Chapter 5 #2
When I gave him a look, he only grinned. “Or I could just go to bed right now.” He started to rise, but my hand shot out, gripping his forearm and pulling him back to his seat.
“You don’t play fair.”
“Your poker face sucks.”
Of course it did. Even after countless nights playing Texas Hold 'Em with Jake and Dusty, I could never get into the groove of bluffing away a bad hand. I was too excited to be chill for the good hands and wanted commiseration for the bad. I don’t know why I’d be any different here.
“For what it’s worth, I thought you and Briggs felt like poetry tonight.”
“Shut up,” I said, bumping his shoulder with mine again and enjoying the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed.
“Just tell me. You know you can’t hold it in.”
I sighed. “It doesn’t make sense that I have problems with dating when I was raised by my dad and Chad, who both have the emotional and social charms of a grizzly bear.”
“What happened, Tuck?”
“I thought he was going in for a kiss, and then I accidentally punched his arm instead.”
He blinked several times, allowing my statement to awkwardly hang in the air.
“How do you accidentally punch him?”
“That’s not even the worst part. He was just going in for a hug. My brain saw him coming closer and made it all much worse.”
“He still wants to go out with you, though,” Jake observed. “It must have just been your puny right hook.”
Though I tried to resist, a smile came unbidden. “I also said “whoa boy” like he was a horse.” I knew I’d regret that one, but at this moment, we were Jake and Shelby of ten years ago. All it took was Jake cracking a smile, and it made whatever happened almost worth it.
“So, all that combined with tonight has set me back pretty far mentally,” I added, leaning forward in my seat.
“Eh, it’s good for Briggs to be brought down a peg or two.”
“Besides his tailbone, I’m more worried about me.” I waited a beat before adding something I had thought about. “What if I meet the right guy and then I run over him with my car or something?”
Jake nodded softly. “I do think it’s possible.”
I gave his foot a kick. We sat for a minute in comfortable silence, staring at the fire and listening to it pop along with the rhythmic squeak of Sophie’s swing a few yards away.
Jake’s leg pressed against mine, and the clamor in my head dulled, and I relaxed completely for the first time all night.
“I just…” I began. “I feel like my life is stagnant. Everybody around me has moved on. They have real jobs. They’re married.
They’re having babies. Some are even already divorced.
” I nudged him with my elbow while he snorted.
“And that was all fine because I had my dad and Chad. We were all the same, and I was never really alone. But now we’re not the same.
” I felt my gaze soften as the fire ensnared my gaze and loosened my tongue.
“And it’s fine. I’m happy for them. It just kind of sucks that I’m still here.
” I felt him looking over at me just then, but I kept going, a leaky faucet with an audience.
“I lived my entire childhood knowing I was going to play basketball in college. All my dreams were wrapped up in that. And I did. And then four years later, I was done. I told myself I was just coming back home for a while so my dad wouldn’t be all alone, and then I’d go…
somewhere. But then I got the coaching job and started my photography business, and my dad and I had dinner together every night and…
we just get sucked into our lives, you know?
Anyway, when my dad started dating Belinda, I got scared that I would never leave Eugene, so I found a job in Boise.
So at least there’s something. But I’m scared that I’m going to be the exact same with guys in Boise as I have been everywhere else. Clueless.”
I stopped, feeling every pathetic word I’d uttered deep in my bones.
I held still, as if I were waiting for Jake to say something.
But there probably wasn’t much to say. Everything I said was the complete truth.
He didn’t have anything to add or to say to make it all better.
I probably should have just said goodnight and left, but instead, I just sat there.
“So…you’re coming to the divorced single dad for advice?”
“According to Tessa, you used to call yourself the matchmaker.”
“I’m retired. I should have mentioned that.”
“Why are you retired?”
“Heart’s not in it anymore.”
The fire snapped, and we stopped talking, the earthy smell of smoke penetrating our noses while the flames danced before us. I kept waiting for him to say more, but he didn’t, an odd melancholy taking the place of the happy-go-lucky guy I grew up with.
Finally, he sighed. “Shelb, you’re fine. Just stick around Briggs this summer, and you’ll get lots of practice dating and flirting.”
