8. Jack
JACK
I pour a cup of coffee into one of the oversized mugs from the cabinet, drinking it black like I had at the diner. But I can hardly get a couple of sips in before there's a loud, firm knock at my door.
I didn't even hear a vehicle pull up outside. Normally, I hear them in the distance and am opening the door before anybody can even knock on it.
This time, though, I must have been distracted.
I wonder why.
Alyssa. That woman could distract me enough to miss a parade of elephants stomping through my front lawn.
I wouldn't care one bit, as long as she was here. Those beautiful, deep brown eyes trained on me, looking at me like I'm some kind of god damn hero.
I'm almost forty years old. I know I shouldn't get butterflies around a woman. I shouldn't stumble over my words. Normally, I don't.
But with Alyssa, it's different.
I don't want her to be in that guest bedroom. I had half a mind to lead her right into my bedroom and tell her to stay, not just for the night, but forever.
But I'm trying to take it slow. I don't want to make her nervous. Don't want to scare her off.
I found the damn sticky note. The one where she scrawled her phone number and her name on it before she left that fateful morning. It fell behind the nightstand, just like I suspected.
I should have looked there. I would have looked high and low for her phone number if I had any clue that she left it for me. When I woke up that morning and she was gone without a trace, I just figured that's just my luck.
That I meet the perfect woman, that we have a magical night together, and the next morning she realizes what a stupid mistake she's made, hooking up with a guy like me, and books it out of town without saying goodbye.
It just made sense to me.
It makes less sense to me that a woman like Alyssa would leave me her phone number. That she would be back in town, putting her hand on my thigh as we drive up to the mountains, giving me those looks that I'm starting to think I'm not reading into.
I'm starting to think that she might just want me as much as I want her.
But there are periodic breaks in this energy, where something shifts, where she seems to pull back, close in on herself, like she's keeping some kind of secret, and I can't figure out what the hell it is.
Is it something I'm doing? Is she doubting me?
One minute she's praising me and warming up to me. The next, it seems like she retreats, going somewhere hidden, somewhere I'm not allowed to be.
I'll have to get to the bottom of that. Only if I have enough time, though.
The banging on the door doesn't cease, and I curse under my breath, taking one last gulp of coffee before setting the mug down on the counter and striding over.
I open the door to see none other than Adam glaring at me.
"What the fuck, dude?" he asks. “You’ve really done it this time, you know!”
"What are you talking about?" I ask.
"Carla," he says. "My cousin. You know, the one that you blew off this afternoon?”
Wow. I’d forgotten all about that.
I went on a full-blown date earlier today, and I had completely wiped it from my memory. As soon as I saw Alyssa, everything else stopped mattering.
"Oh, right," I groan.
"Oh, right," he mocks with a frown. “I told you to go soft on her, man. If you didn't like her, that's one thing. You don't have to reject her so harshly."
"I didn't reject her harshly," I say. "We agreed that we didn't want the same things. I apologized for wasting her time, paid for the coffee, and that was that."
Adam shakes his head.
"What do you mean, you don't want the same things? Like what? You don't want happiness? Is that it?"
I glance over my shoulder, aware that Adam's talking loudly enough for Alyssa to hear every single word.
He wouldn't know that I've got a woman back there. There's only my truck in the drive, and Adam knows me to be an antisocial, anti-dating son of a bitch.
He probably wouldn't be too happy to know that on the same day that I rejected his cousin, I took home a completely different woman.
One that I'm desperately trying to convince to stay.
"Look, man," I say in a low voice. "I didn't want to hurt her, alright?
But I didn't ask y'all to start fixing me up with every other woman in town that you know.
You know that I don't want kids. So did you not know that Carla does? That’s this is the main reason she's even dating in the first place? "
Adam seems taken aback by this information.
"I mean, sure, I know that kids are a priority for her," he says reluctantly.
"They're the priority," I retort. "Not a priority. The priority. She's worried she's running out of time, and she's looking for a man who's gonna want to have kids with her right away. Well, that's not me. Not only do I not want kids right away, I don't want kids ever. At all. You know that.”
