I was still kicking myself the next morning for agreeing to dinner at Trevor’s house.  We resolved nothing, other than the time I would arrive that the address I’d be going to.  But, if nothing else, I’d get a bit of closure to our somewhat effed up situation.

Desperate for something to do and deciding it would be nice to bring over a gift for Emma.  I wasn’t sure if I would see her later, but I thought a plate of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies might be nice.  I loved these as a little girl when our housekeeper, Mary, made them, so I figured she might like them as well.

I was placing mounds of dough on a cookie sheet when the back door opened into my kitchen and the familiar head of my ex-best friend came through the door.

I turned my attention back to the cookie dough and tried to ignore the man standing behind me.  I had moved onto the second cookie sheet before Jackson worked up the nerve to say anything.

“I know I’m on your shit list and I absolutely deserve to be there, but could I explain?”

“Jackson, I’m not really sure there is anything to explain.”  I put the full cookie sheet into the oven and set the timer on the microwave to seventeen minutes.  

“Ken, you are my best friend.  I can’t stand you being mad at me, even when I deserve it.  I’m really worried that this time I’ve completely fucked this up.”  Jackson’s voice wavers and that breaks my heart.  There have only been a few times where Jackson has let his feelings show and hearing those emotions now does a lot to smooth away the hurt I feel.  

I lean against the counter and hope for some kind of divine intervention to help me with this dilemma.  I have every right to be pissed, at several people, but it seems I just don’t have it in my heart to hold it against any of them for very long.

“Please, Kennedy.”

I turn and face Jackson.  His hair is a complete mess, sticking up in every direction.  His face is covered what looks to be a week’s worth of stubble.  And his clothes look like he slept in them.  He’s a complete mess.

“I forgive you, Jack…”

I can’t finish saying his name before a brick wall resembling his body comes flying at him and encases me in a hug.  I wind my arms around his neck in an effort to hold on.

I can hear Jackson whispering “thank you, thank you, thank you,” as he holds me.  We’ve fought before and have even gone months without speaking because of some ridiculous fight here or there, so I’m a little taken aback by this sudden neediness in Jackson.  It always seemed like it was me needing him and not the other way around.

I stroked my hand down the back of his head and then worked it’s way around to cup his cheek.  Something was definitely up with Jackson and I didn’t know what, but I think it was more than what happened last week.

“Jacks, what’s going on?”  He looked so sad, but happy at the same time.  

All sorts of emotions float across Jackson’s face and I worry that he’s going to tell me he or someone else I love is dying.  He’s never this guy.  The one to get overly emotional and fall apart.  In our relationship, that’s me.  I become a blubbering mess, he picks me up, dries me off and sends me on my way.  This Jackson worries me.

“You know I love you.”  I shake my head, because it’s true, I do know that.  “I wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt you.  I don’t even know what the fuck happened Saturday.”  He moves out of our embrace and starts stalking my kitchen.  “The last thing I remember was the waiter bringing Chet and I another round of beers.  After that things get kinda fuzzy.”

He paces a few more times and then stops in front of me.  “You believe me, right?”

“Yes, Jackson, I believe you.  But what do you mean things are fuzzy?”

“I don’t know, it’s all weird.”  He paced a few more steps and turned back to me.  “You didn’t feel weird or anything?”

“Oh, I felt weird,” I tell him.  “Imagine sitting next to the woman who took great pleasure in telling me my fiancé loved fucking her in the ass while he gave her a run down on how boring I was in bed.”

Jackson cringed.  He knew exactly what that bitch did to me.

“Do you think someone put something in your drink?”

“I don’t know,” he started the pacing again, which was making me nervous.  “Of course, I can’t get ahold of your dumb ass brother to see if he experienced the same thing.  But something doesn’t add up and it’s making me nervous.”

The timer on the microwave sounds and I pull out the baked sheet of cookies, replacing it with the next set to be cooked.  They looked and smelled delicious, but contemplating eating the entire tray of cookies probably wasn’t for the best when I had my best friend close to destroying the flooring in my kitchen with his incessant pacing.

