7. Jesse
7
JESSE
“ H e kissed you?”
Brooklyn’s voice was muffled behind the kitchen door, but even so, I could hear how incredulous he sounded. I was leaning up against the counter at Cardigan Cafe, about to meet Mark for a run. Brooklyn emerged from the back carrying a tray of scones that he began to load into the glass display case.
“I know!” I said, equally shocked. It was a week since that day in the park, but Brooklyn had been out of town, and now that I could finally tell him, I was reliving the surprise I’d felt when it’d happened. “So weird, right?”
“Was it good?” Brooklyn finished loading the case and moved the empty baking sheet to a back counter.
“So good. Like, unbelievably good. It was hot . And not just because it was ninety degrees outside with ninety-nine percent humidity. But then he freaked out and literally ran away, so, yeah. That part wasn’t so great.”
“Have you talked about it at all?”
“No! That’s the thing. Radio silence until Tuesday, when he texted to tell me he couldn’t make our mid-week run. And then nothing again until yesterday when I asked if we were still doing this long run today together. Which, apparently, we are. But I feel like it’s going to be so awkward since we haven’t really talked since it happened. Usually we’re texting back and forth all the time.”
Brooklyn gave me a long look. “So you haven’t brought it up because you’re waiting for him to bring it up, right?”
“Yeah?”
“You ever think he’s not bringing it up because he’s waiting for you to do it?”
“But he’s the one who kissed me!”
“Yeah, well, maybe he figures the ball’s in your court now.” Brooklyn shrugged as he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. “So you just have to decide what to say.”
“Ugh, this is terrible.” I looked plaintively at Brooklyn until he sighed and poured a second, smaller cup of coffee for me. “I don’t want to be the one to start the conversation. That means I have to know what I want to say about it.”
“Well, don’t you? I mean, if the kiss was that good, I’m assuming what you want to say is something along the lines of, ‘ Yes, please, more now, thank you ,’ right?”
“Yeah, except that, again, he kissed me and then reacted like I’d burned him or something. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. So he’s probably spent all week trying to figure out how to tell me he doesn’t actually even like guys and it was all a mistake. God, it figures that the first person I fall for after Tanner is someone who’s even worse for me than he was.”
“First of all, that’s bullshit, and you know it. Tanner was straight up an asshole. Mark…we don’t even know what Mark is. But you won’t find out unless you talk to him.”
“Ugh, but talking about feelings is so hard. What if he shoots me down?”
“Then you’ll know, and you’ll be happy you asked before things had a chance to progress further and for you to get attached.”
“This sucks.”
“But it’s not going to go away if you just hide in here drinking coffee instead of going out to meet him. And you’re going to be late if you stay here any longer.”
I glanced up at the clock over my shoulder—a kitschy cuckoo clock that Charlotte had given me when she’d gotten an even tackier one for the Flamingo—and realized Brooklyn was right. I still didn’t know what to say, but if I didn’t run to meet Mark now, he’d think that I was the one avoiding him .
I said goodbye to Brooklyn and hurried out the door, launching into a light jog as I moved down the sidewalk. I was supposed to meet Mark at the edge of campus and I’d cut it too close to walk. As I ran, I tried to figure out what I was going to say, but my mind kept going around in circles.
First, I still couldn’t get over how hot that kiss had been. Feeling Mark’s body on top of me, his lips on mine. Knowing, for the first time, that he might feel even a fraction of the attraction that I felt for him. I’d spent the past week replaying it in my mind and it had definitely featured in my fantasies at night.
I wanted more. More kissing, more Mark. More of Mark. I blushed as I ran, remembering the way I’d imagined ripping his clothes off, the way I’d pictured him fucking me right there in the park. It didn’t make sense that someone as hot as Mark would be attracted to me, but he had to be, right? Why else would he have kissed me? Because he’d definitely started it.
But he’d also ended it.
And that was just as important. He’d clearly changed his mind about something when he’d pulled away. And he kept saying he was sorry. That wasn’t something you said to someone you wanted to keep making out with, or someone you wanted to date. That was something you said to someone you were trying to let down easy.
I knew it was stupid of me to be so excited about the kiss. And it had been dumb to have a crush on him in the first place, because it just made this situation so much harder. But it had been so tempting, so easy to do, because crushing on Mark had made me feel happy for the first time in a while.
Tanner and I had broken up over two months ago. I was past the worst of it, but it was still hard sometimes. I got these moments where something would make me think of him, and I’d realize, again, that my whole imagined future with him was never going to happen. I knew that he’d cheated on me, I knew I was better off without him, and yet it felt like a punch in the gut to re-realize that he hadn’t cared enough about me to want to be with me.
