Away (9 page)

“My mom used to make me breakfast a lot when I was younger, it’s sort of my comfort food,” he said after taking a sip of his orange juice. “Then she taught me how to cook it. To be honest, I think she just got sick of me begging her to do it all the time.”

“Well maybe you could come to Boulder and teach me how to cook sometime,” I said, shocking us both. I could immediately feel my cheeks getting hotter as I sat and thought about what I just invited him to do. The widening look in his eyes made me even more embarrassed; I guess it didn’t take much to make me blush either.

“I’m sorry Jase.” I laughed nervously. “I didn’t mean to say that, or maybe I did, but I guess… I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I honestly don’t know why I even just said that.” I stopped myself and put my hands over my face. The words were just not coming out right. I was making it worse. I heard a husky chuckle come out of him as I slowly peeled my hands from my face.

“I’d actually really like that,” he said, smiling. I wasn’t sure if it was a pity response or if he was really being honest, but either way, I was glad he didn’t make an embarrassing situation even worse. I gave him a grateful look and finished my breakfast, both of us remaining silent until we were done.

I got up from the table when I finished and Jason immediately started getting up.

“No, you sit. I’m doing dishes,” I announced.

He started shaking his head quickly, still trying to get up. I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder.

“No means no. Now, sit and finish your coffee. You cooked breakfast; it’s the least I can do,” I said, grabbing his plate from in front of him when his hand grabbed onto it too.

“Cassandra, put it down,” he demanded. I hadn’t seen him so demanding before, and a slight thrill ran through me. I couldn’t let him do that to me though. I could be just as demanding.

“NO!” I said frustrated.

We both maintained our grip on his plate and were now competing in a stare down.

“If you don’t let go of the plate, then I will when you aren’t expecting it, and it will go flying. Then you’ll have to explain to your mom how you broke her dish.” He glared his eyes at me and slowly released the plate. “Good Jase,” I said, patting him on the head before I walked to the sink with his plate.

“You are very persistent, you know that?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck as I came back to get the rest of the plates on the table.

“And you use a lot of dishes when you cook,” I sassed back.

I noticed the lack of a dishwasher and realized this was going to be a hands-on job. I started filling the sink with hot water and soap, and sensed when Jase walked up behind me. It startled me, causing goose bumps to break out on my body. I was so focused on the water that I didn’t even see him get up from the table. He reached over my head to the cabinet above us, pulled out a dishtowel, and moved over to my left side. I turned my head toward him, staring at the towel in his hands. I shut the water off while I kept my gaze on the damn towel. He was not going to help me with this.

“What is that?” I asked, tapping my foot.

“Well Sweetheart, it’s a towel,” he replied. “I’m not sure of the specific definition, but people use it to primarily dry things, such as dishes, which I intend to do.”

I shook my head, baffled by his persistence. “And you think
I’m
the persistent one.”

“Go sit back down,” I told him, reaching my hand out for the towel. “If you don’t, I’m not cleaning the dishes, so you’ll have nothing to dry.” I put a hand on each hip and stood with my back in front of the sink.

“I think you may have met your match, Sweetheart. I can play this game better than you can,” he declared, leaning his back against the counter with the towel in his hands, swishing it around.

“So what school do you go to?” he asked, breaking the silence between us. He knew what he was doing; he was going to ask me uncomfortable questions until I broke and caved in.

I wasn’t one for failing, well used to be anyway. “University of Colorado,” I said with a pleased grin.

“That’s a good school,” he stated. “Why aren’t you there right now?” He was now treading in deep waters.

I turned back to the sink and started putting the dishes in one by one.

“I dry dishes really well,” he whispered in my ear, giving me a second round of goose bumps for the afternoon. I leaned my head in his direction as I scrubbed the dishes off.

“Let’s hope so,” I said firmly. He may have won the battle, but he wasn’t going to win this war. There were too many skeletons in my closet to share with him… nice guy or not. And that was just it; he was too nice to have to worry about my problems.

“You know,” he said, taking the wet dish from my hands. “You gave up too easily.”

“Yeah, but you play dirty,” I confessed.

“I clean up nice though,” he said in such a quiet voice that I almost didn’t hear it as he continued drying dishes.

I couldn’t help but envision him cleaned up considering he looked damn good “not” cleaned up. I handed him the last one and walked over to the pile he made of clean dishes. With his help, we got all of them put away rather quickly.

“Thanks again for breakfast, and for helping with the dishes, even though you weren’t supposed to.”

“You’re the guest,” he said softly. It made me feel as though I was a longtime friend that came for frequent visits. But I wasn’t a guest, I didn’t know what I was, but a guest wasn’t it.

“So what’s the story with my car?” I asked the question I had been dreading. He stopped walking, keeping his back toward me. He stood there still as a statue, a statue that was happy not talking.

“Jase,” I urged him on.

He took a long pause before finally clearing his throat to speak, and I was now wishing I hadn’t asked. “The parts should be in soon, but I’m not going to lie to you, Cassie. It’s going to take a little while. If you want, I could take you to Alamosa and then bring your car to you when it’s done,” he offered.

I’m not sure what I expected to hear out of his mouth, but offering to take me four hours to Alamosa and then dropping my car off when it was done was definitely not it. Why was he so nice, and why did it feel like I knew him forever and that this was something normal between us?

“I really appreciate the offer, but I can’t ask you to do that for me. If push comes to shove, Mel said she would pick me up. But at this point, I don’t mind waiting it out for my car,” I replied.

