Catch Me Twice

by Charmaine Pauls

  “Why? Because it’s what you don’t want to hear? Because you’re afraid of the truth?”

  “You can’t be in love with me.” Tears blur my vision. An old wound reopens even as he offered me comfort not a second ago. “Not if you’ve fucked fifty other women.”

  He winces as if I slapped him. “They didn’t mean a thing. I swear it to you.”

  I can’t think about it. I can’t let him see how it affects me, because that will mean I care. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “So you said, but it obviously does.”

  I turn for Noah, but he grabs my arm.

  “I don’t even know their names.”

  “Let me go. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Yes, you do. Every single time I fucked one of those nameless, faceless women, it was you I thought about, you who crowded my head.”

  This is as much as I can take. Jerking free, I turn my back on him and walk to Noah, battling to get my emotions under control.

  To Jake’s credit, he gives me a moment. He doesn’t approach me until I’ve blinked away my tears.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he says to my back. “That’s not why I came.”

  Flinging around, I ask, “Why did you?”

  “To ask if I may take Noah swimming.”

  “What?”

  “I guess now is as good a time as any to teach him how to swim.”

  “After what happened yesterday?” I exclaim.

  Crossing his arms, he gives me a determined look. “You know what they say about getting back on the horse.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “If he hates it, we’ll stop.”

  “We?”

  “I assume you’re not going to let me visit with him alone.” He adds softly, hopefully, “Not just yet.”

  “You’re right. It’s too early.”

  “Go on then. Get your bathing suits. I’ll wait.”

  “Now?”

  “You also know what they say about there being no time like the present.”

  Can I dare it alone with Jake? What if the same happens as yesterday? “Let me check if my mom can come.”

  He gives me a knowing smirk. “Afraid you’ll jump my bones?”

  “Jake! Not in front of Noah.”

  “Sorry.” He lifts a brow, giving me a look that’s meant to be humorous but that turns out devastatingly sexy. “Afraid you won’t be able to resist me?”

  “Not by a long shot,” I lie.

  “Then hurry. I remember something about Noah bawling when he gets hungry, and we barely have an hour before lunchtime.”

  He all but steamrollers us to the trailer, watching me with his piercing gaze while I hastily bundle a towel and floaties for Noah into a bag, as well as water and snacks. Despite my unease to be alone with Jake, I do agree with him. I do believe it’s important that Noah learns to swim. I’ve never been a good swimmer myself. How can I forget Jake is excellent at it?

  Gina says she has a date with Eddie to celebrate coming out of the closet about their secret affair and gives me a speculative look when I tell her out of Jake’s earshot that our outing is only about teaching Noah to swim and nothing else. She waits with Jake and Noah in the trailer while I pull on my bikini, a T-shirt, and a pair of shorts in the bathroom. I appreciate the fact that Jake has gotten a car seat for the rental, as mine is in Luan’s car.

  Jake turns on the music for the drive. A nursery rhyme starts playing.

  “You’re maybe taking things a little too far,” I say, smothering a laugh.

  He gives me a mock-innocent look. “I read up about kids who speak late. Music can be very helpful.”

  “Indeed.”

  Noah seems to be enjoying the song, swinging his feet to the beat.

  At the lake, I almost regret my decision when Jake strips down to his boxer briefs. He’s bulkier than before, the muscles of his chest and back cut deeper. His tall body is perfectly proportioned, down to the bulge in the boxers. He’s sinfully beautiful, the unfair kind that will always make a woman feel insecure about rival female attention. His adolescent broodiness has ripened into a very mature, very male darkness, an underlying current of socially unacceptable sexuality, and it both attracts and frightens me.

  “What happened to bathing suits?” I barely make the accusation pass for humor.

  “Didn’t pack one.” He grins. “Look at it this way. I could’ve swum naked.”

  Biting my lip, I busy myself by fixing Noah’s floaties so I don’t have to look at Jake’s near-naked, all-perfect body.

