Plain Jayne

by Laura Drewry

  “What?” he laughed. “You looked cute.”

  “I looked like an idiot.” Jayne rolled her eyes and grinned over a bite of her lemon roasted chicken. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so hideous in my whole life.”

  He took a long drink of water, then winked over the glass. “Amber’s got nothin’ on you, sweetheart. Just ask Troy.”

  “Wha—” Jayne gaped. “You mean Troy and her? He’s the ex?”

  “Technically, they were never married.”

  “But the kid …”

  Nick nodded. “Little T.J.”

  “No!” She grinned back at him, shaking her head slowly. “Everyone in this town’s connected somehow, aren’t they?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And somehow, it’s all connected to you.”

  “ ’Course,” he grinned. “Whole freakin’ world revolves around me, or didn’t you get Mom’s memo?”

  “Whatever.” Jayne rolled her eyes and reached for her bag. “I have a little something for you. It’s not much, just a thank-you for everything you’ve done.”

  He hesitated before accepting the package, then eyed it a moment before peeling back the paper. It had taken a long time to find the perfect frame; not too fussy, not too plain, and it had to look like it belonged in a man’s house.

  “Wow,” he murmured, then grinned sheepishly. “Cute baby, but the guy looks kinda goofy.”

  Jayne looked down at the close-up of Nick and Sophia and smiled. “It’s my favorite picture.”

  Nick’s grin warmed as he pulled out his phone and showed her the wallpaper background. It was a picture of Jayne and Sophia at the hospital sitting in the chair next to Katie’s bed. Jayne had noticed the pictures of her and the baby when she’d emailed the others to herself, but she never liked looking at pictures of herself, so she’d skimmed right on past them.

  She sure didn’t remember crying that night, but the proof was right there in the picture as a big old fat tear ran down her cheek.

  “That’s my favorite.” Nick’s voice was so soft, so gentle, Jayne didn’t dare look up at him for fear she’d start bawling all over again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  This is an incredibly romantic moment, and you’re ruining it for me!

  Duckie Dale, Pretty in Pink

  The first night in her apartment was horrible, the second was worse. How could quiet be so overwhelming? At least a dozen times she started to call or text him, and every time she forced herself to stop.

  It wasn’t as if she didn’t still talk to him every day, for crying out loud, but this was different. You couldn’t compare talking on the phone with actually sitting across the dinner table from him and seeing his expressions as he spoke.

  He was five minutes up the road and she missed him so much it hurt. No amount of book buying or reorganizing the apartment helped, either. She wandered from room to room, down to the store and back up again, accomplishing nothing other than managing to feel more and more restless.

  God, she was pathetic.

  For the fourth night in a row, she lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, wondering what Nick was doing. Watching SportsCenter? Had he stayed at the site for beers after work? And how much harder did they have to work now that Todd was gone?

  Before moving back, she’d been used to spending her Friday nights alone, so how was it that a mere month of spending them with Nick had left her all but incapable of doing it again?

  Maybe she should get a dog. Or maybe she should get a grip.

  By the time morning came, she was exhausted and beyond cranky. Two cups of coffee and a long shower later, she grabbed the classifieds and headed out to hunt down yard sales. She was just locking the door when Nick’s truck pulled in behind her car.

  Her stomach flipped and dipped and everything inside her warmed instantly. Jeans and a Johnny Cash T-shirt never looked so good.

  “Where ya going?”

  Jayne waved the paper. “I’m off to do the yard sale thing.”

  “Cool. Want some company?”

  “Because you and Lisa don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday?”

  “Nope. She’s at her mom’s on the island.” He pulled open the passenger door of his truck and waited until she climbed in next to Duke.

  “Hi, buddy.” She wrapped her hands around his wrinkled face and gave him a good scratch. “Oooh, I’ve missed you.”

  Duke’s tail thumped in appreciation as he climbed onto her lap.

  “You okay?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” It wasn’t really a lie, but it felt like one. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Seemed like you were avoiding me the last few days.”

  “What? No!” When he gave her a look of disbelief, she shook her head hard. “Really. I just wanted to give you room to get back to your own life. You remember that, don’t you? Work, family, buddies, girlfriend … any of that ring a bell?”

