The Good Life

*Jack*

"Alex can you stop by the front office and tell them Izzy isn't coming to school today? She says she doesn't feel good." I told Alex.

It was five-thirty am and Izzy came down and woke me up while Alex was in the bathroom getting ready for work. She was having really bad cramps and didn't feel like going to school. Now she was lying in our bed curled into a ball while I was rubbing her back.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked her as he tied his tie.

"Girl problems." I answered for her and he understood.

"Okay I'll tell them. I'll see you two later." He leaned over me to kiss Izzy on the forehead. "Feel better, Baby." He told her reassuringly. He kissed me and left for work.

I continued to rub her back contemplating if I should go to work on not. We were having a meeting today to discuss what we were going to be doing in London so I guess I did need to be there.

"Babe, I have a meeting to go to in a few hours. Do you want to go to my office with me or will you be okay here by yourself?" I asked her.

"I wanna go with you." She mumbled.

"Okay. Well you can sleep for a little bit. I'll wake you up so you'll have enough time to get ready."
We left the house at nine-twenty since my meeting started at ten. It was only a fifteen minute drive even with the light traffic so we still arrived early.

"Hi, Mr. Barakat! And she must be your daughter, Izzy? Her pictures in your office don't do her justice.” My new assistant, Selena, greeted me as I walked to my office. I just hired her three months ago and she was doing a terrific job so far. She was one of the many assistants I had since May went back to teaching.

"Hi Selena, yeah this is Izzy she isn't feeling too well today. But can you send David to my office?" I asked her and unlock my office door.

"Sure thing." She answered and I dragged Izzy in the door with me.

"Sit anywhere you want, Honey." I told her and she went over to my desk and laid out on it, knocking some pens and papers onto the floor.

"Izzy!" I scolded her but she just curled back into a ball, groaning. "I should make you clean up this mess." I fussed as I went to clean it up myself. I was on my knees getting things up when David finally came in.

"Don't you get enough of being on your knees for, Alex?" He laughed and I glared at him.

"Ewwwwww." Izzy said with her voice being muffled by her arm.

"David." I sighed disappointedly and he laughed even harder.

"Oh my god I swear I didn't see her right there. But she should be used to it, how else does she think you guys made her." He smiled and I chuckled.

"Aw what's wrong with the princess? And do you have stitches?" He asked.

"Yes but its a long story and it's that time of the month for her." I told him and Izzy scoffed.

"You don't have to tell everyone!" She scolded me.

"I'm sorry!" I laughed.

"I'll call you later and we'll talk about it. But anyways did you see the guy who's going to be over the London office yet?" David asked.

"Nah I literally just got here." I said.

"Jack he's gorgeous and he has an accent. I think I'm in love!" He gushed like a teenage girl.

"Excuse me, what about Kendall." I reminded him of his longtime boyfriend.

"Yeah yeah I love Kendall of course, but this guy is a close second." He said and I rolled my eyes at him.

"I just know his name is Tyler Joseph or something like that. He has two first names." I said and Izzy giggled.

"I probably won't be able to focus with him in the room." He said.

"David I swear if you aren't paying attention because you're making love faces at him the entire time I'll fire you." I said, but he knew it was an empty threat.

"You wouldn't make it five minutes without, bitch! Now let's go before we're late." He laughed.

"Izzy I'll be back in an hour. Call Selena if you need anything." I told her and she mumbled letting me know that she heard me.

We made it to the meeting room and sat down in our normal seats. I saw Tyler's name plate next to the chair he was going to be sitting in, but he wasn't in here yet. I kept an eye out for him just to see if David was over exaggerating his looks or not.

At nine fifty-eight the door opened with three men walking through the door. I immediately knew which one Tyler was because David would stop hitting my leg under the table and whispering "that's him in the navy blue tie." We stood up and all shook hands and said hello.

"I take it you're Mr. Barakat?" Tyler asked with a thick British accent.

"Yeah but you can just call me Jack." I told him and he smiled at me.

"As you wish, Jack!" He said smirking at me making me blush a little. David was right, Tyler was very cute.

"Um so let's get started shall we?" I said as I took my seat waiting for Jake, my Marketing Director, to start us off. Jake was the boy I talked to at Vic's second birthday party over seventeen years ago. He got the job at the store and worked his way up to Marketing Director after getting his business degree in Marketing.

"Hello everyone! I'm going to start us off by talking about the age groups in London that buy from JaGK online..." Jake started.

I tried to pay attention, but I could feel someone staring at me while he was speaking. I turned and looked at Tyler who was obviously staring at me. He quickly looked away as I looked at him. Almost the entire meeting I could see him staring at me from the corner of my eyes. I told David to focus when I, myself, couldn't. Maybe I was being paranoid. Not every guy that looked my way had a crush on me, well according to Alex they did but this was different. Maybe he was looking at David I mean we were sitting right next to each other.

I stopped my worrying about Tyler and paid attention until it was my turn to talk. I went over what the game plan would be when David, myself, and some of my other business employees got to London.

"Thank you ladies and gentlemen, I look forward to meeting up with you all again in London." I concluded the meeting.

We shook hands with our guest and said goodbye. Tyler was the last person to come up to me.
"Until next time, Jack." He winked at me and kissed my hand. Yeah he was definitely looking at me and not David. I stood there quietly, caught off guard. I politely smiled at Tyler when he let my hand go just to be nice but I’m sure he took it the wrong way. He walked out with the rest of the people he came with. I tried my best not to look at David because I knew I wasn't going to like his reaction.

"You fucking whore!" He jokingly whispered yelled at me, catching the attention of some the other business people in the room.