  After yesterday’s incident, Noah is apprehensive, but he loves water enough to allow Jake to carry him into the shallow end. For a while, they play, splashing water and chasing dragonflies until Noah is completely comfortable. Jake only lets go of him for a second or two, until Noah understands the floaties will prevent him from sinking. He’s only ever been in the public pool with me twice, and even if he wore his floaties then, I never let go of him. As soon as he gets the notion, his confidence increases considerably. It doesn’t take long before Jake can let Noah kick and splash on his own.

  I sit on the shore, watching them, the view warming as well as tightening my chest. My heart is a mixture of pinches and gentle caresses, of hurt and something so profound I can’t call it happiness, because it exceeds happiness to border on pain.

  “Come on in,” Jake calls, brushing back the wet locks of his dark hair. “I can do with a hand.”

  Jake never needs a hand. He’s got everything under control. Besides, I’m not showing off my imperfections in the shadow of his god-like body.

  “You’ve got this,” I call back.

  He stops to look at me but holds on to Noah’s hand as he takes his eyes momentarily off our son. “It’s a defining moment. You don’t want to miss out.”

  Shit. He’s right. My son is learning to swim, and I’m worried about my flab. What a dork. Getting to my feet, I strip down to my bikini quickly. Screw this. I don’t care what Jake thinks about my after-baby body, because he’s not the man whose opinion matters. It’s Luan’s. When I step up to the shore, getting ready to dive, who matters and who doesn’t disappear from the equation. What I see in Jake’s troubled eyes matters. It matters too much to ignore. Slowly, he drags his gaze over my body, from my toes to my breasts. His attention pauses there for a moment, and when he finally meets my eyes, I’m scorched by the heat that sizzles in his russet depths.

  No man has ever looked at me like this, as if he’s in pain, as if he’s dying and the remedy lies between my legs. I’m not strong enough to deal with this. I’m not confident enough to stand under his scrutiny and face the flames of a fire for which I’m way too inexperienced.

  Breaking the spell, I jump. It’s clumsy. There’s nothing sexy or smooth about me as I come up, spitting water. At least the cold shock is exactly what I need. What I don’t need is the strong arm coming around my waist, dragging me against a warm, hard body, and the deep voice that presses soft words to my ear, words full of feeling and overflowing with meaning.

  “You all right, ginger?”

  I cough. “Yes.”

  He chuckles. “That was a mighty water bomb.”

  “You can let go now. I found my balance.”

  Another rumble vibrates in his chest, but he obliges, allowing me to put distance between us. Noah splashes happily, excited that I’ve joined the party.

  Taking his hands, Jake pulls him to his chest before turning him around. “Let’s see if you can swim to Mommy.”

  It becomes a new game, Noah swimming to and fro between us. When his lips turn blue, I call it a day. Jake gives me a push to help me out before lifting Noah onto the side. After drying and dressing Noah, I give him water and apple slices, which he chews on hungrily while Jake and I dress.

  Noah falls asleep in the car on the way home. Somehow, Jake manages to lift him from the car seat and lay him down in his crib without waking him, something I’ve never managed. When I comment on it, he
says Noah is probably just exhausted from the exercise, but I can’t help but notice how his chest swells with pride.

  After the trouble Jake has gone to for Noah, I feel obliged to invite him for lunch. It’s not the holiday season. There’s no one staying in the trailer park except for Shiny and us, but a few people are lighting fires at the barbecue area next to the river. It’s not uncommon for people to come here on the weekends for a picnic, but my guess is they’re mostly here out of curiosity about what happened at the lake and Jake’s sudden return to town.

  Jake offers to build a fire and grill pork chops while Noah naps. I agree to make a potato salad. It’s not until Jake is outside that I check my phone. Crap. I have three missed calls from Luan. With the tense conversation Jake and I had, and then the swimming adventure, I’ve shamefully pushed Luan from my mind. Or maybe I selfishly held onto the stolen time with Jake and Noah, reluctant to let the outside world in. Unable to ignore the rest of the world any longer, I dial Luan.

