Stubborn Love (15 page)

Fourteen months ago – Jared

My flight lands fifteen
minutes late. It feels like fifteen hours to me. I’m itching to see her.
Desperate to touch her.
I haven’t seen her in a month, but
it feels like forever. Naughty texts and the occasional bit of phone sex can
only get me so far, what I really need right now is the real thing. What I
really need is Mia, in the flesh, right in front of me, right now. As I
impatiently wait behind some idiot who seems to have spread his luggage in
every single overhead compartment, I feel the phone in my pocket vibrate with
an incoming message.

           
R u here yet?

I smile. Mia.
Beautiful, impatient Mia.
Rapidly typing in a response, I
let out a loud sigh that hopefully tells this dickhead in front of me that some
of us actually want to get off this plane. Tonight.

Finally we do and as I run
up the concourse ramp, I see her right away, standing there with her arms
wrapped around her body, a cell phone in her hand, which she repeatedly keeps
looking at. I almost want to just stop and watch her for a moment, but my
overwhelming need to touch her wins out, so instead, I run the last little
distance between us, grabbing her in a hug and catching her off guard as she
looks down at her phone once again.

I hear her squeal in
response, which is soon muffled by my mouth on hers. I don’t know what we look
like to everyone around us, but I really don’t care. The only person I’m seeing
right now is Mia. I kiss her hard, like I can’t get enough of her and I can
feel her respond as she’s wrapped in my arms, her body pressing itself tighter
against me. Whatever it is that made me stay in Boston when she came out here,
it might suck, but when we are like this, I know it is so worth it. Especially
because I know it’s not forever.

“Hey you,” I finally say,
pulling back to look at her.

“Hey yourself,” Mia
replies, squeezing her arms around my waist.

I lean in to kiss her
again, whispering against her lips, “I’ve missed you so bad, baby.”

“
Mmmm
,
me too,” she mumbles before kissing me back.

Eventually I loosen my
arms and we head out to the waiting line of cabs, all of my stuff in my
carry-on so I wouldn’t have to waste time waiting for luggage. I don’t really
anticipate needing many clothes this weekend anyway, not if I have my way. I
keep my arm around her the whole time, not wanting to let her go now that I am
finally here.

“Are you hungry?” she
eventually asks me as we slide into the next available cab.

“
Mmmm
,
hungry for something, yes, but it’s not exactly food,” I answer, nuzzling her
neck.

I hear her laugh in
response before saying, “Should we get something on the way, or head home and
order in?”

As my mouth works its way
up to her ear I whisper, “I just want to get you home as soon as possible Mia.
I just want to touch you everywhere, kiss you everywhere. I don’t care about
anything else right now.” It’s getting harder to control my own breathing right
now and I am definitely hot for her, in fact I’m pretty sure I’ve been hot for
her since the minute I got on the plane back in Boston. That is what this woman
does to me.

I feel her hand as it
grabs my thigh, sliding its way up and then her sharp intake of breath when she
discovers just how much I want her. I can’t stop the moan that escapes from me
when her fingers brush over my dick, and it takes the cabbie clearing his
throat for Mia to realise she hasn’t actually told him where she lives yet. At
this rate, I’ll be lucky to last the cab ride home.

By the time we reach the
door to her apartment, I have her belt undone and my hands are inside her
shirt. Hers are inside mine too and the poor bastard who got off two floors
below us probably caught more than an eyeful in the elevator. Once again, I
don’t give a shit. As Mia is unlocking her front door, I’m pulling my shirt
off, throwing both it and my bag on the floor once we get inside, before I
quickly do the same to hers. We don’t even make it to the couch, let alone the
bedroom before I have her down on her back on the floor and me crawling over
her.

“Don’t you
wanna
go to the bedroom?” she asks me, her breathing hard
and fast now.

I lift my head and look
around us, at me hovering over the top of Mia just inside the entry to her
apartment. Maybe the bedroom would be a better idea, more comfortable anyway,
and I plan on taking my time with her. I stand up, reaching out my hand to help
Mia up. As soon as she’s standing, I grab her around the waist and throw her
over my shoulder, smacking her on the ass at the same time. Mia squeals in
response and I feel her grab my butt, hard, in payback.

“Jared,” she says
laughing. “Put me down.”

