Near and Far

Prying myself out of bed on those Monday mornings was always extra hard. I woke up knowing it could be upwards of a solid month before we saw each other again. I tried to make it to the ranch every month, but a couple of times work, school, or a combination of both had made those trips impossible. That Monday, however, was somewhat easier since spring break was less than two weeks away, and I’d get to spend a whole week at Willow Springs. Just thinking about Willow Springs made me homesick. That might be silly given I’d only spent three months of my nineteen years there, but it was . . . home. At least by every definition of the word save for duration.

I wanted to give myself another minute to pout, but I forced my butt out of bed. The sooner I went to class, work, and my routine, the sooner spring break would get there. Hopefully. After getting showered and dressed, I sent Jesse a quick Don’t fall asleep in the cow pies. Miss you. Love you more. text, I banged on Alex’s bedroom door—I doubled as my roommate’s alarm clock—before I unlocked my bike from the handrail just outside, and I was on my way. Jesse had worked his monthly magic on my bike. He must have replaced the brakes, too, because the lightest tap practically stopped me.

The ride to school only took about ten minutes, but on mornings like that, when the sky seemed to release a month’s worth of rain in an hour, the ride felt a lot longer. Most days I was able to ignore the constant drizzle. No one complained about all the lush greenery, so I’d never understood why they threw such a fit about the rain that made it so green. Nothing beautiful had gotten that way without a little ugliness taking place behind the scenes.

When I pulled up to the art building, I don’t think a single part of me was dry—my underwear included—but that didn’t stop me from racing inside once I’d locked up my bike. I was so drenched, I sloshed—I actually sloshed—toward my first class. I don’t think a single head didn’t turn when I sloshed by. Most days, I didn’t envy the kids who drove to school. That wasn’t one of those days.

Art History of the Renaissance was my first class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Most history classes in high school had put me to sleep, but art history was totally different. It was a good-sized class, but the professor knew every one of our first names. As the T.A., Jax was available for regular study groups and test cram sessions.

I knew I was a few minutes late and prayed Professor Murray wouldn’t issue his standard quip of Nice of you to join us, Mr. or Mrs. such-and-such before I scurried into a seat. When I eased the door open and took a tentative step inside, it looked like I was off the hook. No Professor Murray in one of his crazy bow-ties. Not one of the hundred students hunched into their seats. No one except for me . . . and someone who was neither a student nor a professor.

After Saturday night, he was someone I was not looking forward to seeing quite yet.

“Didn’t you get the email?” Jax called to me from his desk. It looked like he was grading papers.

“What email? The one about you being an a**hole?” Yeah, I was definitely not over it yet. “Because I definitely got that one.”

He gave me that smug grin of his. “Haven’t you heard? Everyone’s gotten that email. But I was referring to the one about Professor Murray canceling class due to having a bad case of the flu.”

“Well, I hadn’t experienced your a**hole ways up until Saturday night. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and I now see the error of my ways.” Those probably weren’t wise words to aim at the man responsible for grading plenty of my papers, but I didn’t care. If my G.P.A. took a dip, so be it. Telling him off was worth it.

“I am who I am. I make no excuses. I make no apologies.” Jax dropped his pen and rose from his seat. An expression I wasn’t used to seeing on his face settled into place before he sighed. “I don’t make apologies save for one exception.”

I waited a minute for him to expound on that “one exception” thing, but my patience ran out. “I’m on pins and needles, Jax.”

His eyes lifted to mine. A classroom separated us, but the look in them made me squirm. Too much intensity. “You. You’re the one exception.”

Those words did little to reassure me I was just misinterpreting his expression. “Do I want to know why?” I didn’t really think so.

He shrugged. “Because you gave me the benefit of the doubt. You’re the one exception because no one before you gave me that privilege.” That was a bit too . . . deep for a Monday morning. “I’m sorry, Rowen. I was an a**hole the other night, and even though some would argue that’s my steady state, I try not to direct my a**hole-ery your way.”

As apologies go, it was a pretty good one, but I was having a tough time not laughing. “‘Asshole-ery’?” I repeated, walking toward the front of the classroom. Well, sloshing toward the front of the classroom. “Where the hell did you pick up that gem?”

“The powers that be deemed a**hole unfitting of someone of my level, so they created a whole new word just for me. Pretty special, right?”

He’d apologized, that heavy look in his eyes was gone, and he was back to exchanging witty banter with me. We were good.

“You’re special, all right.” I stopped a few feet in front of him and bit my tongue to keep from teasing him about his outfit. Jax’s motto wasn’t just to dress to impress; he dressed to overwhelm. He wore slim-fit trousers, a tweed vest, and a checked skinny tie. His dark hair was meticulously styled, and not in the messy-I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-but-really-spent-a-half-hour-on-my-hair style. His hair was styled like a modernized version of Elvis’s pompadour. Jax’s skin was imperfection free, his nails never had dirt under them, and his dark eyes were ringed with a thick set of dark lashes. He was easy on the eyes—as dozens of girls who’d woken up next to him could attest to—but he wasn’t what you’d call my cup of tea. I had a type, and Jax wasn’t it.