“Are those oatmeal chocolate chip?”  Jackson momentarily forgot about last Saturday and fixated on the cookies I was moving over onto the cooling rack.

“Yep.  Do you want one?”

“Who are you making these for?  You haven’t made them in forever.”

“I’m going over to Trevor’s tonight for dinner and I thought they would make a nice treat for his daughter.”

At the mention of Trevor’s name, I could practically see the light bulb go off over Jackson’s head.  

“Did Trevor mention anything to you about feeling weird?”

“Jackson, we’ve barely spoken all week.”

“What?  What do you mean?”

“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”

###

After sharing what my week of hell had been like, including feeling like both he and Chet had just abandoned me, Jackson sat back on the couch in the family room with his hands covering his face.  

“So last night, he asked if we could start over and I agreed to dinner at his house.  Thus the cookies for his daughter.”

“I really wish you had called me.”  I opened my mouth to speak, but he stopped me with his hand waving in the air.  “I know why you didn’t, but I really wish you had.  Maybe we could have figured this out a lot sooner.  The only reason I knew you were pissed at me is because Roberta called and screamed at me.”

“She called and screamed at your two days ago, you ass.”

“I was scared?” He said as a question and then winked at me.  We both started laughing and I knew things between us were going to be ok.  It didn’t explain why Jackson can’t really remember what happened that night, but we’re ok and I guess that’s all that matters right now.

Jackson ate a few more cookies and went on to tell me what else he had done this week.  Jackson’s job as a lawyer to come of Hollywood’s hottest actors had him involved in some weird stuff.  I only got small bits of information and never who it was he was talking about (although I did enjoy trying to guess who he was talking about).  

“And I finalized your favorite person’s divorce.”

“Oh happy days,” I exclaimed with fake enthusiasm.  Will is an ass and it won’t be long before his Mr. Perfect ass does something stupid again.  “Do you have the women lined up to be the next ex-Mrs. Meecham?”

“You’re very funny, ya know that?”  

“I’ve gotta ask.  You know I always enjoy getting my name dragged through the tabloids, again, when he can’t keep his dick in his pants.”

Jackson knew I hated being tied to Will.  When Will and I split, the tabloids thanks to Will’s publicist and manager tried to crucify me as the party doing the injuring.  When that happened, some of Will’s overzealous followers decided to take matters into their own hands and come after me.  My store windows were broken, my car vandalized and I was attacked a few times when I tried to forego the security my dad had hired.  It was a nightmare and each time the tabloids bring it up again, some kind of craziness occurs.

“He’s pretty serious about this role.  He’s been studying, if you can believe it, concert footage of Nirvana so he can get into his characters head.”

Will was a good actor, something not a lot of people give him credit for because of this other antics.  There’s a reason his serious roles always have Oscar buzz.  

“Good for him.  He always did take his work seriously.  It’s just everything else that he tosses aside.”

“OK,” Jackson says as he gets up and takes his plate into the kitchen.  “That’s enough Jackson bashing.  I may hate some of the things that he’s done, especially to you, but he’s still a close friend.”

I say no more.  This is an area where Jackson and I will also disagree.  But I won’t be one of those people that forces their friends to choose sides.  

Jackson walks to the back door and opens it.  Then stops and turns back to me.

“So will you do me a favor tonight while you’re at the great Lord’s house?”

I roll my eyes at him.  There are times when he truly is a dumb ass.

“Could you ask him if things about Saturday are fuzzy?  There has to be more to this than we think.”

“I will and I’ll let you know what he says.”

“Thanks, Baby Girl.”

I watch Jackson walk down the back step and wonder if he’s right and if there’s more going on here.

There comes a time in every woman’s life that she wonder what the hell happened to cause her to be in whatever situation she finds herself in.  For me, Kennedy McArthur, it’s laying behind a curtained triage area having to explain to a somewhat hot looking ER doctor why I was here.

