Chapter Six
Chapter Six
This day seemed to drain everything out of me. But I pushed forward: did laundry, worked out, and grocery-shopped before canceling the Tahoe reservations to plan a quick Napa trip. It was just a normal day, but it was a constant mental fight not to picture him, his mega-watt smile, captivating gun metal gray eyes, that overly arty, casual sense of humor and the too intellectual way he spoke, tipped with a residual British accent which seems to elevate people’s IQ and charm by ten points. Yeah, like a dumbass—because I guess I like slow, excruciating torture—I spent the last hour looking at interview videos of the hotshot Bernardo Cappuccino. How can someone embody an arrogant air while simultaneously coming across as unassuming? That had to be rehearsed…an act he’d likely spent ten years perfecting in front of the mirror.
Jake : Hey, birthday girl, call me before you head to bed. I want to hear your voice … Send
Rakell : Where did you get that line - “I want to hear your voice”… Send
Jake : A cheesy rom-com…took a chance you’d think it was original ?? … Send
Rakell : You can do better… Send
Jake : OK, I’ll try… Send
Rakell : Jumping in the shower. I can call in a bit … Send
Jake : Skip the shower. I’ll get you wet … Send
Rakell : OMG!! Stick to the rom-com lines … Send
Jake : Think about me running my hands all over your hot ass body … Send
Rakell : Sure thing, Romeo … Send
This girl! She had that way of automatically disarming me, making me laugh. That was the thing about her: I’d never been this wound up about a woman, always questioning what she would do, but I hadn’t had someone in my life with whom I felt so natural. That’s what she did, disarmed me, yet made me paranoid. So that’s love, just feeling fucking crazy all the time, unable to concentrate on anything but that person. Why the hell do books and movies talk about it as some grand thing that we all strive for? ‘Cause if I were honest with myself, this sensibility felt destructive, like it had the potential to either make my life bigger and better than I could ever have imagined or derail my life in an irreversible way.
“Hey, Jake,” she began. I could hear her breathing as if she were moving around. “You heading to bed early? I still need to dry my hair and practice a few more times, but I know someone looked a little worn out this morning, so I wasn’t sure how late you’d be up,” she said, then narrating that she was slipping into a pair of silk shorts and a T-shirt. “Just a second…just want to get under the comforter.” Sure, like I needed to picture that shit. “Are you exhausted?” She asked.
“Nah, I took a quick nap after I dropped you off, went to the gym, then rewatched some game footage for a potential draft pick. I chatted with Dwayne. He’s flying in tomorrow, and we’re going to meet Tuesday to discuss options for next season.”
“Sounds like a pretty productive day,” she affirmed.
“Well, I had to keep myself busy after putting you on the plane. How’s practice going? That monologue you said you have to perform tomorrow—I’m available if you want to rehearse…”
“It’s way too intense to do for someone else. I’m going to read it over a few more times. I’ve been practicing, and I think I have it memorized—I just need to strike the right emotion and facial expression.”
“You’ll do it,” I said, remembering the nervous tension I felt before college games, when I knew scouts were present.
“Mmm…” she murmured, sounding distracted.
“Hey, am I losing you?” I said, staving off the irritation in my tone.
“No, sorry, Ana was texting, encouraging me to be two people at once at the audition,” she said with a mechanical quality to her voice, as if she were trying to work out how that would look.
“Interesting, what’s the movie about?”
“I can’t say too much because they make you sign an NDA before they share the script.”
“Well, since my girlfriend made me sign one already, I think my hands are tied, and my lips are sealed.”
“Oooh…both sound like a good look on you.”
“Hell no, I’m already at your mercy.”
“I don’t think anybody would buy that. I can tell you that the role would mean a lot of screen time for me, not just a clip of me serving drinks at a bar like in the last movie, or a shot of me on the beach with a couple of other girls giggling in the one before that, or the amazing scene of me at the grocery store bumping into some pissed-off woman’s cart, making her more pissed off. If I got this role, I would actually get to speak and act.”
Steeling myself, I blocked the rampage of questions charging through my head. How much interaction will you have with Bernardo? Do you have to kiss him? Will he see you naked? I didn’t think I could stomach that…but I had to remind myself that this was her career, and the world had seen the Sports Illuminated cover…the entire world had seen her barely clothed, oozing raw sexual prowess, her eyes masked, daring the camera to come hither, her breasts threatening to escape the thin, suede bikini top paired with the minuscule triangle bottom that barely reached her mons. Sure, the world got to soak up her image, and I could only imagine how many guys used that cover photo of her as visual stimulation…I shook off what they must be imagining as they brought themselves off, staring at her image.