“Uh
uh
,
baby, I’m not letting you go all weekend,” I tell her, running my hand up the
inside of her thigh, causing her to squirm in my arms. “Not once.”

As we walk into the
bedroom, I dump Mia gently on the bed, hearing her laugh at the same time. I
look down at her, sprawled over the mattress, her hair flying out around her,
her cheeks flushed and her eye’s shining.

“Fucking hell, I’ve missed
you,” I say, standing in between her legs and lifting one of them to rest
against my shoulder, as I slowly unzip her boot.

Mia is smiling up at me,
and she hooks her free leg around my waist, pulling me even closer. “You have?”
she asks.

“Oh yeah baby, a lot,” I
say, peeling off her boot and throwing it on the floor. As I lower and wrap
this now bootless leg around my hip, Mia uncurls her other one, moving it to my
shoulder so I can remove that boot too.

“Are you going to show me
how much?” she asks, smiling up at me.

My stomach flips at her
words. “Is that a challenge?” I dare her.

“Think you’re up for it?”
she asks, wrapping her other leg back around my waist before yanking me forward
so I fall on top of her. I break my fall with my hands on either side of her
shoulders, our mouths now only inches apart.

“Baby,” I breathe out
against her lips. “Anytime, anywhere, you know that,” I answer, before kissing
her hard on the mouth.

The next night is spent at
the opening of Mia’s show. It’s at this big fancy Chicago art school and there
are a bunch of people here, some of them dressed in really interesting and
unusual ways. I can’t help but wonder if they’re supposed to be walking art
exhibits or that’s just how they dress. Mia is busy making sure her stuff is
all set up, so I wander around the hall alone, sipping on a beer. I can’t
pretend I understand half the shit I’m looking at it, but I can certainly
appreciate the talent, as well as the reason for doing it. Art is like music,
it’s a form of expression and I realise each of us just has different ways of
showing it. Mine is through guitar and song lyrics, Mia’s is through graphics,
lighting and audio. The fact that she uses some of our music to add to her art,
even if I think it’s not yet in the same league as her stuff, makes me smile,
feel proud. It’s like a part of me is still with her and she’s also letting
everyone know who we are, as though she’s as proud of the stuff we create as I
am of her and everything she does.

“Hey, you okay?” Mia suddenly
asks, her arm sliding around my waist.

“I am now,” I say smiling
as I lean in to kiss her.

I feel her smile against
my mouth, her hand on my hip tighten as she pulls me closer. I can’t wait until
she comes back home to Boston, can’t wait until I can wake up beside her every
morning again. This separation we’re putting up with right now is more painful
than when she used to live in LA. Because this time, we are both all in, but we
are miles apart. Before, it was hard, but in a different way because we never
really knew where we stood and with all the sneaking around, there were times
when it didn’t actually feel real.

Not now though. Now it’s a
real as it can get.

“What do you think of the
show?” she asks, pulling back a little.

I glance around, pretending
to check out all the works that are on display. “They’re all good,” I say,
leaning in to kiss her again. “But there’s one…” I whisper, pressing another
kiss to her lips. “That’s
really
good.”

I hear her laugh. “Oh
yeah, which one’s that?”

I pull her closer to me as
I lean down and put my mouth to her ear. “See the one over on the far wall?”

“Uh huh,” she whispers,
her breath warm against my cheek.

“That one’s my favourite,”
I say, gently biting her ear lobe. “And apparently… it’s done by this really fucking
sexy little artist. I’m actually thinking of trying to find her, see if I can’t
get lucky, maybe take her home with me…”

Mia laughs, her body
folding itself into mine. “Oh really, you live in Chicago then?”

I kiss her neck. “No, I’m
just visiting for the weekend, but I’ve got somewhere to take her.”

Mia’s hand slides up under
my shirt and I feel her nails dig into my skin. “Do you. So tell me…” she says,
sliding her other hand down to my butt and squeezing.

I swear I’m going to drop
my fucking beer in a minute and just go for it with her, regardless of where we
are. “Yeah?” I whisper, returning the favour as I slide my fingers under the
waistband of her skirt now.

“What exactly are you
going to do with this lucky artist then?” Mia murmurs.

I dump my half empty beer
on a passing waiter’s tray, wrapping my arm around Mia’s shoulders now and pulling
her tighter against me. We’re standing right in the middle of the room. Mia’s
got her hand up my shirt and my fingers are down her skirt and I’ve got a fucking
hard on like you wouldn’t believe. I pull her closer as I
whisper,
“I’m going to pleasure her with an all night sex marathon till she’s literally
begging me to stop.”

