12. EVERYTHING WE NEED
12
EVERYTHING WE NEED
WILFRED
DINAH
Every time I interact with any iteration of J. Jones, I feel myself grow more intrigued and more attracted to whichever version I’m with. Yeah, I can admit the absurdity of the situation. I might be falling for two men who happen to be the same man, but in the same token, aren’t at all.
I’ve gone on two dates now with Jackson. Dates where we flirted easily, fell into conversation without preamble or difficulty, and where I felt as if I were spending time with an old friend. Every touch lit with excitement and anticipation and a playfulness I haven’t experienced before.
This first date with Jack, if that’s what you can call it—which I most certainly will when I’m busy romanticizing it later with Emory—feels different. Maybe it’s because I feel as if I’m getting to know him more and more beyond just the guarded, gruff man who doesn’t give away his smiles as easily. Likely some of that has to do with the information I’ve gathered from Jackson and subsequently stored away like precious jewels I feel privileged to know.
But so much of the giddy nerves and attraction I feel right now, preparing dough for tomorrow, is rooted in the man who showed up on my worst day simply because my music changed. Who played playlist tag and delivered mind-blowing donuts to say he was sorry. Yes, he grumbles and pushes people away, but he’s also the man who suffers in silence with pain and, I suspect, loneliness, because he doesn’t want to be a burden to his friends and family.
Every smile I garner from this version of him feels like I’ve run a marathon and taken first place. Every touch and taste of nearness is filled with electricity that I’m positive will end with my combustion. He—Jack—feels right. Solid. A mystery I’m beginning to solve, piece by piece.
He feels inevitable.
“I honestly underestimated how much work goes into this.” He’s learning how to knead the dough, something he clearly has never done before. With every sticky touch, Jack pulls it off his fingers and tries again.
I can’t help but laugh at his efforts to clean his hands. “You can’t be afraid to get a little messy. Dough is temperamental, but it isn’t delicate.” I sprinkle more flour over his portion and hover my hands over his. “Do you mind?”
His head gives the barest of shakes, mouth pinched shut, and I wonder if he brings this intensity into every endeavor. Does each breathtaking flower arrangement I’ve seen taken from his shop receive the same acute attention and fierce devotion?
“You don’t want to be too gentle or too rough. Don’t be afraid to put pressure on it.” I step in front of him so that his arms are encircling me, and I boldly place my hand on his, pressing them into the dough. We knead it smoothly, pushing it into the stainless steel countertop with the heels of our hands, then folding and pulling it closer before starting it again. “It should be stretchy but not sticky. Like this.”
I pull a piece off and show him how it looks when I pull it apart gently and then press it between my thumb and pointer finger. “The elasticity tells me the gluten is worked in well. But if you work it too much, it gets hard and can’t be used.”
“And we want the gluten?” he says, though it barely registers, because all I can focus on is where his words run their course softly against my neck.
“Yes. We want the gluten.” My throat feels clogged, and my voice doesn’t sound like my own. “Gluten means perfectly, chewy pretzels.”
“What flavors will these be?” he asks, and without relinquishing me, he pushes that ball of dough we were working on to the side and slides another to our station, resuming the kneading together.
I do incredible mental math for someone who’d rather devote all her brainpower to loftier pursuits at the moment. Like, how do I get this man to rub my feet the way he’s rubbing my pretzel dough. Or my shoulders. What else can he do with those hands? And, whoa, are my thoughts going a little rogue for ten a.m. on a Monday morning.
Running my mind through the plans for tomorrow’s menu, I list off flavors like a woman not currently hot and bothered.
“Honey Mustard. Chocolate Chip with Cherry Pie Dipping Sauce. And…”
“And?” He breathes against my cheek, and both our hands stall. He’s bracketing me against the counter, hands resting on mine. The shift in the air is palpable.
“And, um…”
Jack seems to hold his breath as he lifts his hand up from mine, reaches up and gently arranges the stubborn piece of hair falling into my eyes to sit behind my ear. It feels a little like he’s asking me to turn.
Here, I made it easy for you, Polly. Take a look.
When I feel brave enough to peek at Jack’s face, my eyes narrow in on the absolutely delectable curve of his lips. Of his Adam's apple, bobbing once, and the light trace of facial hair growing along his jaw. They continue their leisurely trail up to meet Jack’s hazel eyes searching mine with a question:
Isn’t dough-making sexy?
