The Light of Day (7 page)

“Is this your way of submitting?” he whispers in my ear and I shake my head, ignoring the shiver that races across my shoulders.

“I’m never submissive.”  The words are out much like the laughter, without thought, but once they are, I admit that they feel natural.  This banter, this friendship, it feels natural, too.  Dangerous tomorrow? Who knows, but right now it’s enough to be pleased with what I feel like.  Almost like a blend of who I was with who I’ve become, the darkness shaved away to make room for the laughter.  I know that for some reason Jake’s an intricate part of that.  Why’s another question altogether, one I won’t be attempting to answer anytime soon.

“Okay, Handsome Jake, pack your stuff.  I’m picking the apartment, so no complaints about rent and location.”

“I want the master bedroom.”

“Keep dreaming.”

“In that case, I’ll share it with you, Cora, but you have to respect my boundaries.”

I laugh again, and so does he.  The song changes and more people come on to the dance floor, but we don’t stop dancing, my hands around his neck and his on my hips.  For a long while we sway and we laugh, and inside I feel myself start to come alive again.

Chapter Eleven

Jake

I arrive in Portland at rush hour and spend over an hour battling bridges that take me in the wrong direction and rain that continues to pour down and make everything more difficult to navigate.  Yogi is sprawled in the passenger seat next to me, his blanket beneath him, one eye open and on me.  He’s refusing to look at the scenery, and I can only imagine it’s because he’s mad about two days of travel and the dramatic climate change.

              He might have started off as an abandoned cat, happy to just have a warm place and a full belly, but in the last year he’s really turned into a diva. 

              When I finally arrive at the downtown apartment that matches the address Cora texted me earlier in the week, I spend another ten minutes searching for my parking spot, only to find it’s on the top floor in the uncovered part of the parking structure, approximately three floors above where our apartment actually rests.  Awesome.

              Grabbing the cat and my phone, I tug on my hood and sprint through the rain, grateful that the stairs are covered.  When I get to our door, I knock and scan the area as I wait.  Unlike my outdoor apartment that I shared with Murph, with its individual walkways for each condo¸ this is indoor, much like a hotel, and is going to cost an easy thousand more than the apartment in Arizona that I shared with Murph.  When Blue opens the door wearing athletic pants that fit like a second skin, and an oversized T-shirt the color of sunset that’s slipping off one shoulder, I think it could cost two grand more and I’d still pay it.

             
She is a mortal danger to all men.  
The line from
Cyrano
runs through my head and b
efore either of us can think too much, I lean in and press my lips to hers, quick and firm.  My free hand reaches up to cup her cheek and I angle my head a little to the right, my tongue sweeping out and over her lips, drinking in the taste of her that’s haunted me for the past month while we’ve been apart.

Her hands come to my chest and I release her, but not before I place another peck on her lips.  I lean back and grin, happy despite her narrowed look.

“Hey, roomie.”

“Don’t expect to come home to a greeting like that again.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“Well, I am.  I’m serious, Jake,” she says.  “If this is going to work, you have to respect those boundaries we talked about.  That means not touching me.”

I hold out my hand.  “I know, and I promise, I will.  But it’s been a long damn month, Blue, and I’ve been on the road for two days.  The sight of you was just too much.”

As if to punctuate my words, Yogi mews and Cora’s eyes zero in on him.  They widen briefly and then come back to mine.  “What the hell is that?”

“Blue, meet Yogi.  He’s been with me since last year when I found him outside of the stadium in a cardboard box.  He was the only one left and I couldn’t leave him.”  When she just continues to stare, I bend down a little so I can meet her eyes.  “You’re not allergic, are you?”

She shakes her head no.  Then she looks back at Yogi and I see that small smile.  “A cat? Jesus, Handsome Jake, how did you ever get to player status while harboring a feline friend?”

              I leave Yogi and Blue to get acquainted while I make the trips to and from my old Rover to bring in my clothes and other things.  The big stuff was already shipped and moved into my room.  I don’t know if Cora told the movers where to put everything or if they decided on their own, but the bed in the center of one wall, facing the desk that’s against the window works fine for me, and I start dumping stuff on the floor around it.

              As I walk through the apartment each trip, I take in a little bit more of the space and the décor and I’m grateful for what I see.  Nothing is overly girly or fussy, and the color scheme appears to be neutral with bold slashes of royal blue and some lighter grays in fabrics and paint.  There’s an overstuffed chair with its back to the door, with a couch parallel and facing a wall where I assume the television will go (my television, as Cora’s is only thirty inches.  Please, my computer screen is bigger).  Both are oversized and done in some light fabric back cushion with a leather seat.