Mia bursts out laughing as
she pushes her hips against mine. If she doesn’t stop soon, I really am going
to lose it. As it stands right now, I’m going to have to head to the bathroom
and splash cold water all over my face. Or maybe take her with me and sort this
issue out the right way.

“Is that a challenge?” she
asks.

I laugh now, loving this
game we play. “You think you’re up for it?”

I feel her fingers
tighten. “Anytime, anywhere Jared.”

I kiss her hard on the
mouth, not giving a shit
who
’s watching or what we
look like. “When can we get the hell out of here then?”

“When are you coming home
baby?” I ask, my mouth on Mia’s neck. We’ve been home from the show for four
hours and I’m making good on my promise of an all night sex marathon. I feel
her exhale in my arms and I press my lips against her skin, holding her to me.
She’s been in Chicago for a month. The show runs for another month and then
it’s done. I’m not sure exactly how long she needs to stay here though, whether
she needs to be at the show all the time, whether she can come straight home
after it.

“Well….” she says and I
can tell there’s more to follow.

“Well what?”

“I know it’s supposed to
be in four weeks, but well…they
kinda
offered me a
job.”

“What?” I ask, lifting my
face from her neck so I can look at her. “Baby, that’s fantastic,” I say,
leaning in to kiss her lips this time. “Fantastic.”

“Yeah, but I’m not
gonna
take it,” she says, her hand
on my chest, pushing me back.

“What? Why not?” Mia is
looking at me in a way that would have me scared if she wasn’t lying naked in
my arms. “Why aren’t you taking the job?”

I watch as she exhales
loudly. “Because I don’t want to be apart from you anymore,” she says. “I want
to come home to you.”

I smile now as it all
starts to make sense. A part of me loves that she wants to do this, that she’s
been missing me as much as I’ve missed her and doesn’t want to do this long
distance thing anymore. I know she is coming home in four weeks anyway, but
it’s already four weeks too long. I miss her so fucking much and if she’d let
me, I’d be spending the next four weeks right here, with her. But there’s
another part of me that doesn’t want her to give up everything she has worked
so hard to achieve, not when there is a much simpler alternative that would
solve all our problems.

“I miss you,” she
whispers, her hand moving from my chest as it pushes the hair back off my face.

I lean in and kiss her. “I
miss you too Mia, more than you know,” I say against her lips. “But I don’t
want you to give this up, I don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity.”

“But I don’t want to be
apart,” she says.

“We won’t be,” I say,
kissing her again. “Not when I move to Chicago.”

“You’d move here?” she
asks, and I can hear the hope in her voice.

“Mia,” I say rolling us
over so she lies on top of me now. “I’d do anything for you, you know that
baby.”

“Really Jared?”

I stare into her eyes, so
she knows I’m telling the truth now. I need her to understand, to understand
that she means the world to me, that she is my world and I would do anything
and everything for her. “I love you Mia, really love you and I don’t want to be
apart from you either, didn’t want to be apart in the first place,” I say,
quickly kissing the end of her nose. “So if you want to take this job baby, you
take it. And I’ll happily move over here so we never have to be apart again.”

Mia smiles down at me and
I can see the tears in her eyes, but I know this time they are happy ones. I’m
about to say it again, tell her I really will do this, but then she leans in
and kisses me.

Today, 12:02pm – Mia

“Chicago is what ended
us?” Jared eventually asks.

“You have to admit, it
didn’t help,” I say to him.

Jared shakes his head, as
though this is not what he wants to hear. “It was the right move for you Mia,
for your career, for everything you’d worked so hard for.”

“Maybe, but it did mean things
got a lot harder for us.”

“Only because you made it
that way when you pushed me away,” he says, the frustration in his voice,
evident. “I don’t understand what happened, one minute you were taking the job
and I was moving out there. The next you were coming home,” Jared says. “And
then it was all over. All over with me here in Boston and you there in
Chicago.”

I turn to look at him,
wishing I could just go back in time and change things, wish to fuck that I
didn’t put him through this, or that I have to put him through it all again
now.

