Middle of Knight

by Jewel E. Ann

  “I have a shitload of scripture in my head that’s been drilled into me over the years. Sorry, I meant a lot … not a shitload. Hope I didn’t offend you.”

  She tipped her chin down to bite back a smile. “No offense taken. I’m sure you’re more than covered in the area of forgiveness for that minor sin.”

  “Are you and your husband originally from Nebraska?”

  Her body stiffened. Even then, years later, the word husband made her flinch.

  “I’m … not married.” Divorce elicited scowls of disapproval in the religious world, she’d save that topic for later or preferably never. “And I’m originally from Atlanta.”

  “I see, well … I’ll let you do your thing. Maybe I’ll just play the piano. Any requests?”

  She shrugged. “Surprise me.”

  *

  The woman who could be a game changer wasn’t married. That was good, but her anti-sex, gospel-music-playing personality presented a bit more of a challenge than he anticipated. Jackson had committed to not being a man whore, but that didn’t mean he’d submitted his application for sainthood.

  He played one classical piece after another, tracking her every move as she floated around scrubbing, dusting, mopping, and sweeping. She finished in the main room as if to not disturb him until she had no other choice. They smiled politely at each other as she dusted Black Beauty. God, he loved her eyes and the way she incessantly wet her lips if he stared too long.

  She squatted down, disappearing beneath the piano. “I’m just dusting the legs and pedals … I uh, don’t want to you think I’m trying to do anything inappropriate here.”

  He grinned. “I wouldn’t stop you if you were.”

  “Ouch!” she seethed after a loud thump.

  He leaned down to look at her. “Are you okay?”

  Balancing on her knees and one hand while her other hand rubbed her head, she squinted her eyes a bit. He tried to focus on her head but the view down her shirt to her pink sports bra and just a tease of cleavage, which also had a smattering of freckles, enticed him in a sex-deprived way. By the time he tore his eyes away from her breasts, she stared at him in shock. Clearly, he’d offended her.

  “Do you need an icepack?” He sat up with a guilty grimace. Jillian would kill him if their cleaning lady quit on the first day, claiming sexual harassment.

  Ryn crawled out and stood, one hand still on her head, the other pressing the neck of her shirt firm to her chest. “I’ll be fine.” She focused on the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but him. “I’m going to run the vacuum and then I’ll be done.”

  He relocated to the kitchen while she vacuumed. Time evaporated faster than his mind could conjure a plan. He had to think of something to say before she left and most likely would never come back.

  Tick-tock, he grimaced with defeat as she shut off the vacuum and wound up the hose and cord.

  “Mother fucking idiots!” Jillian grumbled, opening the front door.

  Ryn’s eyes popped out of her head. Jackson closed his. He no longer needed to worry about being the responsible party for Ryn quitting. Jillian swooped in just in time to take that honor with her sailor’s tongue.

  “Oh, hey, Ryn.” Jillian stepped inside, holding the screen door open with the backside of her body while she smacked the soles of her shoes together. “I hate it when they spread those stupid fertilizer pellets then takeoff without using a broom or blower on the driveway and sidewalk. Now they’re stuck like shit to the bottom of my shoes and if it rains they’ll discolor the cement.”

  “Jill … not the best word choice.” He gave Ryn an apologetic look. She returned one that looked just as pained.

  “Sorry, I always say that wrong. They’ll discolor the concrete … I know, cement is the powdered form. It’s like the whole itch versus scratch thing.” She shut the door and looked up. “So how’d it go today?”

  Ryn forced a smile. “Fine. Look around after I leave and let me know if there’s something I missed or that you’d like me to do different next time.”

  Jackson sighed with relief from the promise of next time.

  “Thanks, Ryn.” Jillian held the door open. “Jesus, Jackson, don’t just stand there. Help her take her stuff out.”

  “Oh yeah.” He jumped out of his daze and grabbed the other bucket and vacuum.

  “Sorry about your head.” He handed her the rest of the supplies as she loaded everything into the back of her white RAV4.

  “It was my fault.” She closed the back door and leaned against it with her arms trapped behind her. “You caught me off guard when you said…” she glanced up with a sheepish look “…what you did.”

  Wearing a guilty half-smile, he shoved his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “Yeah, I was completely out of line.”

  “It’s fine. I applaud you for your commitment. A vow of celibacy at your age must be difficult sometimes.”

  Jackson bent down, cocking his head to bring his ear closer to her face. “What did you just say?”

  “I said it must be difficult,” she answered with breathy words, eyes on his mouth.

  “No, before that.” He squinted.

  She mirrored his expression. “The part about me commending you for your commitment to God?”

  “What commitment to God?”

  Her eyes darted to one side and then the other before meeting his again. “Uh … the vow of celibacy.”

  “Who told you about that?”

  Ryn’s body sank until the bumper halted her descent. “Jillian,” she replied in a small voice.

  “She told you I took a vow of celibacy?”

  Ryn nodded as her nose scrunched.

  “So you thought what? That I’m a priest or something?”

  Another uncomfortable nod.

  Jackson stepped back, giving her space. The dots connected themselves. “Tell me … did you go to church last weekend?”

