He opened his eyes and rubbed my shoulder. “Are you cold? You wanna get going?”
The truth was, it was the warmest I’d felt all day. “Let’s stay for a little bit longer. We came all this way.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
We just sat, taking in the cold air and listening to the sounds of sirens and children in the distance. I wanted so badly inside his head as he looked around. It was clear this place still meant a lot to him.
I really wanted to hold his hand, so I reached for it, and he opened his palm for me, taking mine in his and said, “Thank you for tagging along with me.”
“Does it make you sad to be back here?”
“Not if I take my own advice and only think about the good memories. It’s all about focusing on the good ones, remember?”
I squeezed his hand tighter. “What are some of the good ones?”
He looked up over at the house. “Oh, I have a lot at this place. Christmases with my mother were definitely good ones. She would save up her vacation days and use them all up during the holidays. She’d do up the whole house in cheesy tinsel and plastic mistletoe, and we’d eat greasy Chinese and play games like Monopoly. We’d watch A Christmas Story over and over because that’s the best fuckin’ movie ever.” He laughed. “Then, of course, there were the teenage memories. Let’s just say being a latch-key kid ain’t so bad when you want to sneak girls in at fifteen.”
I cringed. “I bet.”
“Then, there was the day I found my sister…coming back here and telling my Mom. Or the day I checked the mailbox right out front there and opened a letter that said I had gotten a full ride to Northeastern. Man, I’ll never forget that day.”
“Wow, I never knew that.”
“Yeah. As they say in Boston, I was pretty smaht.”
“Well, I knew that part.”
“Anyways, lots of good memories...focus on the good…”
“I am trying. I don’t know how I got to be such a negative person…so flawed.”
He turned to me. “Flawed?”
“Yeah, you know, with all my crazy fears.”
He didn’t respond right away and seemed to be thinking about something. “When did your first panic attack happen again?”
“I was a senior in high school.”
“What was going on in your life then?”
Maybe it should have seemed obvious, but for some reason, until this very moment, I had never connected my own issues to my brother’s death. The truth was, “My brother had just died…a month before the first attack.”
My brother had just died.
“See, Nina, I hadn’t even realized that part. Is it really that unusual for someone who experienced a traumatic event to lose control? That doesn’t make you flawed. It makes you real.”
I looked down at our intertwined hands and back at him. “I have honestly never thought about it that way. I always just assumed my panic attacks were a sign of weakness.”
Jake scratched his chin and turned his body toward mine. “I’ve been thinking about something a lot since I met you. Everyone has fears. Yours are just more tangible. You wear them on your sleeve. You think you’re weak, but you’re one of the strongest people I know, because as of today you’ve knocked the top two things you feared down one by one in a relatively short amount of time. Do you realize how rare it is for people to actually do that? Some people never have the courage to face their fears in an entire lifetime, let alone a matter of months.”
I pushed my shoulder into him playfully. “Most people don’t have crazy roommates who take an interest in helping them do it.”
“You think I’ve helped you…but you inspire me, Nina, without even realizing it. Seeing you and how you’ve trusted me enough to guide you through your own fears, makes me think about facing some of my own.”
“I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything. What do you fear?”
“What are my fears?” He looked up at the sky, and his lip twitched as he pondered my question, then looked back at me. “Hurting people…like letting people I care about down. Stuff like that.”
That was all I was going to get because he looked away from me, and I knew an imaginary wall had just gone up. Jake was like a puzzle. He’d offer me small pieces of his life, but none of them fit together to tell a complete story. The more silence that ensued, the more sure I became that he wasn’t going to elaborate on why he was afraid of hurting people and who he was afraid to hurt. I decided not to press my luck in prying further.
A plane flew overhead, and we both looked up at it in unison. More time passed in silence as we sat holding hands while we continued to trespass on the back lawn of this house.
A sudden blast of wind blew my hair right into his face, and I said, “They’re not kidding when they call it a windy city. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said, still looking up at the sky, before whispering, “I love your hair.” He said it so softly I wasn’t sure he intended for me to hear it.
But I did.
He let go of my hand abruptly, and his eyes popped out of his head. “Do you like milkshakes?”
Holy random transition.
“Sure.”
He stood up, and I followed suit. “Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 15
“This place is awesome,” I said as I followed him into Bernie’s diner, a retro-style joint about six blocks from his old house.
The smell of French fries and burgers was absolute heaven because I was starving.
“Wait ‘til you taste the food.” He was grinning from ear to ear as we sat ourselves in a booth by the window. The table had one of those mini jukeboxes, and for a dollar, we could play our choice of about twenty-five different oldies from the 50’s and 60’s.
“These music boxes have been here since I was a kid. The songs are exactly the same. It’s wild.”
“What are you gonna play?”
He put some change into the machine. “My father used to always play this one.”
I recognized it immediately, and my mouth dropped because I couldn’t believe my ears. “Crimson and Clover,” I said.
