Chapter 24 #2
The idea makes me a little nervous, though.
My father and I never cleared the air after that moment in the car.
We danced around it, neither of us moving to address it, and I wanted it that way.
Before. I imagined flying back and returning to the way we were—distant, separate, apart. That seemed safe. Familiar. But now?
My eyes flit to Jacob, his head bent over his phone, his forehead scrunched in concentration. His thumbs fly across the screen, and then he pauses. A long sigh. He deletes something, then starts typing again.
Endearing. Everything about him is.
I don’t know what the distance will do to us, but maybe we can try.
And maybe my father and I can try harder too.
A few minutes later, Jacob sets his phone down. He looks out the window, his expression soft. Thoughtful.
“Done?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. He glances over at me. “Sorry, it’s been so quiet in here. You must have been bored.” He plays with the radio, scanning stations, stopping to hear a snippet of a song, then changing it again.
“No. It was helpful, actually. Having all this time just to think.” I raise a shoulder. “I’ve never minded it. Long car rides. Or travel in general. And it’s a luxury to get to do it like this, without thirty contestants in tow.”
Light bagpiping fills the car, a cover of a Sabrina Carpenter song, and he leaves it on, his eyes playful.
“Do you know this one?” he asks.
I laugh. “Do you?”
He grins, slow and easy. “I’ve heard my students play it. I don’t know the words, but I recognize it.”
I wonder what he’s like in class. What his students think about him. I’m sure some find him swoony. With his glasses and his cardigans and the furrow between his brows when he concentrates.
“Do your students know about the bagpiping?”
“You know”—he rubs a hand across his jaw—“I don’t know. Maybe? The school has a student band. They perform at graduation and some other events throughout the year, and I think there’s an alumni chapter too, but there’s not really anything like that for faculty, so…no. I don’t think they know.”
“You should tell them,” I say. “They’d love it.”
He laughs, low and rough. “I’m sure it would be interesting in the States, but it’s not as much of a novelty here. And I hate to tell you this, but I’m not particularly good.”
“Please.” I roll my eyes.
“No, really. I’m passable, but I don’t practice much anymore. I only play occasionally.” He pauses. “I’ve played more this past week than I have in years.”
“Well, you sounded great to me.”
He flushes, looking embarrassed but pleased. “Thanks,” he says.
We pass the city limits, entering Aberdeen, and decide to stop at my hotel first. The front desk has been holding the suitcase I left behind, so we run inside and grab it, then continue on to Jacob’s apartment.
“Flat,” he says, correcting me.
“I know, I know. That’s one I should remember going forward.” I shoot him a look. “But I’m telling you right now, I refuse to say skooshy cream.”
“Come on,” he rumbles, his accent thicker than usual. “At least it’s better than squirty cream.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Is it?”
He laughs again, taking my bag out of the trunk.
Jacob’s apartment—flat—is simple and lived-in. Dark neutrals, grays and browns, and wooden bookcases. Everything is neat, organized, put in its place, except for a desk in the corner that is covered with a haphazard stack of papers.
“Don’t ask,” he says, pushing me away from it when he catches me looking.
“But what is—”
“Shhh.”
He settles his hands around my waist, leading me into the kitchen, where he says he’ll show me the culinary prowess he was bragging about in the car, but we didn’t grocery shop and we’re tired, so we end up settling on the couch, scrolling for delivery instead.
I look back at the desk. “Is it really some big secret?”
He sighs, stretching his feet out on the ottoman. “You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?”
“Nope.” I grin. I scoot closer, and he stretches out an arm, pulling me against him.
It’s nice. Domestic. Like we’ve been doing this for years.
“I’m working on a collection,” he says. “Of poetry. And it’s—it’s a mess right now. I printed everything I ever wrote and I’m trying to sort through all of it before the semester starts, but I’m—I was—having a hard time with it.”
