Chapter 3
T he next day, I found myself sitting on my stool, strumming my guitar, pretending I wasn’t uncomfortable with how much I was looking forward to playing the song she had requested and seeing the happiness on her face. I was also disgruntled when I admitted to myself that I was impatiently waiting to learn her name. I was playing my usual playlist outside of the coffee shop, sneaking looks at her through the window. I noticed that she smiled a lot, and every time she did, it put her dimple on display. Her long hair was held back by a large clip today, but wavy tendrils were escaping and making their way around her shoulders. I didn’t like that I was noticing it. I didn’t like that I had come back. I didn’t like that I wanted to know her name. Being here and exchanging names felt like it may lead to something. Interest perhaps or even possibly time spent together.
I had spent so much time mourning the damage that came from caring about another person that I was shocked to find myself sitting here waiting for her. It could endanger everything I had worked on to lead me in the exact opposite direction of what I was doing right now.
I didn’t even know what I was doing right now other than watching her step outside, her thin coat flapping in the wind. Her hair was out of its clip now, and it was floating around her like it was dancing. I allowed myself one slow perusal of her body. She wasn’t tall, maybe five-four or five-five,and she was curvy in all the right places. I could imagine myself grabbing a handful of her thighs, letting them jiggle just slightly as I ran my hands up to her trim waist and then weighed her sizable breasts in my palms. I bet they’d spill over my hands ; the thought barreled through my brain, and I flushed. Calm down there, boy. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, willing my sudden and inappropriate erection to deflate.
“Hi!”
She felt like the sun, I realized, exuding warmth made up of sass and happiness rolled into one. What an exotic combination. I had never met anyone with her energy before. I nodded but didn’t respond, not trusting my voice to sound chill just yet. She extended her hand to give me one of the coffees that she held, and I backed away from it.
“I haven’t sung your song yet.” I explained my hesitation. She laughed, and the sound sparkled inside of me.
“Take a sip, at least,” she encouraged me. I begrudgingly took the cup from her and brought the rim up to my mouth to taste the drink. The flavor of hazelnuts exploded in my mouth.
“It’s a hazelnut hot chocolate!” She beamed. “It’s a secret menu item, but I wish more people would discover it. I blend mocha sauce with steamed milk for the hot chocolate portion and then add a few pumps of hazelnut syrup, which basically makes it taste like Nutella in a cup.” She paused to take a sip of her own drink, and I watchedas she closed her eyes to savor it. I could see clearly that this was not just a job for her. She seemed to genuinely find joy in making coffee. I think I might love that about her. Feeling uncomfortable from my unbidden thoughts again, I glanced down at the cup in my hand and saw that my fingers were covering some letters. I turned the cup till I could see what she had written. It was the name Jessamine written in a loopy script. I raised my eyebrows and looked at her.
“You’re giving me your name before I play the song too?” Wow, that was a lot of words in a row for me. I smirked at myself. She hugged her arms around herself as the wind picked up.
“You showed up.” She sounded grateful, but for what, I wasn’t sure.
Her lips were full, and when she smiled, I got a glimpse of her white teeth. The top two were slightly overlapping, and it fit the little I knew of her personality perfectly.
“So now that I gave you my first name, what’s your last name, Kian?”
I sighed.
“How about this? I have a two-questions-a-day rule, and I can always plead the fifth on a question. Okay?” I began to strum her song on my guitar in the background of this seemingly innocent conversation, yet her question weighed heavily on my chest. She giggled, unaware of my turmoil.
“Okay, question one, what’s your last name?”
“Let’s stick to just Kian. Okay?” I winced.
“Are you running from the feds, Just Kian?” she joked, giving me a look from over her coffee cup.
“What’s your second question, Jessamine?” I asked her as I firmly avoided answering that question as well.
“My friends call me Jessa.”
“I’m not your friend yet,” I corrected. Her blue eyes flew to mine, and we stared at each other over my use of the word yet .
After a moment, she asked bluntly, “Am I allowed to know how old you are?”
“I’m turning thirty this year.” To this, I acquiesced some true information.
“I’m twenty-five,” she informed me, freely offering up tidbits about herself without me even having to inquire. “When’s your birthday?”
“Ask me tomorrow when your two questions renew,” I quipped. Oh look, funny Kian was back, I noticed. I hadn’t seen him in a long time.
“Well, technically, I asked two but only got one answer, so your terms and conditions are kind of flawed, music man.”
She was so quick with her witticisms, and I envied the careless way she talked back to me, as if nothing ever really bothered her. It was quite the opposite with me. Almost everything has bothered me lately. Apparently, I was back to music man as well. I didn’t answer; I just sang my slowed-down acoustic version of “Burn The Ships.” I found her staring at me as I sang the lyrics.