“You know it?”
“This was one of Jimmy’s favorite songs. It was from way before our time, but he loved it. Except, it was the Joan Jett version he would play. Who sings this one?”
Jake closed his eyes and moved his head slowly to the rhythm of the haunting song before answering me. “That’s wild about your brother. This was my Dad’s absolute favorite song. This one’s the original by Tommy James and the Shondells. It’s one of the few songs that remind me of my childhood, because he’d play it every Sunday when we’d come here.”
“I didn’t realize the other one was a remake.”
“I like the Joan Jett version better, but this is the one my Dad always listened to.”
When the song finished, a waitress came by to take our order. We hadn’t even looked at the menus, so she said she’d come back.
He handed me one. “I know what I’m getting, but you should decide. The milkshakes are legendary, and the burgers…don’t even get me started.”
“I’ll have whatever you get.”
“Anchovy pie, then?” He winked, then flagged the waitress down and said, “We’ll take two Bernie burgers and two strawberry milkshakes.”
While we were waiting for our food, he played with the straw to his water then looked up at me and asked, “What made you decide to become a nurse?”
“Honestly? My brother. There was this one nurse who was with him the most. Her name was Kerri. She was younger, just out of school. I think he actually had a crush on her.” I laughed thinking about how cute my brother was. “I just remember being so grateful for the times that she was with him when we couldn’t be because of work or school. He was so sick but would just light up whenever she was around. And I remember thinking back then, God, if my brother makes it, I swear I am going to give back and do the same thing for someone else??
?s brother or son.”
“So, after he died, you still decided to do it.”
“Yeah, I did.” I focused on his dragon tattoo, trying not to lose my composure.
He could tell I was about to cry.
“It’s okay, Nina.
My voice was now shaky, but I managed to get it together. “It just made me so thankful that he had her…someone that brought a little light into his life, during such a dark time.”
“I can relate to that,” he said looking down, playing with his straw again.
“What do you mean?”
“Much needed light during a dark time…being on the receiving end of that.”
Then, he looked straight up at me suddenly. I didn’t fully understand what he meant, but before I could ask what he was referring to, our food had arrived.
I gasped when the waitress set my plate in front of me. “Okay, this burger is bigger than my head.”
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. Whatever you don’t finish, I’ll eat.”
Our hands collided when we both reached for the salt at the same time. Even a split second of touching him sent a shock wave through me.
As usual, we ate in comfortable silence, and the sounds he made while devouring the burger reminded me of his reaction to my desserts. He definitely let it be known when he was truly enjoying something.
The shake was so thick I could barely get it through the straw.
“You need to suck on it harder,” he said with a smirk, wiggling his eyebrows.
He was the king of sexual innuendos. I usually didn’t play along but was in a different kind of a mood today. “I guess my mouth is just out of practice.”
He nearly choked on his own shake and that topic of conversation pretty much ended there.
Suddenly embarrassed at my boldness, I changed the subject. “So, you asked me why I decided to become a nurse. Why did you choose engineering?”
“From a young age, I liked to take things apart and put them back together. So, I guess it was the field that fit the bill.”
So, when he rips my heart out, he’ll be able to fix it.
I looked down at his sexy arms. “I am sure you get asked this all the time, but what are the meanings behind your tattoos, like the dragon, for example? That’s my favorite one.”
Squinting his eyes sarcastically, he said, “No…no one ever asks me that!” He chuckled. “Seriously, though, nothing profound. Everyone thinks there’s got to be some fucking deep meaning behind ink, but I just thought the dragon looked cool. The same goes for these.” He pointed to his right arm that sported various Celtic and tribal markings, along with crosses, roses and other artwork. “All meaningless, except for this one right here, the moon with my father’s initials on it. I got most of these when I was a teenager.”
I reached across the table and rubbed my index finger over the half moon tattoo that had the letters A.B.G. surrounding it.
“What does it stand for?”
“Alan Boyd Green.”
“What does the moon mean?”
He looked down at my finger, which was still brushing against his arm and said, “My Dad used to say this thing to me before he left the house or tucked me in at night. I would tell him I loved him then he would say he loved me too. But I would always ask him how much. He would say, ‘to the moon…I love you to the moon.’”
“That is so incredibly sweet.”
He was staring out the window. “Sometimes, I look up at the moon at night and think of him. I know that’s fucking cheesy…but I do.”
“I think that’s beautiful.”
I think you are beautiful too, and God help me, I want to kiss you so badly right now.
“He was this big biker dude, you know? But he had a heart of gold, and he would have been a great father to have growing up.” He lifted his thumb, pointing to the band he always wore around it. “This was my Dad’s wedding ring, actually.”
Wow.
“He knew that you loved him, Jake. I regret not telling my brother I loved him more like that.”
“We all have things we regret…decisions we make that we have to live with. You can’t dwell on them and beat yourself up for it. It doesn’t change anything.”
