Undone

by Kelly Rimmer

  “You’re welcome to it, then.” I grimace as I swallow. “Yeah, that’s far too salty and too sweet and too buttery for me. All kinds of wrong. No thanks.”

  Jake grins and starts to walk past me toward the couch. I hook my ankles around his waist and he stops, then turns back to me.

  “Thanks,” I say softly. “For talking to Abby. And for not talking to Abby too.”

  He nods, and maybe I want to kiss him in this moment more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life. I want to taste the salt and the butter and the chocolate right out of his mouth just because sometimes he just gets me. I do feel for him—I feel affection and gratitude and something that’s already bordering on adoration. I want, more than anything, to find a way to express that to him. I even lean forward and lick my lips, but then I groan and unlink my feet from around his waist so that I can gently nudge him away.

  “I just want you to know that not having sex with you sucks,” I mutter as I slide off the bench. Jake laughs and slides his arm around my shoulders, then places an innocent kiss against my forehead.

  “I actually think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  THE WEEK THAT follows is awful and amazing all at once.

  I start off thinking I’ll play it cool, but quickly wind up devoting every second outside of my working hours to Jake. For the first time in memory, I even skip the gym. I am all Jake, all the time. Now that we’ve done it once, there seems to be no reason for us not to visit Abby and Marcus, so we even do that together.

  When Abby hesitantly asks if I want to come visit the girls with her on Wednesday, I say yes, despite her fifteen awkward reminders that it’s okay if I don’t want to.

  I kind of do want to see the girls again. Besides, it’s going to be some time before Jessie is discharged, so if I want to see my little namesake, I’m going to have to learn to deal with her temporary environment. I arrange to meet Abby there in the afternoon after Jake is done having lunch with his dad. That’s partly because I want the buffer just in case the NICU gets to me again, but it’s also because I’m carelessly, greedily soaking up every second of his presence before he goes home.

  And in the end, the NICU seems far less overwhelming. Maybe it’s because I’m well rested. Maybe it’s because the first shock of all of the tiny, sick babies has passed. Maybe it’s because talking to Jake about Tristan has made me strong. Whatever the magic elixir is, I’m grateful for it.

  Two drums beat beneath the music of my week with Jake. One sounds that our time is running out, and that makes me feel frantic and urgent to be with him. The other sounds a warning; that this has to be the last time we flirt with danger like this. We both need to move on, and this time around, we have to do so in a way that gives us both closure. Maybe I’ve spent at least some of the time since we parted still pining for him, but I’m pretty sure he’s done exactly the same, given what he said about this Vanessa woman.

  But enough is enough, this has to be the end.

  Every minute we spend together is going to make our inevitable separation harder. And yet, I want every minute I can steal with him. I’d prefer it if some of those minutes were spent beneath my sheets, but even when it comes to that, I get where Jake is coming from.

  Because I feel it too—the way our contact is about more than just skin against skin. Even when we hug now or our hands brush, I sense the way that our souls strain toward one another.

  Besides, maybe the reason our relationship ran so out of control last time was the potent combination of great sex and this great camaraderie we’ve developed. Maybe, if we keep our clothes on, we can keep cooler heads too.

  Then again, I’m not sure how cool our heads are, given it’s now Friday and we had breakfast before I came into the office, we’ve been texting all day and we already have plans for dinner. The week has flown by in a blur of shared meals and light chats and moments I know I’ll be replaying in my memory for years to come.

  I’m trying to concentrate on clearing out my chaotic inbox, but I see that Jake has sent me a text, so I pick my phone up and open the image.

  Jake: I don’t care what you say. Dogs are definitely better than cats, and this is why.

  The image below the message is of Clara, who is sleeping in a dog bed, using what I have to assume is Jake’s sweater as a pillow.

  Jake: She dragged this sweater out of my closet and put it in her bed. She obviously misses me. If she was a cat, she’d probably be busy staring out a window and wouldn’t have noticed I’m gone.