              I saw them in the picture Blue sent me, and I’m grateful to see now that they’re as big in person as they looked on the phone.  Dainty furniture doesn’t really fit me, literally or figuratively.

              After my last trip, I close the door to my room, knowing that until I get to unloading the boxes and putting it to rights, Blue will probably appreciate not staring at the mess.  Stripping off my wet jacket, I set it on the coat rack near the door and head into the kitchen where Yogi is digging into his dinner.  Cora’s standing at the stove stirring something that smells suspiciously healthy.

              “If I’d known you cooked, too, I’d have been here ages ago.  Ryan makes fun of his mama, but he’s no wiz in the kitchen.”

              I open the fridge and take out a beer I crammed in there earlier.  When I offer one to her, she shakes her head and I close the door, popping the top and draining half before I turn and lean against the counter.

              “What’s in the pot?”

              “Kale, white bean, and carrots with some rosemary and onion.”

              “No meat?”

              “When you cook, we can have meat, though I should warn you, I only eat happy meat.”

              I smile.  “Who doesn’t? Every cow deserves to have a smile on his face.”

              “
Organic, grass fed,
that sort of thing.  I don’t eat meat from farms or slaughterhouses that abuse or mistreat their animals or inject them with hormones.”

              “Does it say that on the packaging?”

              “It’ll say if the animal was humanely treated.”

              I sip from my beer and try to hide my smile.  Can’t, I just can’t.  “Aren’t they slaughtered and eaten no matter if they see a cage or a field?”

              Her eyes flash fire and I hold out my hands.  “Never mind.  Happy meat.  Got it.  Anything else I should know before we get too far into this relationship?”

              “It’s not a relationship, it’s a lease.”

              “Semantics again.  We’re roommates, Blue, which means we’re going to get to know each other, whether you want to or not.  Living in the same space is intimate no matter who it’s with.”

              She releases a breath and turns away from the stove to face me.  “You’re right, and I’m sorry, I know I’m being a bitch but I can’t seem to help myself.  You scare me, Handsome Jake, because you make me feel things I don’t want to feel.”

              I grin.  “Tell me where you feel them, maybe I can make it better.”

              “Interested,” she says on a laugh.  “You make me feel
interested
in whatever it is you’re offering me, and I don’t want to be interested.”

              I cross my feet at the ankles to keep my stance relaxed and non-threatening, but my body is humming.  My feelings shot past
interested
the first time I saw her, but it’s nice to know she’s catching up.  “Interest isn’t a bad thing, especially when it’s reciprocated.”

              She shakes her head.  “It is when you’re me.  Interest often leads to intent, which leads to action, action I’m not ready to take.”

             
Not ready.
  That’s a whole lot different than
not willing
, but I don’t call her on it.  Instead, I nod.  “Well, why don’t we try this? Let’s get to know each other, not because we’re roommates, but because I want to be friends too.”

              She watches me for a minute and then inclines her chin.  “I can live with that.  Where do we start?”

Chapter Twelve

Cora

“I’m not answering that.”

              “Blue, the game is
questions
, you can’t pass on every one I ask or it’s not a game, just a replay of my seventh grade year.”

              I laugh and stand up from the small table at the window to take our bowls to the sink.  He grabs the rest of the dishes from the table and follows me.  “Were you an awkward thirteen-year-old, Jake?”

              “I was smart and nice and I actually read the Harry Potter books instead of just seeing the movies and making fun of them, so it’s more like I was an oddity.  If it wasn’t for baseball, I would have gotten my ass kicked regularly; instead, I was just shot down a lot.  Mostly by your kind.”

              I laugh again and turn on the water to rinse, unsurprised when I feel him next to me, opening the dishwasher and holding out his hand for the dishes I’ve just cleaned.  “How did you go from being rejected all of the time to raking them in?” I ask, and his smile is slow and satisfied.

              “By realizing early on that girls thought they wanted a bad boy when really what they wanted was a boy who knew how to talk to them, to make them laugh and actually hear the things they said while still being a bit of a badass.  The whole voice-cracking thing quit by sophomore year — praise Jesus — and my dad got me into karate to help me control my limbs that were growing pretty rapidly.  By my junior year, I was coordinated and weighed a hundred and sixty-five pounds instead of the hundred and twenty I had arrived at high school weighing.  I made varsity as a sophomore and threw the ball just over eighty miles an hour.  The fact that I could quote poetry and remember what a girl said was really just icing on the cake.”

