22. Chapter 22 #2
I’m suddenly filled with rage at that waitress for the dirty looks, and his mother for hiding him instead of helping, and anyone else who added to this humiliation.
It’s something I’ve always struggled with, admitting the things I long for instead of locking them up like a secret.
I’m wondering now, looking at Jamie’s half smile and moody eyes, if maybe admitting them is the only way to get them.
If Jamie Bishop longs for someone to be on his team, I’ll nominate myself for captain.
“Anyway,” he says. “Now that I’ve told you my most embarrassing moment, wanna make out again?”
I snort and let him have this change of subject. “Funny, I thought your most embarrassing moment was when you passed out on my porch in a puddle of blood.”
He tickles my waist, and I giggle a little too loudly. It makes an embarrassing echo on the glassy water in front of us. Jamie’s delighted by this. “Actually, that was my best moment.”
“How on earth was that your best moment?”
The grin on his face loosens to something softer, a little sappy. “Because it brought me back to you.”
If I needed any more evidence that I’m following my own fate to a tee, it comes the following weekend when Jamie and I go out with Kate and Colin.
“He is smoking hot, Noel,” Kate says. “Those tattoos, that scruffy face. Gah . He wears a T-shirt very well, too.”
We’re sitting upstairs at a vaguely-Irish bar with views of the water and walls painted a moody blue. In the room beside us, a band plays a cover of “Southern Cross.”
I roll my eyes and let her have this objectification because it’s all true and this is the double date of Kate’s dreams. She’s waited years to actually like someone I’m dating, and Jamie has spent the night thoroughly charming them both.
Not that I expected any less. I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t love Jamie Bishop. Besides Fran.
“Eyes to yourself, Katherine, or I’ll tell Colin.” He and Jamie have gone to the bar to get another round.
Kate cackles and takes a sip of her cocktail. “So tell me how it works.”
“How sex works? Kate, I’ve known you way too long.”
She dips her fingertips in her drink and flicks gin at me. “I mean how the psychic thing works. Can you, like, read his thoughts while you’re doing it?”
My cheeks flame and I glance at the bar again to make sure Colin and Jamie are still out of earshot.
“Dad’s not listening. Spill.”
“Ask me a serious question and I will.”
“Are you in love? Is he? You’d be able to tell, right?” Kate clicks her tongue and presses her hand to her heart. “Your face is practically glowing.”
“Oh my God. I highly doubt a few orgasms have changed my complexion.”
“You underestimate what stress can do to your pores. But seriously, how do you feel?”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly to keep from gushing. It doesn’t work. “I feel… wild. Desperate. Like I can’t get enough of him.”
Kate’s eyes bulge, and I cover my red cheeks with my hands. “God, this wasn’t supposed to happen.” Not this fast. Not this… intensely.
“Seems to me,” Kate says, “this is exactly what was supposed to happen.”
She’s right, of course. According to everything we’ve seen so far, it was supposed to. I’ve gone from looking for holes in the magic, to letting it wash over me, bring me back to life. And this new perspective has opened up a whole new box of possibilities.
“I have to ask you something,” I say.
Kate leans over the table, somehow instinctively knowing this is secret-worthy.
“Remember the vision I had at the bar?”
“The one with his tongue in your mouth? Yeah.”
“The one where we were on Nana’s porch. It was summer.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Okay?”
It seems like a small detail, but it’s been swelling in the back of my brain since the other night when I met Cara. And this new perspective is asking: What if it’s connected? Me and him and me and here . Me and Cara’s mural .
“Kate, if I convince Vi to give me this job, I won’t be here past Christmas. Even if I don’t get it, come May, I need to have tenants here. I haven’t been back here in the summer in years because I can’t afford to.”
Kate tilts her head. “You think that was the point of the vision? That you should stay longer?”
“I don’t know. Except for the one about Jamie’s career, they’ve all just been the two of us together .”
I’ve been searching this thing for rules, some sort of pattern. I thought it was the touching at first, but Jamie and I touch a lot now. All of this time, all of this closeness, and nothing. And I couldn’t make it happen when I tried.
But they do have something in common. Every time I’ve had one, it’s been when I tried to walk away from him.
That’s exactly what I was doing when I first saw us up on that roof. The very first thought I had about him before I even lit that candle was: Not for me. I chew my bottom lip, playing it back. I saw Becca. I saw the money. But I didn’t see me and Jamie until I tried to run away from him.
At the beach that night, his hands were all over me and nothing, until I bolted from the water. That night at Fortune, I was running away too. Because he scared me, the way he wanted to dive into this thing instead of cower. Then, I thought he was reckless, foolish.
Now…
I glance at Jamie across the room, then back to Kate. “I just started thinking maybe there’s more to it than just, you know, the horny part.”
We already know Jamie’s career is tied up in whatever is making me see these visions. What if mine is too? What if I have proof that I could have this? What if I already saw myself having it: Kissing Jamie in the rain in the summer. Here.
I wouldn’t have met Cara if I wasn’t with Jamie. And I wouldn’t have been there with him—holding his hand, meeting his friends—if I hadn’t seen it. If the visions hadn’t set us on this road.
“Do you think that’s crazy?” I ask Kate.
She gives me a look that says what about this isn’t?
“Colin said he thinks this thing is trying to tell you something. If he’s right, maybe this is it. Kiss Jamie. Don’t leave. Boom. Universe Achievement unlocked.”
I laugh, but Kate’s face is oddly serious. “What?”
“It’s just… It was always this easy, Noel.” She waves a hand, gesturing to the whole of this transformation I’ve been through in the last weeks, from matte and colorless to filled to the brim. “You just had to let yourself want it.”
This hits me with a quick pang of longing for time lost, but just as quickly I decide to allow myself some grace for this too. I may have needed a kick in the butt from some unknown power, but I’m here now, letting my heart lead me by the wrist.
The guys come back with their beers, and I slide over, letting Jamie in beside me. His arm wraps around my shoulder, his lips finding the top of my head, and once Kate has him engrossed in a conversation, I quietly pull my phone from my purse and send Cara a text.
Noel: I’d love to talk to you more about your project.