“I would’ve moved out
there to be with you, you know. I never expected you to give up your dreams for
me,” he says, breaking my heart all over again

My eyes glance at the postcard
he still has stuck on his board, in amongst the concert tickets and reminders,
a funny sketch I once did for him. The postcard shows the Chicago skyline at
night, a beautiful city that is an artist’s dream. At least it was, until it
became my worst nightmare.

“I would have moved
anywhere for you, Mia,” he says quietly, dragging my eyes away from the board
and to his. They are filled with sadness and regret and it stabs me right in
the chest.

“I know,” I whisper to
him.

“Anywhere at all, I would
have given you anything and everything, you know. All I ever wanted was you,
just to be with you.” His words are said in a rush, hitting me all at once and
twisting the imaginary knife that’s now firmly lodged right through my heart. I
want to tell him the same
thing, that
I would’ve done
anything for him too, but I know that’s not exactly true. Not when I pushed him
away, not when I didn’t give him the one and only thing he wanted; us.

“I don’t understand why,
why you pushed me away?” he says, his voice unbearably sad now and a tear
escapes before I have a chance to stop it. I see Jared reach out to brush it
away, but I pull back, not letting him.

“Chicago was never
supposed to be a permanent move,” I finally say. “I wasn’t ever planning on
staying there, it was just going to be that show and then back home.”

“I know,” he says. “But
that job was a great opportunity for you.”

“It was,” I say nodding my
head. “I wanted to do it and when you were nothing but supportive and
encouraging, I really thought we could work it all out.”

“So what changed?” Jared
asks.

My mind drifts back to
just over a year ago. God it had been such a good weekend. Jared and I had
barely left my apartment, barely left my bed even, except for food and to go to
the show. It was perfect, he was perfect, and I’d thought we couldn’t get
anymore perfect.

“Do you remember what you
said to me, just before you left,” I ask him, my eyes back on that postcard as
a replay of that last night starts up inside my brain.

“I love you?” he says, as
though it could be anything else.

I smile, but I know it’s a
sad smile. “Yes, you did, but there was something else too.”

“What?” he breathes out, a
note of fear floating between us now.

I force my eyes to look at
him, blink back the tears that I cannot seem to stop now. “You said, I love you
Mia, really love you and I don’t want to be apart from you anymore. You’re not
giving this up and I am moving over here, I only want to be with you.”

His words from that night
are forever branded into my heart, stuck on repeat in my head. Ever since he
spoke them, I’ve heard them every single day. They were the beginning of the
end because of what they meant to me, to him and to everything else.

“What was so wrong with
that Mia?” he whispers.

I bite my lip, afraid of
what’s coming now.

“You’d starting getting
shows,” I say, my voice breaking. “The band, it was all starting to happen for
you, for Luke, for everyone.”

“And?”

It’s a question. A single
word uttered from his mouth, that he already knows the answer too.

“How could I ask you to
give that up?” I say, my voice so quiet I almost wonder if he hears me.

“You didn’t.”

The tears are falling now
and I know there is no point trying to stop them. This is the moment I broke
his heart and whether he knows it or not, it’s also the moment I broke my own,
broke it clean in half. One half leaving on that plane with Jared and going
back home to Boston, the other half remaining with me, as a permanent ache,
buried deep inside my chest. An ache I knew I’d never get rid of, not until it
found its way back to its other half.
To my other half.

“No, I didn’t ask you,” I
murmur. “But I also couldn’t let you. I couldn’t let you give that up, not for
me.”

“Why?” he asks, his voice
nothing but anguish now, because I know he knows exactly why. He just wants me
to say it, wants me to say the words I’ve never been able to say out loud,
until now.

I swallow, forcing air
into my lungs, which now feel like they are being squeezed in a vice, as I try
to get these next words out.

“You know why, Jared.”

He says nothing for what
feels like an eternity, even though I know he knows the answer now, it’s
written all over his beautiful face. I feel my fingers grip the duvet cover,
the crack of my knuckles as I desperately try to hang on to something,
anything. Everything around us is perfectly still, there is no movement, no
air, no breathing. I feel like I am suffocating, but I can’t look away from
him.

“Luke,” he eventually
says, a single tear falling down his cheek now that shatters what is left of my
aching, broken heart. “You didn’t want me to leave the band, leave Boston,
because of Luke?”

I can’t talk, cannot even
answer him. I can only nod.

Yes.