  Jess: If she was a cat, she wouldn’t be slobbering all over your sweater. So there’s that.

  I suddenly wish it was winter. If it was, Jake would have brought sweaters with him for this trip, and then he might accidentally leave one at my apartment. I’d do exactly what Clara is doing. I’d keep that sweater forever, and it would join my PMS pajamas and lowcarb ice cream in my comfort routine.

  I scroll back up through our text history. It’s two weeks now since he walked into that rehearsal dinner and turned my world upside down. Twelve days since we started texting again. There’s humor in our digital chats, but there’s also a fierce undertone of affection.

  Jake knows me. He knows parts of my messy history. He knows I’m a deeply flawed individual. He likes me anyway, and I believe that right to my very soul.

  I set the phone down and try to look at my monitor, but my vision is blurry. I rise and quickly shut my office door, then sit back down at my desk and let a few tears leak out as I acknowledge the coming storm.

  I’m a woman who knows grief. It’s defined so much of my life so far.

  I can smell it in the air . . . I can feel it coming. Tomorrow night, Jake is going to get on that plane and leave me, and I’m going to have to mourn our connection all over again. It was unbelievably difficult the first time. This time around, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to survive it.

  We’ve shared a single kiss since his return, but I feel closer to him than I ever did. I’m entrenched in intimacy with Jake again, only this time it’s on an emotional level.

  But I have to stay true to the promises I made myself when I was eighteen years old. And so even as I dread the grief, and even as I fear it, I know I’ll have to accept it, because Jake and I were simply never meant to be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jess

  OUR ORIGINAL PLAN was to go out for dinner for Jake’s last night in town, but I suggested we order in instead. I’m glad he didn’t ask why, because I didn’t have an excuse ready, and never in a million years would I want to tell him the truth. I wanted to stay in tonight so we could just be together, alone. I wanted him to myself. I wanted the intimacy of an empty room—the freedom to just be myself in a way that I don’t have anywhere else . . . except when I’m alone with him.

  Now, Jake is sitting on one end of my sofa and I’m lying across the rest of it, my feet in his lap. This afternoon, I planned out how we’d sit on my “mini-sofa,” just so we could wind up touching one another like this—it’s such innocent contact, but important contact. If I can’t have him inside me, I’ll soak up how it feels to have my skin against the warmth of his body. I didn’t even want a glass of wine tonight. I didn’t want to numb the feelings or blur the memories. Twenty-four hours from now, he’s going to be on his way to the airport. I have no idea how I’m even going to function next week.

  He’s massaging my feet now, casually, as if he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Actually, I’d believe that; I’m certain that Jake gives without conscious thought sometimes. We’ve been chatting for a few hours, and I’m doing that rambling, relaxed thing I hardly ever do with other people. I’m speaking without thinking. I’m too at ease with Jake. That’s partly what brings me undone.

  “. . . initial public offering of our shares. We just need to sort out—” I break off, and Jake turns and raises his eyebrows at me. Shit. I didn’t mean to tell him about this. Inevitably, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and spend m
ore time over there, and I didn’t plan on clueing him in to that arrangement. It would be unforgivably cruel to give him false hope. “There are just some issues we have to resolve first,” I finish. Jake releases my foot and waves toward me, indicating I should go on. “We’ve got a lot of corporate customers now and that pays the bills, but our take-up within the tech industry is still too low and that means our reputation isn’t where it needs to be to float shares.”

  “So how do you fix that?” Jake asks me, quietly curious.

  “Marketing. Advertising. Focusing on sales. And . . . networking,” I say. “Mostly the latter. We just need to do more networking, that’s all.”

  “Networking in . . . New York?” he asks cautiously. “You have another office, don’t you?”

  Shit. I should have known he’d connect the dots. Jake is smart—like freakishly smart. Not that a person even needs to be a genius to figure out that the major tech center in the United States is likely no more than twenty minutes from his house.

  “Yes. We have a West Coast office.”