The answer, of course, is yes. Yes, it is.
A celebratory parade stomps through my body. There’s a marching band, fireworks, candy throwing, and everything. It’s a real spectacle, because I’m pretty sure J. Jones is about to set his luscious lips on mine, and I am here for it. He leans closer, waiting to see if I’ll resist.
I root my feet to the hardwood and stand my ground. I'm ready, and I’m not goin’ anywhere.
“Dinah—”
His phone rings to the tune of “Pressing Flowers” by the Civil Wars, a song on my down day playlist, and my heart grows three sizes in my chest. The lock screen changed, too, and is no longer baseball kitty . Now it’s just a simple graphic with the words Silence, Solitude, and Safe. Some sort of mantra typed like a list.
He releases a deep sigh. “It’s my mom.”
And just when I swore the man could not get any more attractive in my eyes, he lets his forehead rest on the back of my head, picks up the phone and greets his mama like she’s the sun on a cloudy day.
“Hey, Mama,” he says so sweetly, my cheeks hurt from grinning. His floured hand finds my waist, locking me in place. Like I was goin’ anywhere, buddy. “I know it’s Monday. I know… I know.”
He doesn’t seem to get a word in edgewise but also doesn’t seem hard pressed to add to the conversation.
“I already have plans. I’m sorry.” I flick my eyes up to him and find that from this angle, we are so very, very close. I can smell the cinnamon I added to his coffee on his breath and lightly fantasize about tasting it on his lips. “Maybe next time.”
Maybe next time, indeed.
My eyebrows jump. I’m sure I look like a cartoon. “ Don’t cancel for me,” I mouth.
“She wants me to go to lunch with everyone.” He clearly doesn’t think about the repercussions of speaking at a normal pitch and realizes his mistake when his mama’s voice levels up an octave.
“Who’re you talkin’ to, baby?”
He closes his eyes like he’s praying. “Dinah Knot, the pretzel—”
“You’re with Dinah? Gary, he’s with Dinah!” I cover my mouth to hide the giggles, and Jack’s lip tips up into the most delicious smirk. He almost looks embarrassed. I push my index finger into the tiny dimple it produces in his right cheek, because apparently I have no self-control, and once the touch barrier is broken, I have zero inhibitions. “I asked him to lunch already, but it’s Jaaaack , Gary.” She draws out Jack’s name as if his dad couldn’t possibly know who she’s talking about. “ Jack is with Dinah!”
She’s shouting now, and something in Jack’s countenance slips, replaced with the somber mask I’ve seen him wear before.
“Tell her you’ll go,” I whisper but make sure to keep my voice down. I already semi-forced him into pet ownership this week, so forcing Jack to join a family lunch is really not my business. But it feels like maybe he needs the encouragement. Maybe he needs support from someone not in his family telling him it’s okay to let himself be included. To be wanted.
“We’ll be there,” he says, and I just know my eyes are saucer-wide.
“ We? ” I whisper-yell. Do I want to go to a family lunch with Jack? Yes. Kind of. From what I’ve seen of his family, they’re wonderful and welcoming. Something I’ve missed for a long time. Will that lead to much more confusion in the J. Jones—and the entire Jones family—dynamic? Most assuredly.
“Okay. See you soon,” he says to Shelly, who’s returned to appropriate phone dynamics. “Love you, too.”
When he hangs up, he takes a deep breath but doesn’t relinquish his grip on my waist. “I’m sorry. I just…” He closes his eyes, his fingers tightening for a moment, and I turn myself in his arms, letting my hand rest on his chest and, Hello there, pectorals. Aren’t you nicely defined.
“It’s okay. I don’t have to go to lunch, Jack. We can reschedule. Truly, I—”
His eyes burst open and bare down on mine. “No. I… I haven’t been to lunch in a really long time, but I…” He has that same tired look I remember seeing on his face as he lay helpless on his couch a couple weeks ago.
But Jackson said he was on his way to lunch with his mom when I saw him the other day. So that must mean it’s just Jack who hasn’t been to lunch. Just Jack .
He closes his eyes again, like maybe he’s afraid of my possible rejection. “I don’t want to go without you. Will you come? Please.”
“I swear, Dinah, he wore those cowboy boots and nothin’ else for an entire year of his life.” Gram wipes another tear from her eye and swats at Shelly again. “Do you remember—”
In unison they chime, “Baby Bowen.”