Smugly, I reminded myself that I was the only one who knew why the fabric between her legs was wet; it was all me. Yeah, Neanderthalish, but I took some immature male pride in that. I knew it was inane, but damn, I couldn’t help the swagger that inflated my chest, knowing she’d been thinking about me when she posed in front of the cameras, and, as she described it, her pussy lips still swollen from the aggressive sex we’d had at the Driskill. Rubbing against the rock and right there in front of the entire camera crew…she had orgasmed. Christ, I’d never get the look consuming her face on the front cover of Sports Illuminated out of my mind. She’d said she wasn’t even being considered for the cover, but I’m sure they were sold once they saw that photo. That was sex personified and all because she was thinking about me: Jake Skyler. Fuck, how I wanted to DM Bernardo and let him know she was mine—and Bernardo better heed that. I had three extra copies, and damn if looking at that cover didn’t get me revved up. Inhaling sharply, Delilah’s lecture replaying in my head, I was brought back to the conversation. “ Rae -kale, I think it’s going to go well. I’ll be thinking about you tomorrow. Why don’t I let you get to practicing.”
“Jake, thank you. I guess I needed…ack! I wanted to hear someone say it just like you did—like it was a given. That may not be true, but I…well, I...” She snickered.
“It’s okay to say need , Sweets. I needed to know I could be here for you right now.” Damn, how I needed it. “I suppose needing each other isn’t such a bad thing.”
“Jake…” she said my name with an admonishing tone, which is how most women in my life say my name . “We can discuss the wording for what we’re doing when I’m back in Sacramento, face to face.”
I grunted. “Sure, because you have the upper hand in person…”
“It’s because you’re easy, remember?” she teased.
I chuckled into the phone. “Sleep well. You got this.” As long as easy doesn’t mean easy to fool, I’m good with her thinking I’m easy.
“Good night, Jake.”
“I love…” I started but the line was dead before I got it out, the clause I thought should be part of our goodbye routine. This wasn’t simple, putting myself out there…telling someone exactly how I felt, that I loved them, yet not hearing it in return. I thought about Melissa's words around the firepit a couple of months ago. Perfect Melissa , but that was just the surface: she’d been paddling like mad to keep herself and her family afloat.
I’d tried like hell to follow the twisty conversation we were embroiled in, a veil to what was really going on in Melissa’s life. She’d made it clear that she and Tom were struggling. Tom was having a hard time accepting Cameron. Melissa’s internal chaos surfacing wasn’t something I’d observed before. I don’t know if it had been there all along and I just hadn’t seen it, but her explanation made me speculate and think there’d been someone before Tom, someone not like Tom.
“Don’t get caught up in perfect. I wish I had learned how to fail, to be okay with messy situations, breathe through all the hard stuff. Because when all the perfection falls to pieces, you don’t know how to deal with the mess. You just sit there trying to figure out how you got so far from the person you thought you were.” A laugh that had sounded distant spilled from her mouth.
“Okay…but how about if you have a tendency to gravitate toward messy? Now you’re trying to be a little bit more like your sisters, but somehow you just keep stepping in your own shit? What’s your solution for that?” I’d challenged.
Staring at the fire, she’d spoken slowly. “I think that’s more of a natural progression. Begin with disarray, then clean it up, putting thought into how you want your life to look or, more importantly, feel. It's better than fighting to keep everything tidy and neat. There’s something powerful about figuring out who you are in the midst of chaos. Chasing perfection is a maddening quest…I wished I’d stayed in the messy, achy parts longer when I was young and allowed myself to feel. I always focused on growing up and getting past all that silly stuff—like falling in love, just because that person makes you laugh and your skin jumps when they get near. But still, years later, you think about the first time their lips touched yours, the first…”
She paused, shifting the conversation, but the message was clear: my sister had let someone go, someone she loved, someone she wouldn’t forget. It struck me how a person could be such an important part of your life, as Melissa was in mine, yet there were parts of them, perhaps the most meaningful parts, that you didn’t understand. Hell, in this case, I couldn’t even imagine that there was someone before Tom, someone who had left a profound imprint. I couldn’t access that Melissa from my world view of my family.