“Okay, well -”
But I’m not done. Adam has interrupted my time with Alyssa and worse, he seems to think that I mistreated her cousin, something that couldn't be farther from the truth.
"So if Carla's feelings are hurt, I'm very sorry to her,” I continue. “It wasn't my goal to hurt her feelings. But maybe you should think twice before setting me up with some woman who wants to tie me down with the burden of kids before we've even finished our coffee."
A door down the hallway opens abruptly, and I turn to see Alyssa rushing out, her cheeks pink.
Adams eyes widen in bewilderment at her sudden appearance.
"Sorry," she says, darting between us to get to the coat rack, where her black wool coat is still hanging, probably still warm with the heat of her body.
She pulls it on, wrapping it tightly around her once more. She won't meet my eyes as she speaks to me.
"I'm gonna go downtown and try to meet with my dad," she says. "Don't wait up."
"Are you going to be back for dinner?" I ask, concerned.
"No," she says quickly. "Um, I don't know. I just…um…”
She doesn't finish the sentence, though. It's like she doesn't quite know what to say as she goes for the front door, exiting into the cold evening air.
The sun is rapidly setting, and I follow her out. Adam trails behind me, seeming more confused than ever.
"Is that her?" Adam asks from behind me. “The one you wouldn’t shut up about?”
"That's the one,” I growl over my shoulder. “Now, get lost.”
"It all makes sense now," he contunues. "That's why you didn't want to meet up with any of the women we were setting you up with. Because you were hoping she would come back, weren't you?"
I ignore my friend, catching up to Alyssa.
"Where are you going?" I ask her. "You can't walk in this weather.”
"I know," she says. "I just need some space, I think. I need to go downtown.”
“Then I'll give you a ride," I say. "Wherever you need to go. Don't walk, though. It's not a good idea."
It's true. It's not a good idea. Even I wouldn't attempt to walk in these woods alone at night, and I’m twice her size and familiar with these woods.
I don't know where she's going, but there's not an establishment, no other houses or businesses or anything for miles.
"That's okay," she says. "I don't need a ride. You've done enough for me."
“That’s insane, Alyssa. You aren’t walking in this!”
“I am,” she replies. Firmly.
“If you don't let me give you a ride, I'm just going to follow you in my truck the whole way down to make sure that you're okay,” I warn her.
"Don’t!” she says, and I’m hurt by how strongly she says the word, like the idea of me being near her for another second is so disgusting, so awful, that she can’t tolerate the suggestion.
"Where are you headed?" Adam calls after her. "I can give you a ride into town if you want. That's where I'm headed, anyways."
I turn and glare at Adam, but Alyssa stops and assesses my friend.
"Okay," she says. "Sure."
What the fuck? She'll take a ride from my friend, some guy she doesn't even know, but not me?
All of a sudden, it seems like the space that she was periodically putting between us is a giant gulf, a valley, something that I can't cross with a few words.
I don't even know what I did wrong. Was it something she heard between me and Adam?
I try to think back about the conversation I just had with Adam, to whatever I could have said to upset her. But it's all a blur to me. I probably said something stupid. I'm always doing that, saying stupid shit.
Alyssa accused me of being sensitive and emotionally intelligent earlier, but she was wrong about me.
Nobody else in my life would ever call me those things.
Asshole, sure. Idiot, maybe. But definitely not “sensitive” or “emotionally intelligent.”
And now she's found out how wrong she was because I probably said something very emotionally unintelligent just now, and that's why she won't meet my eyes as she reluctantly accepts the favor from Adam, the same favor she wouldn't accept from me.
I glare at Adam.
"Take care of her," I say.
He rolls his eyes.
“I’m just giving her a ride into town," he says. "It's not a big deal."
I give him my best menacing stare, hoping that the message sinks in and that my intent is clear without having to verbalize the threat in front of the woman who already seems like I've scared her.
Adam's expression turns serious. He nods, dropping his voice.
"I'll look out for her," he says. "It'll be fine. All right? You can call me if you need an update."
I nod.
And then I watch as my woman gets into his truck and wonder if she's even going to come back tonight.
This was supposed to be my second chance.
And I might have blown it.