“I hit him the first time we talked. Tonight, I tackled him. Poor guy better pad up before basketball tomorrow.”
“I heard you talking to him tonight. You kept acting like you thought he didn’t want to be talking to you.”
“Well, I am the only single girl at the campfire, so…” I trailed off and was startled to find him looking at me with an annoyed expression.
He flung a hand out in my direction. “See? Why do you keep saying things like that? He didn’t have to sit by you. If he didn’t want to, he wouldn’t.”
A heated flush rose up my neck and face. I couldn’t bring myself to say this to Jake, but I had a sneaking suspicion that my cute clothes and supermodel-worthy hair had more to do with Briggs sitting by me than…me.
“It’s a confidence issue, Tuck,” he said, standing up like he’d resolved the matter. “You just need to get some practice flirting. The more you practice, the better you’ll be. Briggs is your guy. He’ll be perfect.”
“How do I practice flirting with Briggs? I don’t want to lead him on.”
“What if you end up liking him?”
When I could only shrug, he added, “Just go on a couple dates with the guy. Maybe you’ll like him. Either way, you’ve tried him out. It will at least give you some confidence.”
“Tried him out? That sounds like I’m trying on shoes.”
“Even if you just told him what you were doing, Briggs would be more than willing to help you practice. Trust me.”
By now, my wheels were turning. Flying off the axle.
Any other woman might have just made peace with being alone.
There were plenty of women who found fulfillment in their careers and other ways outside of a significant other.
And that was great. And I could be like that if I needed to be.
Up to this point, I had been that person.
But, deep down, I wanted the man.
A good man. I wanted a family. I wanted the movie nights on the couch, dinner at five every night, and little league baseball on the weekends.
I wanted to watch my kids adore their dad.
Even though I knew firsthand that love could end in heartbreak, I wanted it.
I never got to see my parents in that way, but I used to stay up at night imagining how they might have been together.
The dates they must have gone on. How excited they must have been when they had Chad and then, years later, me.
I imagined him waltzing with her around the kitchen during breakfast, going for horseback rides, and swinging on the porch.
Even the fights they must have had had been romanticized in my head.
There was no telling the brain what was too ridiculous or not, especially knowing my dad didn’t dance, didn’t like horses, and didn’t have a porch swing.
The ideas had been embedded deep in my soul.
I wanted it. But I didn’t know how to get it.
Maybe this was the reason Jake and I were able to cross paths again after all these years. The reason we’d grown up helping each other in so many ways.
“What if…” I broke off, unable to look at him all of a sudden. No. I couldn’t chicken out now. “What if…” I started again. “What if I do get some practice, but it’s with someone I’m already comfortable with?”
I watched his body tighten.
“Like Briggs?” he asked carefully.
“Like somebody who still owes me a favor.”
He blinked, and I watched his face go through the emotions of remembering just what I was talking about—right down to the slight shake of his head and the roll of his eyes.
“That contract has been null and void for a long time.”
“Listen…a lot of unfortunate things happened that night, but first and foremost, I had the most traumatizing first kiss imaginable because I was trying to help you out—”
“Traumatizing for me!”
I went on like he wasn’t laughing at me. If I broke now, he’d consider it all a joke, and the more I thought about this, the more I needed it not to be a joke. “So you owe me.”
When he still sat there without saying a word, I added, “I cleaned out my closet at my dad’s house. I now have the paperwork to prove it.”
He stood and dumped the rest of his pop over the coals. The waning fire sizzled and steamed, breaking into the weird vibe I’d just placed between us.
“Sorry, Tuck. Can’t do it.”
“Jake…” I wasn’t above whining.
“Nope.” He called out to his daughter, “Soph! Time to go!”
“Jeez, you sneeze on somebody one time, and they just can’t let it go,” I teased, hoping it masked the rejection I felt at his immediate dismissal.
“That was pretty hard to forget.”
My face must have fallen slightly, because Jake’s eyes softened. “You’ll be fine. You just haven’t met the right guy yet. Practice with Briggs, and you’ll be golden.”
And then he gathered Sophie up in a bear hug, tickling her enough to make her squeal, tossed me a wave, and disappeared into his cabin.