Chapter Fifteen
Jax had insisted that they take his truck.
He’d said that he wasn’t going to cram himself into her Geo Metro for a six-hour drive.
That was fair enough. But she did think that he was being a little bit dramatic.
Still, she didn’t mind being driven the whole way back to the city.
It was an experience, because usually she was the one in charge of the trip.
In the car by herself. And instead, she had the whole road trip to make with somebody that she actually enjoyed talking to.
They hadn’t really discussed lodging, but she assumed that he would stay at her town house with her.
She sighed. It would be nice to be home for a couple of days.
But she didn’t exactly remember the state that she had left it in, and bringing him into her house felt like a whole different step of intimacy.
She’d never slept with him in his room, after all.
They’d just been in the guest cabin. Which meant that she hadn’t been on his mattress, on his sheets, in a place that he had personal items that said things about him.
Her town house was hers. She never had people over.
It was quirky, and odd, and she liked it, but she’d never had to worry before what somebody else would think.
Or what they would glean from it. Because what conclusions would he draw about her framed photos of raccoons and rabbits?
Her collection of fossils and crystals that she had in shadow boxes covering the entire wall in the living room?
The skeletons in her room? Which she quite liked, but she realized that hanging bird skeletons and a dinosaur skull were very specific.
She supposed none of it would surprise him. He had spent time with her, after all.
“You’re not talking,” he said. “Which is strange.”
“Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking about…” It was weird that she felt the urge not to say what she was thinking.
But it was becoming more and more important that he think highly of her.
She had gotten to a space in her life where she just sort of figured people could deal with her the way that she was.
She’d had so many bad experiences socially, and with her family, that it just seemed easier.
But he made her want to try. And it was weird that he made her both the most confident version of herself she’d ever been, and made her a little bit insecure.
“I don’t exactly remember how tidy I left my apartment.
And I realize you’ll be staying there with me. ”
“I was wondering when we would get around to the lodging conversation. I can stay in a hotel if you’d rather.”
“No,” she said, realizing that what she was really afraid of wasn’t bringing him there at all, but that she wanted to, and she felt like she was unveiling a special treasure to show him. And if he didn’t like it she would be devastated.
“Okay. Well, don’t worry about the state of it. I don’t mind.”
“Oh, good. I thought that maybe we would order takeout and have it brought to the house.”
“That sounds good.”
Okay. So now they had a plan.
“The meeting with the director will only include you in part. We’ll do the pitch for the museum first. You can explain your ranch. And then, I can finish up the rest, and you can look at the displays in the museum if you want. Or you can wait in my office.”
“Your office?”
“Well. It’s more of a cubby, really. In the basement. One thing that would be nice is if I get a promotion I could get moved to an office upstairs. They’re all glass, views of the city, the mountains and the river. That would be nice.”
“Is that more important than the promotion itself? The better view?”
“Yes,” she said. “Because I don’t really care about the external validation. I already know that my work is valuable, and that what I bring to the museum is valuable.”
“Walk me through what you do at the museum.”
She explained her job, from cataloging to creating displays, but when she got to the part about how she managed the children’s programs, he stopped her. “I want to know how you manage these programs.”
“You sound so skeptical that I can.”
“I guess I hadn’t gotten to read on what you thought about kids.”
“I like them. Selectively. But I think it’s really important that they’re allowed to follow their interests.
You know I have a difficult relationship with my parents, but one thing is true—they let me follow my interests.
And that made me better. Because I was able to find what I liked really early, I’m where I am now.
So if I can be part of sparking something in a child, giving them access to something that might change their lives, then I want to do that.
Kids aren’t embarrassed about being curious.
At a certain point, adults get embarrassed about it. ”
“You’re not, really,” he said.
She considered that for a moment. “No, I’m not.
Because to be a good scientist, I have to be.
But curiosity exposes all the things you don’t know, and so many people are scared of admitting they don’t know something.
I’ve always found that my life is improved significantly when I just ask questions. Like…” she said.
He laughed, and she was glad that he did. “Right. Well, I have to agree, it was effective.”
“I could’ve pretended to have more experience, but at the end of the day, that’s foolish.
You shouldn’t pretend to know more than you do.
It doesn’t help. Anyway, that’s something I really like about kids, and an aspect of them that I want to foster.
Keep asking questions. Don’t be embarrassed to ask for new information or to say that you don’t know something. ”
“That’s incredible life advice.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re a very wise person.”
She was completely blindsided by the compliment, her cheeks going hot. It was just such a nice thing for him to say.
“I… Thank you. I don’t always feel like it. I feel like I’m missing big pieces that would be good to know. Really valuable insights that I wish I had a little better handle on. So it’s nice that you think I…that you think I might know anything. It’s very nice.”
“I think you got a lot of the deep, important stuff,” he said. “The kinds of things that so many people spend a lifetime never understanding. I think it’s rare to meet somebody as successful as you are who doesn’t also have an ego.”
“I have an ego,” she said. “To be clear. It’s just maybe not centered on some of the same things that most people’s is centered on.”
“Well, that’s perfect. It’s still the kind of contrast I need.”
He was so open about enjoying the things that made her weird. Or the things that other people found weird about her, anyway. He never called them out. And she realized then that her worries about him seeing her apartment were about her. They were not about him.
He navigated the city traffic with ease, and she had to check her surprise, because she had forgotten for a moment that he had spent many years living in the same area, and then in Las Vegas when he was fighting.
She wanted to know more about that. She was hungry for every piece of information about him, and she wasn’t sure that anything beyond a total and complete scientific log of his life would suffice.
“What was it like to be a professional fighter?” she asked as they cruised off the off-ramp toward the neighborhood her town house was in.
“It was exactly like you would think. A little bit too loud, a little bit too fast. A lot of poor decisions.”
“What kinds of poor decisions?”
“I don’t want you to disrespect me, Ernestine.”
Maybe he was meaning to be frivolous, or maybe he was genuinely warning her, but she was flattered by the statement. He had insecurity about himself too, where she was concerned, and she found that a little bit more comforting than maybe she should.
“You can tell me. I won’t judge you.”
“Okay. That means too much alcohol, some other substances, a lot of sex that didn’t mean anything.
It was a lot of living in the moment. And for a little while, that worked for me.
I would train, then I’d have a fight, and I basically have a bender for a week afterward.
Because I had spent so much of my life living for the future.
Trying to figure out how to get out of the situation I was in.
Trying to keep my head above water, trying to be better.
Because of that, I think I lost a little bit.
Lost myself a little bit. But I never went totally off the rails.
It was just… I needed a vacation from being so serious about life, does that make sense? ”
“Kind of,” she said. “Though a vacation from structure sounds a little bit like my nightmare.”
“I can see that.”
“I don’t drink,” she said. “At all. The idea of losing control on that level really bothers me.”
“And I can see that,” he said. “Makes total sense. The only time I’ve ever really felt out of control is when I’m with you. And I mean that in a good way. Because I trust you.”
He was silent for a long time, and he still hadn’t said anything when her dark-red-and-green town house came into view. “I’m there,” she said.
He nodded and pulled into the driveway. He put the truck in Park, and shut the engine off.
He still wasn’t saying anything, but she took it as her cue to get out.
They walked up to the front steps, and she was working on getting her key out when he gripped her chin and tilted her face up, forced her to look at him.
“I take that really seriously,” he said.
“Which thing?”
“You trusting me. I just want you to know that.” Then he kissed her, on the front steps, in front of the whole neighborhood, and she thought her heart might explode.
In the very best way.