TWENTY-THREE
Lesson of the Day:
Finding someone that loves you more than they love themselves is hard and necessary.
Mikka
Jay took me home on a belly full of funnel cake, pie, beer, and fried food.
The tennis shoes had provided me with comfort when he spun me around while a local played the banjo and dipped me in front of almost everyone in the town. They’d cheered us on like they’d accepted me. They’d smiled at me like I was one of them. They’d hugged me goodbye like I’d always been a part of their town. I fell for the love they gave me that night. I found something I’d always missed growing up and didn’t ever want to let it go.
As the texts rolled in from Dougie, I hit ignore. I found my concern was overpowered by the sudden comfort that there may be another place for me to belong.
Jay held his arm out for me to take on the walk home, and I stared down at my white sneakers, now dirty from the dust of the festival. “Shouldn’t we wait for them to crown Lorraine the pie queen?”
“It’s not a pageant, Meek. She gets a ribbon, not a crown.” His bicep flexed under my hand, and I squeezed it like it was mine to do with as I pleased.
“Are you correcting me?” I was about to tell him to shove it when my phone pinged again.
“You should turn your phone off,” Jay said. He didn’t follow up with an explanation, and my body heated, wondering what he might have in store for me, wondering if he wanted to continue what had happened in the fun house as much as I did.
“It could be the job.” I shrugged, knowing that it wasn’t.
“If it’s the job, they can wait until tomorrow. If you want, give me a cup and I’ll piss in it tonight so you don’t have to worry about them bothering us,” Jay said like the test was the easiest thing in the world.
“You say that like it’s a piece of cake.” A breeze blew over us, reminding me of how cold it got here and how quickly the seasons changed. “You’re doing it, Jay. Recovering like so many can’t. It’s freaking amazing.”
He stopped on the sidewalk, and the streetlight shone down on him, tinting his dark hair golden and bronzing his skin. His hands slid under my sweater and grazed the skin at the small of my back. His feather light touch and the wind in my hair, the way the light spotlighted him and me—it made a feeling I couldn’t put my finger on rustle into my heart and snuggle up there.
“Woman, I’m not doing this alone. I have therapists and you. You do all the hard work. So, I appreciate you being here with me.”
Most of my life had been spent pushing to be the best, and Jay didn’t push for that at all. He never took the credit unless it allowed for someone else to step onto the pedestal with him. “Appreciate me being here with you because of the fun house or…”
“Oh, the fun house is what I’m most appreciative of.” He folded the arm I was holding in and pulled me close enough to tickle the crap out of me. “I’d appreciate more of that too in the future rather than you dragging me out on dates with other men.”
I wiggled under him, and he finally let up so that he could hold me close. We walked in silence the rest of the way to Lorraine’s. When we headed up the stairs, my heart pounded with each step. I wanted him to follow me into my bedroom and keep me in the bubble we’d created.
Somehow, here, in this little town, we worked. We lost our baggage, our jobs, our expectations of what we should be, and held on to what we were in front of one another. I turned abruptly and pressed my body to his. “Sleep with me?”
“Pebble, no sweet talk?” he teased me.
“I can use my mini wand if you aren’t interested.”
“Brought to my senses by a little device put up against me.” He motioned toward my room. “Lead the way.”
I backed up to my door, keeping my eyes on him as I turned the knob. “This doesn’t have to be any more than tonight. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“It means something,” he said matter-of-factly.
My heart pitter-pattered and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was falling for him and this town too quickly. I’d failed with Dougie, and if I failed with him, I wouldn’t recover. Dougie had been the man I thought could be my forever, but Jay was the man I wanted to be my forever. The devastation of losing him would be much worse.
“No,” I corrected and spun to try to weed through the mess we were going to make by doing this again. “I’m trying to tell you it’s okay. I just want the night and let’s not worry about the repercussions. We can go back to being friends tomorrow.” The wind nearly whooshed out of me as I said the words like someone had grabbed my soul and ripped it away with the thought.
“No, we can’t,” he said again, so dispassionately that I wondered if he was really taking in what I was saying.
“Jay.” I snapped my fingers at him because his blue eyes had darkened and perused my body like he was contemplating which piece of clothing to take off first. “Are you really hearing me? We need boundaries. I don’t want to lose our friendship.”
“There are no boundaries. We annihilated them in the fun house.”