‘That’s a mouthful,’ Carlie said, one brow angling with the sort of superiority only a sixteen-year-old girl can deliver. Once inside, she observed, ‘This place is like a stage set. Are they for real with these flowery chairs?’ Her opinion of the coffee: ‘Blech. It tastes like fish.’
She checked out the souvenir shelves while I signed on and encountered a dozen useless emails, but nothing from Jacqueline. Landon had no plausible excuse to write to her. There was no worksheet to send. No upcoming quiz. So I described the new-and-improved Bait & Tackle, and above my usual signature, LM, I added a casual: You’re locking and alarming your house every night, right? I don’t mean to be insulting, but you said you were going to be home alone.
I stalled for fifteen minutes, but she didn’t answer.
Carlie, all out of pithy observations on the décor, purchased a bright pink T-shirt with bait written across the chest – which her mother would probably confiscate immediately – and a snow globe containing sand-coloured ‘snow’ and a tiny replica of the original Bait & Tackle, sans coffee and Wi-Fi.
‘C’mon, Lucas, let’s go sit on the beach,’ she said. ‘If there are cute boys my age in this town, they are definitely not in here.’ I decided not to inform her that cute boys her age would be unlikely to come anywhere near her if I was there.
Six hours later, my phone’s screen cast a greenish light in my pantry cocoon. My willpower was depleted.
Me: When will you be back on campus?
Jacqueline answered seconds later: Probably Sunday. You? I took a breath, relieved. She was okay. I told her I’d be back Saturday, and out of nowhere I added: I need to sketch you again, and told her to text me when she got back.
Friday, Dad and I took Charles and Caleb out on the boat while Carlie and Cindy sat on their rental’s porch, drinking virgin daiquiris and reading. After we got back, I borrowed Dad’s truck and headed to the Bait & Tackle. Jacqueline had replied to Landon’s email minutes after we’d texted. My smile over the fact that she was engaging the security system every night didn’t last long.
I spent the day at my ex’s, she wrote. He wanted to see her Saturday to talk. I could guess what kind of talking he wanted to do. I shut the laptop without replying.
When Caleb announced that he had a science-fair project outline due Monday – and he hadn’t chosen a subject yet, the Hellers decided to head back Saturday morning. Dad had booked an all-day fishing tour anyway, so we said our goodbyes before dawn, and I was back home by noon.
I pulled up Jacqueline’s email again, imagining that she might spend the evening – if not the night – with Kennedy Moore. He’d treated her like she was expendable, replaceable, when she was so far from either. She was stronger than she knew, but her relationship with him had made her weaker. She’d accepted his view of her. She’d followed his dreams, and not her own. She’d let him change her name, and who knew what else about her.
I hit reply, and told her it sounded like he wanted her back. Then I asked: what do you want? I wondered if anyone ever asked her that.
The Hellers went out to dinner and a movie, followed by a holiday-lights procession through gated neighbourhoods in the hills on the south end of town that were filled with grandiose mansions decorated by professionals. Bowing out to do laundry, I told myself I wanted to be alone. I made a cilantro lime marinade for the red snapper I’d caught yesterday, stuck it in the fridge and went for a run. Jacqueline Wallace was on a perpetual loop in my mind. The thought of her with Moore woke a violent part of me I thought buried and gone. It made sense to fight to protect her, but I couldn’t kick someone’s ass because she chose him over me. Fuck if I didn’t want to.
Joseph: Survive T-day? How bout them Cowboys!?
I’m not allowed to say that again to Elliott, upon penalty of something called kinky boots – not my kind of kinky btw – on replay all the way home from Cleveland.
It’s a long damn drive.
Me: Survived. Home. Go Cowboys. Your bf is controlling, dude.
Joseph: Tell me about it. I’m fucking whipped. :P
When my phone buzzed again, I assumed it was more from Joseph, but no. It was Jacqueline, saying: I’m back. So of course, I invited her over for dinner.
Preparing my own food was something I’d done for so long that it didn’t seem odd. As a child I’d played culinary assistant to my mother, to whom cooking was another art form. Once Grandpa died, I cooked for Dad and myself out of necessity. It was that or a steady diet of toast, fish and eggs. We’d have both contracted scurvy before I got out of high school.
Cooking a full meal for anyone but myself had become rare. I lived alone, and Carlie had been right a few months ago – I generally didn’t have anyone over. I didn’t have time for a circle of friends, and I didn’t do dates. I barely did hookups.
Inviting someone for a home-cooked meal boasts culinary confidence and encourages a level of expectation, but I was no chef. I bypassed gourmet recipes and anything with complex steps. I prepared simple meals in unassuming ways.
I had no idea what Jacqueline liked or didn’t.
‘I’ve never had a guy cook for me before,’ she said, leaning her elbows on the opposite side of the counter, watching me chop veggies and drizzle basil vinaigrette over them. Her inexperience with college-guy cooking boded well for the snapper and baked potatoes. Once everything was in the oven, I set the timer and led her to the sofa.
I wanted to know what conclusions she and her ex had reached, but I wouldn’t ask. She was here, and I couldn’t think about her going back to him.
Taking her magical hand in mine, I examined every millimetre of it. I traced the lines in her palm, the sensitive valleys between fingers and the arching whorls on the pads of each one. She kept her nails short so she could play her bass, pressing and plucking strings, without impediment.
Landon knows that. Lucas doesn’t.
I had to tell her. I had to tell her, soon.
Pulling her on to my lap, I leaned her into the corner cushions to tip her head back and kiss her neck, buzzing with need when she swallowed, tracing the path of those tiny quivering muscles with my tongue as her pulse and breathing sped. I unbuttoned her white blouse – one button, then two, following the path of each inch of newly gained territory with my lips, halting at the top of her bra. If I unfastened her any further, our dinner would be burned to soot.
One of her hands was trapped between us, splayed against my chest. Her free hand gripped my bicep, the thick knit bunched beneath her palm. When my tongue began to stroke the just-visible curves between her breasts, she kneaded my arm like a kitten and purred like one, too. The weight of her was just right, her rounded hip pressing into the saddle of my lap. I fought to slam the door on my rampaging contemplations – like how her soft, naked body would feel in my hands. I wanted to turn her round, feel the heat of her pressed against me –
The timer began to beep, and Francis added his eager meow to the alarm.