  Ryn shook her head, eyes wide.

  “The weekend before that?”

  Another shake.

  Jackson chuckled. “Give me your keys.” He held out his hand.

  “Why?”

  “Just give them to me.”

  She set them in his hand. Fear painted her face in crimson as he slid in the front seat and turned the key. The radio blared with Adam Levine complaining about the summer hurting like a motherfucker.

  Ryn covered her face with her hands. Jackson stepped out and peeled them away. She kept her eyes set firm to the driveway.

  “Doesn’t sound like gospel to me.”

  She shook her head. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  He bent down and whispered in her ear. “See you next week, my child.”

  *

  After a cold shower to relieve the flush of embarrassment and to temper her riled up libido, Ryn grabbed an iced tea, a good book, and planted her ass on her front porch swing with Gunner at her feet. The day would go down in history as: Ryn is An Idiot Day. Somewhere between graduating high school, getting pregnant, and marrying Satan, she lost her normalcy gene. Preston physically beat it out of her, leaving a wreckage of insecurity, fear, and social awkwardness like an abused animal whose tail never wagged.

  “Hey, Ryn. How was your day?” her neighbor, Drew, asked as he walked up the sidewalk from his mailbox.

  “I’ve had better,” she answered on a laugh.

  Her handsome forty-something neighbor leaned against the railing to her porch steps. “Sounds like a story.”

  She teased Gunner’s ear with her toes and smiled. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “If not for religious reasons, why would a guy take a vow of celibacy?”

  Drew chuckled, scratching his head then leaving his salt and pepper hair a bit ruffled. He was Dermot Mulroney’s twin, especially that sexy crooked smile.

  “I thought maybe you were going to ask me why the clover seems to be taking over our lawns this year.”

  “Yeah, that too, but first answer the celibacy qu
estion.” She grinned.

  “Okay, well maybe the guy has STDs or he’s afraid of getting them. Maybe he has an unhealthy attachment to sex or …”

  “Or what?”

  A sadness stole Drew’s handsome features. “Maybe he lost a lover.” Cancer stole Drew’s wife a year earlier.

  “Drew, I didn’t mean to—”

  He shook his head. “You didn’t. It’s fine.” He shrugged one shoulder. “But it could be the reason.”

  Ryn nodded. Could Jackson have lost a wife or girlfriend?

  “Have a seat.” She stood and walked to the front door. “I’ll get you a beer.” Her lips twisted to the side as she looked at him. “Maybe two.”

  A few minutes later, she returned with two bottles of beer.

  “Thanks.”

  Gunner waited until she sat down before resuming his spot at her feet.

  “So you have a thing for a guy who’s taken a vow of celibacy?”

  Ryn laughed. “He’s younger than me. I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to have a thing for him.”

  “So? My wife was almost ten years younger than me.”

  “Really?” Ryn looked at him with wide eyes. “I never knew that. Then again when you moved here she was going through chemo and …”

  “And the fucking poison stole her hair and eventually her life.”

  “Yeah, that.” She frowned.

  After a long pull of his beer, he sighed. “I was thirty-one when we met. She was my student when I taught an intro to business class at a community college.”

  “Sounds scandalous.”

  Drew chuckled. “Her parents were not happy. At our wedding when the minister asked who gives this woman, her dad just grunted.”

  “No!”

  “I’m serious. We were married five years before he stopped scowling at me.”

  “That’s just it. I can’t imagine dating someone significantly younger than me. Not to be sexist, but I think older women dating younger men get more scowls than the other way around. Obviously your in-laws weren’t this way, but most people don’t think much of the older-man-younger-woman relationship these days.”

  “So how young are we talking?” Drew asked.

  Ryn smiled while taking a sip of her iced tea. “I don’t know. Thirty-ish? But I could be off and I don’t think in my direction. With my luck he’s in his mid-twenties and the perfect guy for Maddie.” She waved a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t matter. He’s celibate.” She laughed. “Of course I have been lately too.”

  “When I turned forty my wife swore I had a midlife crisis. I swore forty was too young to be considered ‘midlife.’ We’d been trying to get pregnant but it just never happened. So I told her to quit her job—she was an accountant and hated it anyway—and we traveled the world for two years living like gypsies. We left our naked ass prints on many beaches.” Drew wiggled his brows.

  Ryn laughed.

  “We would have stayed longer, but that’s when they discovered her cancer. We were in France. I berated myself for being so reckless. Had we just stayed home, maybe they would have found it sooner. But she refused to regret any of it. She said my midlife crisis was the best two years of her life. She said she’d never felt so alive and we all deserve to feel that way at least once. After all, why the hell else are we here?”

  Ryn loved that story. But what she loved the most was how many times Drew had told it to her. Each time it felt like the first, and each time he came up with a new moral.

  “So you think I should leave my ass print on the beach.” She said that every time too, but it was never the moral.

  “Exactly.”

  Ryn gasped. “Seriously?”

  Drew smiled and nodded, looking off into the sunset while sipping his beer. “Rob the cradle, have sex on the beach, and fucking embrace your forties. You’re at your prime, Ryn. What do you have to lose at this point?”

