by LJ Evans
“Go shower. I’ll make breakfast.” He pushed open his bedroom door and pointed. “I brought your duffle in.”
And then he left her. She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved. And somehow the disappointment settled in more than the relief as she looked at his bed and the tangle of sheets they’d left behind.
It wasn’t until she was in the shower, using his citrus-smelling shampoo and his designer soap that it hit her again. The remorse. The regret. The fact that once again she’d gone head first into sex at a time when she was feeling lost. Promises to herself swirled down the drain with the shampoo bubbles.
Her stomach twisted as she finished quickly, dried off, and pulled on a clean pair of yoga pants and her off the shoulder t-shirt from yesterday.
In the mirror, she combed out her tangle of curls and let them be. They’d dry in an unruly mess, but at this point she didn’t care. She pulled it up into her standard messy bun while she stared at herself brushing her teeth.
The happy face she’d seen in the mirror just a little while ago was gone. She knew what her therapist from high school would say. She would tell PJ that wanting and having sex with someone wasn’t a problem. That even having several partners over time wasn’t the problem. She would tell PJ that the problem was only with how PJ intended to use the sex.
Was she using it for pleasure? For herself and the guy? Or was she using it to fill the void? Was she using it as a punishment for herself or the guy or both?
PJ definitely wasn’t punishing Seth. She had no reason to do so. And she’d definitely had greater pleasure with Seth than with any of the fumbling boys in her past, but she wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she wasn’t using it as a way to escape her reality. The rejection of Pratt. The unknown of graduating with nothing else planned.
And that knowledge. The uncertainty of why she’d let this go this far with Seth, it haunted her as she made her way out into the kitchen. It didn’t consume her. But, it bothered her. Made her wonder if this was as much of a mistake as she’d thought it would be before she’d shown up.
She sat on the same stool that she’d first sat at less than a day ago. Seth was busy, flipping pancakes and stirring eggs. He looked happy. He wasn’t glowering or growling. He seemed, for the first time since she’d met him, truly relaxed.
“There’s coffee if you want it, but I don’t usually drink it myself. There’s orange juice though. Fresh squeezed.” He turned to look at her, dropped the pan back onto the stove, and was at her side in his normal, lithe blur of movement.
“What is it?” he asked, eyes worried.
That he could tell that she wasn’t the same happy person that he’d shoved into the bathroom was disconcerting. True, she was lousy at covering her emotions in general, but Seth seemed able to sense her mood changes almost before she did.
“Seth…” She looked away from him, trying to find the words. He took her chin in his hand and pulled her face so that she was forced to look at him.
“What?”
“I… this was a mistake.”
She just said it. There was no other way of putting it. But she regretted it as soon as the tension returned to his body. She regretted it because her heart and body were warring with her brain and her conscious.
“No, it wasn’t,” he said as if the force of his words could make her feel that way too.
He pulled her off the chair and wrapped her in his arms. Her face was pressed against his chest, and his words, when he spoke them, vibrated against her cheek and down into her body as if he was trying to embed them there.
“The only mistake we could make right now is if you walked out my door and never came back. That would be the only fucking mistake. Making love. Giving in to whatever this is between us, none of that was a mistake.”
She pulled away still uncertain of herself more than of him. He let her pull away but watched her closely. Waiting for her to react. As she returned his stare, she knew that even if she walked out the door that minute and never came back, there would still be a mark on her soul that he’d already left.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said honestly because she didn’t.
He took her in for a moment longer and then turned back towards the stove. “Don’t say anything. Have breakfast. Go sit on the deck. I’ll bring it out.”
He switched gears and hid his emotions so easily. It made her wonder about what his life had been like that he could do that; close the door on emotion and return to a mundane daily job like cooking in just a beat.
As she watched him dishing up plates, she still felt the regret and self-doubt. But, her heart also lifted a little because he wanted her to stay. And regardless of her emotional state, she knew, deep down, that she didn’t want to leave. There was something about Seth that called to her.
So, she put aside her doubts and did exactly what he said.
Out on the deck, the cool ocean breeze blew over her hot cheeks and the smell and sounds of the ocean surrounded her. Relaxing her. “It’ll be okay,” she thought to herself. “It’s all going to be okay.”
Out on the beach a group of teenagers pranced around in their itty-bitty bikinis. At the sound of the French door shutting behind her, they all looked up with huge smiles that disappeared upon seeing PJ.
PJ could imagine that teenage disappointment well. They had been expecting gorgeous Seth not a tiny woman in yoga pants. She could well imagine that the best part of their day was seeing Seth in all his glory on the deck in the warm sunshine. What would she have done had she been on the beach as a teen and seen Seth? It was both a stomach dropping and twisting contemplation.
Behind her, the door opened again, and she grabbed it so that Seth could make his way out with a tray full of food and drinks. He put it on the stone table.
PJ watched as the teenage girls turned their smiles back on to full wattage. “Hi Seth!” One particularly stunning teenager called out.
He looked up, surprised almost. He frowned when he saw the group and just waved a hand before sitting down and completely disregarding their drools.