  “So . . . What are you saying?”

  “One of us will just have to spend some more time on the West Coast.”

  I shrug the question off, then try to find a way to change the subject, but I miss the opportunity because Jake immediately asks, “Where on the West Coast?”

  I swallow and look away.

  “Silicon Valley.”

  “Well, obviously Marcus can’t go.”

  “No. Not now.”

  That was my plan twelve months ago. I was trying to figure out how to convince him to go. I already knew he’d have resisted, given Abby and his family are here, but when he and Abby fell in love, I had to give up the plan altogether.

  “And it won’t be Paul.”

  Jake’s brother is a card-carrying genius, but there’s no denying that he’s awkward as fuck.

  “No.”

  “So you’ll be spending some time on the West Coast in the . . . what? The long-term future?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, dismissively. I sit up and reluctantly lift my feet away from Jake. He tilts his head at me.

  “Jess. Are you seriously telling me you’ll be regularly visiting Palo Fucking Alto in the near future? You do realize I live there, right? My house is in a suburb that’s literally called Old Palo Alto. Your Silicon Valley office must be . . . what? Fifteen minutes away?”

  “I know,” I say, croaking the words out. I’m waiting for Jake to do one of two things: get angry with me for not mentioning this sooner, or leap on what looks like an opportunity for us to continue to see one another. He surprises me when he draws in a deep breath, then says quietly, “I won’t say it, Jess. You’ve made your decision clear.”

  I squeeze my eyes closed.

  “Thanks. You know our problem isn’t even geography,” I croak. “Our problem is us. You want things I can never give you.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You may as well.”

  “You’ve missed me, right?”

  “You know I have.”

  “And the last few weeks?”

  “Have been magical,” I say unevenly. “But nothing has changed, and that’s exactly why we put a hard full stop on things tomorrow.”

  “I honestly don’t get you, Jess,” he says, a hint of frustration in his voice now. “You don’t want a relationship, but you miss me when I’m gone. You don’t have to miss me, you know. You don’t have to miss us.”

  “What does it look like?” I croak. He stares at me, his gaze impenetrable. “Two years from now. Say we didn’t go our separate ways on Sunday. What does it look like?”

  “We’re busy but we’re happy. Clara drives you insane, but you love her. You’ve tried hiking just to make me happy and you secretly loved it but you won’t admit it. I stopped eating Oreos the proper way because it started grating your nerves after a while, but I still enhance my popcorn with delicious M&M’s because a guy has to eat. We sleep in on Sundays and when I get home at 4:00 a.m. because I left our bed to say goodbye to a patient, you ask me to wake you up when I get home so you can make sure if I’m okay.”

  God. It’s beautiful. It’s everything I never thought I wanted.

  “And where do we live?” I whisper. Jake’s gaze is soft.

  “Wherever you want.”

  “Together?”

  “Definitely. Assuming that’s what you want too.”

  I close my eyes.

  “Jess. If you want to be with me, you can be with me. I’m already yours,” Jake whispers. I feel him shifting closer to me on the lounge and then he tucks a lock of hair behind my ear.

  “You need this to be more serious than I could ever allow it to be.”

  “When we’re apart, it feels like my heart is beating outside my body,” Jake says, sighing sadly. “I don’t know how things could be any more serious than they already are.”

  “I just mean that you want more from me than I can give you.”

  “All I want is to be with you, Jess.”

  “But you’d want more eventually,” I say, suddenly impatient. I open my eyes and my gaze is hard on his face. “You’d probably want more from me by the time we finished this conversation if I gave you any indication that I was weakening on this. You want to tie me down. And that’s the last thing in the world I will ever allow you to do.”

  “You make it sound like I’m trying to control you,” he says, confusion flickering across his features. “Now, that’s the last thing in the world I want—”

  “It is what you want!” I exclaim. God, I want him and I adore him but right now he’s just sitting way too close to me and I feel crowded. I stand, but only so I can turn to stare down at him. “You want to own me. The kind of commitment you need would be suffocating to me.”

