chapter seventeen
Wren
“Lemonade!” a little voice shouts out as Jay and I come back from getting breakfast. We haven’t spoken about my date with Levi last night, but Jay didn’t give me a hard time about eating a brownie for breakfast, so I know he’s still pitying me.
“Is that a real lemonade stand?” I ask as we get out of my car.
“As opposed to an imaginary one? I’d say so.”
“I’ve never seen one before!”
“Ta-da,” Jay snarks and gestures to the four little kids standing around a folding table laden with pitchers.
The stand is placed in the grassy part of the cul-de-sac out in front of Jack’s house. He’s the only neighbor I met before I moved in, and he said he had two kids. Some of these are probably his. All four of them are waving at me and I wave back. There’s a posterboard at their feet with childlike lettering declaring “lemonaid for a trampline $2.”
“Let’s get some lemonade,” Jay says.
“I don’t have any small bills. I don’t think they will have change,” I say and follow him down the driveway.
Jay reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. “I have singles.”
“Ooh, bodyguard and sugar daddy,” I tease as I struggle to match his stride.
Jay only shoots me an annoyed look before we approach the kids. They’ve all gone silent as we stand in front of them. They’re staring at Jay warily.
“Hi, I’m Wren and this is Jay,” I say as kindly as I can.
“Are you a ninja?” a little boy with striking blue-green eyes asks.
“Waylon, don’t talk to strangers,” another boy, blond, and probably a few years older, says and grabs the smaller one’s hand. He looks at us through lowered brows like only a wary older brother could.
“I’m not a ninja,” Jay replies, his voice slower and softer than usual.
“What are you then?” a little blonde girl asks. She has purple bubble gum stuck to her chin like she’d blown a bubble and part of it stuck there when it popped.
“I’m her bodyguard,” Jay says and points to me.
“Wike a army guy?” Little Waylon asks despite his big brother’s arm tugging.
“Yup,” Jay says and puts four dollars on the table. “And we’d like two lemonades, please.”
The sticky blonde girl pours the pitcher of lemonade while the older boy holds the cups still on the table. Their combined concentration is endearing and I smile as I watch seeds, half a lemon, water, and a few melting ice cubes plop into the disposable plastic cup.
“You’re saving up to get a trampoline?” I ask as the littlest child, a girl in messy braids, pulls clover out of the grass next to the table.
“Yeah,” the older boy says. “My dad says we can get one if we save up enough for two emergency room co-pays.”
“Do you want a garnish?” bubblegum girl asks.
“Um, yes, please,” I say, not knowing what could possibly garnish a lemonade.
The clover out of the sticky fist of the toddler is the garnish. I grin as they hand me an absolute abomination of a refreshment. I would buy every family on this street four trampolines each to avoid drinking this lemonade. Jay, on the other hand, lifts his mask and chugs the lemonade and spits a few seeds and a clover back into the cup. Squeals of laughter from the children tell me his gross action was the correct one.
“Delicious,” Jay says and puts his mask back down as a woman comes out of a house and calls out a greeting.
“Hi new neighbors!” she says as she approaches.
“Hi,” Jay and I echo.
“I’m Jennifer, Willow and Bella’s mom,” she says and points to the little girls before holding out a hand to shake. “Emerson and Waylon are Jack’s kids. You met him already.”
I shake her hand and say, “I’m Wren and this is my bodyguard, Jay.”
“It’s lovely to meet you. Oh, and I love what you’ve done to the landscaping of your house! Every time the crew was there, I’d check to see what they added. Love the rose bushes by the gate. It’s a great touch,” Jennifer says happily.
I thank her for her compliment and tell her about the peonies in the backyard, which she loves. But as I’m speaking, the kids run away and distribute water guns amongst themselves. The older boy, Emerson, hands Waylon a gun and takes off, running after the girls.
“It was nice chatting with you. I have to get the girls’ bags ready for swim lessons,” Jennifer says and waves before calling to the girls a five minute warning.
“Do you see that?” Jay asks and points to little Waylon. Waylon can barely hold up the huge water gun and can’t reach the trigger. His face is screwed up in concentration and he’s shouting for his brother to wait for him. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Before I can say anything, Jay is jogging over to the little kid and asking for his gun. Jay crouches down and shows Waylon how to hold the gun and helps him get a better grip on the trigger. After he gets the grip down, Jay shows him how to walk with the gun so he won’t be heard by the other kids. Waylon takes to the lesson seriously and adapts to the same posture Jay has before his brother comes around the corner of the house. Waylon’s tongue is sticking through the corner of his mouth as he stealthily approaches his brother and shoots. The water hits him square in the back.