  “I was worried about you,” he says after a polite greeting.

  The bubble in which only Jake, Noah, and I existed bursts, and a fresh spell of guilt brings me back to the harshness of reality. “Jake showed up. We took Noah swimming.”

  There’s the tiniest of cracks in Luan’s habitual patience. “You could’ve called.”

  My defensiveness rises. “You could’ve come over.”

  “You know I can’t do that. Giving you a lift as a concerned employer is one thing, but visiting you blatantly on a Sunday—”

  “Yes, I know. You’re worried about what people will think.”

  “What will people think if Jake starts to visit?”

  “He’s coming to see Noah.”

  There’s a lie to that, and the silence that follows tells me Luan knows.

  “I hate that I can’t see you,” he says, adding an extra dose of guilt to my conscience as I stare out the window to where Jake is stacking coals for a fire.

  “You can,” I say softly, hoping Luan will for once throw caution to the wind and save me from the treacherous feelings growing in the dark corners of my heart. I pray he’ll defy his reputation, if only for today, and give me a speck of imperfection, a speck of dare, a speck of the darkness I crave, but my hope shrivels when he replies.

  “It’s not proper.”

  To hell with proper. Why can’t he behave improper, only this once?

  “What are you doing, Kristi?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you giving people reason for gossip?”

  “I don’t give a damn about gossip. This is about Noah.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes!”

  Another short silence. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  Sometimes, Luan drives me crazy with his righteous behavior. “Yes, we have to talk.” I’ll have to tell him I kissed Jake. “We also have to talk about what you said to Jake.”

  “I didn’t say anything wrong.”

  “You owe him an apology.”

  “I disagree.”

  “I’m not going to argue about this on the phone.”

  “If Jake signed the divorce papers, we wouldn’t be having the argument over the phone, because I’d be able to see you on the weekend like any normal boyfriend.”

  Taking a deep breath, I blow it out slowly. “I can’t do this right now.”

  “You’re right. We’re talking in circles again. We’ll talk tomorrow after work.”

  After work. It’s a subtle way of saying work is more important. Always. “If you can wait that long.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” I rub a hand over my forehead. “I just have a lot to handle at the moment.”

  He asks about Noah in the fleeting way politeness requires, and when we say goodbye I’m agitated with Luan in a way I’ve never been.

  Jake

  There was a time I despised this town. There was a time I pitied the people who live here, believing them small-minded with no ambition or drive, but as I put the meat on the grill and watch folks mingle around their own fires and picnic tables, I begin to suspect I’m the loser. They’re happy. They’re settled. They have normal families. They have fathers who care and mothers who didn’t have to raise them alone. They work in the brick factory, but they come home to their kids and play rugby with them on a Sunday. The only outsider without ambition or purpose is me. Whatever I was chasing seems like the wind while their roots, belonging, love, and stability are the true things, the only things, that matter.

  I look away from the curious stares, pretending to turn the meat. Pretending not to envy them. Pretending I don’t give a fuck is tough when Kristi’s letters shred me to pieces. She wrote every week. Every month, she sent a photo. She held onto my promise that I’d be back for her and our baby. Every month, that hope faded. The beauty of her letters was slowly scraped away, a new layer coming off between Christmas and January until it was nothing but impersonal reporting by Easter. Then that final one that said so little and yet so much, telling me with a single sentence she was going to stop writing. What that one line on a white piece of paper couldn’t hide was the mountains of heartache underneath. Like an iceberg, she gave me the tip but kept the biggest part to herself. I have more than regret and guilt in my heart. I have admiration. I appreciate her so fucking much for the woman she is. Just like her mother. She’s a fighter, a survivor, and a man like me can only hope she’d give me the time of day. I can’t take four years and one sentence scribbled on a white piece of paper away, but I can try to make it right.

  “Back for good?” a voice asks behind me.

