Chapter Eight Maren
Chapter Eight
Maren
“Hey.” Jamie peeks into my bedroom while I hang my laundry before heading out. “Where are you off to?”
“Ted is taking me to lunch.”
She sits on the end of my bed, cheeks red from three hours of sex that I assume were broken up with a few catnaps.
“How long are you home?” I ask, threading the hanger into the sleeves of my white button-down.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t taken another job yet.”
“That’s awesome. Lots of time to catch up.”
“You can help Fitz and me look for a house.”
I close my closet door and open my shades. “You have a house.”
Jamie chuckles. “Will has a house. We have a room, a shared kitchen, and a living room.”
Leaning my backside against the oak dresser, I cross my arms. “You want to have sex in other rooms of the house?”
Jamie curls her hair behind her ears, lips tucked between her teeth.
“You two are going to guilt me into moving out,” I grumble.
“Not at all. I think Will would be heartbroken if he lost all of us. Do you want to move out?” She tucks her legs into her gray, oversize sweatshirt, which I think belongs to Fitz.
Do I want to move out? No. Do I want to have a three-hour sexcapade with a man who adores me beyond words and who makes me want my (our) own place?
“What’s that look?” Jamie’s head slants to the side.
“What look?”
“You have a dreamy look on your face. Are you imagining your own place?”
“I met someone.”
She parts her lips, eyebrows sliding up her forehead. “Someone is not anyone. Do tell.”
“He’s a new mechanic at Cielo. We had the most embarrassing first encounter. Remind me to tell you all about it when I get back home. His name is Ozzy. He lost his wife in a car accident two years ago, and he has a ten-year-old daughter named Lola.”
“A single dad? Wow.”
I frown. “I know. I’m conflicted about it. Single parents are a package deal. And I really like him, but I don’t want to lead him on if I’m uncomfortable with the idea of someone else’s child being part of my life, ya know? It feels like a lot of responsibility.”
Jamie nods slowly.
“And there’s one other thing about him.”
“What’s that?” She narrows her eyes.
“He rides a bike.”
“And?” Jamie chuckles.
“No, you don’t understand. He rides a bicycle because his daughter won’t ride in a car, and she doesn’t want him riding in one or driving one either. So he walks or rides his bike everywhere—rain, snow, or shine.”
“Oof. That’s complicated. I’ve dealt with patients like her. It’s a heartbreaking and debilitating fear. Is she getting help?”
“Yes. I don’t know a lot. I haven’t wanted to pry. We’ve only had one date. But I really like him.”
Jamie hops off the bed and steps toward me. “I can see it from your face. You’re glowing. He looks good on you.”
I smirk. “He hasn’t been on me yet.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” she says knowingly.
“It really is. He wants to take it slow. And he picked those six yellow glacier lilies that are in the mason jar downstairs. Six because it’s the smallest perfect number, and he wrote a note about the flowers, but it got wet.”
“Maren.” Jamie grabs my shoulders. “Marry him.”
We giggle together.
“Seriously,” she says, “if you like him, don’t back down. He’s worth the wait, so give him time.”
“I listened to you and Fitz for three hours. I know you think Fitz was worth the wait.” I follow her out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
“How did I sound?” she asks. “Was it sexy like a lion roaring, or was it a moan like I was giving birth?”
“You sounded like a sinner who found Jesus.” I laugh, dropping my handbag at the door before making my way through the living room to the kitchen, where Fitz is cutting an onion. “Your special chili?”
“Yep,” he says while Jamie wraps her arms around his waist and presses her cheek to his back.
I think I want what they have; at least, I feel this when I’m around them, but when I’m flying, I don’t want to ever feel like my wings have been clipped. How is it possible to want to soar and feel grounded?
“Maren’s thinking of getting her own place, too, so she can entertain her new boyfriend and his daughter.”
Fitz glances over at me while I fill my bottle with water from the fridge.
“That’s oversimplified. Jamie’s still in a sex fog. You literally screwed her brains out.”
“Maren’s filthy rich. She should move out,” Fitz says, scraping the onion off the cutting board and putting it into the pot while Jamie opens the cans of tomatoes.
I shake my head. It’s no secret that I make way more money than Fitz and Will, and I do it in a matter of five to six months. Then there’s the money I make from flying Ted everywhere in the offseason, which is more than I make as a tanker pilot. And I’ve saved most of my money or invested it. But I like having roommates, and even though Brandon is no longer alive, I feel him in this house. Leaving would resurrect the grief.