The brothers scream back and forth over whether or not they were on the same team before Waylon turns to Jay to thank him. Jay straightens up and salutes the tiny child before spinning on his heel and returning to me.
“I have a feeling militarizing the neighborhood kids could be frowned upon in some circles.”
“What?” Jay asks. “I didn’t like that the bigger kids had the advantage.”
“Were you a small child?” I ask as we head back to the house. I toss the full cup of lemonade into the trash bin.
“Are you kidding?” Jay laughs. “I was bigger than my teachers by third grade.”
“A gentle giant.”
“I wouldn’t say gentle. I got in my fair share of fights,” Jay says. “It was in detention with the art teacher in middle school that I started drawing.”
“Oh, speaking of drawing,” I say and rush to the bag from the art show. I pull out the wrapped parcel and hand it to Jay.
His eyebrows shoot up as he looks from me to the bundle. “What’s this?”
“I got it for you last night,” I say and bite my lip.
“You were on a date with another man and you were thinking of me?” he teases, but his eyes are serious as he unwraps the paper.
“I guess so.” I shuffle my feet awkwardly. Talking about Levi is the last thing I want to do.
He holds the leather-bound notebook in his hand and strokes his fingers over the gold embossed blue jay. He’s silent as he opens it and runs his fingers over the handcrafted leather book.
“Do you like it?” My voice is a whisper.
His electric blue eyes shoot up to me and all I see is intensity. I can’t decipher the exact emotion there. All I know is that it’s sharp and draws me in like a spell. He takes the two steps to me and wraps me in his arms. The hand not holding the notebook smooths over my hair at the back of my head as he holds me. “I love it, thank you.”
I know I should step back and cut the embrace off. But every single atom in my being is hyper focused on the feel of his warm, hard body engulfing mine. My ear is pressed against his chest, and I can hear his heartbeat and his breathing. My eyes flutter shut and I feel something that was wrapped tightly in my chest unravel in the best way. I bite back an unexpected whimper that accompanies the intense feelings of comfort and … relief. The scent of him fills my lungs as I take a slow, steadying breath. I could stay here all day. I want to stay here all day.
His voice rumbles in his chest against my ear. “You alright?”
I want to say “Yes, I’m okay now that you’re holding me.” But all I can do is nod and try not to choke on the lump in my throat.
Jay pulls away from me, but first places a muffled, masked kiss on the top of my head. The gesture has the tears that were threatening to appear, springing to my eyes. I turn away from him and say, “I’m going to spend the day alone in the garden.”
****
I can’t sleep. With a sigh, I slide out of bed and tiptoe to Angelica’s room. I had been reading to her before bed and I left my book in there. Moonlight slants across the hallway from Jay’s slightly open door. He has a mask hanging on the doorknob in case of nighttime emergencies. I’ve seen it there before. The moonlight is so bright I have to look in his room. His curtains are open, revealing the huge full moon shining directly in.
The view is breathtaking. The full moon over the trees, a slice of the garden outside, and the smooth, muscled back of my bodyguard. He’s on his stomach, his navy sheets bunched around his legs, and his back bare for me to stare at. His face is turned away from me, and his arms are wrapped around his pillow, blocking most of his head. The steady rise and fall of his body as he breathes is hypnotizing. For the second time, I am seeing him as the man under the mask and not Blue Jay. I don’t know his name, but I know he has a secret fondness for sweet coffees, he can draw with alarming accuracy, he’s better at weeding the garden than I am, he has expressive eyes, he’s kind to children, he didn’t run away when I was terrible to him, and he is always on my side.
The train wreck of my date with Levi had me forgetting what Jay said to me just before. He brought up my lack of bullying since we moved. He was entirely right, and I knew it as soon as he said it. It’s a shocking realization. The only break from bullying Jays I’d taken was when I had the flu. And even then, I made Angelica peck the Jay of the week’s hands when he went to care for her.
I stopped being mean to this Jay because I… don’t want him to leave. This one is different. This one gives everything I deal him right back to me and takes it all in stride. It can’t be that I like him. No. It has to be because training a new Jay and getting used to a new person in the house would be exhausting. That has to be it. Getting used to a new Jay’s habits, preferences, and living style would be annoying. That makes more sense. It can’t be because this one- this one - is special to me.
I certainly haven’t been nice to him because I like his sense of humor. Or because I enjoy his company. Or because I have an acute awareness of his body when he is around me. It really can’t be because his eyes on me give me butterflies everywhere . Or because his deep toned laugh feels like a warm hug. And it really, really-oh god- really can’t be because he’s the first person I’ve ever felt truly safe with in body and mind.
I cannot have feelings for my bodyguard.