Everything We Are

by Janci Patterson

  “No!” I say. “I mean, I like the kid. He’s smart and hilarious.” And tenacious as hell. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t given up on the idea of me being his dad. To the contrary, we’re probably encouraging him.

  “He is.” She looks like she wants to say something else, and I cock my head at her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Jenna says. “It’s just . . . that’s a big part of why things didn’t work out with Alec. He’s good to Ty, but me having a kid was definitely baggage, you know? Something he’d put up with to be with me, not because he was actually interested in being Ty’s father. And I wanted better for Ty.” She winces. “Not that I’m saying you need to—”

  “I would, though,” I say, my heart pounding as I feel the truth of those words, too. “I mean, if we were to work out. I’d want to be a part of his life, too.” I smile. “I don’t think he’d stand for anything else, do you?”

  A slow smile spreads across her face, and she puts her hand back on the table. “No, I don’t suppose he would.”

  I stare at it, and wish for all the world that I could take it in mine. We’re talking about a future now that goes far beyond the next four years, and I want to say exactly the right thing.

  But Jenna speaks first. “We can’t do four years of this.”

  “I know. I told Alec as much.” I gesture to her hair and clothes. “And if you’re trying to make me want you less, it isn’t working.”

  Jenna melts into her chair, and I’m glad I’m at least doing something right.

  “Also, what did you tell him gigolo means?”

  Jenna grins. “Someone who does a jig.”

  I groan. “That poor kid. Someday this misunderstanding is going to destroy him.”

  “I know. I’m a terrible parent. I just couldn’t sit through this game again without spicing it up a little.”

  “I warned you.”

  She elbows me. “Which you just have to keep reminding me, don’t you?”

  My skin tingles where her arm hit mine, and I lean back in my chair.

  “I’m going to put Ty to bed in a minute,” Jenna says. “He’s so close to winning, I think we can call it here.”

  I nod, and scoot back. “I should go.”

  “No,” Jenna says, and then, quieter, “would you stay?”

  I’m surprised she asked, and there’s no way I can turn her down. “Yeah, of course.”

  Jenna smiles.

  “I talked to Alec,” I say. “And he seems to have let go of the cello manager thing. So at least there’s that.”

  “Was he awful about it?”

  “No,” I say. “I may have told him how much I care about you.”

  Jenna looks surprised. “How’d he take that?”

  I shrug. “I’m pretty sure he thinks we’re idiots.”

  Jenna rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well. It’s mutual.”

  Ty comes barreling out of the bathroom, and Jenna spins around to face him. “It’s bedtime,” she says, cutting him off before he can leap back into his chair at the table. “Go get ready and then I’ll read to you.”

  Ty’s face falls, and then he glances at me. “Can Felix read to me?”

  Jenna looks at me.

  “Sure,” I say. “If you do what your mom says.”

  Ty races around the house between having a snack and getting into his pjs and brushing his teeth. When he’s done, he hands me a well-worn copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban.

  “Hey,” I say. “I’ve read this one. Who’s your favorite character?”

  “Hagrid,” Ty says.

  “Tell him why,” Jenna says, putting the pieces of Life back into the box.

  “Because he’s big,” Ty says. “So everywhere he goes, everything smushes him.”

  I smile. “But I bet he wouldn’t fit in a cello case.” I open to the chapter he bookmarked and start reading about Dementors and Patronuses and general defense against the Dark Arts. Jenna finishes cleaning up and curls up in the armchair across from us, listening. And I can’t help but feel for a moment as though we actually belong together, the three of us—and even if it’s only a glimpse, a taste of a potential future I want desperately but am unlikely ever to have, I’m still glad for it.

  After Jenna takes Ty up to bed, I stand at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her. “Are you sure you want me to stay?” I ask when she joins me. “Could be dangerous.”

  “I’m a grown-ass woman, you know. I can control myself.”

  I give her a weak smile. “Yeah. But I’ve had your voice running through my head all day telling me exactly what you want me to do to you . . .”

