The Good Life

Jack

I was finally able to get Izzy back into her old school this week. The principal would do anything if you made a generous donation to the school. So I was stuck babysitting every day until she got home and most of the time after that too. Today I had to go to work to meet up with new investors. I always hated these meetings because they always took the longest. I was probably going to be in my office until five pm. That meant I was going to have to drop Bass off for Vicki to watch him until Alex and Izzy made it home.

I dressed myself for work then I went to get Bass. I fixed up his diaper bag first to make sure he had enough items to last him the amount of time he would be with Vicki. I put him in his carrier and put his diaper bag on my shoulder. I walked out the door and walked across the street. Vickie knew I was bringing him over at this time so she quickly answered the door when I rang the doorbell.

"Hey." She greeted me.

"Hey Vicki. Here's the sleeping beauty. He'll probably wake up in about thirty minutes." I warned her and she laughed.

"Okay I'll have his bottle ready by then."

"Okay. Thanks for watching him."

"It's no problem! We'll see you later."

"Bye." I told her and waved to Bass.

I walked back to my house, I got in my car, and drove to my office. I felt like I was walking into a funeral as I stepped into the building. This was going to be a super long day. My assistant made my day a little better by having a coffee on my desk when I walked into my office. I thought about giving her a raise as I took the first sip.

I heard a knock on my door a few minutes later. David walked in with a huge smile on his face.
"How are you always so happy in the morning?" I groaned.

"Because unlike you I got to bed on time so I won't be tired in the morning." He gloated and I rolled my eyes. "Anyways I'm happy that you talked to Alex about Tay because I was so worried I would accidentally tell you."

"Tell me what? I didn't talk to Alex about Tay?" I was confused as to what he was talking about.

"But you posted something about exs on Facebook yesterday." He said.

"Well yeah because my ex added me on Facebook yesterday and I wanted to make him feel kind of bad." I shrugged. One of the guys I dated in college had sent me a friend request on Facebook. He was kind of verbally abusive to me which is one reason we broke up. I honestly don't know why he wanted interact with me now. I just added him so he could see how happy I was with my husband and daughter.

"Oh . . . Well never min-"

"-No!" I cut him off. "Tell me what you were talking about." I demanded.

“Jack it isn't important." He said.

"It's about my husband and his ex. It's a little bit important."

"Alex asked me not to tell you because you would overreact."

"When will he learn that not telling me things is what makes me overreact more than anything. Just tell me."

"Uggh he's going to hate me. Well I can't remember exactly what we talked about because I had had a few drinks, but basically Alex might, I said might Jack, still have feelings for Tay." He said and my heart fell into my stomach. I should probably listen to what he meant before I flipped out.

"What do you mean by that?"

"He told Tay something like he didn't care about her dating Austin, but I told him I could tell he was lying and he admitted that he was. I guess it really did bother him that they were dating."

"Why would that bother him if he's married? He shouldn't care who she's dating if he's married, right?" I asked and David shrugged.

"Mr. Barakat, they're waiting for you in the meeting room." My assistant told me. I looked at the clock and noticed we were four minutes late.

"Shit. Thanks Karen." I picked up my coffee and David and I raced to the meeting room.

"We'll finish our conversations later." I whispered to David before we walked into the meeting.

I was barely paying attention during the meeting. The only thing I could focus on was Alex still caring about Tay. I even daydreamed that he left me for Tay and he became Kellin's sort of step-dad. It was really weird and I was sure I was over thinking the whole thing as usual. That didn't stop me from thinking about it though.

I talked to David after the meeting but he was a little too drunk at the party to remember anything else about it.

I drove home thinking of a way to causally bring this up to Alex without starting a fight.

***

Alex

Izzy stayed after school to catch up with her friends she hadn't talked to in a while. That meant I was going to have to pick up Bass from our 'lovely' neighbor’s house.

I parked my car in our garage and walked across the street the Fuentes house. I took a deep breath so I wouldn't sound tired and uninterested when I talked. I rang the doorbell and seconds later it opened. Emilio was standing there with a scowl on his face.

"What do you want?" He questioned.

I blinked a few times trying to calm myself and not tell him to go fuck himself. "I'm here to pick up Bass." I told him, while tapping my foot.

"He's taking a nap with Vicki so you'll have to come back when they're wake." He said smugly. I could tell he was being difficult just to mess with me. I could have left and just waited for Alex or Izzy to get home, but I felt like being difficult too.

"Okay well how about you go get him without waking Vicki."

"What part of come back when they wake do you not understand?"

"The part where you're not bringing me my goddamn grandson." I said angrily and he shook his head at me. "Either you can bring him to me or I can push past you and get him myself." I fumed. I made intense eye contact with him so he would know that I’d really do it.

"Wait here." He grumbled and went inside.

