Chat (17 page)

Carissa Steel:
J, you sound a bit jaded. Maybe I need to show you what I mean.

I was openly sobbing now. Yes, I was being immature, and probably hormonal, but reading them banter back and forth about sex was killing me.

Jason Brewer:
lol

Jason Brewer:
someone just walked into my office, be back soon

Carissa Steel:
k

Jason Brewer:
This’ll take a while. Chat later?

Carissa Steel:
I know what you mean. Sure! XO.

He’d avoided her.

That was what
what it looked like, anyway, but it was entirely possible that someone
had
walked into his office.

Joplin whined at my side,
obviously distressed by my tears. I closed the laptop, moving to the couch to stare out the window.

Jason had every right to be happy, and he’d already been through enough as it was. Carissa would be coming
into town soon, and based on the box of sex toys she’d sent him, she was offering herself up on a silver platter.

And I had him taking me to therapy, pretending we were married.

“I’m taking him down with me,” I whispered to Joplin, and she whined again, resting her chin on my thigh. “He’s ready to move on from Elaina. He deserves happiness.”

The German
shepherd raised her dark, brown eyes, listening to me talk.

I focused on the tree in the front yard,
noticing that a few buds had finally begun to bloom after the long winter.

Early spring always reminded me of our last year of college at Cleveland State University. Jason had been dating a girl he’d met in his accounting class
, Rachel. They’d gone out a few times, and then she seemed to have dropped off of his radar.

It was 2003.
I’d been in my bedroom, I remembered vividly, listening to my Audioslave CD on repeat and writing some totally shallow poetry when he knocked on my door.

“You naked?”
he’d called.

“
Completely.”

“Can I come in?”

I could tell by his tone that he wasn’t in the mood to joke around. I opened the door, and his blue eyes were almost luminescent in the soft lamplight.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately.

He closed my door, turning to wrap his arms around me. He might have reached for me, but I knew right away that I was the one holding him together.

“
Do you remember Rachel?”

“
Rachel from two months ago? Sure,” I’d agreed, sitting at the foot of my bed with him.

He took a gigantic breath, lying back on my bed to stare at the ceiling.

“I just got back from a clinic. I took her to have an abortion. And I paid for it.”

I remembered his words, that
exact
sentence, as the momentous initiation into our adulthood. Until then, we were children. We were young adults, still depending on our parents for approval, for direction, and for guidance in determining the logical next steps in our lives.

I’d turned to look down at him, holding my breath.

“Jason?”

His eyes flickered to mine, and I knew he was trying not to cry. Jason refused to cry in front of me.
The last time I’d seen him cry, we were both ten-years-old. He’d fallen out of a tree in his backyard and broke his arm.

“
San, I don’t love her. I didn’t love her when I slept with her. I feel all this… this guilt, for that reason more than anything… and I don’t know if I did the right thing.”

“
Oh, God,
” I whispered, my exclamation for anything I felt was beyond my control. “Brew, only you know what’s best for you. I’m listening,” I assured him, curling on the bed, on my side to face him.

My sheets of poetry crumpled beneath our bodies as he turned to look my way. “
I don’t know how to feel.”

“There’s no right or wrong way to feel,” I said, reaching for his hand. We threaded our fingers together, moving even closer.

“Of course I want… a family someday… but not now, not with her, and she didn’t want me, either,” he poured, his eyes bloodshot, strained.

“
That’s okay too,” I assured him.

“I feel relieved, but
guilty
because I feel so relieved,” he went on, growling angrily as a tear slipped from the corner of his eye to the notebook paper below his cheek. I focused on the word “forever” that I’d written, watching the ink blot and cloud over the line.

“
Jason,” I countered, my grip on his hand tightening. “You’re a good man. And you’re brave. And I’m proud of you for making such a hard decision.”

He held my hand so tightly, I felt his arm shaking. “
I knew you’d know what to say. You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

“I’m never at a loss for words.”

He’d smiled- a little- brushing at the back of his cheek with his hand. “I ruined your poem.”

“
Don’t worry about it. It was lame anyway.”

“Please read it to me.”

I rolled my eyes, pulling the sheet from under him and clearing my throat exaggeratingly. “
New to Me
by Alexandra Quinn.” I began.

“Even got a title.
Nice,” he commented.

I winked, rolling onto my back, paper in hand.

“
Everything is new to me, yet as it always was.

Once a quiet symphony
, and now we’re all abuzz.
”

I smirked, turning to him.

“Yes, I rhymed, shut up.”

“
Please go on,
” he urged, ignoring my commentary.

I took a deep breath.

“
You used to be just background noise, and now you’re amplified.

I
used to tune you out, but now I couldn’t if I tried.

I wonder what you
’ll be like, when all that’s changed is us.

I wonder what forever’s
like, when it’s as it always was.
”

He gazed at me thoughtfully, a slow grin playing on his lips. “Who is that about?”

“
You. Me. How everything feels different now that we’re grown-ups.”

He inched a little closer. “
Are you in love with me, Sandy Quinn?”