“I understand,” Doctor Hottie says, “this is embarrassing, but I really need to know what happened.”

I look to my left, where my best friend and accomplice in my latest disaster, Jackson, sat.  He was trying unsuccessfully to keep his laughter in.

“I’m sorry, Ken.  I know you’re in a lot of pain, but the visual is still with me and it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

I glared at my ex-best friend through watery eyes and wondered why I ever thought having a guy for a best friend was a good idea.  Sure, he could lug heavy boxes for me, was honest with me when I looked like shit in something and beat the piss out of a few guys that broke my heart, but when I wanted compassion and someone to cry with, Jackson Buris was not that person.

“Please don’t mind him,” I said to the doctor as he waited patiently for my description of what happened.  “I fell from a four foot ladder.”

I figured that was as succinct an explanation as any.  I had most definitely been on a ladder and it was four feet high, but I was positive the doctor really didn’t need to know that I had fallen while trying to replicate an eighties music video sex kitten move from the top of the ladder.  

“Fell?”  Jackson yelled out.  “Fell is far from what you did, Ken.”  

I looked the doctor for a little it of sympathy.  I was in a lot of pain, not only from the elbow she was fairly certain was going to be broken, again, but from the sheer humiliation at the epic fail from the move.  A move I would have pulled off, like the hundred of times before, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I swear I a saw my “sneaking out during the middle of the night” ex-boyfriend lurking outside the storefront window.

Just the thought that the asshole could be back in the area just put a cherry on the top of an utterly craptastic day.  And now to explain all of this to the doctor.  May the earth swallow me whole.

Looking at Doctor Hottie and then at my smirking best friend, I gave in.  “I fell.  I fell from a ladder on which I was screwing around.  Something I’ve done numerous times without incident.  And to save the tiny shred of humility that I have left, that is the only explanation you are going to get.”

Doctor Hottie looked at the tablet that was in his hand and then grabbed a stool and sat down.  “You have an olecranon fracture.”  He maneuvers his tablet to show me the x-ray of my arm.  “You can see the break here.”

Jackson is suddenly very serious as he leans over the bed to see what the doctor is showing me. 

“I’m proposing we surgically repair the break, since this is the second time you’ve broken this particular bone.”

Jackson’s barely whispered “oh shit,” pretty much summed up how I was feeling.  I didn’t know if I wanted to cry, but hearing Jackson made me think crying was probably for the best in a case like this.

“I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear, but the only way we can make sure we correctly set the bone.”

Trying very hard to hold back any tears, I look at the doctor pleadingly willing him to give me the answer I was looking for.

“If you want full range of motion, this is what we need to do.”

Jackson grabbed my hand and squeezed it.  I turned to him, knowing he was going to give me the strength I need for this.  

“I’m with you, Ken.  Whatever help you need, I’ll be there for you baby girl. 

#####

“Try Angus cheeseburgers.  One hundred percent Angus beef.”

I stare at the woman pushing frozen cheeseburgers and wonder just how I ended up at Costco to buy a bag of dog food for my aunt.  When Aunt Trudy called to ask for a favor, I figured it was something easy.  I mean, the entire family knows my left arm is in a cast from my bicep down to the middle of my hand.  So I was positive the favor was going to be easy.

WRONG!

I let my elderly aunt guilt me into buying her damn demon dog’s food.  

Pushing the cart past the horde waiting for their lunchtime bite of a frozen cheeseburger, I work my way towards the back wall where all the pet products are kept.  I’m hoping, since the demon dog is an eight pound Chihuahua, I’ll be able to pick up this dog food with only one arm.  

As I browse the giant bags of dog food lined up against the back wall in giant piles, I can see Aunt Trudy has completely pulled the wool over my eyes.  And while I’m pissed that I let myself get talked into this stupid fucking errand, I’m even more pissed at Jackson who is the sole reason I’m on this trip.