PJ couldn’t help but smile. Poor teenage girls. Poor Seth, if he was accosted by this every time he walked out his door.
“Do they come here often?” she asked with a hint of a smile in her voice.
His scowl deepened as he poured syrup over his pancakes.
“The tall one lives two houses down. You’d think, after a year of me ignoring them, they’d get the hint.”
“Teenage girls never take a hint. Especially tall beautiful ones who are used to getting their way,” PJ said with a laugh.
Seth looked up at her, still scowling. “Well. She should damn well take one.”
She just smiled. Her tension went away a notch more. She dug into the food he’d prepared, and was surprised, again, by the quality. It was just pancakes and eggs. But the pancakes were fluffy and light and the eggs were creamy with just a hint of some tantalizing spice.
“You’re a really good cook,” she said.
He shrugged as if it was nothing. Like he had yesterday with the ajiaco. “I like food. Just don’t like all the shit most people put into it, so I make my own.”
“Did you get that from your grandmother?” she asked.
“Yes. But also from my AA group,” he said it slow. Deliberately. Like he’d been thinking about how to tell her that he was an alcoholic. But she’d already known. It was in the research she’d done before she’d written the piece about him for her blog. She winced thinking about the scathing things she’d said before she’d really gotten to know him. Not that she really knew him after just a few hours together. But then, at the same time, she felt like she did.
“Does that worry you?” he asked carefully, and she realized that her wince had been mistaken. She reached out and grabbed his hand with her own.
“No. It wasn’t that. I was just thinking that I’ve been such a judgmental witch. It’s something I hate when other people do it, and yet, it’s exactly w
hat I’ve done with you.”
“Don’t discount it. You need to know I’ll always be an alcoholic.”
His raw truthfulness tugged at her heart. He was just that. Raw. Honest. Abrupt. He didn’t intend to be intimidating, but his directness, his inability to bullshit, his energy, his intensity was exactly that to most people. It made him come off as arrogant and cold when really it was just pain left out in the open.
She knew this was the moment to come clean about her own failings while he was sharing his, but suddenly she didn’t want to. She didn’t want him to see something different when he looked at her, and he would once he knew the truth. So instead, she rose from her chair and climbed into his lap.
She kissed him. Gently as if he was the one that was going to break if she pushed too hard. His arms went around her and pulled her against his chest, and then he was kissing her deeply but gently back. He nipped at her lip with his teeth, and she responded with a little gasp that made him harden underneath her on the chair.
She pulled away and looked into his eyes with her own mischievous smile. “Are the teenagers glaring at us?”
Seth risked a look over her shoulder and his face lit up into a smile that reached his eyes. “Yes ma’am, they sure are,” he said with his little southern drawl that made her tingle and laugh at the same time.
“I think we should take breakfast inside,” she said and pulled him up without bothering with the food at all.
* * *
It was a long time later that PJ found herself opening her eyes to the sunshine filtering through the slats of his blinds once more. He was asleep, on his stomach, with one arm wrapped around a pillow and the other wrapped around her waist.
She was amazed by the comfort she felt in his bed, in his arms. His gentleness and caring continued to push at her guilt and regret until there was nothing left but the fact that this somehow felt right.
She looked over at the clock on his bedside table. It was one o’clock. Thank goodness it was Sunday. She would have been really late for her Little Heroes class if it had been another day. Sunday was the only day that the gym was closed.
But even though she didn’t need to be at the gym, she still needed to get going. She needed to go back to the hospital and see Justice, Liv, and baby Cole. She needed to get back to her apartment and make sure Claire hadn’t sent out a search party. She had classwork to finish up and her daily blog to write. And yet, she found herself reluctant to remove herself from this little bubble. A bubble Seth had made around her where she felt beautiful and admired in a way that she hadn’t in a long time. If ever.
She traced the scar along Seth’s side. She wondered how he got it. She knew it couldn’t have been a good thing. It was jagged and rough. Almost like it was made with broken glass which made her think again of his piece at the gallery of the metal man torn apart by broken whiskey bottles.
He turned his head on the pillow so that he was staring into her eyes with ones so blue that they still startled her every time she saw them. They were as much a contrast to his Latino heritage as his tenderness was to his brusqueness.
“Don’t go,” he said gutturally.
“How did you know that’s what I was thinking?” she said with a weak smile.
“I could feel you pulling away.”
Again, as earlier, she wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that he could sense her mood change so quickly.
“I need to go see my family. The baby. I need to go to my apartment and do some homework.”
He stared at her. The force as irresistible as it had been the first time he’d turned those blue moons at her.
“I can take you back to the hospital.”
“What? You going to follow me everywhere?”
“I hope that’s not going to be a problem,” and the teasing in his voice couldn’t hide some of the seriousness that was there too.
She turned to lay on her back so that she could stare at the ceiling instead of his eyes.
“I have to return to the real world. I have my semester to finish up. I have a job. And my writing,” she said calmly, but even to her, she knew she sounded lame. Unsure. Which, of course, was the problem.
