“You go to church?”
“Actually, no. I just hear she does. Anyway, what else? Oh, the hurricane ended up being a tropical storm, but let’s hope it stays that way so they don’t issue us an evac order. It looks like it may head past us up to Charleston, anyway.”
“I guess if they evacuate, I’ll head back to California,” he said.
The thought of him potentially leaving by the end of the week made me ridiculously depressed.
“But in the meantime, I’ve clued my assistant in about where I am so she is sending me more clothes and scripts and stuff.”
“I thought you didn’t want anyone to know where you are?”
“I didn’t, I don’t, but that’s not really realistic, and I can trust her. I traveled with what I was wearing and what I could fit in the bike bags. And I have a mountain of scripts waiting for me.”
I could already see that Jack was not dealing with his self-imposed isolation well. He was either going to give this ‘getting away’ idea up and go back, or he was going to try and find some way to distract himself. Either way spelled devastation for me if we continued to spend time together.
I fleetingly wondered about his relationship with Audrey Lane. Was he truly heartbroken, or was it all just an ill-thought out excuse to explain his obviously out of the norm behavior? If he was going to stay and try to distract himself, I wouldn’t be doing either of us any favors by letting on that I was crushing on him, especially if I was not only just a distraction, but also playing seconds to his girlfriend. I liked to think I thought a little more of myself, but I hated that, for a moment, I wondered what it would be like.
The thought of the rejection when it came, as it inevitably would, whether by him politely ignoring my desperate crush or by him leaving, was a cold shower on my thoughts.
The truth was, I was lonely, too. I was still a young teenager at heart who had had to grow up way too fast. There’d been no time for whispering and giggling over boys and having my mom do my hair for the prom or to ask about dating. That had all been lost to me too early. I had loved Nana so much, but in the end it was me taking care of her and not the other way around. I hadn’t had my giddy, angsty, hormone-filled teenage-hood that I always seemed to read so much about, despite Jazz’s efforts to get me out of my shell. Perhaps if I had, I would be better equipped to deal with all the tangled emotions I felt in this situation with Jack.
I couldn’t even look at it objectively, because he wasn’t just a boy. He was a dazzling, heart-stopping aura of a man who in just five days had me feeling like I was perched on the edge of a precipice and seriously contemplating throwing myself over the edge. The idea was terrifying in its finality and in its inevitability.
He broke the silence.
“So, go check out the walls, let me know what you think.”
Ah yes. The walls.
Leaving my beer behind, I stepped into the hall.
I looked around me. It was amazing. The plain pine floors and bare walls were suddenly swollen with the promise of what the house could become. I could see it so clearly. Dark wood floors with wide white moldings and high ceilings against pale dusty blue walls.
“I saw the chandelier project you’re working on.” Jack’s voice came from behind me. “I thought it would be amazing in here.” He was referring to my hobby of collecting old wrought iron, driftwood and sea glass. I had, indeed, been working on fashioning one into a chandelier of sorts thinking to put it in my room or a library room, if I ever converted the parlor. I thought of him seeing all my stuff and unfinished projects in the attic that I had left neglected for too long and felt a moment of embarrassment. Jazz was forever nagging me about it, telling me to bring my pieces to the store. I didn’t know what held me back.
I was hyper-aware of Jack standing behind me, but I had to be imagining he was so close. I swore I felt a zap of energy from his body along the length of mine. Closing my eyes instead of answering him, I wondered if I turned around right now, whether his proximity would be all in my head. And then I felt it, his breath against the back of my neck. I swallowed hard. He slowly inhaled the air around my nape, and the fine hairs stirred to stand on end.