“Why would I move out if you two are moving? Then I can have your room, since it’s bigger than mine.”
“Or you could pay cash for your own house and get ten cats,” Fitz says.
“Fitz!” Jamie punches his arm, and he laughs. “I just said she met someone.”
“That’s right. Sorry. Do I need to vet him? Brandon would have wanted me to do that.” Fitz narrows his eyes.
“When are you getting your vasectomy reversed?” I ask to wiggle my way out of the hot seat.
He buckles at the waist with a sour expression. “Not talking about it.”
“At the end of fire season.” Jamie pinches his butt. “And then we’re planning a wedding.”
“Well”—I screw the lid onto my water bottle—“I’ll clear my schedule to help you two find a house so you can get married. And maybe I’ll find one, too, so I can ...” I press my lips together because I don’t know where I’m going with this.
“So you can what?” Jamie gawks. “Get married?” Excitement explodes across her face.
I roll my eyes. Oswald Laster is messing with my mind.
Ozzy
“You have to tell me.” Lola bursts after keeping her mouth shut all day and through half of dinner at the restaurant. “Who’s Maren?”
“A friend.” I slide another slice of pizza onto my plate.
“A girlfriend?”
“She is a girl.”
“Dad.”
“Lola.” I smirk while chewing.
“Is she married?”
“No.”
“Kids?”
“No.”
“Is she pretty?”
I shrug. She’s beautiful.
“Do you want to have sex with her?”
I almost choke before I can swallow. Fisting my hand at my mouth, I shake my head. “Enough with the sex talk.”
“Well, Dakota said you’re too young to stop having sex.”
“You’re grounded from seeing Dakota.”
She rolls her dramatic eyes. “He’s in my class. Duh. I have to see him.”
“Well, you don’t have to talk to him.”
“Are you going to go on a date?”
“We just discussed this with Nana and Pa. I have you. I’m not lonely or missing anything or anyone in my life.”
“I’m not going to live with you forever. I’m going to college.”
“Excellent. Your mom would be proud.”
“Do you think she’d want you to find a girlfriend?” Lola pulls the cheese off her pizza, recovers the mushrooms and sausage, and puts those back on without the cheese.
I’ll end up eating her cheese, so it doesn’t go to waste. “Lola, your mom and I didn’t talk about that.”
That’s a lie.
“If you had died instead, would you have wanted her to find a new boyfriend?”
This girl is not ten. She’s twenty.
“Sure,” I say in defeat.
“Well, then . . .”
“Sweetie, Nana and Pa moved in with us to help out. In return, they want to know I’m focused solely on you. So I think I should respect their wishes for the time being.”
“Hogwash.”
Again, I choke. She picked that up from Tia. It’s what she says to Lola when my darling daughter gets overdramatic, which is all too often.
“Do you even know what that means?” I ask.
“It means BS, but you won’t let me say that.”
I frown. “Let’s talk about you. Where do you plan on going to college?”
“UM, where Mom taught.”
I didn’t expect her to answer. I don’t want her to make plans beyond this slice of pizza on her plate. “I was joking. It’s a big world, Lola. And you’re ten. However, when the time comes, you may decide to spread your wings and go to school in another state.”
She deflates. “I have to go to UM because I can ride my bike there.”
Oh, sweet girl.
“Do you wish you could ride in a car without thinking about the accident? Without thinking about Mom dying? If someone could erase the fear and the bad memories from your mind, and you could be like your friends at school who don’t fear riding in cars, would you want that?”
Lola presses her fingertip to the parmesan cheese on her plate and then licks it off. “Yeah.”
On the inside, I enjoy a sigh of relief.
“Is Victoria going to erase my memories?”
“No. I think she’s working to make your memories feel less scary. I’m just happy to hear that you want to have a different life. You have a lot of years before you need to think about college. So why not imagine a day you can ride or even drive in a car?”
She tries to smile, but it falls down her face like her shoulders collapsing inward. I don’t push anymore.
“Still have room for dessert breadsticks?” I ask.
She perks up. “I thought you said no.”
“I did, but I changed my mind.”
Her spine straightens, and that smile I adore returns to her beautiful face. “Maybe you can change your mind about other things, like letting me ride to school by myself,” she says.
“I could, but I’m not going to.”