14. Just Friends
JUST FRIENDS
Jake awoke from a restless sleep mere hours after he got home.
The sun was breaking past the curtains, which meant it was well into morning, and Isabel would be worrying if he didn’t get up soon.
She had no knowledge of what had made him so tired, and he certainly couldn’t tell her the truth if she asked, but he didn’t want to lie again either.
He shuffled into the bathroom, turned the fan on, and made to pull his T-shirt over his arms, but he caught a whiff of it as it covered his nose and let it slip back down. The scent from Robbie’s cologne hadn’t faded at all since they were last together on the beach. A shower could wait.
“How many hours do you have left for your community service?” Isabel asked as Jake sat down at the table with a cup of coffee, feeling more like a zombie than a fully put-together human being.
“About twenty.”
“Wow, you’re really whittling them down. Good job. And how about Robbie? Is he going to miss your help?”
Jake hesitated. He hadn’t thought about what Robbie would think once he was finished with his mandatory community service hours. He hadn’t even thought about how he would feel when they were over—not since he and Robbie had started getting along a little too well.
“I’m sure the workload will increase for him again,” Isabel continued on blithely. “He’ll probably miss you for that reason, if nothing else.”
“Yeah, he’ll miss me,” Jake said quietly. “And I’ll kind of miss the work too.”
Isabel smiled. “I told you Mier would get through to you eventually. Are you ready for breakfast, dear?”
Jake shook his head. He should have been ravenous, considering he’d skipped a proper dinner the previous night, but he just couldn’t bring himself to eat right now.
To Isabel, he blamed a lack of sleep, but deep down, he knew the real culprit, and he was standing behind a counter ringing up books at this very moment.
“What else do you plan on doing today?” Isabel asked.
“Anything you need me to,” Jake said.
“Oh, I’m actually going out to dinner with a few friends later, so you can do whatever you want. You should go to Grayland again if you’re feeling up to it. There are some fun places if you go during the day when everything’s open.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You could even ask Robbie to tag along with you.”
Jake nearly choked on his coffee. “We’ll see about that.”
Instead of running out of town as soon as he could, Jake did some yard work for Isabel and checked her car over one last time before she headed out for the afternoon. The once tantalizing idea of spending the night carousing with strangers was losing its luster by the day.
He closed the hood of Isabel’s car and nodded to her. He still wasn’t the greatest mechanic, but his crash course in dealing with the car the first time had been enough to get him feeling comfortable with her driving it around now.
“Marcus was the mechanic of the family,” Isabel said as she got into the driver’s seat. “I’m afraid that was never my forte.”
“It’s not mine either,” Jake said. “I’m just doing my best and praying it all works out.”
“Well, that method seems to be working so far.” Isabel laughed and shut the car door, leaving Jake standing in the driveway.
He had planned to go out, he really had, but he procrastinated long enough that when he was finally ready to leave the house, he checked his phone one last time to see that he had a missed call.
He tried to convince himself that he was annoyed at his sister’s timing, but as he flopped down onto the couch and dialed Alex’s number, he couldn’t help feeling relieved that he had an excuse to stay home for at least a little while longer.
Alex picked up after one ring. “Hey, Jake!”
Jake smiled slightly. “Hi, Alex. What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing much. I just haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything going okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. I should’ve called you before now, sorry.”
“Hey, I get it. I’ve been busy too, otherwise I would’ve called sooner. You get yourself into any trouble lately?”
Jake propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Oh, y’know, the usual: bar fights and hookups with the locals.”
“Oh God, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Jake held back a laugh. “I actually got community service for that damn bar fight, if you can believe it.”
“Doing what?”
“Volunteering at the beach. It’s mostly picking up trash and helping the park rangers there with simple tasks, but it’s not half-bad. There’s a guy there too who’s, well, he’s not half-bad either.”
“Really?”
“Not like that.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m serious, Alex. He’s just a—” the word got caught in Jake’s throat. “A friend.”
“Okay, well, I won’t push for more info now, but when I come visit, you’d better introduce me to this ‘friend.’ Oh, by the way, I wanted to let you know that I was talking to Mom and Dad last week and they still think you got fired from Goldwell and Swanson.”
Jake squeezed his fingers into the arm of the couch. “I don’t know why.”
“Because you never told them what happened.”
