CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I flew back with Adam.
It was a very mature step for us, almost like a wordless acknowledgment that our chapter had truly been closed. I had nothing against him and hoped that we could eventually be friends again. Which was the mature way to say I no longer wanted to take a Louisville slugger to his privates.
We made our flight in plenty of time and I spent most of it sleeping in a fugue state, that restless sleep that I did when I was in public. I kept dozing in and out, waking briefly here and there. At one point, I woke to the stewardess asking Adam something regarding refreshments, but I was too groggy to really tune in to what. I was jarred awake again when he jostled my knee going to the bathroom, and again when he came back.
By the time I finally opened my eyes for good, the flight was halfway over. I glanced over to find Adam playing Scrabble on his phone, headphones firmly planted on his ears. I watched for a moment as he squandered a double letter space on the word “door.” He gave me a smile and pushed his headphones to his neck. “What? Do you see a better word?”
“Yeah, you missed ‘dourly.’ But at least you still have the y.” I yawned. “What time is it?”
“A little after six. You missed the drinks.”
“Damn.” I craned my neck, trying to locate one of the flight attendants. I spotted one all the way down the aisle. I tried to catch her attention, and she smiled before giving me her back. I couldn’t really blame her—serving refreshments to a couple hundred passengers with different likes and dislikes could test the patience of a saint.
Adam offered me his cup with a raised eyebrow. “We can share.”
I shrugged before taking it. Why not? I took a long sip of his cranberry juice before I realized it was liberally laced with vodka. I coughed and sputtered for a minute while Adam tried to pound me on the back. I finally waved him off successfully, cheeks red, eyes a little teary. “You could have told me.”
He shrugged. “How was I to know you were going to drink it like a Big Gulp?”
Despite my almost death, I took another sip. The hum of the plane was soothing as I stared out the window, watching the clouds go by. Feeling some strange need to fill the silence, I cleared my throat and tried to think of more than inane chatter. “When we land, you feel like sharing a cab?”
“Jackson’s not picking you up?”
“No, he’s going to be in a meeting.”
Even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. I was kind of tired of lying. I didn’t need to pretend my life was better than it was. I had my family. I had my health—reasonably, considering my attachment to bacon, and pretending that I was something I wasn’t seemed like a huge step backward.
I sighed. “Actually, that’s a lie. Jackson isn’t picking me up because he and I weren’t really a thing. I asked him to be my fake date, and he agreed to help me out.”
He looked at me for a few seconds in complete silence, brown eyes gone wide with surprise. He finally shook his head. “Why…why would you do something like that?”
“I wasn’t over you.” I bit my lip, surprised at my own words. There was confessing to a fake date, and then there was this. This confessional was approaching deathbed-worthy. Determined to see it through, I repeated, “I wasn’t over you. And maybe…maybe I missed what we used to be.”
“Yeah well. Nic seems to think I do, too.”
It was a moment before I processed what he was saying. “Oh jeez. Are you guys…”
“We’re taking a break.” His mouth twisted. “Until I figure out what it is I really want.”
“Wow. That sounds like a direct quote.”
“It is.”
I knew that I should probably inquire further about that, but the sad truth of it was that I didn’t care. At one point, I’d wanted to marry him. Build a life with him. All I felt now was a slight fondness. He didn’t make my pulse race fast enough to break an oximeter. He didn’t make my face flush or my palms sweat. He didn’t make me so frustrated that I wanted to throw something. Or laugh so hard that I thought I might pee on myself. I swallowed. No, he wasn’t the man that made me feel those things. That man? I’d let him go without a word.
“So you and Jackson,” Adam said. “You guys are just over?”
“I told you. We never really were—”
“I’m not deaf, AJ.” He scowled at me. “You can call it whatever you want, but I know what I saw. And you never looked at me that way. The moment I saw you guys dancing together, I knew I didn’t have a chance.”
“Dancing?” I thought for a moment about when he would’ve seen us dancing and frowned. “I didn’t see you at the wedding.”
“Obviously.”
My mouth opened and then shut again. I didn’t know what to say.
“I followed you out to the balcony and saw you guys dancing. I decided then and there that I should leave.” Adam wasn’t quite done as he leaned over and took his glass back from my limp hand. He took a sip and rattled his ice. “You telling me that’s really worth throwing away?”
I scowled. The man was determined not to make it to forty. He just was. “Are you seriously giving me relationship advice?”
He waved a hand. “Everything looks better from first class. I can afford to be generous with free refills on the horizon.”
I bit my lip. “I don’t want to talk about Jackson.” Especially with you.
“So was I right?” He didn’t look at me as he spoke.
“Right about what?”
“That I don’t have a chance?”
I blinked. I’d never even considered getting back together with Adam. Picturing it now was like trying to squeeze into an old suit, trying to squeeze my new life into the casing of the old. I couldn’t go backward. Didn’t want to go backward.
“AJ. Baby.” He grabbed my hand. “We could make it work. I could make you happy.”
I knew he could. We would have a very nice life together. A quiet life in a subdivision with our kids and a couple dogs. Our work schedules were compatible. Our decorating styles were the same. We’d had a good sex life. Not the kind of sex that Jackson and I had, but maybe that was a good thing. Our sex life had been more of the “I’m here, you’re here, and we’re both still awake” variety. And Adam’s pickup line had usually involved some variation of the oh-so-sophisticated, “You wanna?”
But it had been good. We had been good together. And it had all been perfectly…vanilla. I tilted my head. I liked vanilla. Fuck love, with all those cartoony hearts in your eyes. We didn’t need it. Love was confusing. Exhausting.