I blushed, wrinkling my nose and tossing the piece of paper over the side of the bed. “
I’ll always be in love with
us
. Our friendship is going to last forever. That’s the only thing I’m absolutely certain about when I wake up every morning.”

He smirked, reaching for one of my curls to twist around his finger.

“Love you too, my pretentious little poet. I’m going to
buy you a beret. For some reason, I think you need one while writing your poetry.”

I cringed and pushed at his shoulder. “Shut up.”

“Or one of those Samuel L. Jackson hats. Turned around backwards, of course.”

“
Did you come over here to
tease
me, or to let me comfort you in your times of woe?”

He laughed, and I grinned, tucking my face against his chest.

“Comfort and woe. You’re right. Sorry, no more teasing. I love your poems.”

“You smell like weird toothpaste,” I commented.

“The clinic smelled like that.”

We’d turned the music up and never talked about it again.

I was showered and dressed and waiting for Jason when he pulled in the driveway promptly at noon. Standing at the window with my arms crossed around my body, I watched him get out of his truck and walk toward the house. Joplin jumped up at the window, whining excitedly.

In khakis and a crisp, white shirt, and his ever-present aviators, he was absolutely gorgeous.
In the seconds it took him to walk up the sidewalk, I felt like I was seeing him for the first time in our whole lives.

“
Where’re my girls!” he called as he twisted the key in the lock. Joplin charged, and he took a moment to pet her before turning to me. “San,” he caught my chin in his hand, inspecting my face. “Your eye looks so much better.
God
, you’re beautiful.”

His words melted me from the inside out. I teetered on the line of my instincts, wanting so badly to just give in and let him be everything that I’d always wanted, or to mention Carissa and set him free.

“Mrs. Brewer, you’re very quiet,” he urged when I continued to hug him in silence.

Finally, I tightene
d my hold on him. “I’m just so happy we’re here.”

I could feel the tension in his body release, and he pulled me even further into his arms, lowering his lips to mine. “
I won’t fuck this up. Don’t let me fuck this up,” he corrected, cupping my face in his palms and staring into my eyes.

“
Up here is all crazy,” I whispered, tapping my finger to my temple. “But down here, I know what I feel.” I covered my heart, and he grinned, kissing me again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jason

I sat in the waiting room of the doctor’s office,
trying to answer work emails and not think about the upcoming week.

Or Sandy.

Or sex with Sandy.

The week ahead would be the true turning point in our relationship. I wanted to go slow enough for her, making sure that she had plenty of time to relax and be by herself.

Calling her “Mrs. Brewer” had sparked something in me that couldn’t be contained. Suddenly, I wasn’t
only
thirty-five, I was
already
thirty-five.

I wanted
the real thing.

I thought about what my mom
had said in the kitchen. I knew Sandy had been waiting for Jack to propose to her, and that she wanted marriage and children.

And I wanted Sandy.

My thoughts were tumbleweeds, blowing in from out of the blue, too fast for me to catch them. Every time I felt like I was on the edge of realizing what I wanted to do, I’d get distracted by more thinking.

The door opened, and Sandy came out, quietly thanking the doctor. Her
eyes were red and puffy, and she quickly slipped her sunglasses on before turning to me with a forced smile. “All set! I’m starving. Lunch?” she suggested.

I gave her a soft smi
le, leading her out to the pickup.

She immediately turned up the radio, and I sensed that she didn’t want to talk.

We picked up salads from her favorite café, and by the time we were standing in my kitchen, I could tell that she wanted to say something to me.

“
San?”

“Hmm
?”

“What’s up?”

She grabbed her salad, moving to the table, and I followed her. “Nothing.”

“Is this that thing when you say ‘nothing’ but it’s really something that I did?”

She shrugged, stabbing a piece of lettuce with her fork. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Brew.”

“But I did something,” I urged, joining her at the table.

She lifted her eyes to mine before narrowing them. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a hot fucking mess lately. Nothing that I think or do makes any sense.”

“Fine.”
I slid my chair back, moving to the bowl by the front door and retrieving both of our iPhones. I handed hers to her, and unlocked mine. “If you can’t say it,
write
it.”

She took a deep breath,
picking up her phone.

I waited.

Finally, I heard the sound of her text sending, and mine receiving.

Boss:
We’re going too fast.

I kept my eyes focused downward, replying to her text as my pulse raced.

Me:
I’m not pushing you, am I?

Boss:
No. But I have to stop, or I’m going to hurt you.

Me:
Stop what? Us?

Boss:
Yes. Sleeping with you. Playing house.

Me:
Do I make you happy?

She exhaled slowly, tossing her phone to the table. “Jason. You know you do.”

“Then stop
overthinking us.”

She placed her fork on the table, sitting back in the chair. “You deserve better. My mind is a mess. Half the time I miss Jack, did you know that? I think of him
, the good times, and my heart just… I
respect
myself. I’m an intelligent woman. Dr. Adams said that it’s normal to be feeling this way, and that I have to… stay away… but I know that if he gets help, too, for his anger…”