As I stare at the bags, I fantasize about what kind of torture I could inflict on a certain someone.  As if by magic, my cell phone begins to play “Gold Digger”, alerting me to Jackson Burris’ call.

He knows I’m pissed, because he begins ass kissing as soon as I pick up.

“Ken, I’m sorry.  I know I promised to help you, but I couldn’t get out of this deposition.”

“Did you know she needed me to pick up a forty pound bag of dog food?” I growl into the phone.  “How the fuck am I supposed to pick the stupid bag up to pay for it, let alone get it into my car?”

“Baby girl, I’m sorry.  I would have done this for Trudy, but she said she was out and I couldn’t put off this deposition.  You know how long I’ve been working on this case.”

“And by case I’m guessing your talking about Mr. Wonderful’s divorce from Mrs. Perfect.  You’d think he would push things back in order for you to help me, but of course he always comes first.”

Mr. Wonderful is Will Meecham, Hollywood super star and everyone’s favorite action hero.  Jackson and I have known Will since we were ten years.  We all went to the Maris Academy, the very private school for the rich and famous to dump their children.  Will, son of baseball great Scott Meecham, always thought he was more important than everyone else because of his father’s fame, despite the fact that Jackson’s father was the CEO of the world’s largest computer company and my mother was and still is the Chairperson of the Federal Reserve.

Despite Will’s holier than thou attitude, Jackson and he became good friends.    By default, that meant I spent a lot of time with Will.  We didn’t like sharing Jackson and often times fought over who he spent more times with.  The final nail in our “not friends” coffin was during my senior year at Cambridge when Will’s mouth caused the worst moment in my life.  

“Ken, I’m just trying to get this finished.  I’ve got his publicist and manager breathing down my neck to get this done.  I’m not putting anyone before anyone else, but I have to be able to do my job.”  It’s quiet for a moment and then I hear Jackson sigh.  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I’m not there to help you.”

“Yeah, whatever.  Listen, I need to figure out how to take care of this without breaking something else.  I’ll talk to you later, ok?”

“I’m really sorry, baby girl.”

Instead of saying anything else, I throw my phone into my purse.  There has to be a way to channel my anger over this ridiculous situation into the strength I need to haul this big as bag of demon dog food into the cart.  

After spending a minute looking at the offending bag and the cart, I decide to go for it.  Pulling the bag at the top towards the edge of the pile, I maneuver the cart closer to the pile,  I figure I have one shot at getting this bag into the cart without embarrassing myself.

“One.  Two.  Three.”  

I grab the bag and wedge it between my body and my good arm.  “Good.” I say to myself as I stand for a moment.  I turn slightly preparing to lift the bag up higher and get it into the cart.  As I move my arm to bring the bag up, the bag starts moving the opposite direction. 

“Oh shit!”  My body follows the bag as it hits the floor.

“Can I help you?”

I look up to find a throw bag to the nineties grunge era.  A man, in a red and gray flannel shirt, ripped and frayed jeans that were so worn they appeared to be molded to his thighs stood on the other side of my cart.  He was giving off a very Kurt Cobain vibe that had me wondering just what he happened to be doing at Costco.

“I’m sorry?”  Yes, I’m an idiot.

“Can I help you?  With that very large bag of dog food currently holding you hostage?”

I looked down at the offending bag and bag up at my grungy angel.  “Yeah, I guess I need some help.”

He shook his head, his blonde hair floating in front of his face, chuckling as he bent down and picked up the bag and tossed it into the cart.  Then he leaned down, placing his hand under my right armpit and picked me up off the floor.

“So how does someone with her left arm completely in a cast get sent to a warehouse store for a bag of dog food?”  

The smile that spreads across his face is infectious.  I look at this man, my savior, and smile.  In a matter of seconds, he’s completely obliterated my embarrassment at this stupid situation.  

“How about for saving me, I tell you my sad story over a cheap hot dog and soda?”

“So your aunt guilted you into buying dog food?”

