“You okay?” Casey asked, looking down at him. He smiled softly, not minding in the slightest that she liked to sit on the table, even though some people might have found it strange.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, we seem to be doing a lot of hanging out here, that’s all. I’ve never met your friends or seen where you live.”
Casey paused, her mouth still chewing, but the last bites of her burrito slowly fell out of her hand and almost landed in her lap. He reached for a stack of napkins and tossed them onto the center of the table.
“I told you,” she said as she reached for the napkins. “My friends and I live in a small place. It’s not romantic…or even comfortable.”
“But we haven’t gone out at all since the poetry reading,” he said softly. Suddenly Jake could see every single moment where she had declined to go out in public with him, and all of it was adding up to a stack of red flags.
“Is it because I started a fight?” he asked.
Casey shook her head, jumping off the table so she could brush remnants of lettuce from her dress. “No, Jake. It’s nothing like that.”
“Then there is something?” he cried, shocked. She turned to look at him with wide, bright eyes, her expression heartbreakingly apologetic.
Nice choice of words.
“We’ve been so hot for each other. I thought you enjoyed hanging out here. It’s more fun to snuggle up here and be real with each other. We can make love as much as we want, and I don’t have to dress up or anything. I thought you wanted sex as much as I do.”
Jake could tell by the tone of her voice and the tension in her body that she was getting pissed off. He could feel anger rising in himself, as well. Something told him that they still weren’t anywhere near the truth.
“Of course I do,” he snapped.
“Good, because if you’ve got a problem, then we don’t have to have so much sex!” Casey yelled, folding her arms across her chest.
Jake wanted to take back all his words now. He was cursing himself for a fool. He should have just made love to her immediately, right here on the table, and not started any of this.
“I know you like to be informal,” he said, keeping his tone gentle as if he were soothing a spirited horse. “I don’t have a problem with that, or the sex, obviously. I’d just love to meet your friends. I’d like you to meet my family. I feel like our relationship is stuck, and I want to move forward.”
Casey stared at him, her expression softening. Jake’s anxiety grew. He would have preferred for her to keep yelling at him because this looked like it was going to be very serious.
“Okay,” she said softly. “You aren’t wrong. I have been keeping you away from my friends.”
Even though Jake had started this wanting the truth, he felt her words as a sharp blow to the chest. “What?”
Casey sighed, unfolding her arms. All the tension left her body as she dropped her defensive stance. “With artists, there’re two types of people. There’s the elitist, who do everything with insane amounts of money. The other side is the starving artist, the ones who work for the love of it, not the money.”
She made a weighing gesture with both hands. “They hate each other, don’t you see? Both sides think that they are the true expression. They rarely get along.”
Jake absorbed her words, trying to understand. Slowly, the meaning dawned on him. “You think your friends will judge me,” he muttered. “And my family. They will think you sold out.”
Casey’s face fell, and she shook her head, but he knew he’d nailed it. “It doesn’t matter what they think,” Casey said, hurrying to him and grabbing his hands. “I like you, and that’s all that matters.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “This just isn’t good enough. I want this relationship to be forever, Casey. I don’t want things to be weird for you, trying to keep your friends and me apart for the rest of our lives.”
“That does sound pretty crazy,” she said softly. “I’m not putting much faith in them or you, am I?”
She looked down at their joined hands. Jake squeezed her fingers gently. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll make arrangements for us…all of us…at one of the bohemian restaurants. Well,Restaurantmay be too fancy of a word. But one of our dives.”
Jake grinned. “Sounds like a blast. Should I wear my jersey and cap or my tailored suit?”
Casey’s face softened with affection. She reached up to stroke his cheek, looking deep into his eyes as if she could sense the insecurity that was seeping through his core. “Wear whatever makes you feel comfortable, my darling,” she whispered, teasing a lock of his hair.
Jake wanted to wear his suit, even though he instinctively sensed it would make him stand out like…what was it Scott had said?