  He rested his left elbow on the door and propped his right forearm over the top of the steering wheel.

  “Believe it or not,” he said. “There’s plenty of room in there for you, too.”

  “I know, but—”

  “No buts.”

  They turned down a residential street and drove around until they found a place to park on the side of the road. The driveway was packed with overflowing tables, racks of clothes, and people everywhere.

  Jayne left Nick at the first table and walked straight past everything else to the three boxes nearest the garage. Twenty-five cents a book wasn’t bad, and there were a lot of them. Mostly paperback fiction, which was great, but there were a few really old gems tucked near the bottom. A tattered old copy of The Last Days of Pompeii and a Complete Works of Shakespeare that looked as though it had been backed over a few dozen times.

  “How much for the whole lot?” she asked the man in the barbeque apron.

  He moved his head from side to side for a few seconds. “Five bucks a box.”

  “Sold.” She pulled the cash out of her pocket and Nick helped her lug the three boxes back to his truck.

  “One more,” she grinned, tapping on the list of sales she’d clipped from the paper. “And then you can help me unload them into the store.”

  Nick took one look at the address and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” he grinned. “Not a thing.”

  He wheeled the truck near a small condominium complex and parked on the road. Jayne hopped out and started up the drive with Nick’s hand resting on the small of her back.

  “What’s so funny?” she repeated. He hadn’t stopped smiling since they left the last sale.

  “Wait for it.” They rounded the corner of the first condo and immediately came upon the last sale listed in the paper.

  At first glance, it seemed to be mostly children’s stuff, but Jayne moved closer just in case she was missing any kids’ books.

  “Nick! Great to see you.”

  Marathon Barbie. Jayne didn’t have to look up to know Nick was grinning from ear to freaking ear.

  “Hey, Amber. How’s it going? Selling lots of stuff?”

  “Yeah, so far so good.” Her blond hair was piled on the top of her head and she was dressed in hot pink short-shorts with a teeny tiny white tank top. “Didn’t think yard sales were your thing.”

  “We’re looking for books,” he said.

  “We?”

  It might have been Jayne’s imagination, but she’d have bet her right arm that was disappointment she heard in Marathon Barbie’s voice. Next thing Jayne knew, Nick had his hand on her back again and was grinning that stupid crooked grin.

  “Jayne, you remember Amber, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” She straightened up from the box she’d been going through and managed the brightest smile she could. “Nice to see you again.”

  “Yeah, you too.” The smile remained, but the sparkle didn’t. “I think there’s some books left over here.�
�

  As she led them to another table, Nick pinched Jayne to get her moving. She swatted his hand, then smiled at Amber again. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  A lady in a beat-up straw hat tugged Amber back to the children’s clothes. Jayne wheeled around and jabbed her finger into Nick’s chest, laughing all the while.

  “You’re such an idiot!”

  “What?” he chuckled, stepping away from her jabs, then reaching back for her hand. “I’m just the chauffeur. I go where I’m told.”

  “Then let me tell you where you can go,” she smirked back at him.

  “Come on.” He gave her a gentle shove, then eyed her up and down as they walked to the truck without so much as a backward glance. “At least you weren’t dressed like a hobo this time.”

  Back at the store, they spent a while sorting the books into piles and then Nick sat on the floor against the sales counter reading an old Louis L’Amour while Jayne alphabetized the sections.

  “Got any more of these?” he asked. “This guy’s pretty good.”

  “Yeah, there’s a few here, but don’t you want to read them in order?”

  “How many are there?”

  “Hmm.” Jayne scrunched her face up and tried to think back to Gran’s old books. “There’s gotta be fifteen or twenty I think. Which one do you have?”

  Nick flipped it over to look at the cover. “The Daybreakers.”

  “I think that was the first one that came out, but then he went back and wrote some that happened before that story, sort of like prequels.”

  “Like Star Wars.”

  “No,” she snorted. “Not like Star Wars.”

  “Do I need to read them in order?” he asked, even as he kept reading the one he had.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “But you would.”

  “Well, duh.” She nudged him with her foot and held out the copy of The Last Days of Pompeii. “Look at this.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice.”

