Finding Jack Read online

  Table of Contents

  FREE STORY!

  Title Page

  A note to my Facebook readers:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  FREE STORY!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  WEDDING BELLES

  About the Author

  Free Story!

  For a FREE Melanie Jacobson story

  and behind-the-scenes content from this

  and other novels, please visit

  www.melaniejacobson.net.

  A note to my Facebook readers:

  Thank you for taking this wild and often silly journey with me. It was so fun to write this for you each Friday. But…those were always rough draft posts. When I went in to revise, I realized that I understood Emily’s character much better, and that meant making some changes that went a little deeper. You’ll see some differences from the story you followed on Facebook, but I hope that in every case, it’s a change for the better. Some will surprise you (Shaun had to become Sean because I have a real-life nemesis named Shaun. Story Shaun wasn’t supposed to be a good guy, but it turns out…he is. So I couldn’t do my nemesis Shaun the honor of keeping the spelling the same.) Some will delight you (you get more information about what Emily’s apartment looks like, and it makes such perfect sense). And some will make you really happy (I gave you an epilogue. I do NOT do epilogues). Thanks for taking the journey with me. I hope you find Emily’s story deeper, richer, and more interesting but just as funny.

  Chapter 1

  I stared down at the red stilettos. Granted, Nordstrom lights were extra flattering, but these pretty girls would look good under a half-dead parking garage bulb. I turned them from side to side, admiring them.

  “Are they too much?” I asked my best friend Ranée.

  She arched one of her perfect eyebrows at me. “Um, hi, we’re here because you got a promotion?”

  “I don’t mean too much money. I mean…too much.” I made a point of examining my pedicure peeking through the peep-toe so I wouldn’t see the eyeroll I knew was coming. It didn’t matter. It dripped from her voice.

  “If by ‘too much,’ you mean you’re worried that Paul will think these are over the top, then yes. He will. But that doesn’t make them ‘too much.’ Buy them. Buy them now. In fact, buy them in every color and wear them on every date with him.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” I said even as I debated whether I needed them in black.

  “Then at least get them in black,” she said.

  It was fate, obviously. I waved the salesgirl over and told her I’d take them in black too, and she hurried to package them before I changed my mind.

  Ranée hopped up from the try-on sofa. “I’m going to go see if I can find my brother a shirt for his birthday. Come find me in the men’s department when you’re done paying.”

  Five minutes later I found her riffling through lumberjack shirts. I wrinkled my nose. “Does your brother have to wear plaid flannel because he lives in Oregon?”

  “It’s not my favorite either, but this is about getting him something he wants. And he’ll wear one of these.”

  “It just feels like such a cliché. Does he also have a bird tattoo and drive a Subaru?”

  “No and yes, and stop being so judgey.” She nodded at the picture on top of the clothes rack. “I think you’d do better with a guy like that anyway. It showed a guy tethered to the side of a rock face. He was wearing the same flannel shirt she’d just pulled from the rack.

  “Definitely not. Rock-climbing man-bun guy? No. Flannel is strike one. Man-bun is strikes two and three.”

  “That’s hair-ist.”

  “Hair-ist is not a thing.”

  “Yeah, it is. It’s like elitist or racist. You’re just biased against long hair.”

  “Only on dudes. And only because it’s repulsive.”

  She picked up a different flannel. “Whatever. I’ll get this one for my brother and then we can start Phase Two of the Emily Riker Rules the World celebration.”

  “Not the world. Just a—”

  “Whole fleet of computer programmers!”

  “Fleet,” I said, testing the word. “I don’t think a group of coders would be called a fleet.”

  “Then what? A herd?”

  “No. They definitely don’t travel in herds. They’re more like…pods. Pods of coders.”

  “And you’re the boss of your own pod.”

  “I’m queen of the pod people,” I said, wrapping the arms of the flannel shirt around my neck to create a cape.

  “Just put the red shoes on and you’re Queen of Everything.”

  I slid my arm through hers and tugged her toward the register. “All I want to be queen of is the sofa. Hurry and pay.”

  An hour later we were at another register, this time debating our grocery store candy choices. I grabbed a king-sized Reese’s four-pack. “Done! Pick and let’s go. Tina Fey is waiting for us.”

  Ranée pushed a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes while she studied the display. “The beautiful thing about a 30 Rock marathon is that it’s there whenever we need it.”

  “Right, but the ice cream won’t be, so hurry up before it melts.”

  Suddenly she snorted and reached for a paperback on the checkout rack. “Those shoes are wasted on Paul. They’re going to make him nervous. You need this guy. He’d totally appreciate red stilettos.”

  I snatched the romance novel she was brandishing at me. It showed a long-haired man in a kilt who seemed to have lost all of his shirt buttons, but the woman in a flowy dress clasped to his chest didn’t seem to mind. “Is this Fabio? Why are you obsessed with me suddenly dating Fabio?”