“Anything I can help with?” I ask, and he looks at me like I’ve said something funny.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He leans down, kissing me on the tip of my nose, and then he picks his phone back up. “Anything you’re in the mood for? Food-wise?”
I narrow my eyes. “I may not be as…cultured as you are, and I don’t really read much poetry, but I could still help. Somehow.”
“I know,” he says, and he’s smiling, but it’s odd. Not unkind, but as if he knows something I don’t.
We decide on Thai and turn on the television, both of us a little talked-out after the drive. We start with the competitive baking show we watched together once, but when it’s over, Jacob reaches for the remote. I don’t know what he’s doing until I see him spelling out the letters L-O-V…
“Love in the Sun?” I ask as he presses it, starting with season one.
“Is that all right?”
“Uh, sure.” I haven’t rewatched the show since…
ever, really. I do some work with editing, and I always watch the final cut, but I don’t usually see it when it’s on the air.
And outside of the clips that have gone viral, I’ve never rewatched any of it.
“I didn’t start working on it until season four, though. Not that you have to—”
But he’s already back to the main screen, switching the season.
“Maggie said I’ve watched some of it before with them, but I barely remember it,” he says.
The theme song plays, light and fun and nostalgic, and then there’s a montage of the first contestants I ever worked with.
Rachel and Carlton—married now, with two kids.
Becky, who ended up in a love triangle with Jason and Nia, but walked away with neither because she was still in love with her ex.
And Shreya and Eric, who got married, then divorced, then appeared on our all-star season and fell back in love.
“What was Costa Rica like?” Jacob asks as we watch the first ensemble date, contestants pairing up for a zip line through the trees.
“Beautiful,” I say. “I’d love to go back.”
“And did you do that?” He points at the screen.
“Oh yeah.” I tuck my feet under me and lean against him. “Have you ever tried it?”
“A zip line?” He releases a puff of breath, and I feel it moving through my bangs. “No. James did on one of his trips, and he made it sound fun, but the idea terrified me.”
“Yeah, we had a couple contestants sit this one out. And I don’t try all of the things we do on the show. I like zip-lining, but I can’t snorkel.”
His hand’s been playing with the ends of my hair, but now it goes still. “Really?”
“I can swim fine, but breathing through that apparatus and the waves, especially when it’s choppy—it makes me panic.”
He hums, and his hand moves again, but there’s something he isn’t saying. Something he’s holding back.
I look up at him. “What?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he exhales, his chest rising and falling against my cheek.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I think…you’re…
To me you seem fearless. Bold and confident and adventurous.
And I felt—” Lines form across his forehead.
“I don’t know. Hearing you say you’re scared of something ordinary, it makes me feel less…
I felt kind of bad before. Earlier. That I couldn’t help with the driving.
I wanted to, I felt awful that you had to drive the whole way back, but the thought of it…
” He stops, taking a deep breath. “I can’t. ”
“I’m sorry,” I say, remembering the things I said on the way to Skye, asking why he couldn’t take over the wheel. “I didn’t know then, but I’m sorry. For anything I said that—”
“No, it’s okay, it’s more—I felt kind of silly about it. You do all these things. You travel everywhere, you’re comfortable driving on the other side of the road, and I—”
“It’s not silly.”
“I know, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to drive again, and I wasn’t sure if you’d care about something like that. If you’d be okay with that. But knowing that you’re scared of something, anything, it makes me feel a little…better. Somehow.”
Something soft and tender rises within me.
“Jacob.” I brush my fingers against his chin, turning him toward me, and our eyes lock.
I can’t believe that he’d think he’d need to be any different, that he’d need to do anything different.
You’re wonderful just as you are. The words are in my mind, in my heart, but saying them…
it feels like too much. Too big of a confession.
Too large a feeling for two weeks, and then we’ll see, so I try to tell him in other ways.
Rising up to him, meeting his mouth with mine, finding my way to his bedroom, pulling him inside.