Chapter 18 #2
“It was nothing. You had it under control,” she said simply. Then, to my surprise, she walked past our table and out onto the approach area. She grabbed her bowling ball from the ball return and took her turn.
I looked to Candace and Mac as I resumed my seat, but they were deep in conversation, Candace showing my sister something wedding related on her phone.
Joan must have seen me, cornered by Danny in the lobby, and come to my aid. It wasn’t actually my turn, and the others hadn’t noticed me missing.
I watched as Joan took her second approach, knocking out pins nine and ten for a neat spare.
Candace and Mac whooped, offering up high fives as Joan returned to the table.
Before she could sit, I grabbed her in a quick, hard hug. She was tense, all hard, lean lines and toned muscles, but after a moment, she released a breath and patted me awkwardly on the back. “It was nothing,” she repeated, for my ears alone.
“Not to me,” I whispered back.
Then I released her and grinned. “Nice shot, Holy Roller.”
She snorted a laugh.
“Yesss,” Candace called. “A bowling nickname.” She pointed to her sister. “I love it.”
“No.” Joan shot me a betrayed look. “No nicknames. Joanie is bad enough.”
“Holy Roller! Holy Roller!” Candace chanted. Mac and I joined in.
Joan looked like she wanted to murder us, but there was a tiny tilt to the corner of her lips. “Okay. Jesus. Stop.”
“Oh! She’s already in the spirit,” Mac clapped. “The spirit. See what I did there?”
We all laughed and continued our teasing.
Then it really was my turn to bowl.
And I didn’t spare my ex-husband a single thought for the rest of the night.
Pun very much intended.
After another three days without seeing Jack, a sense of foreboding started to creep in. I found myself bracing, wondering if we needed to have a conversation. Would he officially break up with me, even though we weren’t technically in a relationship? Or would he just fade away and out of my life?
Disappointment combined with something too sharp and unwise to name. I felt weak in the face of it, discouraged and heartsick over the possibility of what could have been.
But then Jack texted Sunday evening and asked to come over, and I was back to anticipating an awkward breakup.
Me: I’m running errands, but I’ll be home in an hour. Meet you there?
Jack: Sounds good.
Jack: I’ve missed you.
I stared at my phone, confused all over again. Would you tell someone that before you ended things?
I did my best to push aside all my conflicting emotions as I finished up my grocery shopping for the week, but when the time came to start my car and leave the parking lot, I couldn’t do it.
I sat there, dry-eyed, and stared into the darkness, wondering what I’d do if Jack and I were really over.
With shaking hands, I scrolled back through our text conversations and found the early days.
The late-night lists of our favorite things.
The way he’d changed in my perception of him from intimidating bad boy to just Jack, this quiet, thoughtful guy who didn’t feel like he belonged.
But I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he fit with me.
You couldn’t make someone stay or will a relationship out of apathy and indifference. I knew that firsthand. But if I could just figure out what had caused Jack to pull away so suddenly, maybe I could—
No.
I shook my head to dispel the urge to fix this by force. I couldn’t do that. The situation with Jack wasn’t a puzzle to solve. We needed to be adults and communicate, and that was all there was to it. I wasn’t making the same mistake again.
With a deep breath, I started the car and shifted into drive.
I must have lingered in the parking lot of the Winn-Dixie for much longer than I meant to because when I got home, Jack was asleep on my couch with a rabbit on his chest.
I stood in the hallway from the garage, staring helplessly with five grocery bags weighing down each arm.
A can of something must have shifted because a clang sounded, and Jack’s hazel eyes blinked open.
He took in the nose and whiskers six inches from his face before his gaze met mine.
And then a sleepy smile emerged, one layered with aching relief and unguarded sweetness.
The bags thunked onto the floor.
Jack sat up, cradling Oreo carefully before depositing her on her fleece blanket that was folded neatly on the end of the couch.
Then he walked over and wrapped me in his arms. “I missed you, Clyde,” he said as he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
And I thought, Oh. There was no way I could have heard this sort of urgency in his text.
