Kate
It’s been days since Jackson held and touched me in the guest bed, and we’ve yet to take things further than that.
Not for lack of wanting. I want to feel him the way I used to—in fact, it’s all I can think about when I’m tossing and turning in bed every night.
But his words in the kitchen hold more weight in my heart than everything he said in bed that morning, and I’m so damn afraid of being rejected again.
With cruise control on, old-school country music quietly playing, and the midday sun on my face, we start down the highway away from Wells Canyon.
I blindly rummage through the mess of receipts and granola bar wrappers and pens without lids in the door of my car before producing a pair of purple sunglasses. The lenses are smudged, and the one arm doesn’t sit perfectly straight, but they’ll get the job done.
I jokingly offer them to Jackson first. “You looked cute in my sunglasses last time.”
“I think I’ll risk the migraine and squint instead.”
I slip the glasses on. “You say that until you’re laid up in bed and I’m in the hot springs alone later.”
Sunshine paints the rigid angles of his face in gold when he turns to me with a scoff. “You wouldn’t ditch me for a hot spring if I had a headache, would you?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll set you up with a glass of water and a cool cloth before I go.” I give him a quick smirk before returning my attention to the winding highway. “I deserve an uninterrupted soak, and if you want to stay happily married to me, you’ll let me have it.”
“You do,” he says. “Sorry we never put in that big soaker tub you wanted.”
My eyes dart rapidly between his face and the road.
He doesn’t even realize that he remembered something just now, and while it’s not huge, it’s everything.
Granted, I’d love it if the thing he remembered about our marriage was something that cast me in a better light than my hissy fits over wishing I had a soaker tub in the bathroom.
“This is so much better than a soaker tub.” I place my hand on the center console, palm facing up, and he takes the hint.
For a few minutes, neither one of us says anything. We simply hold hands, listening to the faint reverberations of Odessa’s favorite country singer, Andie Wilson.
“I have a suggestion,” Jackson says in a quiet beat between songs, “if you’re up for it.”
“Yes, I’ll shave your balls before we go skinny dipping.”
He coughs, choking on his own spit. “Oh my God, no. My brain’s already fucked up. The last thing I need is to be accidentally neutered.”
“Your brain is not fucked up,” I sternly reply, then smile over at him. The speed at which his skin took on a rosy hue is astonishing. What I would give to feel the heat of his cheeks on my lips. “Those capillaries in your face, on the other hand.”
He shakes his head, pressing his free hand to his blush. “Now my suggestion is going to be lame in comparison to whatever you’re planning for this weekend.”
“I’m honestly not planning anything except spending time in the hot pools.” And hopefully continuing what we started in the bedroom the other day. “Sorry for hijacking that—tell me what you’re suggesting.”
“After therapy yesterday, I looked up some questions we could ask each other…like a get-to-know-you game. But, well—it’s mostly going to be me getting to know you.
” He pulls at his pant leg, loosening the denim around his thigh.
His nervous excitement is so pure and honest, it wouldn’t matter what the suggestion was, I’d go along with it. I’d go anywhere, do anything, with him.
“I’m an open book. Ask away, handsome.”
With a nod, he fishes his cell phone out of his hoodie pocket. After a handful of light thumb taps, and a few more twists and bends in the sun-drenched highway, he turns sideways in his seat to face me.
“Want to start easy, or go for an intense one?”
“Um…” My head rocks side to side on the upholstered headrest. “Toss me an easy one so I can get warmed up.”
“Okay.” His thumb moving across the screen makes something coil low in my stomach. “What’s your favorite time of day and why?”
“Does it make me an awful mother to say right after the kids go to bed for the night?”
He snorts a laugh. “You’re the furthest thing from an awful mother. Those kids are a lot. If you didn’t want a break at the end of the day, I’d be concerned.”
“Specifically, it’s the moment when I crack a cold beer or pour a cup of tea—depending on how the day went—and finally catch my breath.
Then some nights I torture myself by looking at their baby pictures on my phone.
It feels like it was only yesterday we were bringing them home…
and they were so little. Perfect,” I say with a sigh.
So lost in memories that seem both yesterday and forever ago, I don’t notice right away that Jackson’s observing me with a look of adoration.
“You’re an incredible mom, Kate. If there’s one thing I did right in my old life, it was convincing you to be the mother to my children.”
“It took very little convincing.” No convincing, in fact.