My grunge angel, now know as Trevor, sat across from me on the metal picnic tables that make up the seating area at the Costco snack bar.  His entire face was lit up as I told the story of how I ended up on the floor with a bag of dog food on top of me.

“I was, but I’m placing the blame on Jackson.  He should made time to buy it for her when she first asked him.”

“So this Jackson,” Trevor asked as he picked at this hot dog.  “He’s just your mate?”

I smiled at the question, because it was one that we were both asked over and over again.  

“Our families are strangely intertwined.  It’s been that way since our great grandparents.  Each family somehow ended up marrying into the other.  It was always assumed Jackson and I would do the same thing, but we’re more like brother and sister than anything else.”

Trevor sat thoughtfully for a moment, staring down at his paper plate before looking up at me with that smile that could charm the pants off anyone.  “So you’ve broken the tradition.”

“Yeah, in a way we have.”

“Excellent.  There’s a lot to be said for forging your own path.”

That was an interesting way of looking at the situation.  We had forged our own path, despite the fact both sets of parents pushed for more.  

“So when you aren’t being guilted into buying dog food, what do you do?”

“I own a book store called Bibliophile.  It’s near Paramount Studios on Melrose.”

“A book shop?  That’s fabulous.  I’ve always loved going into the shop near our home.  That new book smell, eh?”

Could this guy get any better?  He helps damsels in distress and loves books.  If weren’t for the somewhat greasy looking hair and all that flannel, I’d be fighting with myself to keep from ripping his clothes off.

“How did you start it?”

“It was one of those things where the stars aligned and I could make it work.  After I graduated from Cambridge ,I came back home trying to figure out what I was going to do with my English degree.  I was in this store all the time, happened to make friends with the older couple that owned it and suddenly I was being offered the opportunity to buy it from them.  After my mother ran the numbers, she decided it was a sound investment and I bought it.”

“How do you like being a shop owner?”

I do I like it?  I fucking loved it.  I loved the freedom I had and the opportunity to prove that I could do this.  I love my mother, but she’s tough and often times unforgiving when it comes to what my ambitions are.  She had raised me to be an independent thinker and to aim high, but our definitions of what ‘high’ was didn’t always match.  

“I love it.  I have a great staff and I’m surrounded by something I love.  It’s hard to feel like I’m working when I’m there.”

And that was the God’s honest truth.  I have always loved books.  My mother has pictures of me when I was young always with a book in my hand.  I was reading before kindergarten and barely removed my noise from a book throughout high school and college.  

“What kind of books do you read?”

I knew Trevor was asking out of curiosity, but this was one of those topics that tended to piss me off, just because of the bias some people have.  I try to steer clear of it.

“I tend to read a bit of everything.  I went to Cambridge because I have a love of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.”  I see Trevor roll his eyes and I understand why.  It seems so cliche, but really these women were able to create characters and storylines that have stood the test of time.  “Don’t roll your eyes, Mr. Ackerly, I love what I love and I won’t apologize.”

Trevor smiled at me and reached across the table touching the fingers of my left hand.  “You should never apologize for being passionate about something.”

The look in his eyes told me this was a man who had needed to defend his passions.  I wanted to know what his passions were.  As I opened my mouth to ask him, an obnoxious ring tone interrupts me.  

“Pardon me a moment, I need to take this.”

As Trevor stands up and walks towards the Tire Center entrance, I can help feeling like I needed to learn more about this man.

###

After my gourmet lunch of a hot dog and soda at Costco with Trevor, I headed back to Aunt Trudy’s house.  As I turn onto her street, I see Jackson’s SUV parked in front of her house.  He promised to meet me there to unload this obnoxious bag of food which could feed the demon dog for about a year.  I figure it’s the least he could do after I got stuck with the task of buying it.

“Hey, baby girl,” he greets me as I get out of the car.  He’s in his standard casual attire of a concert t-shirt, cargo shorts and flip flops.  You’d never know this man was a high powered entertainment lawyer if you saw him like this.  

“The bag’s in the back, DB.”  I tell him as he opens my car door and I pop the lift gate on my SUV.  

