19. Taylor
Nineteen
Taylor
Sometimes perfection can be perfect hell and right now as I look into Jake’s eyes, our perfection is about to end. Even though I want him to come home with me, I’m back on a plane tomorrow. This is the life of a pilot and when there are two of us it makes for complete hell.
“Do you need to go home and get anything?” I ask him, wanting to just admit to him that I want him to come home with me now.
He shrugs his shoulders, playing it casual and I give him a cocky smirk. If he can play this game of nonchalance, so can I. We stare at each other, a silence lingering between us, but a playfulness dancing in our eyes, a battle of glances before I finally speak.
“Well, then, if you don’t know, I’m just going to get going.” I toss a thumb in the direction of the waiting bus, my eyes flicking that way too. I start to walk over, but within seconds, Jake’s trotting up behind me, his hand snaking around my waist as he pulls me into him.
With the packed crew bus watching, he kisses me. He kisses me with fervor and lust, without a care who’s watching, and my knees go weak. It’s a kiss that ignites passion, it’s a kiss that promises reality, and it screams that there’s no hiding. He embraces what we’ve created over the last few weeks, no expectations, no romantic ideals, just a pure and honest connection.
Pulling back, his forehead rests against mine, my eyes closed as the rest of the world comes back into focus. His kiss says so much, comforting and telling in ways that words could never be.
“I’m coming home with you, cheeky girl, because there’s no other place I’d rather be.”
“See that. I figured you’d rather be inside me.”
He chuckles, and it’s breathy, the warm air from his mouth tickling my neck as he exhales hard.
“Or do we just save that for expensive hotel rooms and tropical islands?” I add, kissing the tip of his nose, my vulnerability shining through.
“God, I hope not or we’re going to go broke.”
Jake grabs my bag and his, toting them to the bus, and as we climb aboard, the humming of conversation halts. All eyes are on us, and it suddenly feels like we’re in high school again. Everyone was talking about us, watching us outside the bus, and now they’re judging us. Or at least they’re judging Jake for hooking up with me.
He could do so much better.
He’s just the next Trent.
She hooks up with everyone.
But none of it fazes Jake, his hand on the small of my back as he guides me to the first empty seats and practically forces me to sit down. Scooting me over to the window as he slides in next to me as if he’s protecting me from the prying eyes and their nosiness.
The conversations start up again as the bus pulls away, a quiet buzzing of whispers, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re talking about Jake and me. It’s stupid, and there’s no reason why I should care, but I care about Jake and his reputation. Being seen with me can only be a big solid negative strike against him.
I’m quiet, but not in that needy girl way. I never have been, and long before Jake, claimed that’s what drew him to me. It turns out, though that’s not what most guys want. They want the needy girl, the desperate-for-attention girl, and while most would label me as attention-seeking based on my past behavior, that’s far from it. I do what I do because it makes me happy. I chase my dreams with fearlessness, and I live outside the norms of a comfort zone.
I’m lost in my own thoughts, wondering how I recover from my bad girl reputation when I realize that I don’t. I don’t ever recover because I like my lack of subservience. I’m the kindred of the untamable, the protective and the loving, but I wasn’t wired to be codependent. These are the things I love about myself, and people can get fucked if they think gossiping about me is going to beat these qualities out of me.
It’s with Jake sitting next to me that my imperfections suddenly become not so imperfect after all. My head falls to his shoulder, my body relaxing as I take in my revelations, a calm coming over me.
This is where I was always meant to be.
Jake’s phone falls in my lap, the screen open to my contact information.
“Put your address in. Getting out of the parking garage is always crazy. This way I can put it into my GPS and meet you at your house.”
“Okay,” I reply, nodding my head. A shiver of excitement and nervousness runs down my spine. It’s been a long time since I dove into the relationship world, and as much as I’m all in with Jake, it’s still a scary feeling.
I pull in my driveway with Jake pulling in behind me, and I flag him in as I open the garage door. My two-car garage is a luxury I thought I’d never see again, but when I moved back to the States, I scored a hell of a deal on my townhouse.
“Check you out, Captain. A garage with room for two,” Jake teases when he exits his car.
“You wanna know the truth on this place?” I ask him, raising my eyebrows, my nose wrinkling up.
Jake nods his head slowly, but the look on his face says he’s torn as he looks me over like what I’m about to say can be plucked out of my head.
I hit the button closing the garage door and we enter the house. Jake’s reaction is that of pretty much everyone who has seen my house. He looks around, his mouth falling open because what I own in the California real estate market should be worth well over a million dollars.
“Well, this explains why you didn’t even think for a second about that nineteen-hundred-dollar-a-night hotel room.”
