Chapter 14 #3
“Have you managed?” I asked, as we reached a suspended footbridge. A woman jogged over it, pushing a pram, as we passed below.
“What’s that?”
“To overwrite any of those memories.”
I glanced over at him when he didn’t respond immediately and saw his forehead creased in thought.
“Somewhat,” he said. “Not all the way.”
“Surely they’re not all bad, though.”
He shook his head. “No, they’re not.”
“You and Morgan seem good together, though,” I said, not really having been around them enough to say that confidently, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Jack grinned, so it must have been.
“We are,” he said. “As cheesy as it sounds, she’s my person.”
I wondered what that felt like, having a person. Someone I loved so much that I wanted nothing more than to make new memories together. Someone who was my lover and my best friend, as cheesy as that felt to want.
I’d had plenty of lovers over the years – okay, plenty was a bit of an exaggeration, but dry spells hadn’t ever lasted too long, at least when back in California – but precious few real friends.
Living a double life made that difficult, knowing I wouldn’t be around in a few months’ time, keeping things surface-level as a result.
And I’d certainly never had anyone who was both.
“You and Chloe have an interesting dynamic,” Jack said, and as much as I would have liked to believe he was the reason I started thinking about her, I’d already been holding her face in my mind.
“If by interesting you mean mercurial.”
Jack huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, well, that’s Chloe for you. She’d tell you it’s because she’s a Leo, but really it’s because she cares so much.”
I frowned. “Does she? Because sometimes I get the impression she doesn’t care much at all.” I’d started to wonder if that was true, but I couldn’t get the evidence of it out of my mind.
“Nah, she’s got the opposite problem,” he said. “If anything, she cares too much about too many things. It’s why she gets pulled in so many directions all the time.”
“Hmm.” I didn’t know what to say to that – was that why she’d failed to take a sabbatical at work?
Because she cared about both things? Or because what she cared about had shifted so suddenly that she hadn’t bothered to tie up loose ends?
I wasn’t sure which was worse. Selfishly, whatever was best for Gwenynen was what I wanted.
And, given how well Chloe had been doing, I had to admit that what was best might be her.
But only if she was committed to it the way she should be.
The way I would be, if I were the one with an actual opportunity to stay.
We turned around at the next bend just before another bridge and started downstream. This would be the easy part, and I was grateful; my shoulders and core were on fire. Despite what I’d insisted to Morgan, it had been a hot minute since I’d last been in a kayak.
“So, you said your dad is a raft guide?” Jack asked, and I must have visibly grimaced, because he quickly jumped to apologise.
“Sorry,” he said. “You don’t have to answer me.”
“It’s okay,” I said, surprised to find that it was.
Jack was easy to talk to, and he’d been open with me about his ex and his past. “I think he’s still certified, but he hasn’t worked in a while.
He’s an alcoholic, and it’s gotten bad enough that he got fired from his last gig as a climbing instructor on The Grack. ”
Jack grimaced. “The outdoors life is tough. I remember a lot of folks I met in that line of work ended up struggling with that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, well, my mom passed away a while back, and he’s not taken it well.”
We weren’t really paddling at this point, just steering ourselves as the current carried us, so I took a few deep breaths to keep my cool.
Jack was nice, but I didn’t love the idea of getting emotional, no matter who I was around.
Jen was the only one who ever saw me that way.
I’d come close with Chloe in the polytunnel, but I’d kept it together, even then.
“Does he never come with you?”
I shook my head. “He never has. Mom and I had been coming for years before she died, but it was always his peak season back home. I think they liked it that way. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. Permanent absence, on the other hand…”
“Sounds like his heart is still pretty fond.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yeah, well, he does the best he can, I guess. And I do check in on him when I’m there. The winters are hard, because he can’t be outside, and he doesn’t have Mom. But, honestly, I don’t try that hard these days, and I certainly can’t help him from here.”
“Nor should you have to,” Jack added. “That’s not fair on you. I know you’ve probably been told that a million times by people far more qualified to comment, but still.”
“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have to. But he’s still my dad. I just wish I didn’t have to worry about him, you know?”
We were quiet for a while after that, paddling a bit to help the current, but it was an easy silence. I liked Jack. I could see why he and Chloe were so close. How they balanced each other out well. How she pushed him, and he grounded her.
After a while, the girls and Willow came into view again on the riverbank, all of them laid out on the blanket, and I could tell from the way the afternoon light glistened off them that they’d been for a dip in the water.
Before we were close enough to see much detail, I was already picturing that purple bikini Chloe had been wearing, dark from the water and taut against her skin.
Her auburn hair hanging in wet locks over her freckled shoulders, my fingers twisting it into braids. Her hands in my hair, too.
I felt my jaw tighten at the unbidden image, and I could have sworn I felt her phantom touch dusting the tops of my shoulders, the same way I’d felt as I’d lain in bed that night after the cheese festival, my own hands skating lower on my body, Kate Bosworth looking down in pity as I’d played out what could have been.
Jack cleared his throat next to me, and I realised he’d said something.
“Sorry?” I asked, then turned to look at him, only to find him smiling.
“You know,” he said, nudging my kayak with his paddle, “if you need a cold dunk, I could always tip you after all.”
“Hilarious,” I said, then looked back up to the others, my eyes locking instantly with Chloe’s.
Heat pooled in my centre, and I froze under her gaze.
She looked exactly as I’d pictured, drops of water running down her soft stomach, catching in the sunlight.
She arched her back slightly, as if she knew how good she looked – knew I was admiring her.
She had the audacity to smile, and I was a deer caught in her headlights.
“You know what,” I said to Jack, “on second thought…”
He stopped chuckling. “Wait, seriously?”
I chanced a look back at Chloe, and, yep, that gaze still blazed right through me.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Fuck it.”
A moment later, the world turned sideways, and the last thing I saw before I hit the water was Chloe’s eyes widening in surprise and delight.
It was the single most intoxicating thing I’d ever seen.