But even as those treacherous thoughts crept through my mind, I knew that it wasn’t enough. I wanted it all. The love. The passion…I wanted someone who drove me crazy. I didn’t want a placid, settled type of “like.” I didn’t want vanilla. I wanted chocolate with a jalapeno kick just when I thought it was over.
In the end, I guessed I wanted my Disney story. Move over, Rapunzel. Bitch, you know there’s room in that tower for two. I wanted my happily-ever-after kind of love.
Or nothing at all.
From the look on my face, he knew it, too. He sighed, letting my hand drop. “Well, that answers that,” he said to no one in particular.
“Adam.” I spread my hands helplessly. That was all I could manage. But he knew what I meant.
He smiled humorlessly. “Well, it was just an idea.”
“Would you guys like something to drink?” The stewardess’s timing couldn’t have been better. “We have coffee, juice, water…several premium wines—”
“Yes,” we said in unison, and then shared a quick grin. Well, at least there was something we still agreed on.
*
The house was dark and quiet as I shouldered my way in the door, weighted down with two bags, my purse, and a bag of fast food. I sighed happily, dropping my bags in the entryway. I kicked off my shoes a scant moment later, and dropped a towering stack of mail on the side table.
There was nothing that made me appreciate home like traveling. I padded to the kitchen in bare feet and stared into the fridge for a minute, more out of habit than anything else, wasting electricity as cold air wafted around me. I finally decided on a Coke Zero, and drained almost the entire thing as I went around opening up the house. I took a long shower to wash the travel off of me, letting the horrors of the airport swirl down the drain, and then threw on some comfortable Tweety-bird pajamas. Routine items out of the way, I collapsed on the couch with a huge sigh.
I was hungry, but not hungry enough to move and grab the bag of food on my kitchen island. I had just enough energy to stare at it longingly. My phone vibrated, and I reached for it quickly. It was only Lane, making sure I’d gotten in safe. Apparently, she was the only person in my family who cared whether or not my flight had taken a header into the Atlantic. I texted her back home safe with a couple smiley emoticons.
It was pretty obvious by now that he-who-shall-remain-but-a-memory was not going to call. It was hard to deny that I wanted him to, especially after almost spraining something vital lunging for the phone. But it wasn’t like I could do the calling myself. I’d already pushed enough. Laid out my terms. The next move had to be his.
It wasn’t like I could send him a “let’s keep having casual sex” muffin basket. Or a naked candygram. I had some pride. I quickly googled naked candygram on my phone to be sure, and came up empty. Yeah. So no naked candygram. Like I said. I had some pride.
I scrolled through my phone, glancing at pictures we’d taken together during that idyllic week. Paddle boarding pictures, the obligatory random sunsets and sunrises…a couple shots of us fooling around for the camera with funny faces and putting bunny ears on one another. I scrolled some more. One of him with my dad’s dog, Molly. One of him smiling at the camera, the other arm around a faded green paddle board.
I thumbed to the next picture and sighed. We’d been at the beach that day, and he’d stuck out his tongue at me when I wouldn’t stop taking pictures. The sun was in his eyes, turning the hazel into warm, melting taffy, and even in my funk, I couldn’t help but smile at it a little. I deemed the picture my favorite, and set it as his call picture. And my home screen. And my background as my conscience silently judged me. I didn’t care. The first step was admitting I had a problem.
I have a problem.
I finally drifted off a few hours later, snuggled into the nook of the couch, letting the sounds of the air conditioner lull me to sleep. When I woke, he was next to me, an inscrutable expression on his face, half-obscured by the moonlight. I blinked blearily, looking over every inch of his face.
“You’re here,” I breathed.
He smiled, but didn’t speak. No words were necessary as he took my mouth with his, kissing me as if he never wanted to stop. I sank my fingers into his hair, trying to pull him closer, but he resisted. There was no deepening of the kiss. He didn’t cover my body with his or try to take off my clothing. Just sweet, drugging kisses that made me feel lethargic and punch drunk. And frustrated.
I opened my mouth for him to take advantage, but he ignored me, sinking his teeth gently into my bottom lip. I tugged on his hair again, needing him closer, wanting him to overpower me, overwhelm me…just wanting more…
“Jackson,” I finally said, frustrated. “I want you.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do,” I said, brows creased in confusion. I reached for him again and he began to dissolve under my fingertips like candy floss in the rain, and I tried to hold on to the disappearing pieces. “No,” I muttered as his arm disintegrated. “No.”
Frustrating, disappearing man. And what on earth was that bloody annoying noise?
I woke to the dawn filtering in my living room, my head tucked in an odd position on the couch. Sweet baby Jesus. I could already feel my back and neck locking up like a stubborn Rubix cube. It didn’t help my mood that my neighbor was having another morning screech-fest in the shower.
I rubbed my eyes blearily, wondering oh-so-many things. I wondered if Julian would mind if I didn’t come back to work. Like, ever. I wondered if I could maybe reenter my dreams at exactly where I’d left off. I also wondered if my neighbor knew there were other artists in the world besides Taylor Swift, and if she’d perhaps like an iTunes gift card to explore her options.
I checked my phone and realized I had a good thirty minutes before I had to get up. I closed my eyes and snuggled back into the sofa throw pillows, hoping a better dream Jackson would visit me this time. Maybe one who wouldn’t dissolve, and liked to do dirty dream things. I tried my best to ignore the fact that my phone had no missed notifications.
He hadn’t called. Part of me had thought that he wouldn’t.
The other part of me knew that he shouldn’t.