The truth of his statement. Felt his scruff on my neck as he breathed me in and then sighed in relief.
“I missed you too,” I whispered, a shaky exhalation.
But then my eyes caught on something over Jack’s shoulder. Something that hadn’t been there earlier today. It fit neatly between the windows leading from the entryway into the dining area. A gorgeous piece of furniture that I was quite sure I didn’t own.
I released Jack and moved around him to get a better look. With every step, new beautiful details came into focus.
The back of the cabinet was flat and parallel with the wall, but the sides and front extended out at angles, like half a pentagon, with thin, delicate shelves along the inside.
It was tall, nearly reaching the ceiling.
The glass panes were clear and reflective between the honey-stained columns making up the cabinet.
Beams shone down from discreetly embedded lights in the top interior.
“I wanted you to have something for yourself.” Jack’s voice came from behind me, close enough that I could feel his warmth at my back. “You shouldn’t have to pack up the things you love and hide them away.”
My fingers stroked a smooth line along the cabinet front to the delicate brass door pull shaped like a ring. The door swung open easily on smooth hinges, and I took in all the beautiful teacups shining like pearls on the shelves.
“You can rearrange them however you want. I just . . . couldn’t stand the thought of them being shoved in the bottom of your pantry.”
“You made this for me,” I said, and it wasn’t a question. I knew it in my heart. “That’s where you’ve been for the last week and a half.”
“Yes.”
I closed the cabinet door gently before turning around and throwing my arms around him. “Thank you,” I choked, unable to believe the gift he’d given me. Unsure how to accept something that I didn’t even know I needed, something that could heal me in a way I’d never imagined.
It wasn’t panic making it hard to breathe, but emotion—big, messy, inconvenient emotions. My arms squeezed him tighter as tears leaked down my cheeks.
Jack rubbed soothing circles across my back and shoulder blades, but it was no use. I was hiccupping, sobbing into his shirt.
How sad was it that a piece of furniture could instigate a total breakdown?
But, truthfully, it was Jack, breaking down all the walls I’d put up to protect myself.
From Danny’s criticism and indifference, from people’s opinion of me, from the failure of my marriage.
The bricks laid carefully to prevent new hurt from ever getting in and the old hurt from ever getting out.
This supposed bad boy with a motorcycle and a bad attitude. I hadn’t realized I’d needed to protect myself from his sweetness, his thoughtfulness.
Maybe I didn’t have to. Maybe I could just accept it. Maybe—
“If I did something wrong or overstepped,” he murmured suddenly, in between my broken cries. “If I touched a nerve—”
I pulled back quickly so I could see his face.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Jack. I love the cabinet.
Love that you made it for me. It’s amazing and kind and thoughtful and perfect.
And the sad truth is that I’m out of practice.
I don’t quite know how to handle someone doing something like that for me. ”
Face solemn, Jack cupped my cheeks and ran his thumbs beneath my eyes to wipe away the dampness clinging to my skin. “You deserve good things. You’re worthy of someone making a fuss over you, wanting to take care of you, to see you happy.”
I tried to smile but felt my eyes fill once more.
I knew he was right. It was a topic I’d discussed with my therapist over and over again—feeling deserving of love.
But it was one thing to talk about the hypothetical and another thing entirely when you had someone standing in front of you, actually doing the work.
Jack hugged me again, his strong forearms crossing over my lower back, and I let myself relax into the embrace.
And later that night, when we were in bed, I finally stopped lying to myself.
As Jack’s hands and lips dragged over my skin, when there was only heat between us, I stopped trying to hold it all in. I acknowledged the truth—the one that had been swirling around inside me for a while now.
I was in love with Jack.
I worried that he could hear it in the wild beat of my heart. See it in my tender gaze. Feel it with every reverent press of my lips.
For all the ways I’d been trying to protect my heart, I couldn’t do it by lying to myself anymore.