“Why would they assume I got fired, though?”
“People usually don’t quit good jobs out of the blue without better prospects.”
“It wasn’t out of the blue.”
“I know that. You need to tell them, Jake. They deserve to know.”
“It doesn’t matter. They’ll still deem me a failure one way or another. They’ll say I should’ve gotten over it like a normal adult, or whatever.”
“You’re not giving them enough credit.”
“It’s okay, Alex. You’re the high-performing one, and I’m the one who can’t keep anything for more than a few months: jobs, apartments, relationships…” He closed his eyes. Memories came drifting back—memories he’d tried to suppress.
“Jake, are you still there? Oh, shit, I didn’t lose you, did I? Is the reception really that poor in Eventide?”
“Sorry, Alex; I’m still here.”
“Great. Anyway, like I was saying, you need to talk to Mom and Dad. I know they would understand why you quit if you only told them what you told me. You’re not a disappointment to them.”
“Did they say that? That I’m a disappointment?” Jake adjusted his grip on the phone, his heart sinking as the line grew silent.
“You said that.”
“No, I didn’t, Alex. I said I’m a failure. So they really are that upset with me still, huh? Even after all this?”
“They’re worried about you,” Alex said. “I kind of am too, if you’re seriously getting into bar fights and getting in trouble with the cops.”
“Talk to Aunt Isabel if you’re really that concerned,” Jake said, forcing himself to remain calm.
“She’ll tell you the truth. I’m gone every evening, so call then.
Better yet, have Mom or Dad call her. She can tell them exactly how useless I am when I’m fixing her car, or painting the house, or mowing the lawn. ”
“I believe you,” Alex said. Her tone had softened, and she sounded like she was sitting down now instead of pacing like she usually did when she was on the phone.
She paused, and Jake knew what was coming before she said it.
It was the reason she had called, even if she didn’t ever outright admit that.
“Why don’t you come live with me for a little while once the house sells?
I’ve got this nice new apartment, and it’s too big and lonely for just me.
You could find a job around here and it would be just like old times, when we were kids. ”
“Oh, yeah, that sounds great.” Jake rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “I’ll think about it, Alex.”
“You really should. It might be just what you need.”
“Maybe. But more importantly, you need to come down and visit soon. I mean it. Aunt Isabel would love it, and you can get out of the city for a bit.” Jake could hardly believe he was the one saying these things. It sounded nothing like him.
“I hope you’re serious, because I’m really planning on it.”
“I am.”
“Can I meet this friend of yours, too?”
“No.”
“I’m going to anyway, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. What’s his name?”
“Robbie.” Jake bit his tongue. He hadn’t meant to invoke that damn name again, especially to Alex, but it slipped out before he could stop himself.
“Robbie? That’s cute.”
“It wouldn’t be if you knew the backstory.”
“Ooh, do tell.”
“Another time, maybe. I’ve got to go now. Bye, Alex.”
Jake hung up before Alex could torture him further.
Now that he wasn’t actively trying to carry on a conversation anymore, her words about their parents hung heavy in his mind.
He was there too, except not for the reason he’d been there a moment before—or any other time.
If anyone understood difficult parents, it was him.
“Robbie,” Jake mumbled as he texted him, “can you come over and talk for a bit? I know…” He shook his head and deleted the last two lines. “I need to—no, that’s not right either.” In silence, he forged on, hoping Robbie wouldn’t take this message the wrong way.
I’d like to talk about something. Can I come over to the bookstore?
He sent the text and waited. A few minutes passed, and he was still waiting, staring anxiously at his phone screen. Then three dots appeared, and a moment later, one word popped up:
Yes.
Jake tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove down the street. It was around the time that lots of people were getting off work, which meant three or four cars on the road instead of just one. He turned off at Eaton’s Book Nook, pulling into the tiny parking lot next to Robbie’s car.
The car looked sharp and polished from a distance, but when Jake got out, he noticed some specks of dirt that had spattered up from the wheels.
“Tsk, tsk, Robbie,” he muttered as he made his way to the front door and tried to open it.
The door was locked, and he gave it three solid knocks before Robbie could get to it and let Jake in.
“Hold on,” Robbie said through the glass.
“There.” Jake slipped inside while Robbie locked the door again.
“Now, what did you need to talk about so badly that it couldn’t wait a couple of extra hours? ”