Tanner had been living in one reality—a reality where he didn’t love me. And I’d been living in one where he did. It sucked to be reminded that his reality had turned out to be right, mine had been wrong, and I had to accept that I was living in his world where we weren’t together, instead of my world where we still would have been.
Not that I even wanted to be with Tanner anymore. I was too mad, too hurt, for that. I guess it was just hard to be single again. To feel rejected again. About the only silver lining I’d been able to find was that at least I wasn’t anxious anymore, wondering what Tanner really felt for me. Now I knew for sure.
And then Mark had come along, and he’d somehow become all the silver lining I’d needed. A friend and a crush all wrapped up in one sexy package, and he’d been so nice to me. So cute. So funny. Of course I’d fallen for him. Even though I’d known better.
And now he might be trying to back away from me, regretting kissing me. Afraid I was going to try to jump on him, make him my boyfriend, when the kiss had been a mistake. But I couldn’t stand the thought of Mark distancing himself and fading out of my life. How could I keep that from happening?
I rounded a corner, and there he was, all six foot three of him, bracing against the front gates of Chatham University while he stretched his calf muscles. My stomach dropped, and I had to take a moment to remember how to breathe before walking forward.
Dammit, why did he have to be so hot? Why couldn’t I stop imagining those legs tangled up with mine, his arms wrapped around me?
“Hey!” I called out, as Mark turned and caught a glimpse of me over his shoulder. I started forward, hoping it wasn’t too obvious that I’d been staring. “What’s up?”
Mark smiled, and I felt ten percent better immediately. At least he was smiling. That had to be a good sign, right?
“Hey,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d flaked on me, and I was going to have to hunt you down.”
“Nah, just stopped at the cafe to catch up with Brooklyn for a minute. He just got back into town last night.”
Another ten percent better. If Mark were trying to distance himself from me, he wouldn’t say something like ‘ hunt you down ,’ right? At least, I wouldn’t. But who knew how straight guys thought? Or bi guys, I supposed, or whatever Mark was. All I knew was how I would have acted.
“Oh, cool, I didn’t know he was back in town.” Mark had seen Brooklyn a few times over the month when we’d met for our runs, and they’d gotten pretty friendly. “Should we get going?”
I nodded, he started his running watch, and then we were off. We spent the first few minutes talking about the route, deciding how, exactly, we were going to do our ten miles. Then we lapsed into silence.
Comfortable silence on Mark’s part, as far as I could tell. Maybe he was just better at hiding it than I was, though, because I felt like I was about to explode. Every step we took without talking about the kiss wound me up together and tighter. By mile four, I was spinning scenarios in my head where we never talked about the kiss, and ended up best friends for life, and when I asked him about it on my deathbed, he wouldn’t even remember it because of dementia or something, and I'd have wasted my whole life wondering what it had meant.
I couldn’t let that happen.
“So can we talk about it?” I asked, surprising myself. I felt like the words had come out of my mouth before I’d actually decided to speak. Mark glanced at me, winced, and looked away.
Well, that wasn’t a good sign. Ten percent worse.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding and frowning. “Sorry. I know I should have said something about it earlier. It just felt awkward.”
One thousand percent worse.
“Right, yeah,” I said, rushing to agree. He really regretted it, didn’t he? He just hadn’t known how to tell me. Fuck. “But it doesn’t have to be awkward. I mean, we can just pretend it never happened.”
Mark looked at me in surprise, his eyes widening for a moment. Was he shocked that I wasn’t trying to put up more of a fight? How desperate did he think I was?
Actually, I didn’t think I wanted the answer to that.
Then he sort of shook his head, and gave me what looked like the world’s saddest smile. A pity smile. Great.
“Okay, yeah.” He turned and looked forward again. “Cool.”
That was it
He wasn’t even going to give me an ‘ I’m just not into you that way ’ speech? I was just supposed to intuit all of it by myself?
I mean, sure, I could do that. I was very adept at envisioning humiliating scenarios in excruciating detail. But still, he couldn’t even be bothered to give me a proper let-down?
“I mean, I just thought—”
“No, right, that’s a good idea,” Mark interrupted. “I mean, we’re friends. It was just weird, and I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. I don’t really know why I did, to be honest.”
Ah, there it was. The punch to the stomach I’d been looking for. My month-long hot-air-balloon of a crush popped with just a few words.