Could she tell how much the words meant to me? I had shuddered when I first sang them in the safety of my van. She blinked and broke the moment as I finished singing.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “You choose the next one tomorrow.”
“I’ll find something,” I promised. She didn’t say goodbye, she just walked away, back to work, seemingly forgetting about me already. My past self was so used to my women in heels, delicate chains on their ankles with perfectly done toes. Yet her chunky black boots hit differently, and by the way my pants tightened at the crotch, clearly, I didn’t mind it. I took another sip of my coffee and looked back at her name. Jessamine. It rolled beautifully in my mind. It sounded like a symphony to me. I turned the cup again and noticed that she had written something else along the bottom,
“You look hot today, music man.”
My cheeks and my heart hurt as I grinned, this time unable to stop it.
Not much later, I quit earlier than usual as the afternoon wind turned to snow. I slung my guitar over my back and glanced back over to where Jessa stood behind the counter frothing milk. I wondered where she lived and if she needed a ride home. Would the snow get bad? I cleared my throat to also clear my mind and remind myself that caring was dangerous. Without another look, I trudged off back to my van. I stopped at a Caribbean restaurant to pick up my favorite oxtail soup. I usually would take it to the van to eat in my preferred silence and solitude, but something had shifted inside of me today. Tonight, I surprised myself and chose to eat my dinner at a table, albeit alone, inside the crowded restaurant. Although I did keep my beanie on and my collar flipped up, hoping no one would recognize me. I dipped the crusty slice of French bread into the soup and had to hold back a moan when the pungent flavors hit my taste buds. I literally licked my fingers and broke off another piece of the bread. When the bowl was empty, I leaned back, feeling warm from the soup and from my interaction with the sweet spitfire that was Jessamine.
When I left after finishing dinner, the snow had picked up considerably, and I briefly contemplated just hunkering down in the parking lot of the restaurant for the night, yet I knew I had to drive to the gym. As much as the soup and the girl had tempered me, my flame of anger was still there, and it needed its nightly outlet. I parked, then grabbed my gym bag from the back of my van and made my way in.After changing into workout pants and a tank top, I wrapped my hands and went to the boxing bag, where I proceeded to beat the everloving shit out of it. About an hour in, I heard a guy from behind me say, “Yo, are you all-natural?”
I turned to look at him, breathing heavily.
“Huh?”
He gestured to my body where my muscles were bulging, my chest was drenched in sweat, and my veins were overly pronounced.
“Do you take steroids or, is this all-natural?” he repeated.
I didn’t look at myself much. I obviously didn’t have a full-length mirror in my van. The area I worked out in didn’t have a mirror either, so the only place I ever got a glimpse of myself was in the changing room. Even there, I didn’t spend much time staring. Yet I was obviously aware of how intense I looked in a tank top. My arms were jacked, so much so that they couldn’t rest fully flat to my sides. My stomach was etched, every part of my six-pack was pronounced. My back was bunched with sinewy muscle, and my chest was well-defined. Was I natural? Of course I didn’t take steroids, but I had built this body from sheer fury. My anger had led me here night after night, building a body that could protect the people who mattered to me. Never again would I be caught unawares and weak. Fuck with me and literally find out was my life’s motto.
“I don’t take anything,” I grunted in response.
“Damn, bro.” He was impressed. I wish he’d be quieter, as he was causing people to stop and stare. The fewer eyes on me, the better was a newly adopted goal. I shifted away from the bag.
“Have a good night,” I murmured.
“Ya, bro.”
I jogged to the showers and stripped. I wondered if Jessa would like what she saw. At the thought of her, my cock jumped to attention. I wanted to rub one out to my imagination of her soft, curvy body, but I couldn’t. My body was disrespecting me. That was all. I wiped the water out of my eyes and leaned against the wall of the shower as the weight of my frustration overtook me. What the fuck was I even doing anymore? My self-imposed exile was weighing heavily on me tonight. I stood in the hot shower, ignoring my penis, until the water ran cold.
Back in my van, I searched for a song to sing to her tomorrow. As much as my angry side didn’t want to go back, the rest of me felt drawn to her, like iron to a magnet or a compass to the north. If my friends could see me now, they would laugh.
“Bag her, Jace,” they’d say. I flinched at the sound of my first name in my head.
“It’s not that deep. It’s just some pussy,” Ash would tell me. “Stop being a little bitch about it.”
I reached into my wallet and took the picture out. It had been folded and unfolded so many times it was starting to wear away at some points. I stared at it, trying to force my soul to hurt again and stop getting distracted. I felt my chest clench at the sight of the photo. It did hurt. But more like a throbbing bruise than the usual gaping, bloody wound.