  Jake stares up at me. He makes no move to rise, and he doesn’t seem angry or even frustrated. He’s just staring at me, thinking. Then he nods, almost to himself.

  “Last week, when I decided to stay, and I hoped I could change your mind, I had it all planned out in my mind,” he says quietly. “We’d spend two weeks together. You’d fall back in love with me. I’d propose before I left, we’d be engaged and I’d go home to California, pack up my life and come back here to be with you. I even had Reba send the ring over, because yes, I still have the ring I bought you two and a half years ago. I told myself I’d get around to selling it or giving it away, but I never would have. It was perfect for you—I love the way green looks against your skin . . .” His voice drops to a whisper. “The way green looks against your hair. I kept it because I couldn’t let go of the dream that one day, you’d let me give it to you.”

  He rises, and I take a step back. I’m angry because this was exactly what I feared all along, but I’m also confused by a sharp pang of guilt.

  “I knew it—” I start to say, but he gently rests his hands on my shoulders.

  “That ring means nothing. Less than nothing. I saw it in a window, and it reminded me of you and I already knew I wanted a life with you, so I bought it. It was always meant to be a gift, a gesture to show you how I feel about you. But right now, if I thought it would change your mind, I’d go get the ring from my hotel and I’d help you smash the fucking thing. This isn’t about a ring or even marriage, Jessica. Whether you’re willing to talk about it or not, this is about something else altogether.” He sighs heavily, then bends to kiss my cheek. I don’t pull away, so he cups my cheeks in his hands, and he stares right into my eyes as he murmurs, “I just wish you could tell me what it is that holds you back from me.”

  “There’s nothing—” The compassion in his gaze is breathtaking. And I’m so tempted to talk to him—just so he understands that it isn’t him, it really is me. But Jake already knows more than enough about those days. And when people understand your past, they know how to manipulate your future. I learned that the hard way already and it’s a lesson I do not need to learn again. “You should go.”

  Th
e words are flat and hard. Jake sighs, and drops his hands form my face. He gives me a resigned smile.

  “This is it, isn’t it?”

  I harden myself. I draw in a deep breath to fill my lungs and I straighten my shoulders.

  “Were you still hoping to change my mind when you came here tonight?”

  “You’ve made your point more than clear, so I wasn’t even going to ask you again. But honestly? I’ll probably be hoping you change your mind until I die,” he sighs, raking his hand through his hair. It’s sticking up all over the place now. His gaze is quietly devastated, but his hair is wild.

  “Then it’s probably best for us not to draw this out any further. We’re on very different pages, aren’t we?”

  I sound so professional. I actually sound like I do when I talk to staff or consultants—like I’m only minimally invested in the outcome. Jake scoops his wallet and phone up off my coffee table and walks to the door.

  He pauses, his hand on the door handle, then glances back at me.

  “Goodbye, Jessica.”

  “Goodbye, Jake,” I say.

  The door closes behind him, and I’m still standing in my living room.

  I’m alone. I’ve been alone for a long time—but this is the first time since my grandmother died that I’ve really felt it. It’s certainly the first time in a very, very long time that alone has felt anything like lonely.

  I sink back onto the sofa and reach for the remote. I decide I’ll put some trashy reality TV on and tune out, but I don’t actually do that.

  I just sit staring at the TV, trying to squash the urge to chase Jake, even as time begins to pass and the urge builds and builds. But images flick through my mind—of Jake’s kindness to me, of the way he’s respected my wishes, of the way he shows his affection to me . . . of the hurt in his gaze when we said goodbye.

  That last one is the kicker. I drop the remote back onto the coffee table, scoop up my handbag and go.

  I can’t offer Jake anything but the truth, but maybe that truth will bring him some comfort. I’ve convinced myself over the years that hiding my past behind a wall meant others couldn’t control me, but for the first time, it occurs to me that Jake would never use my past to manipulate me.