Jesse was my type.

“Shit, Rowen. You’re creating a lake.” Jax took a few steps back, giving his shiny black boots a concerned look.

I glanced down and, sure enough, I was standing in an impressive puddle. From the looks of it, I’d leaked a solid gallon of rain water. “It’s just water. Chill out.”

“And these are just D&Gs.” Jax rushed to the sink in the back and tore a handful of paper-towels free.

I shook my head, almost laughing. Jesse wore boots because they were meant to get dirty; I doubted Jax’s boots had seen a speck of dirt.

Kneeling at my feet, Jax mopped up the puddle and then did something I wasn’t expecting. After he’d tossed the wet paper-towels aside, he snagged his jacket hanging over the back of his chair and draped it over my shoulders. It was a nice jacket. Even someone like me, who’d purchased half of my wardrobe from second-hand stores, could see that.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I hadn’t expected his random act of concern, and it left me in unchartered territory.

“So . . . . the artist and the cowboy, eh?”

Ah, there we were. Back in chartered waters. As obnoxious as he was, I’d take incorrigible Jax to concerned Jax any day. “Careful,” I warned, giving him a look.

“The country boy and the city girl.”

“Double careful.”

“The good guy and the bad”—that time, I leveled him with a look—“the great girl,” he corrected.

Before he went for another round, I crossed my arms and cleared my throat. “Haven’t you ever heard that opposites attract?”

“I think I have heard that a time or two. You know what I’ve heard a lot more?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “Birds of a feather flock together.”

He didn’t have to waggle his finger between the two of us for his meaning to be obvious. That wasn’t an argument I was going to have with him. Opposites, identicals, and everything in between, that wasn’t the be-all-end-all of why a couple got or stayed together. The X factor, the real binding agent, was in what couldn’t be labeled, what couldn’t be measured. Did Jesse and I make sense on paper? Probably not. Were Jesse and I about as different as two people could get? Probably.

Was I worried? Hell to the no.

What bound us together couldn’t be seen or put into words. It was invisible. No word had been created for it. Fate, destiny, true love, soul mates were glorified, commercial terms that fell flat. I ascribed few words to what we shared, but one word I could, one word I felt the moment his fingers laced through mine, and that was . . . eternal.

“I’m going now”—I hitched my thumb at the door as I backed toward it—“before we get back into a**hole territory.”

“Probably for the best. I wouldn’t want my profound a**hole-ery to ruin that equally profound once-in-a-lifetime apology I just made.”

“I like the way you think.” I slid off Jax’s jacket and draped it over one of the chairs.

Jax tapped his temple before pointing my way. “I like the way you think.” His dark eyes glimmered. “Birds of a feather, you know?”

“Bye, Jax.” I didn’t dim the irritation in my tone.

“You heard back yet on that internship at the museum?”

Only because his voice was clear again did I pause. “Not yet. I probably didn’t get it. I think they would have let someone know by now.” I’d applied to a summer internship position at one of the most prestigious museums in the Seattle area. I hadn’t told anyone I’d applied, not even Jesse, because frankly, I felt silly. The paperwork stated clearly that they were looking for senior-level students, not to mention the mega-talented piece they’d said in a Human Resources friendly kind of way. Jax had learned about it because the museum had called to check my references and he’d been the one checking Professor Murray’s messages that day.

“If they haven’t called to tell you you’ve gotten it yet, then the position hasn’t been filled.”

I wished I had a hundredth of the confidence Jax had in my work. “Over-confident much?”

“I have to take up the slack for your utter lack of it,” he replied, sliding his hands into his pockets. “You’re talented, Rowen. You’re a hell of a lot more talented than I was at your age.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Jax was a T.A. for so many art classes because the professors were hoping even a smidgen of Jax’s talent would rub off on the students. “You’re the real deal. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you you’re anything less.”

Since we were breeching into another topic I liked avoiding, I continued toward the door. “Bye, Jax.”

“For real this time?” He started the morning with that smug smile, and he was ending it with the same one. I heard the damn thing in his voice.

“Bite me,” I said with a bit more good-naturedness than I’d intended.

Jax chuckled. “Bye, Rowen.”

Chapter Seven

“HEY, EARTH TO p**sy-whipped Walker. Would you please stop leaving your balls in Seattle? I’ve been having nightmares ever since I saw those guys going at it in a tent in Brokeback. You gazing into a fire across from me with a dumb smile on your face while a tent looms off to the side isn’t doing anything to ease my fears of getting Brokeback’ed out here.”