Jake

On Sunday morning, Jana joins me in my gym just as I’m finishing my run. She’s sipping a green smoothie and hands another for me.

“Are we being healthy after the excess of Friday night?”

“Something like that.” She eyes my treadmill suspiciously.

“Would you like to have a run?”

“No.” The answer comes fast enough that I know it’s not quite what she meant to say, and we both chuckle.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

“Oh my God, yes.” She sags against the treadmill arm and makes a face. “Also, I don’t know how to make a good green smoothie. It’s missing coffee, whipped cream, and a Starbucks barista to prepare it properly.”

I take a sip of mine. It’s great, for what it is. I lean in. “I’ll let you in on a secret. The only people who truly love these things don’t have taste buds. Or they’ve never had a Frappucino.”

“I don’t think one day of a green smoothie and pretending to exercise is going to make a difference,” she says. “So we should go to Starbucks.”

“We definitely should. And on the way, you should tell me why you’re nervous about tomorrow.”

“I told you months ago that we’re going to have an awkward run-in with a supermodel ex.” She’s teasing, but there’s a kernel of fear that’s very real to her at the core of that.

I pull her close and brush my lips against the curve of her ear. “There is no drama in my life that will touch you. I wouldn’t put you in that position.”

“No supermodel exes?”

“Two of them. I don’t think either of them will be there, but there definitely wouldn’t be any drama. One of them is pregnant with her second kid and very happily married. The other is very happily unmarried and living in Paris. Neither of them thought I was that great a boyfriend, to be honest.”

“Well, they’d be wrong.”

“Would they?” I like the fierceness in her voice.

“You’re smart and sexy and full of surprises. What’s not to like?”

“You bring out the good boyfriend in me.”

“You didn’t make the supermodels coffee?”

I didn’t have the supermodels stay over at my place. “They weren’t serious relationships.”

She bites her lip, I’m sure to keep from pointing out that coffee in the morning is not a marker of a serious relationship. It is for me, though. Or it was. I’ve got bigger plans up my sleeve.

I drag her into the shower with me, where we both get a bit of a workout that she’s definitely agreeable to, then we head to Starbucks.

It’s warm, so once we have our drinks, we head into the park. It’s busy this morning. Lots of runners, people out with their dogs, and lots of people with kids. Central Park is like having the most amazing backyard, full of history and pleasant strangers.

It wasn’t always that way. I grew up here. This was my backyard, in a very different way. New York in the Eighties was a very different place. The park was dangerous at night, and not much better during the day.

“Want to see where I used to play baseball as a kid?”

“Uh, yes.” She laughs. “Yes! Of course I do.”

“It’s a bit of a walk.”

She slides her fingers through mine. “I’ve got all the time in the world. Show me your childhood.”

I tell her about the park conservation program that turned Central Park around through my later childhood, and how my mother made me volunteer with the gardeners when she caught me smoking. “That was the most mother-like thing she ever did.”

Jana doesn’t say anything. She hasn’t met my mother yet, because the day after I told Mother I had a girlfriend I wanted to introduce her to, she flew to Italy for a so-called retreat I hadn’t heard anything about.

It’s possible the two aren’t related, but I’m not holding my breath.

We curve around the back of the Met and I point it out. “We’ll walk back down Fifth so you can see the front. They’re probably putting up the tent for the covered entrance today.”

A pair of runners sprint past us, and Jana watches them for a few seconds before asking me why I don’t ever run through the park.

“I do, all the time.”

“Not when I’m at your place.”

“Because you’re at my place. The treadmill is faster and I can multitask work, and get both out of the way faster so I can rejoin you in bed, or on a walk.”

“This view is incredible,” she says as we reach the path around the lake. On the other side, the apartment buildings of Central Park West rise above the trees. “Maybe I’ll take up jogging. Or walking briskly.”

“Are there any great parks in Baltimore?”

She snorts. “No. We’re more like New York, circa 1982.”

Ah, well, there’s always my treadmill. “Because I bought a building yesterday. In the Inner Harbor.”

She trips over her feet and spins around. “My Inner Harbor? Baltimore’s Inner Harbor? That—”

“Yes.”

“What sort of building?”

“A tall one. Good for business-ing and things like that.”

“Jake!”

“What? You said you like it when I’m full of surprises.”

“I meant showing up in Vermont for an afternoon of sex.”

“We can have many afternoons of sex if I work in Baltimore. Middle of the nights, early mornings…”

“Only a billionaire would think the solution to us being apart is for you to move your entire company to me.”

“Not the entire company. Just a division. The CEO’s office. The rest of the building we’ll lease to other companies.”

A breeze picks up and she pushes an errant strand of hair off her face. Her eyes are bright and wide, and her cheeks are flushed.

I love you. I really shouldn’t say that just yet. I should let her process.

“This is…you just gave me a key to your place. I think the next step is a drawer, not a real estate transaction.”

“You don’t think that’s a logical solution?”

“It would make way more sense for me and the cats to move closer to you.”

“Closer?”

“I was thinking New Jersey.”

New Jersey? I love you. Maybe it is time to say. I tug her to the side of the path as another group of runners storms past. They’re loud. Maybe this isn’t the right place. I don’t know, I’ve never done this before. I love you.

It’s pretty easy in my head.

She searches my face. “Don’t worry. I’m not inviting myself into the penthouse or anything.”

“You should. I love you.” It turns out, it’s easy to say out loud, too. I grin. “And that’s why I bought a building in Baltimore. Because I love you.”

“Buying a skyscraper isn’t romantic.” She laughs. “Except it is, sort of. My heart’s all fluttery over it,” she whispers. “Oh, Jake.”

I pull her into my arms and kiss her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“We can fight about where we’re going to live when we get to the East Meadow.”

“What’s that?” she breathes, her voice all husky.

“Where I used to play baseball.”

“That doesn’t sound private.”

“It’s not, you’ll need to contain yourself.”

“But you love me,” she whispers, wiggling closer. “That feels like we should celebrate with dirty sex.”

I take her hand and pull her toward the next exit out of the park. Grass show-and-tell time can wait.