I cleared my throat apologizing for him and dragged him out of the conference room. "Why did he kiss my hand?" I groaned.

"Because he likes you." David sang.

"How did he even know I was gay?!?" I asked throwing my arms in the arms dramatically.

"You don't exactly scream straight." David laughed making me laugh with him since it was so contagious.

"Well that's just great. I have to work with him for almost month straight." I complained. Don't get me wrong, I was flattered really but I'd rather not spend a month trying to stop his advances when we should be working.

"This is going to make that husband of yours super jealous." He warned. He was talking about Alex.

"Yeah it would but good thing I’m not planning on telling him." I said and he gave me a knowing look.

"We both know this won't work out too well for you, Jack." He said.

"It's not even a big deal! Just some guy that I have to work with has a small crush on me. And there is literally no way for him to find out unless you or I tell him." I told him and he struggled his shoulders.

"Well besides Mr. Joseph hitting on you the entire time, London should be fun! We can go to sight-seeing during the day and go to a different club every night." He gleamed.

"No!" I said and he pouted.

"I know we have to go for business or whatever, but we can still have fun while we're there!"

"I'm not saying we can't have fun. I'm saying we're not going to a different club every night." I laughed.

"Okay every other night then." He said, ignoring the look I was giving him. "I'm sure you need a break from playing house."

"I don't need a break from my family, that's actually the exact opposite of what I need." I said.

"Well I need a break from California. Maybe I'll find a British guy to satisfy me needs." He said jokingly, he would never cheat on Kendall.

"There's not enough time in the world to satisfy your needs."

"Shut up!" He laughed.

I told David bye and walked into my office to see Izzy passed sleep on my desk. My poor baby!

I walked over to her and woke her up. "Are you ready to go home, Baby?"

"Yes" she whimpered. "Will you carry me to the car?" She asked.

"Of course" I lifted her up and grabbed my keys.

***

Alex was walking through the door just getting home from work. Izzy and I had lazed around watching Family Feud all day, but now she was in my bathtub. I was in the bathroom with her as we continued to watch Family Feud on the TV Alex had installed into our bathroom.

"Hey!" Alex greeted us as he walked into the bathroom. Izzy screamed and tried to cover herself despite the fact he couldn't see anything because of all the bubbles in the tub.

"Daddy get out!" She yelled at Alex dramatically.

"Why?" He asked ignoring her request and going to his closet. He was going to change out of his work clothes into something more comfortable.

"I'm naked." She said and I laughed.

"Okay one, you have more than enough bubbles to cover every body part of yours. Two, Jack's in here too. And three, I've changed your diaper more times than you can count so I've already seen all your goods." He said from the closet.

"I don't mind Papa seeing my body for some reason." She said sounding confused. It was probably because I always dressed her and bathed her when she was younger so she was used to me seeing her naked.

"It's probably because he's more female than male." Alex joked.

"You have one more time to call me a girl!" I laughed and threatened him.

"Or you'll what?" He asked sticking his head out of the closet and staring me down.

"It's not what I will do, but what I won't do instead." I said raising my eyebrow at him. He knew exactly what I was threatening him with; sex.

"Ok ok I'll stop!" He said quickly. Izzy looked at both of us confused but didn't ask about it thankfully. "Do you feel better?" He asked her.

"Yeah this hot water feels soooo good!" She exclaimed.

"That's good." Alex said as the doorbell rang. He walked out to go answer it.

"Are you hungry?" I asked Izzy.

"Yes! I could eat so many hamburgers." She exaggerated.

"Okay well when you get out of the tub I'll go get you a burger from In N' Out." I told her and she smiled thanking me.

A few minutes later Alex walked back in the bathroom holding a dozen of red roses in a vase. There was a card in it but I couldn't see, from where I was, what it said. These had to be from Vic to Izzy. Great, I didn't want to hear Alex's yelling about that.

He picked up the card and read it out loud, "Jack, I send a kiss inside the petals of each rose. . . Tyler?" I sat there frozen not knowing where to even begin to explain this to Alex. "Who's Tyler, Jack?" He asked.

"He's the guy who's going to be over the JaGK office in London." I answered.

"Okaaaay why is he sending you roses with 'a kiss in each petal'?" He asked already becoming a little angry.

"I don't know he might have a crush on me or something." I didn't like that we were doing this in front of Izzy but at least we weren't yelling or arguing... yet.

"Might? I think we're way past might at this point." He said sarcastically.

"I can't control his feelings Alex. I literally met this guy today at our meeting." I told him.

"He just randomly sent flowers to a guy that he just met?" He asked suspiciously and I couldn't help rolling my eyes.

"Are you implying that there's something else going on?" I asked.

"No no I was just thinking out loud." He answered. Of course he was still kind of suspicious and I partially blamed Alan for this. Now that we witnessed one marriage fall apart from infidelity, it didn't seem too impossible.

"Okay well if it makes you feel any better, you can throw those away and I'll send him an email tomorrow about how inappropriate that was of him." I said.

"I will and you better." He pouted and stormed out to throw the flowers away. I exhaled and pressed my fingers on the bridge of my nose.

"That wasn't awkward at all." Izzy said sarcastically once Alex left.

"I know but he's going to be a little suspicious about everything like that because of what just happened between Austin and Alan." I told her.

"You two would never cheat on each other." She said.

"I know but it does look wrong for me to get roses from another guy out of the blue like that."
"But that wasn't you fault." She stressed.

"And I'm sure your father know that. He just being extra sensitive."

I don't know why Joseph would think doing something like this was okay, but I did know he was going to get a hell of an email from me tomorrow.

Notes