  I turn. Jan stands on the riverbank, a bottle of beer in his hand. He holds the bottle out to me. I look from the beer to his face. Remembering what he did to Kristi, I want to break that bottle on his nose.

  He lifts a palm. “Peace? We were all young and stupid.”

  “Is that your way of apologizing?”

  “I’ve already apologized many times over.” He shrugs. “Kristi is a good woman.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  “Come on, Jake. It’s not as if you never fucked up.”

  No, innocence is a label I’ll never have the honor of wearing.

  “Take the beer, man,” he says. “Everyone’s looking. Don’t make me stand here like an idiot.”

  After another beat’s hesitation, I take the beer.

  He nods toward one of the picnic tables where a woman and three kids are sitting. “That’s mine. Hooked up with Sally straight after school.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah. They’re great kids.”

  “Good for you.”

  “So, what brought you back to town?”

  My gaze drifts to Kristi’s trailer. I take a swig of the beer while contemplating my answer. Kristi won’t appreciate my honesty. Small town, gossip, and all that. “Kid.”

  “Guess you were busy in Dubai, huh?”

  Too busy to visit in four years. “Something like that.”

  “A word of warning, bro.” His eyes crinkle as he glances toward the trailer. “A lot of okes have tried their luck with Kristi.”

  I clench the bottle so hard my knuckles crack. “Anyone I need to kill?” I’m not even half-joking.

  He chuckles. “No one’s hit the jackpot, but if you’re planning on sticking around, you better make this marriage of yours real. A lot of guys still have their aims set on Kristi.”

  “Not going to happen,” I say, taking another drink and giving him a look that says I’ll fucking kill anyone who brings his dick near my wife.

  “There’s talk about her boss, Luan Steenkamp. He drives her and Noah around all the time.”

  The only reason Luan isn’t dead yet is because he’s a pussy and a ten commandments abider who won’t commit adultery. I can’t deny the allegation of Luan and Kristi being an item yet. I’m not sure enough of myself. Kristi is s
till too set on kicking my ass straight back to Dubai.

  He takes a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, flips the lid, and holds it out. “Smoke?”

  I’m so blinded by jealousy, I don’t register the offer. I only realize he’s standing there with his outstretched arm, clutching a packet of Winston, when Kristi exits the trailer with a bowl in her arms.

  Not taking my gaze off her, I say, “I’m good.”

  He flips a cigarette between his lips and says from the corner of his mouth, “You’re fucked, Basson. Good luck on winning her back.” Then more jovially as Kristi comes within earshot, “Hey, Pretorius. How’s Noah?”

  She gives him a cool smile. “Good. Thanks for asking.”

  He salutes her. “I’ll let you folks get back to your lunch.”

  She watches his back as he saunters off to his family. “What did he want?”

  “Wanted to know what I was doing here.”

  She looks at me quickly. “What did you say?”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him I’m back for you.”

  She dumps the bowl on the picnic table. “You’re not back for me.”

  Before she can move, I grab her nape and pull her flush against my body. Her eyes go wide as she stares up at me with a startled expression.

  “Then tell me why I’m here.” The words are a challenge, a dare.

  “To sign the divorce papers,” she whispers, her gaze flittering beyond my back, no doubt to the people who are watching, even as she pushes with futile effort on my chest.

  I lower my head to hers. “Wrong answer.” The words ghost over her lips a second before I bring down my mouth, kissing her right there for everyone to see. Staking my fucking claim.

  I don’t part her lips, but the kiss lasts longer than the acceptable peck in public. When I let go, she gasps, indignity sparking in her eyes.

  “You don’t want to make a scene,” I warn, not resisting the urge to press my erection against her soft belly. “It’ll only make it worse.”

  “You’re a bastard,” she says through clenched teeth.

  Sadly, yes. Slapping her ass, I let the nuance of my words slip into my tone as I say softly enough for only her to hear, “A hungry one,” and loud enough for everyone else, “Where’s that potato salad you bragged about?”