  “Yeah, well,” Jenna says. “I’ve been thinking I might need some more details about that conversation you had with Alec. Something about how much you care about me? I’m guessing you didn’t use the words emotional intimacy.”

  I laugh. “I did not.”

  “That’s good. There’s no possible way to explain it to him. I’m not sure there’s even a word for what we are.”

  My head spins, and I feel warm all over. “I think there might be. It’s two words, actually.”

  Jenna raises her eyebrows. “Oh?” She’s standing one step above me, and I could reach out right now and wrap my arms around her waist and sweep her into me and kiss her and never let her go.

  She gives me one of her trademark coy smiles. “Am I going to have to get it out of you?”

  That’s a dangerous proposition and I know it.

  Jenna takes the last step down. She’s so close I can smell that coconut shampoo Gabby was talking about, and all I want to do is reach out and hold her. I hate myself for what I’m about to say.

  “I really have to go,” I say. “Or I’m going to kiss you.”

  She looks up at me. “At least tell me what the two words are. Otherwise I’ll be up all night wondering.”

  I doubt that’s exactly what she’ll be thinking about all night—I already know what’s going to be running through my head. And maybe it’s because I’m not allowed to touch her, and this verbal intimacy is the only kind we’re allowed, but the words fall right out of my mouth. “Soul mates,” I say.

  She makes this small noise. “You think so?”

  “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “Soul mates,” Jenna says, barely above a whisper, and she reaches for my hand. Her touch sets my whole body tingling, and I swear the lights are growing brighter and the whole world is growing softer around the edges and I reach out and take her other hand.

  I’m dizzy, and the room is spinning, and my face dips toward hers before I catch myself. I groan and take a step back, rubbing my forehead. “If we’re going to follow the rules, we need to have these conversations over the phone. If we keep doing this, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

  Jenna presses her lips together, and then she takes one step closer. I can feel the heat from her body, and it lights a fire in mine. “Honestly,” she says, “I’ve had it with Alec and his stupid rules that only give him what he wants.” She slides her hand up my arm.

  I can’t take it anymore. I wrap my arms around her waist, push back a damp tendril of hair that’s fallen out of its elastic band, and press my lips against hers. Kissing Jenna feels like coming home after a long time away. It’s warm and familiar and wonderful and as natural as breathing.

  And then the door opens, and Alec walks in. Jenna and I both turn, but Jenna holds onto me, and we don’t step apart. Alec gives us a dark look, and then hangs up his keys. He walks in a wide circle around us and heads up the stairs.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Jenna asks after him.

  Alec doesn’t even turn around. “I don’t have anything to say I haven’t already said.” He walks up the stairs, and his boots clomp down the hall above us.

  F
or a second, Jenna and I just stand there, our arms still around each other.

  “I should still go,” I say. “Because we both know where this is going to lead, and I still can’t stand the thought of being with you just once.”

  “I’m done with the rules,” Jenna says.

  “Me, too. But unless you’re done pretending to be with Alec, unless you’re done with the band, what are we going to do? As much as I hate to say it, Alec is right. If we sneak around, we’re going to get caught.”

  Jenna leans against my chest. Having her this close takes my breath away, but I know I’m right. I want to hold on to what I felt at the hotel. I love her and I want to do right by her, not throw everything away on one night.

  “What if you stayed here?” Jenna says. “Like, in the guest room, officially. We can tell people our new cellist needed a place to live, and you can sleep in my room at night, and Alec can deal with it.”

  My heart beats faster. There has to be a catch, some reason this can’t work.

  “We’d be able to keep this up longer that way,” I say. “Don’t you think?”

  “Definitely,” Jenna says.

  “Still, though. Probably not four years.”

  “Probably not. But I’ve been unhappy this last year, and even before that. I don’t want to keep going with the five year plan.”

  I press my forehead to hers. “Maybe we could make it through the tour, and then figure out our exit strategy.”

