Chapter 23 #2
“Well,” he says. “I was just realizing that…it wasn’t so hard.
Leaving. And I wish we had more time in Skye, but…
it’s a good reason to come back.” He lifts a hand, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I’ve been thinking, actually, about traveling more.
When I was in therapy, back when I was doing it regularly, it was something we talked about.
I basically stopped traveling after James, but I think…
I think I’m ready to start doing it again. ”
I want to reach for him, take his hand, but I know doing that would make him nervous, so I keep holding on to the wheel.
“That’s great,” I tell him, my voice soft. “I think that’s really great.”
He looks at me from under his lashes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I understand. Why that would have been hard for you. And I think, well—” I smile at him, my eyes finding his. “It’s really brave.”
Some of the tension between his brows eases. “Thanks. I think it would help to get back into therapy again too, but I just feel…like I want to do this. Like I want to try.”
“I’m glad,” I say. “Would you—I remember you mentioned Greece before, but maybe…I don’t know. A trip back to Skye could be nice. Closer.”
“Yeah. Or, I was thinking, maybe I could come out to Los Angeles.”
My heart stops in my chest.
“You want to visit L.A.?”
“I want to visit you.” A beat. “I know what you said before, but…would you be open to that? If I came out to see you—”
“Yes.” Something loose and giddy rises within me. “Yes, I’d like that.”
A car flies past us, and Jacob’s hand extends toward me, dropping onto my knee. “Can we pull over?” he asks, and I nod.
I want to look at him while we have this discussion, and perhaps it’s making him nervous. He can sense how distracted I am, and it’s probably better—for both of us—to say this to each other when I’m not driving. To speak to each other face-to-face.
I follow the signs for the closest gas station—convenient because we do need to refill—and have barely put the car in park when I feel Jacob’s fingers at my chin and his mouth over mine.
“What—” My mouth opens to speak, but then I taste him, and all coherent thoughts leave my head. We spent all night together, have been around each other all morning, but I can’t get enough of him. I’m insatiable, unbuckling my seat belt, drawing him closer, my hand firm around the back of his neck.
“I thought,” he says, the words a breath over my lips. “I thought you’d say no.” He kisses me again, hard and quick.
“To what?”
“To me visiting.” He pulls back, planting a kiss in the curve of my neck. “I thought you didn’t want to—that this was it.”
“I—” My fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt, my eyes sliding shut as his mouth opens against my skin. “I thought that would be easier.”
“Easier for who?”
“I—I don’t know.” His mouth returns to mine, soft and gentle. As he retreats, he pulls on my bottom lip with his teeth, and it sends a hum across my skin.
“What would it mean?” I ask. “You visiting me?”
His glasses have slipped down the bridge of his nose, and I reach out, adjusting them back into place.
“What would you want it to mean?”
“Well, are you saying you want to…try to date? Or would it just be a continuation of…this? No strings, and just enjoying each other while we have each other, or—”
“Neelu,” he says, the word a whisper, pulled from the corners of his lungs.
His eyes flicker with fear and something else, but it settles, and the way he watches me—it’s so vulnerable.
So raw. “This hasn’t been strings-free. Nothing about it, from the very first night, has felt that way. Not for me.”
“Really?”
And hope flutters through me at his answering grin, at the growing wonder on his face. “Really.”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Because…me either.” But what would this look like? A long-distance relationship? One where we hardly see each other?
I sink deeper into my seat, leaning away, and a line forms between Jacob’s eyebrows. He senses it, this shift, and he pulls back, giving me space, pivoting in his chair to face me.
“What if I stayed? Temporarily?” My mind whirs, returning to its earlier buzzing. “We don’t start filming for a month, and you said you have a couple weeks before the semester starts?”
The line between his eyebrows deepens. “Yes, but—”
“What if I—I could talk to the hotel I was at, and I could work from here for a little while.” I swallow. “Maybe it would be good, because I’m working on something new, and there’s something about—I got the inspiration for the new show here, actually, and—”
“And what about when you leave?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how long I’ll be in L.A. or where we’ll be filming. We haven’t decided yet.”
“I can visit,” he says. “Wherever you are. For a weekend or—”
But I know what those kinds of trips look like, what they feel like. Short visits across an ocean, time spent apart.
“Let’s just see,” I say, and he winces.
“No,” I continue. “I mean, I want to try this. I want to be with you. I don’t want to fly back now. I want to stay, and we can try to figure out what…what this is. And when it’s time for me to go, we can talk then, but for now…”
“Two weeks,” he says.
“Yes. Two weeks.” I lick my lips, my mouth feeling dry. “Unless you—I don’t know. Do you feel differently? Would you prefer that I go home and you visit sometime later? Or what is it…What do you want?”
He watches me for a long moment, his face tight.
“I’m scared,” he says. “I’m scared to want.
I’m scared that you’ll—My circle of people is small, Neelu.
It’s Maggie and your dad and my sisters.
And that’s it. And I live every day terrified that the next phone call, the next text, is going to be about one of them.
An accident, a diagnosis, something that means they’re gone.
Taken from me forever. And I don’t—I didn’t want to open that circle up.
I keep things the same. My routine, the people around me, but you’re…
you’re in it now. That circle. And that makes me—”
“Jacob,” I say, my voice soft. My chest feels cracked in two, all of me open, exposed, and I reach for him out of instinct, a desire to comfort, but he holds me at bay.
“I want you here,” he says. “Two weeks is—it doesn’t—the idea that you’ll go back, that you’ll be all over the globe, traveling for the show—” He swallows, his Adam’s apple rising and falling. “It scares me.”
“I’m scared too.” We have different fears, but they’re similar in some way. Both of us are terrified of getting left behind. It’s something I recognized in him that first night, a shared thread between us.
“So let’s not think about it,” I say. “For two weeks. Let’s just allow ourselves to…to exist.”
There’s something firm about the set of his jaw. Hard. Determined. But slowly, I watch it melt away. “All right,” he says.
He takes my hand, interlacing his fingers with mine. His palm is warm, and I can feel his pulse, sure and steady against my wrist.
“On one condition,” he says.
“What?”
He hesitates. “It’s not a condition, actually, but if you’d like to, you don’t need to extend the hotel. If you wanted, you could just stay with me.”
A smile pulls at my lips. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never seen your place.”
His face softens. “I can’t wait to show it to you.”
He pulls me close, his lips brushing my forehead, and it’s there again. A glimmer of hope.
“I need to fill up the car,” I say, but he shakes his head, telling me he’s got it. He steps out, closing the passenger door behind him.
Two weeks. Two weeks of living with Jacob, being in his space, waking up beside him. We’ve stolen so many moments these past few days, and the idea of uninterrupted time with him, even if it comes with an end date, feels like a gift.
Fear still lingers, a shadow, out of sight in the corner of my mind, but I catch a glimpse of Jacob through the window, his mouth stretched in a wide smile as he puts the gas pump back in the holder and walks around the car to return to his seat.
“Ready?” he asks, still smiling, and I push that fear away, putting the car back in drive and pulling back onto the road.