Jake doesn’t bother to hide his shock or his comments, and for some reason it makes me like him even more. Most would gossip and speculate. Not Jake, he just comes right out and asks.
“The hotel room was because I wanted to get you in the sack.” I wink at him, setting my bag down and slipping my arms around his waist.
“You didn’t need to drop that kind of money to get me in the sack. I would’ve done it with you in the back of a car.”
“I know you would’ve, but we didn’t have a car, and I wasn’t about to go traipsing all over Waikiki to find a budget motel. Besides, one day it will be a great story we can tell people.”
“Did Taylor Patterson just allude to a future with me?” Jake steps back, feigning surprise, a hand over his heart.
“Maybe.”
We walk into my kitchen, the oversized island decorated and lined with four dozen low-trimmed pale pink roses in wide-mouthed squat vases. I take in a deep breath, my shoulders rising and falling as I take in the scene before me. A smile forms involuntarily, and when I look over at Jake, he’s watching me.
“Care to explain?”
Our conversations are all over the place, but something about it seems so natural, so normal.
“The woman who lived here before me was named Rose, and whenever I know I’m going to be home, I have four dozen roses delivered to my house in her honor.” I say it with finality, like it’s totally normal to pay homage to the previous owner. “My neighbor checks on my house when I’m gone. She takes in the delivery and makes sure they’re in my house when I get home.”
Jake rolls a hand as if to tell me to keep talking because he knows there’s more to all of this.
“You sure you want me to continue?” I ask, a teasing quality to my voice as I open the fridge and pull out two pre-packaged breakfasts. “Do you want the egg white veggie omelet with wheat toast or the breakfast burrito with potatoes, avocado and salsa?” I hold out the two containers to him, and he’s still eyeing me suspiciously. “When I know I’m not going to be home long, I have my meals delivered by a company who does the cooking for me.” I shrug my shoulders and hand him the burrito, not waiting for him to respond.
“You really have your shit together,” he replies, taking the burrito and popping it into the microwave.
“You kind of have to when you’re never home. I want my home to feel different than when I’m traveling. I want it to be a place I love to be at, and by ordering flowers and having food here when I arrive, it makes it more…”
“Like home,” Jake says, finishing my sentence.
“Exactly.”
“It’s a hell of a home.” He looks around again, and I laugh realizing we still haven’t gotten to the story of how I ended up here.
The microwave chimes, and I pull out Jake’s burrito and put in the omelet. Passing it to him, he takes a seat on one of the stools at the island. As I wait for my breakfast to heat up, I fill him in on how I scored this great place.
“So, here’s the story. I had been living in Costa Rica for a while and decided it was time to move back to the US. As you know, being a pilot generally means we’re commuters, so it didn’t really matter where I ended up, but after living in Costa Rica, I knew any place where there could be snow was out.”
“You’re stalling, Taylor,” Jake jokes, and I am, but only to add a little mystery to an already mysterious story.
Smirking at him, I continue, but this time jumping right in. “The old owner died in the house.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Someone died in my house, so I got it for half a million under asking price.”
“Seriously?” Jake’s chin tips downward, his eyebrows going up in surprise.
“Seriously, like seriously, I got it for that much less, or seriously someone died in here?”
“Both.”
“She was old and died of natural causes, but it was a total disaster. One of her children had the entire place renovated about three years ago with the hopes of moving in once her mother passed away. But she was one of three kids and there was a war over the townhouse.”
“What kind of war?”
“The one who wanted to live here didn’t want to buy her siblings out. Eventually, it went to court, and they were ordered to remove all personal effects and sell the house with all the furniture.”
“This furniture?” A disgusted look appears on Jake’s face because even he’s creeped out by being in a dead person’s house.
“Nah. It was old lady furniture. Think velvet couches with birds on them and shit.” I shake my head and continue. “So basically, once word got around that someone had died in the house, no one wanted it.”
“I kinda understand, but I think I could get over it really quickly.”
“People in L.A. can be weird, and there’s all that talk of bad vibes and juju. But I didn’t care. It had sat on the market for almost a year, and I came in and offered way under the asking price. By that point, her kids hated each other, and all they wanted was their cut.”
“And you got this amazing house out of their selfishness.”
“Yep, and so to combat that bad juju or whatever, I fill my house with roses.”
“Well, here’s to Rose and your kick arse house,” Jake says, holding up a bottle of water he pulled from the fridge, and it makes me laugh. Everything about him is casually cocky, and I love it.
We finish up breakfast and with a comfortable silence floating between us, I ask, “Do you wanna christen the walk-in shower?”
With a devious smile on his face, Jake stands up, grabbing me from the chair. He tosses me over his shoulder and heads up the stairs.