We stayed in that diner booth for at least three hours. We played more music from the jukebox, and I told Jake stories about growing up in the boonies; he couldn’t believe I actually drove a tractor and said he’d pay money if I let him come home and watch. He joked that he would pay more if I did it in a bikini.
Then, we shared a huge slice of “death by chocolate” cake. He had asked me if I wanted to go explore more of Chicago, but there was something so peaceful about this nostalgic place. I told him I preferred to just hang out here until we had to head back to the airport.
The sun had set, and the evening dinner crowd started to fill Bernie’s. Every time the bell on the door chimed, it reminded me I was one step closer to getting back on another plane. The anxiety started to build up again.
I took the last bite of cake, and with my mouth full, said, “This day really surprised me. I had no clue what you had in store, but it turned out to be one of the best days I’ve had in a really long time. To think I was dreading it. Now, I just have get through the flight home.”
“You can choose right here and now to stay in the present and let go of the fear or you can choose to engage it. Nothing can hurt you on that plane, unless you let it.”
I put my fork down. “How did you get to be so wise? Seriously, you’re like an 80-year-old man stuck in a hot, tatted body.”
What the hell did I just say to him?
His gaze was penetrating, and the amused smile on his face showed me that my admission hadn’t escaped him.
“So…you think I’m hot?” His smile was devious now. He was going to torture me.
I didn’t know what to say, so decided on an answer that made no sense. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“Are there other meanings for hot?”
“Jake—”
“You’re turning red…stop. I’m messing with you. You make it so easy sometimes.” He laughed and startled me when he reached across the table and swiped his thumb gently across my lip then licked his finger. Chills radiated down my spine as he did it.
“You had chocolate all over your mouth. It was cute for a while, but I didn’t want you leaving here like that.”
“Oh…thanks,” I said looking away, still embarrassed about what I had just admitted. I was also desperately wishing he had licked the chocolate directly off of my mouth, so I could taste him.
It was now completely dark out, and I knew we had to leave in a few minutes. I wished we could just stay here in this booth longer. Somehow we were able to drown out the whole world for the past few hours. He had me crazy in lust and had a way of making me want to tell him everything, like my deepest fears and desires. Sometimes, I made an ass out of myself in the process because if I was being honest…he was my deepest desire.
“Ready to go? We should get to the airport,” he said as he took out his wallet and paid the bill.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
As we exited Bernie’s, he put his hand on the small of my back again, and my breathing quickened immediately. Anytime he so much as brushed up against me, let alone touched me directly, my body responded, and lately, the effects have been cumulative; I was slowly wearing thin.
***
On the flight home, before takeoff, he grabbed my hand without my asking him to.
I think he could see my nerves starting to work their way up to panic mode.
This plane was bigger and nearly empty, and we had a large middle row all to ourselves. I was scared but didn’t feel as out of control as I was at the start of the first flight. It was nighttime, and somehow that was more calming than the sun pouring in.
“You think you can make it through takeoff without a tickle?”
I nodded. “Just don’t let go of my hand, okay?”
“I
promise. I won’t.”
And he didn’t, for the entire flight. Even when we had reached cruising altitude, even when the flight attendant came by with drinks, even when he would reach into his backpack for something, he kept my hand in his. It was a small gesture, but it was the first time I truly felt that he was holding it because he wanted to, not because I needed him to.
It was dark inside the plane aside from some small interior lights. Sitting close to him in the dim lighting of our otherwise empty row felt intimate.
Jake came up with a game to get my mind off a patch of turbulence. “We are going to take turns shouting out a word, and then we both have to say the first thing that comes to mind.
I breathed out, still shaken from the constant bouncing of the plane. “Okay.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You first,” he said.
The first subject that came to my mind was “Chicago.”
Me: “Bernies.”
Jake: “Home.”
“Math,” Jake said.
Me: “Torture.”
Jake: “Fun.”
“Mrs. Ballsworthy,” I said laughing.
We looked at each other, amused and said in unison, “Fuck.”
He threw out his own name. “Jake.”
Me: “Bananas.”
Jake: “Hot.”
I smacked him.
I threw out, “Nina.”
Me: “Spectacular.”
Jake: (Silent pause) “Let me think about that and get back to you.”
I whacked him playfully again.
We continued to play the back and forth game until the turbulence let up. He had succeeded in distracting me from it.
It had been a long day, and I decided to lay my head back and close my eyes, even though I was too nervous to actually nap. Jake was still holding my hand, and at one point, started rubbing his thumb softly back and forth across it. My eyes were still closed, but I was melting into the seat, quivering between my legs at the small but sensual gesture. I squeezed his hand in an attempt to communicate that I liked it when he did that. As he continued to brush across my hand with his thumb, I mimicked him and started rubbing my own thumb across his. Eventually, our two thumbs were moving in soft circular motions.