  A lot, starting with her dignity and her mind. Maybe he made a valid point. There was just one problem. The cradle she wanted to rob had a warning sign that said “celibate.”

  Chapter Five

  “Your favorite neighbor just pulled in his garage,” Jackson announced as he came in the back door, dripping with sweat.

  Jillian didn’t care, at least that’s what she told herself every morning to muster the strength to get out of bed.

  “No response?” He plopped down in the chair next to hers. “Good. Let’s talk about me then.”

  His mouth held a pleasant smile, one that said he had a secret ready to burst from his lips. He marked time much better than she did, going through the motion of each day like a good soldier. But it had been a while since she’d seen him look happy.

  “Let’s.” She found her own smile. It was his moment.

  “I know I was a little pissed about you telling Ryn that I’d taken a vow of celibacy … which I did not do.”

  “You had sex.”

  “I did not.” His grin held firm. “But I think I should now. I think I’m ready.”

  “I agree. You should, but not with Ryn.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because she works for us.” Jillian drummed her fingers on the table. A tight grin pulled her lips into a firm line.

  “She works for you. Technically, I think you hired her.”

  Jillian shook her head. “She’s probably married with kids. Don’t be a home wrecker … that has never been your thing, so don’t start now.”

  “She’s not married. I asked.”

  “Are you going to marry her?”

  “What does that matter?”

  “Because this house has never looked so clean and unless you marry her it will eventually end with her quitting because of you. And … she’ll probably quit working for AJ too, just so she doesn’t have to be in the same neighborhood as you.”

  “You’re full of shit. Look at yourself. You’re a walking disaster. I had to pick up your room before Ryn came just so she could find the floor to vacuum it. You’ve been a slob your entire life. And a certain doctor that I shall not name … he knew it too, and it drove him crazy, and you know I’m right. I know for a fact you thrive in disorder. So either you intended Ryn to be a gift for me or you’re using her to worm your way back onto AJ’s good side. And just to be clear … I’m not sure he has one.”

  She stopped drumming her fingers on the table and rolled her eyes. “Fine, but do me a favor. Choose what it’s going to be and make sure she understands.”

  Jackson shook his head. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  “If it’s just sex, then make sure she knows up front. Otherwise …”

  “Otherwise what?”

  “Marry her.”

  Jackson laughed. “I’ll ask her on Tuesday which she prefers.”

  Jillian didn’t want to laugh. She’d been in the worst mood since she last saw AJ and her depression began to feel like a security blanket—dark but warm.

  Unfortunately, she envisioned Jackson asking Ryn if she’d rather have sex with him or marry him and the image brought a huge smile to her face.

  “That looks good on you.” He smiled back. “Now go.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Go where?’

  “I know you’re dying to go next door.”

  She wasn’t.

  “Lay it on the line. Don’t take any of his crap and call me if you need backup.”

  “You don’t even like him. Why do you care?”

  “True. But I think Jillian needs him.”

  Loving Jackson came easy, even when he acted the part of a paranoid, overprotective ass. Eventually he came around and supported her with only one goal: for her to find happiness. Was AJ her happiness? Could she be happy watching him die? Did he have to die?

  *

  Jillian hadn’t prepared herself for the defeat in AJ’s eyes when he answered the door. She expected grumpiness, and anger, not shoulders curved inward, eyes devoid of life.

  “Can I come in?”
<
br />   The hollow man before her nodded once.

  Grabbing two beers, he handed one to her. She shook her head. There was no need for an SOS. He wasn’t dying.

  He wasn’t dying.

  “I need you to live.” Her voice, barely a whisper, squeezed past the lump in her throat.

  AJ leaned against the counter, staring at his feet. “Sorry.”

  She wanted to tell him everything. He would fight for himself—fight for her—if he knew about her past.

  “I know what it feels like to want to give up. I know what it feels like to not feel in control of your body. Living is so much harder than dying.”

  His cynical laugh sliced through the thick air. “You have experience with dying?”

  There existed a headstone with her former name on it. In many ways she was dead. After all, a person couldn’t live without a heart, and hers resided in San Francisco.

  “I do.”

  He laughed again. “But let me guess … you can’t tell me about it.”

  “You know what pisses me off the most? You’ve had one opinion and you’re already planning your funeral. Just because some neurologist or oncologist thinks your tumor is inoperable doesn’t mean another more experienced or more confident doctor would.”

  AJ looked up at her. “So that’s a no answer yet again to your past.”

  “We’re not talking about my past, we’re talking about—”

  “Well I think we should. It’s a moot point talking about my future that no longer exists. I’ve told you about my past. I think all that’s left to talk about is yours.”

  Anger gripped every nerve as she fisted her hands at her side. It was a low blow. He didn’t need to push her away with her own past.

  “I love you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re reciprocating. I didn’t ask you to say it back. I said it because I needed to make peace between us. You’re saying it because you’re scared and pissed.”

  “I think telling someone you love them after you find out you’re ‘dying’ would be classified as an act of fear or anger, so please don’t feed me this line of bullshit that you had some romantic epiphany about us on a whim.”

  “Are you done?” His face turned to stone, eyes cold.