“Please stop,” Jack begs under his breath, not for the first time this afternoon. But the women in his life seem to find slowly roasting this man over a fire of childhood embarrassment to be the highlight of their luncheon. Even Winnie and Brooke, a friend of Owen’s, join in on the action.
Jumping between memories of Jack’s gangly teen years to charming his highschool teachers into better grades, his love of picking wildflowers in the outfield, his jaunt with college baseball, and the horror of his first kiss with Becky Sampson in the flower shop closet—unbeknownst to him—witnessed by his entire family.
I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute.
The Jones family’s welcome has been so warm. They seem to really want to get to know me, and I realize, sitting between Jack on one side and Gram on the other, that this is the first time I’ve really met a man’s family. A man I’m interested in.
And I’m struck by an overwhelming and surprising sense of sadness when I realize I won’t ever be able to introduce Jack to my parents. Dad won’t feed him pretzels and talk his ear off about sports, and my mom won’t share my embarrassing baby photos and stories of my awkward teen years.
“Who was baby Bowen?” I ask, not missing the way Jack sinks deeper into the couch beside me. For such a big man, he’s miraculously able to make himself so much smaller. It’s adorable.
His mama’s eyes light with excitement. “After Owen was born, Jackson all out refused to come to the hospital to meet him. Tantrums and cryin’. The whole bit.”
Gram—which she insisted I call her from the moment I walked in—gazes at Jack as if she can see that little boy now. “He wasn’t havin’ it. That’s for sure. He was used to bein’ the baby and didn’t want anybody else takin’ his place.”
“He was right to be worried.” Owen sits on the arm of the couch, hovering over Brooke and eating what has to be his fourth full-sized pretzel of the day. My new baseball inspired flavors are a hit. It felt like a huge win when Winnie said she’d like to “take a bath” in the caramel crackle shell of my Cracker Jack-inspired pretzel. Owen has eaten his weight in the Hotdog Pretzel Bites, and Jack licked his fingers clean after inhaling the Jalapeno Bacon Bites with homemade Nacho Cheese Dip. If their approval is any indication, I might have a chance at winning this Badger Bites Competition.
“I’m clearly the highlight of their lives,” Owen says, smirking at his parents and batting his impossibly long eyelashes.
“You’re the reason we have gray hair.” Gary throws a cheese cube at Owen’s face, but he catches it and pops it in his mouth with a grin.
“He’s the reason you’re nearly bald, sweetheart.” Shelly waves them off, exchanging a knowing look with Brooke, who always seems to be studying every movement of Owen’s, whether he’s laughing with his siblings or shoveling food in his mouth.
A family friend to more romance… I’d read that .
I mentally chastise myself, thinking of what Emory would say if she knew I was daydreaming about real-life romances. Especially when I’m spending time with the family of the man that she so delicately texted me—after a Jack/Jackson update yesterday—was a “daytime talk show episode waiting to happen.”
“Plus,” Shelly adds, “everyone knows we love Brooke best.”
Brooke laughs and squeezes her pseudo mother, only to receive a noogie from Owen when she returns to her seat.
“Anyways,” Gram continues, speaking over the siblings now arguing over who’s the most well-loved of the group, “we thought if Jacky had his own baby, he might like to meet the real thing. So his granddad and I took him to the store, bought him a baby doll, and insisted he meet his new brother.”
Jacky. The moniker I’ve only heard his sister and Gram call him. I like it.
“He named that baby Bowen, carried him, put him to bed, changed his diapers, and…”
Jack interrupts his mama, “I think she gets it.”
Shelly pays him no mind. “And he breastfed that baby doll just about everywhere we went. It was the most precious thing.” She smiles wistfully and carries on. “He loves babies, our Jackson. We always thought he’d have babies with—”
“Shelly,” Gary clears his throat and shakes his head.
Jack groans quietly like he’s in pain and hops off the couch. “I need some air.”
Before I realize what I’m doing, I grab Jack’s hand, holding him momentarily from leaving. I’m not sure how the conversation went from gently teasing to something he obviously wants to forget, but I want him to know he has a partner here. Jack glances back at me, our eyes meeting where our hands connect, and he gives me a squeeze and a nod before removing himself from the conversation.
