eat on the job.”

“I’ve got some black bean patties I need to finish and a kale salad and some buckwheat bread my friend made me—gluten-free. I could make a burger.”

“Buckwheat bread? Is that meant to tempt me in or put me off?”

“Come on. Wash up and sit.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As he tucks into the burger and salad at our kitchen table, he glances at me as I pick at my food opposite him. “Not hungry?”

“Um, no.” The bountiful appetite I usually have seems to have vanished and I now find myself consciously reminding myself to eat.

As he wipes his lips and brings a glass of water to them, it strikes me how rough-around-the-edges hot he is, how alive his kind but playful eyes are, how much character he has in his face and how scrappy he looks. He doesn’t quite have the intensely muscular physique or the dangerous stare of Jack, but his body is still something to behold nonetheless.

“A lot of tattoos you’ve got there,” I remark as I survey his arms, forcing myself to eat some of the salad.

“Yeah. I started young.”

“How old?”

“About twelve.”

“Twelve?!”

“My degenerate cousin gave me my first tattoo.”

“Didn’t your parents go nuts?”

“Well, my dad was kind of going through his own stuff that year.” He takes a deep breath. “My mom died the year before.” He lifts his T-shirt sleeve to reveal the name Brenna tattooed on his right arm surrounded by the silhouette of a flock of birds in flight. “That was my first tattoo.”

“I’m so sorry, Sean. Losing your mother that young, it must have been… very hard.”

“She was a good woman. She loved us very much—me and my sister.”

“Of course.”

“After that, anything important in my life, I marked with a tattoo.” His face is solemn until he suddenly shrugs. “Or sometimes I would just get absolutely wasted and wake up with random shit on me.”

“Well, who doesn’t?” I deadpan.

“You have any?”

“No.”

“I guess it wouldn’t go down well with the Park Avenue set,” he says coolly.

“No. I mean, I don’t care about that. I’m not exactly part of the Park Avenue set. I’ve just never had the desire. Besides, there are so many skeletons in those closets, tattoos are the least of their concerns.”

“No kidding.”

“And anyway, most of my friends are— They don’t wear pearls and twinsets if you know what I mean.”

“Glad to hear it.”

As Sean’s delicate gaze wanders over my cheeks and onto my lips, the hairs on my arms stand on end and a fluttering in my stomach leaves me sitting bolt upright.

“How about your friends? Are they from around here?” I ask, finishing off my salad.

“Yeah. Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx. Working-class boys and girls. You’d see them working as doormen or busboys in this neighborhood,” he says, with an unmistakable hint of bitterness in his voice. He pushes his empty plate to the side and picks up his cup of tea, both elbows leaning on the table. “Do you have a lot of friends around here?”

“Enough,” I reply.

“From this neighborhood?”

“Some of them. There are some decent people around here,” I say, unsure why I feel the need to justify myself. I sense that Sean has some kind of issue with the people in this moderately affluent neighborhood.

“I know that. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like a bitch. It’s just that sometimes when you’re in this area dressed like this, you get treated like some criminal sub-species.”

“Jack?”

He smiles. “He was far from the worst of it. From what I gather, most of his behavior comes from the fact that he’s clearly madly in love with his wife, which makes him act like a jealous asshole.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, there are far more criminals around here, only these ones dress in designer suits.”

“No kidding. It’s worse on the other side of the park.”

The apartment Jack and I share is on Central Park West on the Upper West Side, overlooking the northern part of the park. The neighborhood isn’t cheap by any means but retains a lot of down-to-earth qualities. On the other side of the park stands an entirely different neighborhood whose apartments have a very different price tag—Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side.

“Over there, you either get treated like pond scum or you get horny rich ladies in pearls assuming you’ll jump at the chance of getting into the sack with them,” he continues.

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“Often?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Tell me.”

“One time a women literally waited ten seconds after her husband left before putting her hands on… on me.”

“Have you ever taken any of them up on the offer?”

“Not this year. I don’t have a problem with feeling like a piece of meat, but after a while, it’s a little soul-destroying. It’s one of the reasons I moved out of the family business and became a paramedic.”

“Oh sure.” I cock an eyebrow. “If there’s one thing that turns a woman off, it’s a hot man in uniform coming to her rescue.”

He smiles. “And how about you? You work in investment banking, right?”

“Yeah. Well, I did. I broke my ankle in a skiing accident a few years ago. I finally had the pins removed a few weeks ago so I’m taking some time off just to let myself heal properly and figure out what I want to do.”