              “And so the legend was born.”

              He wiggles his eyebrows and I can’t help but laugh.  When I opened the door and saw him standing on the other side of it earlier, my heart actually leapt, which was probably why I didn’t see his move coming until our lips were fused — or why I didn’t reject it even when I did see it.  I’d missed him, which is insane and the reason for the cold shoulder I then doled out.

              Jake Ferrari is everything I shouldn’t want, mostly because he’s everything I’ve convinced myself is no longer a part of my life.  He’s fun, appears frivolous, though in the past hour he’s proven not only to be intelligent, but motivated, as he explained he’s only got four classes left to take in order to graduate with a BA in English Literature, a degree he promised himself he’d get, no matter where his future led him.  He’s laid back, but I’ve seen the serious side a few times, enough to know that when Jake cares, he cares with all of himself.

              His words from our conversation after the rehearsal dinner flit though my brain as they have multiple times in the past month. 
When I’m with a girl, she’s the only one I think about
.  It’s not hard to see that whoever he is, Jake isn’t careless with people’s feelings, especially those he considers important.  I can’t explain why I already feel important to him, any more than I can explain the absolute elation that thought brings.

              “Seriously, where do you get your pants?”

              I’m shaken out of my reverie when he repeats his asinine question.  “What is this fixation with my pants?”

              “You have a mirror, right?”

              I raise my brow at him, both impressed and a little irritated that he can deliver lines like that and not sound like an asshole.  “Lululemon.”

              “What the hell is that?”

              “Is that another question? Tell me, does this game ever end or do we just continue asking questions willy-nilly the entire time we’re roommates?”

              “Never ending, though it’s not really
willy-nilly
.  I’m building up here, making you comfortable. The purpose is to get the easy stuff out of the way so we can eventually get to the hard stuff that requires more than the name of a grocery store.”

              “It’s a clothing store.  What if I don’t want to answer the hard stuff?”

In the past hour we’ve talked about everything, asked silly questions, answered them, shared silly stories.  Being with Jake has reminded me of everything I missed out on the first time around — the conversations, the jokes, the comfort.  And it’s reminded me just how lonely I was before he walked through that door today.

              A year ago I was a wreck, a shattered mass of bad choices and even worse outcomes, and when I stopped being that person, when I learned how to make better decisions and actually think about what my choices would do to me and others, I promised myself I would never lose myself to my need for intimacy and connection again.

              Standing in the small kitchen with Jake while the late January rain continues to pelt the windows and the city lights illuminate the streets outside, I know he’s someone who could make me go back on my promise.  And as much as I want to just let go and enjoy this time with him, whatever it brings, I don’t ever want to fall back into the person I was, the one that latched onto a boy and a marriage because she was too lonely and insecure to find something for herself.  I don’t know if there’s a balance here, but I
do
know that something about Jake makes me want to look for one.

              “Well, I don’t believe I’ve asked you anything hard yet so you’re safe.”

              “I’m not so sure anymore,” I mumble and turn off the water.  Drying my hands on the towel that hangs over the oven, I take a deep breath and remind myself I’m in charge of my actions.  No one can make me do things I don’t want.

              “I think I’m going to head to bed.  Welcome to Oregon, Handsome Jake.”

              I’m halfway out of the kitchen when he says my name and stops me.  I turn my head and look at him, and for a second we’re both staring at one another and I feel that familiar pulse begin. 

              “Being with you, it’s the only thing I’ve thought about in the past month.” He says the words simply, and still, I feel the world change around me.  I want to deny them, to ask him to stop and think of what he could do to me, but that feels weak, and that’s one thing I don’t want to be anymore.  Since I can’t think of any way to respond, I do nothing.  He acknowledges this with a jut of his chin.  “You might not be the one to ask the questions, Cora, and you might be able to convince yourself you’re better alone, but we both know I’m here because the idea of being alone isn’t as appealing as it once was.  Not for either of us since the night we met.”

              I nod once and then turn and walk away, hardly breathing until the door to my bedroom is safely shut behind me.  Only then do I let out an expulsion of air and sink down onto my bed, breathing through the trembles that prove I’m anything but immune to him, anything but strong.  Jake Ferrari wants me, and he just insinuated that I want him back.  Closing my eyes, I cradle my head in my hands, thinking he’s exactly right.