Absolutely Unforgivable (3 page)

On our fourth date we decided to go to the flea market. It may not sound like a grand affair but it indeed was, as it was the very place where Jeromy won my heart. We walked hand in hand from stall to stall, while I looked for a new case for my iPhone and Jeromy looked at nothing but me. It was truly endearing.

Another reason I wanted to go to the flea market on this lazy Sunday afternoon was to stop by and see the new setup for Bell’s. When I was young, Tulsa had an amusement park that filled my childhood with many wonderful memories. But a few years ago the owner and his family were on the losing end of a fight with a corrupt city official. It was Tulsa however, that was the real loser in that ordeal. Now the city was without its landmark and a safe place for kids to gather. Bell’s Amusement Park had been in Tulsa and run by a member of the Bell family for generations and now it was gone.

Bell’s Amusement Park was my first job when I turned 16. It was the place I met my first boyfriend, had my first real date, my first kiss and my first heartbreak. No matter how many years pass, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

Recently, members of the Bell family had set up a small kiddy park at the flea market and I wanted to stop by and check it out. As we were walking into the area of the flea market that had the new Bell’s kiddy rides set up a small boy fell and skinned his knee. Without hesitation Jeromy ran to the boy’s side. He helped him up, reassured the child and helped him find his mother.

Most mothers would probably be horrified if some strange man was standing next to their child, but not with Jeromy. People just naturally took to him and trusted him. I stood off to the side watching the mother thank Jeromy for helping her son. I was awestruck by his gentle and compassionate nature. From that moment on Jeromy and I were an item and spent every minute we could together.

Thanks to his encouragement, I switched from working the night shift to evenings at the bar which allowed me to get off work by 9 pm and spend more time with him. And now instead of working four days a week, I was working only three days.

The tips weren’t as good on the evening shift but Jeromy more than made up for that. He was generous to a fault. He was always sticking money in my tip jar, far more than he should have but truth is, I wouldn’t have been able to pay my bills if he hadn’t. The evening shift was mostly a bunch of regulars and while they were nice, they didn’t have a lot of money to tip all that well.

I truly hated that Jeromy spent so much money on me but he seemed to enjoy himself when he did. The more he gave to me, the happier he seemed to be. He was just that kind of guy. There was nobody really that he didn’t get along with. He fit in with almost any crowd from the conservative businessmen, to frat boys and even with bikers. That worked out well since we seemed to attract a lot of bikers on the evening shift.

I wasn’t exactly sure what Jeromy did for a living so I finally asked him about it. He went on to explain that he was a landman. I had no idea what that meant but it turned out it had something to do with getting other people to let you lease the oil and gas rights they have on their land or something confusing like that. All I knew for sure was that when he made a deal with someone for their land rights, they always ended up with a lot of money and he seemed to get true joy out of making some really poor farmer into a millionaire almost overnight.

I guess that would be a nice job to have and they seemed to pay him well for it too. Not only did he earn his own salary but they also covered many things under what he called expenses, including where he lived, his meals, his cell phone, his iPad, his laptop, his car, and all the gas it uses -- and Hummers use a lot of it.

He once joked about his expense check being almost as much as his normal paycheck. This was astonishing because with his own money he really had almost nothing to pay for except maybe his clothes, his beer tab, and all the money he spent on me, which lately had been far too much.

Jeromy and I had been together just a few weeks before I found myself staying the night at his hotel almost every night. Within a few months I was officially living there.

Everything was going great in my life. That was until graduation. I finally had my bachelor degree in Marketing from the University of Tulsa and was excited to start my career and my new life, my grown up life. I’ve dreamed about this day for so long it hardly seems real now that’s it here. Finally, no more school. Just the thought of that gave me a thrill. The problem was, the economy was horrible and finding a job in my chosen profession wasn’t exactly an easy task.

I had only really just finished refining my new resume when Jeromy came home from a long day at work. He had a solemn look on his face as he sat down on the couch next to me, and began staring at the television. I turned the volume down and he didn’t seem to even notice, so I turned the television off completely and turned my body towards him.

“Okay Mr. Pouty Pants, out with it. What’s on your mind?”

“We are finishing up with this job next week.” I looked at him, trying to read the strange expression on his face. His voice was hushed and far away.

“Oh. What’s that mean?” I really didn’t get it yet. I hadn’t put it all together.

“Well, it means I have to move on to the next job.”

That was the worst part of his kind of work. While he might have been born and raised in Houston, Texas or a small suburb just outside of it, he hadn’t actually lived there in a long time. His job took him all over. There was the eighteen months he spent in Marshall, Texas; another nine months in the small town of Alice Texas; then six weeks in El Reno, Oklahoma; and the two months he spent in Provo, Utah. Tulsa was just one in a long line of temporary residences for him. Our life had been so wonderful lately, I had almost forgotten that.

I tried to hold back my emotions but I couldn’t help it. The sting of tears welled up in my eyes as I realized this meant he would be leaving me. I knew that long distance relationships never worked and this was in essence him telling me he was leaving me. My older sister Sarah tried the long distance thing with her high school sweetheart when they went off to different colleges and their relationship ended in disaster. I don’t want that for Jeromy and me, I would rather we part on good terms. I don’t want to end up hating him like my sister did with her boyfriend. I couldn’t bear the thought of that.

I took a deep breath and asked the dreaded question. “When are you leaving?” I was still doing my best to hold back my tears or hide the utter anguish I felt. It wasn’t easy but I didn’t want to let him see me fall apart like that. I took slow breaths and just tried to focus on the here and now, on the time we still had together.