He didn’t like me, I’d been stupid to think he ever did, and the sooner we forgot about it all, the better.
The worst part about it was that I was on board. I’d rather have him as a friend than nothing. And if I told him how I actually felt, I might lose him completely.
I didn’t think I could handle losing Mark as a friend. It wasn’t just that he’d somehow convinced me to run this stupid race, or that he had me looking forward to our runs together. I’d gotten used to having him in my life. Getting lunch after our long weekend runs, or hanging out, annoying Brooklyn at the cafe.
If denying my feelings was what it took to keep Mark around, I was willing to do that, no matter how messed up I knew that was.
“It’s alright,” I said, shrugging like I wasn’t slowly dying inside. I laughed lightly. “It makes more sense than you actually being into guys. I didn’t really get that vibe from you.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Yeah ? I guess?! Well that was weird, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t a straight guy be anxious to establish just how straight he was, especially in this situation?
God, what if it was worse? What if Mark was into guys, but to spare my feelings, he was pretending he wasn’t, just so he wouldn’t have to awkwardly explain that it wasn’t men he was repulsed by, just me?
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said after a moment, “about something you said a while ago.”
“Oh?” My stomach tensed. Where was this going? Were we still talking about things between us, or—
“When you met my grandma, Gigi, you said something about already being in love with another old house. I was just curious what you meant by that.”
Oh.
“It’s kind of dumb,” I said, flushing.
I felt suddenly shy, afraid of what Mark would think if I told him about my dream. But talking about anything else was better than the awkward trainwreck that had started the conversation, so maybe I didn’t have anything to complain about.
“What’s dumb about it?” he asked.
“Well, it’s not something I tell a lot of people.” I drew in a deep breath as we turned a corner. In for a penny, in for a pound, I supposed. “But I kind of have this dream of opening a bed and breakfast. I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve just always loved the idea of having a place that I can make warm and inviting for people. A place where I can welcome people in, and make them feel like they have a refuge from the world.”
“That’s not stupid, that’s awesome. How long have you wanted to do that?”
Mark was looking at me again, but he was smiling this time. Maybe this run was salvageable after all.
“My whole life, I guess?” I said, thinking it over. “I think I got it from my mom, actually. Even though she had trouble getting around, she liked having people over, filling our house up with love. Especially after my dad left. And then I started working at hotels in Miami when I was in high school, and the more I learned about it, the more I fell in love with the business.”
“That’s so cool. So there’s a house up here you want to buy or something?”
“Yeah. But that’s where it gets frustrating. The house isn’t actually here. It’s on an island a couple of hours down the coast. It already is a bed and breakfast, or at least, it was. The Sea Glass Inn. But the current owner can’t keep it up, so he’s looking to sell it. I must have visited it a hundred times by now. It needs a lot of work, and I’ve been trying to get the money together to buy it.”
“Whoa, that’s great.” Mark flashed me a grin.
“It would be.” I made a face. “If I could make it work. I’ve been working at the Flamingo and Cardigan Cafe to save up, and taking online courses in business administration. But the last I heard, the owner had found someone who could make a better offer than I could.”
“What? Doesn’t he know how much you want it?” Mark looked indignant on my behalf and my heart felt like it was going to burst.
“He does, and he’s honestly been so nice about it, but he can’t really afford to sell it for what I can offer. Not now that he has a better offer on the table. For a while, I was hoping that Tanner would want to do this with me, but obviously, that’s not going to happen now.”
“Fuck that guy. You don’t need him.”
“Well, maybe not him specifically,” I said. “But it wouldn’t have hurt to have a business partner. Especially with all the work and rehab that the place would need to get it back into shape. Ugh, the new owners will probably just knock it down and put up condos or something. There’s been a lot of that on the island recently. And this place has a great location, right on the shoreline up on this bluff. You’re practically on top of the ocean when you’re on the back porch. It’s incredible.”
“That sounds amazing.” Mark sighed. “There’s got to be some way to work it out. You know, if you got it somehow, I could help you get it in shape. It can’t be any worse than what I’m doing at Gigi’s house.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. I knew Mark was helping his grandmother out, but the Sea Glass needed some serious TLC—and probably a licensed contractor. Still, it was a nice thought.
I smiled as we ran on. It was fun to imagine Mark helping me get the bed and breakfast into shape, even if it was just a pipe dream. But it probably wasn’t a good idea to fantasize about that future too much.
I was glad Mark still wanted to be my friend, but I’d have to work hard to keep myself from wanting more.