  “Because Fabio can handle your shoe choices. Paul can’t. And that’s not Fabio. Fabio is blond.”

  “Why do you even know that?”

  “Why do you even know who Fabio is?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that everyone knows. Like Kenny G. No one’s ever heard his music but everyone has still heard of Kenny G.”

  She pointed to the ceiling. “Hear that music? That’s probably Kenny G. Now you know. And I’m just saying, your soul wears stilettos and it needs more than a Paul. I bet Paul loves Kenny G.”

  “I don’t know what is with you and long-haired flannel guys today but no. And right now, I don’t even want to think about guys at all. I want ice cream, chips, and 30 Rock.”

  “Fine,” she said, returning the book to its shelf. “But this is just proof that I know you better than you know yourself.”

  “Then you know how much I want to binge sugar and TV right now. Let’s get out of here.”

  “All right,” she
said, but she ran her finger over the chisel-jawed face of the long-haired half-dressed Scottish hero. “But I’m right about this.”

  If only I would’ve remembered how far Ranée would go to make a point.

  If. Flipping. Only.

  Chapter 2

  I was on mile three on the gym treadmill and chapter seven of a new Sarah Eden audiobook when my phone started blowing up. Instead of hearing the dulcet tones of Sir Toby, I got:

  “But darling, you’ve never—”

  Buzz

  “in as long as I’ve”

  Buzz

  “how dare you”

  Buzz Buzz Buzz

  “cannot countenance such”

  Buzz Buzz

  I growled and snatched my iPhone from my armband and quieted Lord Toby to check the alerts. It had better be a forty-car pileup with every person I’d ever known involved if it was going to interrupt my audiobook and work out.

  Oh, it was a wreck all right. Seven Facebook notifications and two more going off as I looked, all saying stuff like, “Hot, girl!” or “When did you and Paul break up?”

  And then a text from Paul. What’s going on?

  I stopped the treadmill and hopped off so the impatient bro-dude waiting for a free one could have it while I investigated the situation. Two screen taps later and I was staring at a picture of me with a guy I’d never seen before in my life. A guy with his arm around me. It was posted under my name and “I” had apparently captioned it, “New beginnings.”

  Only I remembered that picture. It used to show me and my cousin in a selfie from his sister’s wedding. His body had been photoshopped to look more athletic, and the face? This face was a seriously hot guy with high cheekbones, a mysterious half-smile, big dark eyes, and a slight five o’clock shadow. I would normally drink that in like a midwinter hot cocoa, but the whole effect was ruined by his fall of long brown hair.

  Long hair.

  I deleted the photo and stabbed Ranée’s speed dial number.

  “Hey, Em.” Her voice was so innocent it was guilty.

  “I already took it down but not before Paul texted me to ask me what was going on.”

  “Took what down?”

  “Stop. You only sound guiltier. I know you hacked my Facebook.”

  “Hacking is a really strong word coming from someone who left her laptop open.”

  “In my bedroom!”

  “The door was open.”

  “Just so we’re clear, I’m going to kill you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Believe it. I have to go fix this.” I hung up and posted a quick “Roommate hacked my Facebook” status before I logged out so she couldn’t do it again. Then I sent Paul a quick text. “Sorry, Ranée thought she was being funny.”

  He sent back a question mark. I tried again. “Ranée was pranking me with that picture. I don’t know who that guy is. Nothing to worry about.”

  His reply was slow in coming, not pinging me until I was back in my car. “I don’t really get her.”

  Yeah, no kidding. I heard that from both of them about each other at least once a week.

  It took me a half hour to get home through traffic. When I opened the door to our apartment, Ranée jumped off the couch and ran for her room, but she wasn’t fast enough to keep me from getting my foot in her door.

  “I left some Panda Express on the counter. We can talk after you eat.” She said it through the crack.

  “Open up. You’re being ridiculous. Do you honestly think I’m going to hurt you?”

  She flung the door wide. “Of course not, dummy. You’ll just lecture me to death, but it’ll be half as long if you do it on a full stomach.” Then she pushed me hard enough to get my foot out of the door and shut it again.

  I scowled at it. “Junk food is why I had to go to the gym tonight, and you’re the reason I didn’t work off last night’s celebration. I lost my treadmill to Facebook drama.”

  “That was your choice,” she called, unapologetic. “It’s orange chicken. And fried rice.”

  I scowled for another second. But I really did love orange chicken. So I went into the kitchen. Ranée gave me five minutes before she came out.

  “Have the happy food endorphins reached your brain?”

  I finished my bite. “I think I won’t kill you.”

  “Come on, it was funny.” She sat down on the other side of the table.

  “Tell that to Paul.”

  “Ha. I could diagram a knock-knock joke for him and he still wouldn’t get why it’s funny.”

  “You just have very different senses of humor.”

  “No. I have a sense of humor. He doesn’t. That’s the difference.”