His worried expression that haunted his face just a moment ago was now wiped away with a pleased look. I could feel it in my bones, in my mind, and in my heart that he was feeling the same unexplainable connection I was. Our two bodies seemed linked, I just couldn’t figure out how. As much as I had learned about him in the past few days, I was hopeful I would learn just as much today and the next. He was growing on me too quickly.

“Okay, if you don’t mind sticking it out, Cassie. They are working on it, I promise. In the meantime, I’m glad you’re here,” he said, smiling at me.

“Well now that I know you aren’t going to feed me to the wolves, I’m glad I’m here too,” I said, sending him into those contagious chuckles of his.

“You might taste a little too high maintenance for them,” he told me.

“I’m far from high maintenance. I’m what we like to call a people pleaser,” I confessed, using my hands to make quotation marks when I said people pleaser.

He raised his brows at me and tapped his finger on his chin. “Really? Since you’re such a people pleaser, how about you go unpack for me? It would please me to see you not digging out of your suitcase anymore,” he said. “I have to go run an errand, and then I’ll be back later this afternoon,” he said, turning his grin into pressed lips as he stared past me.

“Okay, I suppose I can do that. Are you sure it’s still okay that I stay here?” I asked cautiously, already feeling guilty for staying one night. He motioned with his finger to move toward him, so I did. He put his hand on my arm, creating warmth on my skin where he kept his hand.

“Stop asking. You are more than welcome to stay as long as you need. My parents are not the type to kick a girl out on the streets,” he told me with his hand still on my arm. “And neither am I.”

“Okay, I’ll stop asking. Do you work; am I holding you from your job? If you need to go in, I fully understand. I can find something to occupy my time with.”

“I do have a job, it’s on the weekends though, so that means I’m all yours this week,” he said trying to tease, but something was wrong with the way he said it, like he was trying to cover up some sort of unhappiness that was buried inside him.

“Yes, I’m very lucky,” I said in a sarcastic tone. “Where do you work?”

“The hardware shop. My dad works there during the week after he gets off from working the morning shift at the farm, and then I take the weekends,” he answered.

“God, your dad is busy,” I said, feeling exhausted just thinking of all the work he had to do.

“Yeah, he’s a hard worker,” he replied.

“What’s this errand you’re running?”

“Just an errand,” he said quickly.

Well that answer was vague. “Can I help or go with?”

“No, not this time,” he said politely. He was trying to be nice about it but something inside said he definitely didn’t want me to go.

“So what’s the plan when you get back from your errand that I can’t help with and I’m done pleasing you by unpacking?” I asked, mocking him. I hated that he wouldn’t tell me what it was, but he wasn’t budging.

“We’ll just have to figure it out, won’t we?” He motioned with his head to follow him as he led us to the front door while he put on his cowboy boots. He put them on with ease under his tight fitting jeans. When he was done, he put his hands in his back pocket pulling out the key to his truck.

“In case you didn’t notice, I’m not much a of a ‘figure it out’ kind of girl. I like to have things mapped out, planned, organized.”

“Then this will be good for you, won’t it,” he said before he walked out of the door, not giving me a chance to argue with him. This wasn’t going to be good for me. The last time I didn’t plan something or keep to my already mapped out life, I ended up in this predicament.

I
DIDN
’
T
REALIZE
HOW
MANY
clothes I had actually packed. Maybe I was more high maintenance than I originally thought. I sat up in the bed stretching my arms after I took a quick nap. I tried looking around for the time when I remembered there were no clocks in this room and I was without my phone. I was glued to that thing and felt naked without it, not to mention it was my one security item that I had. I was now disconnected to the world and a way to keep in touch with Mel. It was far more troubling than I previously thought, and I definitely didn’t appreciate the fact that I always had my phone when I needed it before.

The more I thought about it, the feeling of not being able to touch base with Mel was the only thing I was mostly upset about. Other than that, I felt a sense of liberation. No one could call me, no one knew where I was, and vice versa. I started nodding my head in approval to myself when I then remembered what happened the last time I felt liberated. I suddenly sunk down back in the bed and curled into a ball. I really had to find a balance between liberation and control. I had to find my medium, my level head, and the stability I desired without weighing the scale too much to either side. I didn’t want to be one extreme or the other, and I couldn’t figure out why I was. I heard my stomach growl and I knew I needed to eat again quickly before I got the overwhelming sensation to have yet another relationship with their toilet bowl. We were already too close. Ginger ale and crackers were a must right now.

I pulled myself out of the fetal position I put myself in, opened the door, and made my way down the hall. I was almost to the kitchen when I heard Jason’s voice and another one crying, almost hysterical, it sounded like Trish.

“Stop crying. It’ll be all right, Mom. We’ll get the next one, okay?” I heard him say as I inched my way closer to the kitchen. I could see the two of them sitting around the table, his mom had her head in her hands sobbing heavily as Jason sat close, consoling her with his arms around her, holding her tightly.

My heart started to rip right down the middle as I continued to hear her sobbing. As much as I wanted to know what was so emotional for him and his mother, I had to leave before I busted into tears too. As I took a backward step, the floor creaked making Jason’s head shoot right in my direction. His eyes were glossed over with tears that matched his mother’s.

Shit. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry for interrupting,” I apologized as I quickly pivoted my feet and started heading back to my room.

I could hear them both getting up from their chairs as I all but ran like a chicken back to my room closing the door behind me. It only took a few moments for him to enter the room I was cowering in.

“Jase, I am so sorry. I was just headed to the kitchen to get something to eat. I promise I wasn’t spying.”

He looked at me with red eyes, now free of any leftover tears he must have wiped clean. He walked slowly to the bed and sat down right next to me, our legs almost touching as he folded his hands in his lap.