“Fuck!” I shouted into the empty air around me. Why had it started to hurt less? How could I have let it begin to fade away? I picked up my guitar and my notebook, and I angrily wrote a new song until I was so tired I couldn’t even see straight, and the voices had quieted out of sheer exhaustion. I fell asleep with ink smudged on my hand. It had been a long time since I had done that, and the reason why was not lost on me.
I woke up late. I knew it was late because my stomach was rumbling from hunger, and the sun hung heavy in the sky. I hopped from the back seat to the front and turned the van back on so I could get the windshield wipers going to wipe the snow off. It had snowed a lot last night, but I could see that the roads were relatively clear. I ate a protein bar for breakfast as I drove toward the outdoor mall. I would be better off busking near the ice skating rink today because people would be gathered there, and the tips would be plentiful, yet I found myself parking near one of the popular clothing stores. Then I clambered into the back of my van to get changed into fresh clothes. I made a note to stop at the laundromat as I was running out of boxers. I was humming the tune to my new song as I set up my mic and speaker, so I was startled when I heard her voice behind me.
“Late start, music man?”
I felt my groin stir, and I willed it to settle down before I turned to look at her.
“I had a late night,” I confirmed.
“What’s her name?” Jessa’s cheeks flushed pink, and her tone sounded teasing, but I could hear the subtle inquiry as well.
“I was writing a song.” It felt like I was telling her a secret.
“Can I hear it?” She sounded so excited that I immediately knew I would be singing it to her, although it was one hundred percent raw and unfinished.
“It’s kind of rough around the edges.” I settled onto my stool, noting the two coffee cups she held, and wondered what flavor she had chosen for me today.
“Aren’t we all?” She was leaning against a pole now, watching me with her blue gaze. I noticed she was wearing that thin coat again.
“Aren’t we all what?” I asked as I quickly checked the tuning on my guitar.
“Rough around the edges.” She parroted my words back to me.
“Are you?” I inquired, watching her facial expression. She shrugged.
“Sometimes.” She took a sip of her coffee and didn’t say anything else. I began to strum the lilting melody that I had come up with and then I closed my eyes as I began to sing.
“They say it gets better with time
But time keeps pulling you away from me
And I admit I don’t know how to be
As the pain hurts a little less
So time please give me back my mess
I know what to do with the agony
It shreds me
But it keeps my heart beating
To stop the pain from leaving
I don’t want the hurt to soften
Just keep the ache (uh) hurtin’
I need it as a reminder
That you were once here
Don’t heal my wounds
Cuz I don’t know what to do
Without the shatter
Of my battered
Heart left after you
If hurt is all I have left
Then I’d like to stay bereft
So don’t heal me, I’m not okay
Please, (time) I’d like to stay this way.”
I needed to play with the tune a little,move the arrangement, and add a second stanza to the song before I could record it. The thought quickly flickered as I remembered where I was. Old habits die hard; I grimaced. I looked up, feeling oddly vulnerable. Jessa’s eyes were shiny.
“I hope you’re not okay,” she whispered.
Her words felt like a gift, an acknowledgment of the chaos of wanting to hold onto pain, being that it was the only thing I had left.
“That’s just a little something I’ve been working on.” I tried to sound casual and play it off like it was nothing. She caught on quickly and held up my coffee.
“Close your eyes and tell me what you taste.” She sounded so gleeful that I agreed and closed my eyes. I held out my hand to take my drink, but my heart fluttered when I felt her hold the cup up to my mouth instead. I took a sip, and I could feel her waiting for me to react. A cacophony of flavors flooded my tongue, and I tried to focus on them as I swallowed. I opened my eyes to find hers focused on me, standing close enough that her hair almost enveloped my arm.
“It’s like a cinnamon roll,” I observed.
“Do you like it?” She seemed eager for my response yet very confident in how good she knew it was at the same time.
“I did. I do.” I took the cup from her and took another sip.
“It’s called a butterscotch. It’s whole milk, caramel syrup, toffee nut syrup, cinnamon dolce syrup, and caramel crunch.” She took a big gulp of her own drink and sighed around it. The sound went straight to my crotch.
“I’m gonna gain weight with these daily drinks,” I joked.
“I doubt that.” Her gaze lingered on what she could see of my body beneath my coat, and I remembered my question in the gym last night. It seemed I had my answer—Jessamine liked what she saw. I felt relieved somehow. I looked down at my cup to break up the awkward moment. She had written Jessa Bardot on the cup.
“Your last name or your middle name?” I asked.
“My last name,” she confirmed.
“I like it,” I told her.
“Me too.” Her confidence was refreshing. It was so different from the tittering blondes I had known before.
“Thanks for the song, Kian.” She walked away before I could even say goodbye. I looked to see if she had left me another message on my cup, and she had.
“I like that you came back,” her messy handwriting had left around the rim.
Surprisingly, I liked that I had come back too.