  Jenna holds her breath, and for a terrifying minute, I’m sure she’s going to say no. That’s fast—just a few months, where until today we were looking at years.

  “Okay,” Jenna says, quietly. “So you’ll stay.”

  Chills run down my body. “God, yes. Please let me stay.”

  Jenna leans in and kisses me again, but I cut it short.

  “You have to tell Alec,” I say. “I really do not want to be interrupted when he realizes he has more stuff to say.”

  She grins and bites her lip. “I’ll tell him.”

  And I follow her up the stairs, stunned, lightheaded, and still unsure that I’m not downstairs dreaming on her couch.

  Twenty-one

  Felix

  I follow Jenna into her bedroom, where she walks across the room and opens the opposite door, leading into Alec’s overlarge closet. Jenna’s room is dominated by her white, fluffy comforter and a large white dresser with a geometric black tree painted across the front of it. Papers sit haphazardly on the nightstand, a mix of sheet music and scribbled notes and what looks like recipe cards. Draped over her lampshade are a couple macaroni necklaces, the kind I remember making in kindergarten. Her room is all bold contrasts and soft corners and homey lived-in warmth, whereas from what little I can see of Alec’s room through the open door, I can tell it’s black satin bedding and wallpapered with concert posters.

  “Felix is staying the night,” Jenna says, and while I can’t fully see Alec, he manages to shift angrily.

  “Fine,” he says. His television switches on. Loudly.

  Jenna closes the door again, and locks it from her side.

  “Is he trapped in there?” I ask.

  “No. He has a key. It’s just like a warning thing. I’ll unlock it before we go to sleep.”

  I stand stupidly at the edge of her bed, while Jenna glances around as if scanning for anything embarrassing she might have accidentally left out. The idea of falling asleep here should be thrilling—and it is, so much so that my brain seems to have gotten a swimmer’s cramp and is currently drowning in a sea of its own anticipation.

  Then I remember I don’t have a condom. I have the ones that were dropped in my cello case but those are currently sitting in my car in the summer heat.

  “Um,” I say. “I don’t have a, do you have any—” My mouth turns into taffy and I choke on my own words.

  Jenna gives me a weak smile. “I do.” She motions toward the nightstand. “In the drawer.” She takes a step toward me, and rests her hands lightly on my arms. “You have done this before, right? Because you seemed to know what you were talking about, so I assumed you weren’t a virgin.”

  I look up at the ceiling. “I wasn’t this nervous when I was.”

  Jenna smiles at me like this is the cutest thing she’s ever heard, and rocks up onto her toes and kisses me.

  Which is exactly what I need. All the passion and longing of the last few days crash down on me, and we kiss like long-lost lovers who’ve only just found each other again.

  Her body presses against mine and I’m riding a high like nothing I’ve ever felt—certainly not on heroin. Drugs dull my senses, turning me on to a world that’s intangibly happy and all-consuming. The feeling of having Jenna in my arms is sharp and real—like I’m a piece of a puzzle that’s just snapped into place and all around me the picture is coming together. I lose track of time, feeling for all the world like I could just get lost in this kiss and never want more.

  And then she pulls me down on top of her on the bed, and damn if I don’t want a whole lot more. She pulls off my shirt and runs her hands up my chest and my whole body is singing, like we’re two frequencies vibrating together in a perfect harmony.

  Gunshots and screams ring out from Alec’s television, and I jump and then glare at the door.

  Jenna laughs. “It’s better than the sounds that sometimes come out of there,” she says, and I laugh with her. Frankly, most of Los Angeles could be engulfed in riots and bombing and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere besides right where I am. Jenna sets her glasses on the nightstand, on top of the pile of papers, and then she lifts off her shirt and pulls me under the covers with her. We both shed our pants and there’s just thin layers of cotton between us and I’m lost to everything but the heat of our skin and the chorus of screams and death coming from Alec’s side of the wall.