  Normally this would be where I rolled my eyes at her, but I didn’t want to take them off my next piece of chicken. “You’re way too hard on him.”

  “He didn’t laugh once during our Marx Brothers marathon last week.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “No.”

  I hadn’t noticed, but that was surprising. Everyone laughed during the Marx Brothers. “He’s just not an old movie fan.” I wasn’t exactly sure if that was true. We didn’t watch a lot of movies together. “But I don’t want to talk about Paul anymore. I explained the picture and he’s fine. But I’m really worried that you suddenly know how to do Photoshop. There’s no way this ends well for me. Or anyone who knows you.”

  She waved away my concern. “Relax. I didn’t do it. I know a guy.”

  I set my fork down to study her closely. “Ranée. People who ‘know guys’ usually have mob connections or crack dealers.”

  “Shut up. Not like that. I mean one of my brother’s friends is kind of internet famous for his Photoshopping skills. People send in Photoshop requests. Usually, he’ll give you some hilarious version of what you ask for. Look.” She tapped her phone a few times and pulled up Twitter then handed it to me.

  The account belonged to someone calling himself @crankymtnman. She’d picked a tweet from someone who sent him a picture of a woman our age looking down with her hands over her mouth in happy surprise. The tweet read, “Hey, @crankymtnman, I told my mom my boyfriend of 2 weeks proposed to freak her out, but he didn’t. Can you make it look like he did? Any man will do.” His reply was a photoshopped picture of a Gringotts goblin down on one knee proposing while she looked delighted.

  I handed it back to her. “That’s pretty funny.”

  She nodded. “Sean really likes him. I’ve met him a couple of times. He’s a funny guy. You should check out his feed some time. He nails it. If you’re lucky, he’ll actually do what you ask, but usually he messes with the people who request his skills.”

  “So Cranky Mountain Man decided to mess with you, huh?”

  “No, his real name is Jack, and he did exactly what I asked him to.”

  “Photoshop me with some corny romance cover guy?”

  “Corny or hot?”

  “Hot until the fake hair makes him corny.”

  “Interesting,” she murmured.

  “Stop being mysterious. Why is that interesting?”

  She tapped her phone again and turned it to show me a picture of Sean with the guy from the picture I’d deleted. “Because I asked him to Photoshop you with a long-haired hot dude to give you a vision of what was possible. That hot guy is Jack himself, and the hair is one hundred percent real. I’ve never seen him use himself in a photo hack before. I’ll tell him you thought he was hot, but I think I’ll skip the corny part.”

  And she was out of the chair and down the hall, thumbs flying, before I could even dive for her phone.

  Chapter 3

  I checked first thing in the morning to make sure Ranée hadn’t gotten into my Facebook again. None of the notifications raised red flags. I looked at Ranée’s page to make sure she wasn’t up to any shenanigans there, and when that was all clear, I texted Paul.

  Are we still on for dinner tonight?

  He texted right back that he would pic
k me up at 7. He didn’t play games where he waited a certain amount of time to call or return a message. It was one of the things I liked about him.

  I half-wished I could reschedule our date for the next night. I always started Fridays with a tingle of anticipation for the weekend, but usually by quitting time I was dragging myself home and longing to be absorbed into the Clan of the Bedding to rule there as its queen. In pajamas. And thick socks.

  But Paul wanted to take me out to celebrate my promotion too, and after Ranée’s prank I owed him more than getting shuffled into a different calendar box so I could nap. Okay, fine. Not nap: so I could binge watch the new season of The Crown.

  I couldn’t blow off Paul for that, not when he was taking me out to Pacifica, the best seafood restaurant in the Bay Area. I didn’t think I was a fancy food person until my mom and stepdad took me there for my graduation from Berkeley, and I discovered that I could love foods that sounded imaginary--like truffles and sablefish--as much as I loved Panda Express. I’m a complicated woman.

  Work flew by, but I still came home as tired as expected, except Paul was due in an hour and I had no time to be tired. I splashed cold water on my face, posted a short status about going to Pacifica to celebrate with him, and went to get ready, pulling my new shoes out of their box. Time to let these girls out to play. I added a picture of them to my post. They deserved a little recognition. Heck, they deserved their own Instagram account.

  He rang the buzzer of our apartment exactly at 7, and I was glad that Ranée was already out for the evening. His punctuality had gotten on her nerves ever since she’d come home one night to find him waiting on our doorstep, staring at his watch. Apparently, he’d gotten there five minutes earlier but was waiting for the exact minute he’d told me to expect him before he knocked. Ranée thought that was stupid, but then again, Ranée hadn’t liked him from the start, so she used anything and everything he did as ammunition. That’s when she started calling him Proper Paul like it was a bad thing. But that was another thing I liked about Paul. I was a project manager because I had exceptional organizational skills, but Paul was next level. It was nice not to have to worry about the details when he was around.

  I opened the door and smiled at him. “Hey, you.”