Some people spend their entire life in pursuit of a dream. My dream has always been one thing that so few people achieve, and yet it came to me in a rushing wave that summer sixteen years ago.
I want to be happy.
And with him, I am. Always will be.
He looks back down at his phone, knuckles creating a scratchy grating sound as they run over his coarse facial hair.
My fingers tap the steering wheel, drumming along to the low bass in a song I can’t quite make out.
The radio station cuts in and out with the cadenced curves of a mostly-empty highway etched into the side of a sky-high mountain.
“Aren’t you going to answer?” I ask, when it becomes obvious he’s looking for a new question to ask. “Your favorite time of day…”
“You probably know the answer.”
I shake my head. A few months ago, I knew everything about my husband. And I’ve struggled to shake the notion that this man beside me is exactly the same person he was before.
“In the morning, when I wake up and remember that you exist.”
—
The car rolls to a stop in the parking lot of a small-town shopping complex.
Another twenty minutes up a dirt road, and we’ll be at the hot springs, but the incessant growling in my stomach is starting to interfere with both my ability to answer Jackson’s road trip questions and my ability to remain calm and collected with so many terrible drivers on the scenic highway route.
I squint at the assortment of businesses laid out in front of us.
Between the post office, liquor store, pizza place, and hair salon, this really is a one-stop shop.
“Divide and conquer?” Jackson drums his hands on the black metal hood of my SUV.
“You grab us dinner and maybe find something to drink by the fire tonight”—he gestures toward the hole-in-the-wall liquor store squished between a laundromat and bookkeeping service—“and I’ll stock up on snacks from the grocery store. ”
“Look at us working as a team.”
He scratches the back of his head and looks over his shoulder briefly. “Should, uh…should I buy condoms?” He whispers condoms as if he’s suggesting something illegal.
“A little presumptuous, don’t you think?” I tease, arching a brow and watching his cheeks turn pink.
With a bashful smile, he shrugs.
“If it’ll make you feel more comfortable. Even when we’ve wanted to get pregnant, it’s taken months of careful planning, plus I’m not ovulating…but if you don’t want to risk it, that’s fine with me.”
“Stupid question, probably, but we didn’t use them before, did we?”
“Not since we were in our early twenties, no. I’m okay with whatever you’re okay with, Jackson. I don’t want to pressure you to do anything.”
“Okay…” He nods thoughtfully. “Okay. I’ll buy some, just in case.”
It’s a short walk to the only dinner place here that isn’t a chain restaurant: Poppy’s Pizza. Whether it’s named after a girl named Poppy or the nickname somebody has for their sweet old grandfather, I immediately trust a food establishment with a name like Poppy’s Pizza.
The wafting aroma of pizza dough reminds me of home, and of the other night when we had make your own pizza night.
Rhett smothered his in so much sauce the sourdough crust I’d made became soggy, and topped it with enough cheese Jackson warned him he wouldn’t be able to poop for a week.
Then the kids devolved into a fit of giggles over pepperoni looking like poop, their conversation turning gross enough Jackson peeled the pepperoni off his own pizza with a disgusted grimace.
And while the kids picked a movie, and the pizza toppings bubbled in the oven, Jackson leaned back against the messy counter and gripped my waist in his firm, steady hands.
Tugged me into him like the moon pulls the tide.
Kissed me until my insides were more melty and gooey than the cheese on our pizzas.
Once my pizza and sparkling wine—I’m typically a beer girl, but this weekend deserves something fancy—have been acquired, I traipse back to my car, where Jackson’s waiting with a bundle of flowers and a bag near bursting with snack foods.
When I proudly hold up the bottle of wine as I wait for a car to pass, he gives me a lopsided grin that makes my heart squeeze. Too handsome for words, that man.
“What are the flowers for?” I ask on my approach.
“Saw them in the store and thought of you.” He plucks the hot pizza box and wine bottle from my hand.
“They’re lilies.”
“If you don’t like them, we—”
I cross the narrow space between us, barely giving him enough time to plop the pizza box on the hood of my SUV before I capture his mouth with mine, kissing him breathlessly.
Flowers pressed between our heaving chests, we break apart for a sharp intake of breath before crashing into each other again.
His tongue sweeping between my lips, and his hand cupping my face.
My core aches at the feel of his callused fingers smoothing up my jawline, knotting in my loose hair.