Chapter 39 Jamison
Jamison
This has got to be some kind of fucking joke. As if to say "Oh you thought you’d be happy," the universe throws something like this into existence.
When my brother left, that was it. No calls, no visits, nothing.
I was just a kid, torn between being proud that he got out and being angry that he abandoned me to do it.
As I grew older, I tried to find him, to reach out — the only person I ever looked for — but he didn’t want to be found.
At least not by me. And now, gone over half my life, he pops back up to buy my dream car from Claire’s dad.
There it was, Jackson Benningfield, the name I stopped googling a decade ago when I realized I’d never see or hear from him again. His address, phone number, email, every possible way to contact him, written plain as day for a goddamn stranger.
Information apparently too good for me.
I’m strangling the steering wheel back to my apartment in absolute silence.
Claire looks at me every few seconds, her flushed face full of concern, but I can’t bring myself to talk to her.
It’s like all of the walls that she has been tearing down brick-by-brick, just rebuilt themselves out of solid cement.
This is why. This is why I don’t open up to people, why I don’t let them in. If they won’t hurt me, I’ll hurt them. I know she says she doesn’t care about my past or the baggage I bring with me, but I do. I won’t let my shit, and my reactions to it, break her with me.
I pull around the back of Enzo’s to the empty parking lot. The sun is just starting to go down, the streetlights not quite on. Pulling into a space, I keep the car running.
“I think you should go,” I say to the windshield rather than to her. There is no way that I’m adding Claire coming into my shitty apartment to tonight’s list of events.
“No.”
“Claire,” I say sternly, turning to her.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“It’s not a good time. I just…I need to figure all of this shit out.”
“Then I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t want you to come with me,” I snap back.
Her head pulls back and I see her wince just briefly before sitting up straighter, face serious.
“I’m sorry,” I sigh. “I’m just going to sleep on everything before I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”
“What happened to believing me?” she snaps back.
My mind drifts back to that night. Where she told me she wants me, that she’s choosing me. But that is exactly why I can’t let her in. If I have any chance of keeping her, I need to shield her from this.
“I just can’t right now.” I grab the door handle and push it open in one swift motion. “Just go.”
I’m halfway to the back door of my apartment when I hear the engine shut off and her car door slam. I reach for the knob but she pulls my arm back until my hand falls into hers. I look at the ground, too embarrassed by the shitshow that is my life. Claire deserves so much better than this.
“Look at me, Jay.” When I don’t move, she says it again, stronger than I’ve ever heard her speak. “Look at me.”
I slowly meet her gaze and behind her glossy eyes, I don’t see sadness or fear or regret. I see strength.
“Wherever you are.”
I never really understood the expression, tugging on your heartstrings.
I’d hear it in a movie or a book and wonder how anything can make you feel something so strongly.
Like my “heartstrings” must just hang around limp, because I’m not quite sure I’d ever feel that connected to something.
But then I met Claire, and the way that she’s looking at me now feels like my strings aren’t just attached to her, they’re anchored there, pulling me in but at the same time, holding me steady despite the current.
“Say it again,” I say, moving toward her.
“Wherever you are,” she repeats.
“Again.”
“Wherever you—”
My mouth collides with hers, one hand on her throat, the other in her hair.
She hums and I feel the vibration beneath my palm.
I tilt her head to me, sinking deeper into the kiss, as she slips her hands up the back of my shirt.
We fall into a rhythm of sweeps and strokes until I reluctantly move one hand from her to the knob behind me.
Pulling it open, I step backward over the threshold, our lips still connected.
We walk like this, intertwined until we come to my door.
I pull away from her just long enough to slide my keys from my pocket and into the lock.
Once we’re inside, I pull her to the bed and she straddles my lap, her legs on either side of mine. We bite and suck and tug and grind until our bodies are entangled, a web of limbs knotted together.
I roll her to her back. My teeth graze her neck as I hover above her, and she moans into my ear.
Desperate for friction, she throws both legs around my back and pulls me so my lower half is flush with hers, my weight settling between us.
I’m hard, she’s panting, and there’s a need here that’s palpable.
I for one, need her body, her heart, everything, all of it. Wherever you are. I feel it in my chest as sure as a second heartbeat.
Where. Ever. You. Are.
I break free from her hold and slide down to her waist. Undoing her buttons, I slide her shorts and underwear off in one strong pull. She gasps and I groan, the sight of her enough to save me alone.
I stand, stripping myself of my clothes. First my shirt, then my jeans. She mirrors me, sitting up, throwing her own shirt to the ground, a masterpiece of peaks and valleys.
“Fuck, Claire.” It comes out hitched as she crawls back on the bed, and I tear off the one remaining material between my body and hers.
I climb back on top of her, kissing slowly up her calves, then her thighs, pausing at her middle just to sample her. She bucks beneath my touch.
“Jay,” she whispers.
I taste her again, but it’s not enough. I continue up her hip, then the curve of her side, to the space between my favorite curves. Her nails are in my hair, then on my back and I throb between us, only for her.
Where. Ever. You. Are.
“Be with me,” I blurt and I’m as caught off guard as she is.
I feel an elemental shift deep in my soul.
Like my insides are rearranging to make room for the parts of me that have been stored away, dust brushed off and cobwebs wiped clean.
This is one of those moments that gets broken down into befores and afters.
Before I gave my heart to Claire and after I risked it all.
“Be with me.” It comes out more intentional this time, but still foreign in my voice.
She freezes beneath me. “Jay,” she says.
“I mean it. Be with me, Claire.”
She focuses on me, her amber eyes dilated.
“Shit.” I hang my head, my weight balanced on my hands on either side of her beautiful face. “I’m fucking this all up.”
Claire tilts my chin up, her face once again only inches from mine.
“Jay, I—”
“Will you please just fucking be with me? Please?”
“So polite,” she says, after a painful amount of time, and I watch the corners of her lips turn up before the hunger returns to her eyes.
“Yes,” she says.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
I push into her and the rest of the world goes quiet. My mother, the men, cornfields, alcohol, Jackson, closets, Huck, cars, Mel, bruised fists, wet cheeks.
"Just a little longer, Jamison."
“Make a life for yourself.”
"Be a good boy."
All of it. Silenced.
I push into her over and over, the only sound in my head matching the rhythm of our bodies.
Where. Ever. You. Are.