“How’d you get the bag back here?”

“I met a very nice guy who saved me from being crushed by this damn bag and then took pity in me by putting it in the back.”

Jackson hauls the bag out of the back, putting it onto his shoulder to carry up to the back porch.  Aunt Trudy was standing there waiting for us.

“Oh, Jackson, thank you for getting that for me.”  She held the door open for him as he walked up the steps.

“Don’t thank me Trudy, Kennedy picked this up for you.”

“Kennedy?”  She looked back to me and then over at Jackson again.  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jackson.  She has a broken arm.  How could she have picked this up?”

And there is the crux of why I was guilted into buying the dog food.  Aunt Trudy was a sweet woman, my dad’s oldest sister, who would always make sure she was there for me when I was younger.  My parents would go between Los Angeles, where my dad was a producer and Washington DC where my mom worked.  So it was my Aunt Trudy who I could lean on when things weren’t going as I wanted at school.  As she’s gotten older she forgets more and more.  So when her request came this morning, even if it was for that damn demon dog, I couldn’t tell her no.

“Jackson’s joking, Aunt Trudy.  He got it for you.”

Jackson dropped the bag on the floor and scowled at me.  I know the scowl, but I wasn’t going to get into this with Trudy, especially since she obviously doesn’t remember the conversation this morning.

Aunt Trudy hugged me and steered me towards the kitchen.  I could smell chocolate chip cookies and wanted very much to sit and eat about two dozen.

“I made some cookies today for you.  I know you can’t do much with your arm being the way it is.”

Trudy pulled a plate down from the cabinet and placed several cookies on it.  She put it down on the table in front of me, tempting me with their deliciousness.

I eat three cookies, without saying a word, savoring their taste and the memories of when Aunt Trudy would make these when I was little.  My birthday was the one my classmates always looked forward to because she would outdo herself with the bake goods she would provide.

“Don’t eat them all, Ken.”

Jackson grabs a cookie out of my hand and shoves it into his mouth before I can react.  It never fails.  “So tell me about this guy,” he asks as he sits down with his beer.

Jackson has always put himself in the role of my protector.  When I was little, he was the one that would kill whatever bug offended my sensibilities or hit whoever made me cry.  As adults, he still maintains that role...despite the fact that I’ve told him I can take care of myself.

“He was a life saver.  That stupid bag ended up in my lap with me sitting on the floor.  He got the bag into the cart and I bought him a hot dog and soda.  He was pretty nice, although he was dressed like he just stepped out of ‘Singles’.”

“You took a stranger to lunch at Costco?”  He look incredulous, like I just said I had dinner with a serial rapist.

“He was nice.  We had a nice conversation during lunch.  End of story.”

“Did you get this nice guy’s name?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.  It’s Trevor Ackerly.”

Jackson spits his beer out at the mention of the name.

“What’s wrong?”

“Trevor Ackerly?  You’re sure?”

“I’m pretty sure, Jackson, since that was the name he gave me.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.  Only you.”

“What?”  I was a bit confused about his reaction.

“You really need to read some of the entertainment news, since you seem to land yourself in the middle of it so often.”

Ha, ha, ha.  Mr. Perfect is the only one that tends to attract my antic into the columns of various gossip rags.

Pulling out his phone, Jackson taps the screen a few times and then hands it over to me.  There on the screen, looking very nice with non-greasy blonde hair hanging in waves down to his chin, was Trevor.  He was dressed in a beautifully tailored suit standing with a few other men also in suits.  I glanced down at the caption and almost choked at what I saw.

The National Literacy Trust annual benefit brought out the stars and royalty as they rubbed elbows, smiled and opened up their wallets for this worthy endeavor.  Lord Taylor Ackerly, the Duke of Chatham, Manchester United Footballer Darren Toll and Lord Trevor Ackerly, the Marquess of Chorley enjoy the night’s festivities.  

Holy shit!  Jackson is right, only me.