I waited for two minutes and he finally brought Bass to me asleep in his carrier. I grabbed the carrier and diaper bag and left without saying a word. I walked back to my house steaming. This is exactly why I didn't think it was a good idea to leave Bass with them. Emilio and I still hated each other and it was only making things worse.

Izzy walked in thirty minutes later. That was a good thing since Bass was just waking up and need to be changed and fed. She picked him up and took him upstairs to change his diaper.

I opened Facebook while I sat on the couch and waited for Jack to get home. I saw a picture of Rian and Cass lying in bed saying they both came down with a cold. I would have thought they were lying, just to get out of work, if they didn't look like death in the picture. I saw a picture of my dad and Dr. Fey on vacation in another country, I think I remember him telling me they were going to Essex.

After I scrolled further down my feed I saw a post that Jack shared about exs ‘not knowing what they had until it was gone.' If I didn't know better I would think he was referring to me about Tay. I think he would have yelled at me directly if he knew about my talk with David. He had to be talking about something else. I clicked on his page to see if he had said anything else suspicious and the first thing that I saw was he had befriended a guy named Brendon. That name sound kind of familiar but I didn't know why. I clicked on the guy’s page and went to see if I knew him or not.

When I scrolled down his page I saw that he had posted something about exs too. His post said "I never knew what I had until I lost him." That was a direct post in response to what Jack had. The name was starting to sound familiar too. I think guy was Jack's ex he told me about when we first started talking to each other. He was the one Jack told me was abusive to him or something. I wondered why Jack would add him as a friend if this guy was a jerk to him.

I continued scrolling down Brendon's page until Jack came home. He greeted Izzy on the couch feeding Bass. We sort of looked at each other not saying anything. I knew that he had something he wanted to talk to me about.

"How was your day?" He finally asked me.

"Not the greatest." He said honestly. "What about yours?"

"The same. How about you go first." I told him.

"Okay um do you have feelings for Tay still?" He asked and I rolled my eyes.

"Why would I still like someone that I dated twenty years ago?"

"You dated Tay?" Izzy asked and I sighed. We sort of avoided that conversation because it was kind of awkward.

"Yeah when we were in college for like a month or two then we broke up." I said and she still looked shocked.

"How come David said you weren't really comfortable with her dating Austin?" Jack asked and I sighed. This was all one big misunderstanding.

"Tay is dating Uncle Austin??" Izzy asked, confused.

"I'll answer all your questions later." I told Izzy. "And Jack I said I was uncomfortable with dating because it seems weird. Think about one of your friends dating your ex. That would creep you out wouldn't it?"

"Not an ex I dated like twenty years ago." He said.

"Okay so if David started dating Brendon that wouldn't be weird to you?"

"Why did you choose that name??" He questioned.

"Because I just saw that you two just became Facebook friends." I told him.

"I only added him so I could make him jealous with how great my life is going." He defended.

"But if he's your ex then you shouldn't care about what he thinks about your life."

"Then why don't you care about Tay dating Austin?"

"I don't care! I just said it creeped me out."

"Oh my god you two are like teenagers. Why are you two arguing about social media and he said she said problems? Papa just unfriend your ex if it'll make Daddy chill out about it. And Daddy it's only creepy thinking about Tay and Uncle Austin dating because he's like sleeping with someone you used to have sex with and that makes you uncomfortable. You two are making things more complicated than they need to be." Izzy told us and we looked at each other knowing everything she said was true.

"I'll unfriend Brendon if you can promise me you don't care about Tay anymore." Jack told me.

"I swear." I said and he smiled. He unlocked his phone and showed me him un-friending Brendon. I grabbed his face and pulled him closer to kiss me. I was happy we got this over with.

Izzy playfully rolled her eyes at us and looked down at Bass. "They do this like once a week so get used to it."

"Not even." Jack chuckled.

"Yeah maybe once a month." I added.

"That still seems like a lot but okay." Izzy laughed. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Jack.

"Do you have to work tomorrow?" I asked him.

"No why?"

"I just wanted to make sure Bass wouldn't have to go back to that house anymore this week." I pointed towards the Fuentes house.

"Oh god what happed?"

"Emilio was being an asshole and wouldn't give me Bass when I first asked him."

"Alex." Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes stressfully. "Can you try a little harder with him? I know you two hate each other but I need you to at least try for Bass."

"I'm always civil when I talk to him! He's the one that isn't trying!" I complained.

"I'm going to talk to Vicki, you and Emilio need to talk this out."

"I don't want to talk to him." I said stubbornly.

"Lex please! We have to live next to them for God-knows-how-long. The least you can do is attempt to make things better between you two." He pleaded. I thought about it for a few seconds. Did I really want to attempt to be the bigger person once again?

"No."

Notes