  Jenna moans softly and I know she can feel how much I want her, and I’m struck with the need for her to know how much being with her transcends all my past experience. I pull back and run my hand through her hair, which has already fallen out of its loose bun. Jenna looks over at the door to Alec’s room again and then gives me an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry about that,” she says. “We can take the guest room if you want.”

  But she misunderstands. I look into her eyes, and like my therapist recommends, I’m honest about my emotions.

  “I figured out what that third thing is,” I say, my previous fears distant, muted by the feel of her in my arms.

  Jenna smiles at me, her expression hopeful. “Yeah? What is it?”

  And I can’t hold this one back, not anymore. “I love you more than anything.”

  Jenna makes a soft whimpering sound, and she wraps her legs tight around me. “I love you, too, Felix,” she says, and god, I could live off those words, if I could hear them every day for the rest of my life.

  And then the sweet harmony overwhelms even Alec’s soundtrack, and nothing exists in the world besides me and her. My whole consciousness is drowning in her touch, in the sensation of her fingers dipping below the elastic band of my boxers. I smile into her hair. There’s something I’ve been wanting to do ever since we first met on Hollywood Boulevard. Jenna looks up at me, her expression turning to a question, like she doesn’t know what the hell I’m grinning about, like just being here with her like this—god, with her at all—isn’t enough.

  And then my hand slides down the soft skin of her stomach and into her underwear, and her head leans back and she shudders. I think I see a smile pass across her lips just before her mouth opens and she gasps and slides her underwear off and out of my way.

  I can take a hint. I slide my other arm behind her, cradling her, kissing her neck while she moans and arches under me, and my whole body is humming in tune with hers. I kiss the tops of her breasts, closing my eyes and focusing on her breathing, the way she gasps and moans, liste
ning carefully and letting her tell me what she likes. Jenna’s hands are in my hair, and I’m focused like I am when I’m learning a new piece, but there is no music in this world as sexy as her body taut beneath me and the frantic, desperate crescendo of her voice calling my name. I don’t mean to stop, but Jenna rises beneath me, rolling me over onto my back, her breath still ragged. Her knees rest on either side of me, and I stare up at her, awestruck.

  Jenna’s hair gathers on her shoulders in dark waves. Her breath comes fast as she reaches past my shoulder to the nightstand, opens the drawer, and pulls out a condom. I run my hands up her thighs as she tears open the wrapper, and my eyes blink closed as she rolls it on me and now it’s her hands that are lingering, doing things that make my whole body shudder. The whole world fills with light, and then I’m inside her, and her hands are on my shoulders and we’re moving together. And I get it, everything I’ve ever heard about sex but never really understood—even before the drugs, when it was good, sure, but not as life changing as everyone said. It’s like some part of my soul has been asleep, waiting all along to be woken up by her.

  I kiss her, wishing I could tell her everything she is to me, but even if I could utter the words, I don’t know what they are. Our rhythm intensifies, and Jenna cries out and collapses on top of me. My hands are in her hair, and I’m still inside her, but her body goes weak, and I kiss her forehead, feeling the beads of sweat in her hairline. She looks up at me.

  And a shot of panic stabs me right in the heart.

  God. The Suboxone. It clearly doesn’t give me the same impotence problems as the heroin, but there were also the times on the drugs when I did manage to get it up and still couldn’t finish. I flush at the memories of the girls I was with, some of whom would try for over an hour, and I’d still be hard. My throat closes. If that happens now, god, what am I going to tell her? It would kill me to lie to her, but as she trembles against me, I’m thinking about telling her now, at this minute, about the terrible things I’ve done and now my heart is racing for an entirely different reason.

  Then Jenna smiles, and kisses me, and our passion pulls me under like an enormous wave. It’s okay I’m not finished, because neither is she. We’re rolling together, and now I’m on top of her, and we’re moving again like a tide washed all the way out, and now coming rapidly in. I kiss Jenna’s ear, whispering her name, and I feel myself approaching the wall built by heroin, the one I haven’t broken through during actual intercourse in years. I squeeze my eyes closed as her body tenses and her breath grows sharp, waiting to slam up against it.