“You want to leave banking?”

“I think so. I kind of fell into it by accident.”

“How so?”

“I studied Environmental Science with a minor in Business Administration. When I got together with Jack, he was a trader on Wall Street. Jack and his boss thought I had potential in banking for some reason and convinced me to come work for them. I did some training with them and ended up in client acquisitions.”

“Is Jack still a trader?”

“Um, no. He’s VP now.”

“Wow, he’s a fast worker. How old is he, like thirty?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“He seems like a confident guy.”

“Yeah, he’s a little—” I sigh and empty the contents of the teapot into Sean’s mug. “Best just ignore him frankly. He’s clearly kind of territorial. You know, like a baboon or something.”

“I’m guessing you and your husband don’t get to Brooklyn often?”

“Actually, Jack’s from Brooklyn. Crown Heights.”

Sean frowns in wide-eyed incredulity as if the idea is the most ludicrous concept he’s ever heard in his life. “You’re kidding, right?”

“He was born there and raised there most of his childhood. His whole extended family’s from there—the old-school Brooklyn, Queens. He moved to Manhattan when he was about ten years old. His father got a job managing security for a wealthy family here and they ended up becoming close. After Jack’s mom fell ill, the family kind of took the whole Wilder bunch in—Jack and his brothers. They paid for him to go to private school here.”

“Must have been one hell of a school. That accent is not Brooklyn.”

He’s not kidding. Jack couldn’t look more Upper-East-Side-raised if he tried. It’s not just the accent, the long, healthy limbs, the expensive clothes or the striking face, but the confidence, the attitude, the assertive way he carries himself. He is so at ease with the richest, most powerful people in the city who are so much in his thrall that they have no clue that he isn’t really one of them. If they saw the vicious, brutal animal that comes out when he’s in grimy underground fight clubs with tattooed, scarred and bruised men, I doubt they’d even recognize him.

“Yeah, I know,” I concede. “He certainly looks the part. He goes back to Brooklyn a lot. He still works out there most weekends, sees his friends, family.”

“And you? Do you get over the bridge often?”

“Yeah, I love Brooklyn. I go with Jack when he goes to the gym or when we visit his family. I haven’t been over in a few weeks though.”

He takes a deep breath and clears his throat. “Well, my, uh, sister and her band are playing a concert there tomorrow night… at an Irish bar, if you wanted to stop by…”

He grins cutely and I find myself blushing awkwardly at the invitation.

“Um, thanks, Sean. Really, I’d love to, but… I think we have plans tomorrow night,” I lie.

I’m not fond of lying, but apart from the fact that Jack would lose his shit if I went there with Sean, I don’t need any more drama in my life right now, even if the idea of getting out of Manhattan excites me no end. I spot a flicker of disappointment on Sean’s handsome face and know instantly that what I’m doing is dangerous. The truth is that I’m so hurt by Jack’s infidelities that I’m looking to find a distraction—anything—to stay the rage tormenting me. I can’t lead him on anymore.

“Did you enjoy the kale?” I ask in a clumsy attempt to change the subject.

“The best rabbit food I’ve ever had,” he smiles, slightly subdued.

“Good.” I stand up and carry our plates to the dishwasher. “I’ll have to crack on with my work.”

“Good luck—with the writer’s block.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll let you know when I’m finished. It shouldn’t be too long. I won’t need to come back tomorrow… unfortunately.” He meets my eyes again and his gaze sends a buzz into me, forcing me to look away for a second. I smile at him, heat rising in my cheeks, and walk back to my office where I once again can’t concentrate, though this time it’s for a different reason: my body is suddenly fizzing with energy and where I once saw Lydia’s face, Sean’s eyes now gaze back at me.

Christ, what’s wrong with me?

In the three years I’ve been with Jack—even before we were married—I’ve never so much as looked at another man in that manner. Jack has always been more than enough to keep me occupied in every possible way. The idea of spending a second even thinking about another man would have been totally implausible. And now there’s a bump in the road and I’m losing my self-control.

You’re such a cliché, I yell at myself internally. The plumber? Come on, man!

Lord, tell me I’m not one of those shameless women he was just talking about… I cringe at the ridiculously clichéd fantasy—the scorned Manhattan wife lusting after the hot, dirty Brooklyn plumber.

I groan at myself and try to return to my article, though can’t seem to think of a single coherent sentence to write.

I pick up the phone and call the one person who’ll understand.

“Hi, Stell. Are you free to go out for a drink tonight?”