CHAPTER FOUR
After sitting with Temperance for the rest of the day and flubbing over a dozen phone calls, I was ready to call it a day. I couldn’t get the hang of it, and when I became flustered, I made mistakes—like hanging up on the vice-president of the company instead of putting him on hold. I was sure they were going to fire me tomorrow, and my mom was going to be pissed. I didn’t think I could stand to see the disappointment in her eyes when Connie called her to tell her I wouldn’t work out.
I didn’t dare drive home and face the barrage of “how was your first day” questions from Mom and Dad, so instead I made a detour and turned my beat-up old Ford Taurus west toward my boyfriend’s house. I needed him to wrap me in a huge hug and let me vent.
I’d met Christian when he was a senior and I was a sophomore in high school. He’d asked me to his senior homecoming. I’d been the only sophomore asked, and I about died that one of the hottest seniors even noticed me. We’d been together since. I fell hard and fast for Christian. He was fun and spontaneous, and when I was with him, he made me feel like I was the only girl who existed. He showered me with affection and attention. I was the envy of every girl in my class. The first couple of years we were together were fun. We were barely able to keep our hands off each other.
Now that we were a little older and I was off to college, our relationship had hit a bit of a slump. We only saw each other once a month or so, and when we did it was only for a few hours. We tried to talk once a day, but with my study schedule and his band practice, it was more like twice a week. And sexting wasn’t making up for the romance anymore. I was really looking forward to us growing closer over the summer and rekindling some of the fire we had once shared.
I pulled into the driveway of Christian’s parents’ small two-bedroom ranch-style home, weaving my car down the path to go to the back basement entrance. Even though he was twenty-two and didn’t go to college—choosing to work at a local surf shop instead—he still lived with his parents in their basement. This never bothered me before, but as he approached his twenty-third birthday, his lack of ambition began to gnaw at me.
He’s saving money and waiting until I graduate, I reminded myself. So we can get married and get a place together.
“Babe? Is that you?” Christian called from the garage. He could always hear my clunker coming from half a mile away. I slammed the door, cursing the hunk-of-junk under my breath and making my way toward him. His amplifier hummed softly, and I knew he was practicing the new song he and his band, MindBlown, had been working on for the last month.
They had an eclectic sound, a mixture between modern rock and old-school country. The band consisted of Christian and three of his friends from high school, none of whom I got along with. His band meant everything to him though, so I tried to keep my mouth shut. They mostly played small gigs in town and had changed their name at least three times since their inception. They started as Up in Smoke, then changed to The Dirty Dixie Boys, and for a brief month even called themselves The Fish Dicks. I was very glad that name didn’t stick.
“Yeah, it’s me.” I walked into the garage and saw Christian and two of his band mates hanging out on the beat-up sofas they found at garage sales. His electric guitar was slung around his shoulder, and the pencil behind his ear told me he was trying to write a new song. “I wanted to come over a minute and see you. I had a terrible first day of work. I’m pretty sure they’re going to fire me.”
Christian stuck his guitar pic in the back pocket of his favorite pair of faded jeans that hung low on his hips and had tears at both the knees. No matter how long we’d been together, I could never get enough of just looking at his incredibly sexy body. It should be illegal to look that good. Seriously. He turned his body toward me, but his eyes were still on the sheet music in front of him.
“Oh, I’m sure you did fine. You’re great at everything. Hey, listen. We came up with a new melody for the chorus today.” He turned the amp back up and played a few chords, cutting me off from saying anything further.
I finally sat on the arm of the couch, squished between a dorm refrigerator, where he kept his beer, and his drummer, who reeked of marijuana and kept whacking my knee with his sticks as he played along in his head, eyes shut absorbing the music. I watched and listened, trying to feel upbeat, but it was useless today. My mood was too sour. Even staring at Christian wasn’t enough. His almost-black hair was now nearly at his chin and his pale gray eyes winked at me. He always reminded my friends and me of Jordan Catalano from My So-Called Life, to the point where we had multiple marathons of the show in high school. I would sigh and think how lucky I was that this amazing guy was interested in me. Now, he seemed more interested in his music.
An hour later, Christian and his friends were still at it, and no one even realized I was still there, so I slipped inside the main house to say hello to his mother. She was a sweet woman, and I enjoyed spending time with her. She already considered me the daughter she never had and told me so often. She gave Christian and me a lot of freedom now that we were both out of high school, never batting an eye if she saw my car in the driveway overnight or if we were out all night.
“Hi, Mrs. Kirkpatrick!” I greeted the woman, who was in the kitchen mixing a meatloaf together.