The room grows uncomfortably quiet. His parents look at each other like they both want to follow their son outside but are too afraid to make a move. Brooke and Owen have a silent exchange where it seems as if they speak the same non-verbal eye language, and whatever she’s said, Brooke is not happy with him. Gram sips her sweet tea, completely unbothered and shaking her head at the lot of them.
“I think I’ll go hang with Jack for a bit,” Owen says, slapping his legs and hopping off the couch. He retreats to the kitchen, pops back in the living room with a cupcake and a sweet tea and hands it over to Brooke, kissing her cheek like it's second nature. “You win, Brookey.”
She can’t hide her pleased smile but says nothing as she watches him retreat back to the kitchen and outside to join Jack.
“Jacky struggles when we talk about him before the accident,” Winnie says in between gentle coos over Chipper rolling around in between her legs on the floor. “I think it reminds him too much of everything he’s lost.”
“Winifred,” Shelly’s voice is filled with warning. “Not with company.”
“What? He clearly likes her mama,” Winnie continues, and I feel all sorts of awkward. “Jack. Jackson. Doesn’t matter. Jacky … our Jacky likes her, and I don’t wanna sweep his feelings or his situation under the rug. It sucks what happened, but if we don’t start talkin’ about it, he’ll never move on.”
I think she’s talking about the accident until his Gram says, “I agree. Stacy was a fool and—”
Stacy .
Griffin mentioned the same woman, albeit briefly, the other day. Most of what Gram says after, I block out. But suddenly, and quite desperately, I want to know who Stacy is and why Gram just used the words weaksauce and nincompoop in the same sentence to describe the woman.
I smile and nod for the remainder of the afternoon. When Jack and Owen return to the house, Jack’s more unsure than before, the mask of irritability pulled back into place. He helps his dad with the dishes, brings Gram her sweet tea refills, and joins Owen when he rags on Winnie about the guy she’s currently dating. Owen mentions the Peewee Spring Training Camp they put on for Little League, but Jack deflects the conversation completely.
Everything’s suddenly forced. There’s less warmth in Jack’s words and a stiffness to his movements. He fits, but he doesn’t.
“Don’t give up on him, doll.” Shelly wraps an arm around me just before we head for the car. “He’s different around you.”
“I don’t know about that.” I bite my lip, eyeing the man in question who hugs his dad but pulls away quickly.
“He… Well, Jack… hasn’t come to lunch with us. Not one time. We’ve had lunch every Monday for years, but since the accident, Jack hasn’t come. But with you Dinah…” She takes my hands in hers and squeezes them. I don’t miss the way her eyes mist. “With you, he’s different. He’s… well, he’s here. And I can’t help but pray you’ll stick around, because Dinah, I’ve missed my boy.”
I’m speechless as I say goodbye to the others, lost in a haze of Shelly’s expectations. Of what Winnie said— he’ll never move on— and of Jack’s silence as I drive us back to our neighboring lofts. When he takes Chipper in his arms and won’t make eye contact with me, I feel as though I’ve lost the momentum we gained earlier in the day. He’s shutting down, and I don’t know how to bring him back.
“He looks happy,” I say, giving Chipper a rub between the ears, trying to hold Jack there on the street a bit longer. “He had a good day.”
“I can’t keep him, Dinah Belle,” Jack whispers. “It isn’t fair to him.”
“Maybe… maybe he likes you… Both of you. Maybe you should give it a chance.” I let myself look at Jack’s hazel eyes, growing stormier by the second. Neither of us is talking about the cat anymore, and we both know it.
“No.” Jack’s eyes meet mine. “There isn’t a chance. I’m sorry.”
My eyes fill with tears, but Jack turns on his heel all the same and sulks back to Petals, letting the door slam behind him and leaving me on the street outside of Knotty & Nice.
I know I should move. I should probably chase after Jack and give him a piece of my mind. I should do what I do best when it comes to Jack Jones and dig and fight until I’m completely under his skin.
After our near kiss that morning and spending time enchanted by his family, I should call him a fool, show him who’s boss, and kiss him senseless. Ideally, there’d be a romantic rain or snowstorm falling around us and the perfect ballad playing as a soundtrack for our moment in the background. That would show him exactly what I think about his chances.
But all I can focus on as I stare at the spot he just vacated, is the fact that Jack, not Jackson, just called me Dinah Belle.