The look on his face changed just slightly “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” My heart sped up when he said that.

“I was offered another job already. It’s a really great opportunity and it would last a minimum of three years. I’ve never been on a project where I could be in one place so long.”

I was hoping we would have more time, but I guess not. Just as I started to ask him what place it was he would be going to, he interrupted me. He was almost excited.
Was he really that happy to be leaving me?

“But that isn’t the best part. This job is back in my hometown, well close to it.”

I forced a smile across my face. “So you are going home? That’s great.”

He was gently stroking my hand by now. I think he probably knew I was about to burst out in hysterics and he wanted to comfort me. But then he said something I wasn’t expecting.

“Yes, but I was kind of hoping you would want to go with me.” He looked up at me with a boyish grin.

He didn’t really give me a chance to answer before continuing on. “I know it’s a lot to ask because you’ve lived here all of your life -- your friends are here, your family is here. You just ….”

Before he could finish that sentence I jumped on his lap and pushed him down on the couch. I kissed him passionately. He sat up with me still on his lap, wrapping his arms around my back to hold me in place as I wrapped my legs around his waist.

“I take it that’s a yes then?”

Seriously?
He even had to wonder if I would say yes. Jeromy and I have been together for more than a year now. I’ve dreamed about our future together and now we get to actually start living that dream. I would have followed him anywhere but getting to be with him back in his hometown was all the better. I finally get to see all of the places he’s been telling me about. I would get to meet his childhood friends and visit his childhood home.

“When will we be leaving?” I asked him. I still couldn't believe he wanted me to go with him. I wanted to just scream out in excitement. It took everything I had to contain myself.

“We’ll need to head out in about two weeks. Do you think that is enough time? Can you be ready by then?”

“Jeromy, I love you. I could leave tomorrow if we had to. Sure, I would rather have more time to prepare but if we really had to go right away, I would make it happen. I love you and I just want to be with you. You are all that matters. Anything else is trivial and together we can work it out. Isn’t that what you always tell me?”

He gave me a cute little half smile and I leaned in to kiss him. I pulled back and asked him if we would be living in a hotel in Houston too. I didn’t know why that thought had suddenly crossed my mind but now that it had I really wanted to know. I wasn’t sure how all of that worked still. Did he have to live in a hotel or would they let him live in a normal apartment or maybe we could rent a house?

Since this job would last at least three years, it would be nice to get a place that was a little bigger. Don’t get me wrong, I loved our little love nest but it was still a hotel and I wanted to play house with him. Just the thought of that brought butterflies to my stomach.

He paused for just a moment before answering me. “We could but, I had another idea. You remember my friend Billy I told you about?”

“The one in the band?”

“Yeah, Billy Snow. We’ve been best friends since childhood, and he has this big house in The Woodlands that is only about a twenty minute drive from where I’ll be working. I thought since you’ll be living in a new city maybe we could stay with him, and when I’m not around he could be there for you to help you find your way.”

I hadn’t really had a chance to think about that. Houston, Texas was a far cry from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa may have been a big city to me, but in comparison to a place like Houston it was a mere speck of dust. There were millions of people who lived in Houston.

I began to panic just a bit. I could feel my heart speed up and my face begin to flush. I looked down at my hands as they started to tremble and I knew I had to get myself together. I took several long deep breaths. I knew I wanted to be with Jeromy but suddenly the thought of moving to this new place scared me to death. Jeromy however didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned.

“His place his huge so it won’t even be like we would be seeing him all of the time. We would have our own little corner of paradise, completely private, just for us. And, well, what do you think?”

Part of me wondered how some guy only five years older than me could afford a big fancy house while another part of me worried this was a bad idea. Roommate situations somehow always had a way of ending badly. You hear about it all of the time. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a roommate story that didn’t end badly. The thoughts of the crazy girl I lived with my freshman year in college still haunt me. But it was hard to say no to Jeromy, especially since he had such an adorably excited look on his face.

The Woodlands was a short drive to where Jeromy would be working just outside of Pinehurst. It was a suburb located north of the city of Houston. From everything I could read about it on the Internet, The Woodlands seemed like a nice place to live. And very out of character for someone like Billy. From everything Jeromy had told me about him, it just didn’t seem like he would be at home in a sprawling suburban neighborhood with tree lined roads and lush green golf courses. But then again, I had wrongly judged Jeromy when I first met him, so I decided to withhold judgment of Billy until I met him face to face.

Since Billy was going to be my new roommate I thought I better get to know more about him. I knew he was in a band called Jessie’s Girl
but that was about it. What I didn’t know is that the band was somewhat of a local legend with a devoted fan base; its own website; and YouTube page with videos of some of their past performances.

I pulled up the first video of the band on YouTube and they were singing a cover of AC/DC’s “For Those About To Rock.” They were pretty good; it was a dead on rendition of the song.

I clicked the link to the band’s website. I don’t know what I expected to see but was surprised at how much was there. I clicked the biography page and read it eagerly. Jeromy came up behind me and leaned over to kiss my forehead and then took the seat next to me and watched over my shoulder as I read about each of the members of the band.

The drummer was Bran. I wondered what kind of name that was and Jeromy told me that his real name was Brandon, but everyone had called him Bran. Bran was tall and slender but with well-defined muscles and dark brown hair. He wore pants low around his waist and had no shirt on. He had several tattoos strewn across his chest and arms.