“Oh, Jillian dear. I didn’t know you were coming over today. It’s so nice to see you. Are you staying for dinner?” She leaned over, giving me a kiss on the cheek, careful not to let any of the goo from her hands transfer to me.
“No, thank you. I only came over for a few minutes to spend some time with Christian, but he’s practicing again.” I stole an Oreo from the jar and sat at the counter watching Christian’s mom crack eggs and mix the slime into the meat.
“Ah, and he doesn’t even know you left, does he?”
I sighed. “No, I doubt he does. You know how he gets, all wrapped up in his music.”
Mrs. Kirkpatrick rolled her eyes. “That boy drives me crazy. I don’t know how you put up with him. He’s twenty-two years old, has never left the South, and yet still thinks he’s going to ‘make it big’ with that damn music of his. That boy has put me through the wringer growing up. And after his brother…” she trailed off. After a moment, she shook off whatever thoughts she had and continued. “I feared he’d turn out the same. I thank God every day he found you. I swear you’re the one thing holdin’ him together.”
I smiled, reaching for a second cookie, and poured myself a small glass of milk. “He loves me. And he really is tryin’ to be the person I know he can be.”
“Sweetheart, I carried that child for nine months, taught him his ABC’s and how to drive, and gave him more love than I knew I had in me. But I’ve just about worn out my patience with him growin’ up. I hoped with you goin’ away to college, he’d want to join you. And when that didn’t happen, I thought he’d at least start wanting to find a place of his own. But if that child,” she pointed her wooden spatula at the garage door, “doesn’t get a real job and some motivation to be an adult soon, I’m going to have to put him over my knee like when he was six.”
We both started laughing, only stopping when a slamming of the door caused us to jump.
“Hey, there are my two favorite girls.” Christian brushed a kiss on my cheek before grabbing two cookies and heading to the fridge for milk. “Dinner almost ready, Ma? I’m famished!”
“In about an hour. Why don’t you go take Jillian here on a nice, romantic walk? The sunset is beautiful tonight.”
I hopped off my stool and rinsed out my milk glass, placing it in the strainer. “Actually, I need to get going. My mom expected me a half hour ago. We’re going to my grandma’s tonight to help her pack up some things since she’s movin’ over to Savannah in a few weeks, and I want to spend as much time with her as possible before then.” I turned to Christian, grabbing his hand in mine. “Walk me to my car?”
“Sure.”
We linked our fingers together, swinging our arms slightly as we walked. Neither of us spoke until we reached the car.
“Hey,” Christian stepped closer, pinning me to the car and nuzzling my neck. “Wanna ditch work with me tomorrow and take a drive out to our spot?”
I closed my eyes, trying to ignite the same passion with Christian I had felt in my dream from the other night. I tilted my head back to give him more access to my neck, and he eagerly began to kiss his way down while his hands quickly slid under my shirt. I closed my eyes to enjoy the moment, but all I felt was annoyance that his jagged fingernails were scratching into my skin.
“You know I can’t ditch work. I just started today.” I pulled his hands out from under my shirt and placed them around my neck, but he pulled back.
“Come on, we haven’t had a whole day alone to ourselves in weeks.” He pressed up against me, his hot breath against my cheek. “I’m tired of sneaking a few hours here and there. I miss you, baby.”
“I was here two nights ago,” I reminded him, barely resisting the urge to roll my eyes. I could smell in his hair that he’d been smoking up and getting high again, and it made me a little queasy. I leaned against his chest, irritated. “And maybe if you spent more time with me than your so-called band, it wouldn’t be an issue.”
Christian took a few steps backward and threw up his hands. “Oh great, here we go again.”
“And you’re smoking pot again? After everything you went through when your mom found that dime bag and threatened to kick you out?”
“It was one joint with the guys. One. I needed my mind to relax so I could write. I’m not going to start up again.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’ve had a really bad day, and I didn’t mean to take it out on you.” I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and opened the car door. “I’m going to go home. After I come back from Gamma’s, I’m going take a long bath and go to bed. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Christian shook his head, closing the car door. “How about we go camping next weekend? Just you and me—alone for seventy-two hours?”
I hated camping—the bugs and sore back from sleeping in a tent—but with the way his eyes were lit up with hope, I couldn’t say no.
“Yeah, sure. Sounds fun.”
Laying in the bathtub three hours later, I tried to lose myself in the memories of when I first started dating Christian: the way he made me shiver with just one glance of his crooked smile, or the way my body ignited when his lips were on mine. But every time I closed my eyes, my thoughts drifted to the dream, and my heartbeat picked up its pace.
Maybe I’ll go to sleep early, see if I have any more dreams.