“Whatever the job is, you can quit. You don’t need it,” he said, and she could tell he was serious, but that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. In fact, it forced her the opposite way from what he’d intended. She supposed there were girls that would love to hear him say quit your job, I can take care of you, but that wasn’t her. It pushed her towards leaving instead of staying.
“No. I can’t quit.”
“Why?”
“Because… well. I have people depending on me.”
“I’m finding that I am quite dependent on you.”
She smiled because he’d intended her to, but she was also uncomfortable that he was that serious.
“Justice is going to be caught up with Liv and the baby which means I’m going to need to cover some of his shifts at the gym. I can’t just say no to that.”
“You work at a gym?” He was surprised. It made her laugh because it just went to show how little they really did know each other.
She turned to him, smile still in place. “Yes. I told you, ninja warrior at your service.”
He growled and went to pull her to him, but she laughed and pushed him off.
“Really. Justice owns this great ninja training gym. You know, like they do on the show American Ninja Warrior? It’s the number one gym in the area for it and parkour sessions.”
“That’s why you’re so strong,” he said with admiration.
She smiled. “Well. Yes.”
“Do you like it?”
“The gym? Yes. I like it. I like helping people learn about their own strength, and what they can do with their body. Especially the kids. I like to see how it increases their confidence in themselves which leaches into all the other areas of their lives.”
“Do you compete?”
“No… I just do it because it makes me feel good to know that I can. Like I’m not weak.”
“That you aren’t dependent on others,” he said with a knowing look.
“Yes. I guess.” Because wasn’t that exactly what made her uncomfortable at the thought of him saying to quit her job. That she’d be dependent on someone else.
“But it isn’t what you love.”
“No. I like it, but I can’t say I see myself doing it forever.”
“What do you see yourself doing forever?”
She was quiet, searching the ceiling for answers that wouldn’t come. Once upon a time she thought she’d be like Locke. Managing artists like Seth. But, Pratt’s rejection made her doubt it.
They lay there, feet tangled, his arm still across her body. “I wish that I could find something I’d feel passionate about like you feel about your art. When I look at what you do… It fills me with awe. And I can see that it’s what you were meant to do.”
“It is. But I also think, I was meant to do this.” And he kissed her neck and her arms and her breasts until she was breathless and panting again, but he didn’t go in for the kill this time. He didn’t take her over the edge, he stopped and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
“I’m afraid if I let you go, you’ll disappear forever,” he said honestly looking down into her eyes.
“And I’m afraid if I leave that I’ll never hear from you again, but I guess, we both have to take a leap of faith,” she said quietly.
“I’ve never been good with faith,” was his quiet response.
* * *
And God, wasn’t that true. His life had made him skeptical. He didn’t trust easily. You had to prove yourself to him. It was part of the reason he was so possessive. He knew he could control the situation when he was there, but when he wasn’t there… that was the scary unknown for him.
And bad things had happened to the people he loved when he wasn’t there. To his mom. To PJ too. It’s what made him unable to let her out of his sight when there was a
real threat. He had no faith in life. He knew that it didn’t play fair.
But even knowing what caused him to behave that way, to have to control everything, she still left. Because she’d felt herself slipping away. Because she’d felt if she stayed there’d be nothing but Seth.
Now that she’s in New York, she misses them all so badly that it hurts. Seth. Her family. The life she’d been making there. She misses being able to love Seth. She misses the way he loved her. But, she knows she can’t go back yet. She’s determined to finish what she’s started here.
She puts the letter aside and picks her school book up, determined to concentrate on her classes and not Seth. But she can’t help the thought that slips in that she’ll never really be able to escape thinking about him.
Seat Next to You
Letter Five
“Baby, say that you’ll take me… wherever you’re going to. Maybe I want you to save me… a seat next to you.”
-Bon Jovi, Sambora, & Lindsey
DEAR BELLA,
I know that what I felt for you made you feel smothered. Like I didn’t trust you to be anywhere that I wasn’t. That I didn’t trust you at all. But it wasn’t a trust issue. It was a fear issue. I was overtaken with fear every time you weren’t with me. Fear that you’d realize what a worthless piece of shit I was. Fear that someone would come into your life that was so much worthier. And later, fear of what that shithead would do.
That first Sunday you left me, I was fighting that fear as I walked you to your car. I had your duffle bag on my arm, and your hand entwined in mine. We were both quiet. All I really wanted to do was to pick you up and carry you back in the house and lock the door. I wanted even then to keep you there forever just the way you were, feeling for me just what you were feeling. Can you imagine if I’d told you that then? I know I made you feel caged later. I’m sorry. Men living with fear do stupid things.
Even as I walked you to your car, I knew that the moment wasn’t going to last. That you’d see past my first impression. And I knew that once you’d seen the anger and brokenness inside me, that you’d find a way to leave. Which you did. Not that I blame you. I understand it even though I hate it. But, that day, I also knew that I couldn’t stop myself from wanting you even if it ended up shattering my own heart.