  “No, look!” She squatted beside him and opened the cover, slowly, gently, to show him the copyright page. When Nick didn’t say anything, she swatted him up the side of his head. “Are you kidding me? It’s from 1897, Nick, and it winds up in a yard sale! What’s wrong with people?”

  “I don’t know,” he chuckled. “Maybe the average Joe isn’t interested in ratty old books with brittle pages and covers falling off.”

  Jayne pushed back to her feet and sighed. “I think it’s beautiful.”

  “ ’Course you do. Got anything to drink?” He headed upstairs, leaving Jayne with the leather-bound book still clutched in her hands. A second later he was back, the framed dandelion necklace in his hand.

  “I thought you were kidding when you said you still had it.”

  “Nope.” She set the book on the counter and smiled. “I just can’t decide where to hang it.”

  “How about in a closet somewhere? It’s awful.”

  He set the frame down on the counter and moved down the store, gripping shelves to see if they wiggled, then stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at the doorway that opened into the store.

  “God help me, I know that look, Nick, and there’s nothing that needs to be fixed, hammered, repaired, or ripped up. We’re good.”

  “Where’s your tool belt?”

  “Thanks for listening.” With a sigh, she retrieved her belt from her closet and handed it over.

  He pulled out the measuring tape and ran it around the door frame, mumbling to himself the whole while. When he was done, he pointed the tape at the opening and nodded.

  “I’ve got a door in my garage that would fit here.”

  “I don’t need a door.”

  “You should really have a door.”

  “Why?”

  “So customers don’t go wandering up to your apartment, that’s why.” His gaze moved over the space between the door frame, the stairs, and the space between them and the back door. “I’m gonna go get it.”

  “Nick.” But he was already gone.

  And an hour later, a new door hung where one had never hung before, complete with deadbolt and shiny new keys.

  “Thank you. Now come on, dinner’s ready.”

  “Dinner?”

  Jayne froze on the stairs. “Sorry, did you have plans?”

  “No, but I didn’t expect—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Nick. On top of everything else, now I have a free door. The least I can do is give you something to eat.”

  “Hey, I’m not arguing,” he said, following her up the stairs. “Just saying it’s not necessary.”

  They hit the top and he inhaled, long and deep. “Oooh, yeah. Spaghetti sauce. With meat this time?”

  “Of course.” She pointed him toward the sink as she moved everything to the table. It was a tight squeeze with both of them in the tiny kitchen, and after bumping into her for the third time, he tucked his hands under her armpits, lifted her in the air, then turned them one hundred and eighty degrees so she was on the sink side and he could get out.

  “How do you do anything in there?” he asked.

  “Easy. There’s not usually more than one bum in there at the same time.” Jayne laughed softly and carried the pot of sauce out to the table. It was nothing more than a glorified card table with a couple spindle-backed chairs, but it was all she needed.

  Nick heaped his plate and spun the noodles around his fork. She passed him the salad bowl, which he promptly set back on the table without taking any. Jayne couldn’t stop smiling the whole time they ate. She tried to hide it, but it was useless.

  Nick scooped the last bits of sauce from his plate. “What?”

  She took a sip of her water and shrugged. “Just nice to have company for dinner again is all.”

  “I’m available tomorrow, too,” he grinned. “What are you having?”

  “Apparently not leftover spaghetti.”

  He hesitated, the full spaghetti scoop hovering over the pot, a guilty grin on his face, then he dumped it on his plate with a shrug. “Screw it, I’ll cook for us tomorrow.”

  “Peanut butter sandwiches?”

  “No,” he said slowly. “Grilled cheese and tomato soup.”

  “Wow—haute cuisine,” she laughed. “I’ll make sure I find the right wine.”

  After they’d cleaned up, Nick stood in the tiny living room, hands on his hips. “No TV, huh?”

  “Nope.” Jayne tipped her head and smiled. “We could go for a walk.”

  “Or we could drive over to Walmart and get you a TV.”

  “Nice try. Come on.”

  Eight o’clock on a Saturday night and downtown was like a ghost town. The only other person out on the street was the man from the dollar store out sweeping the walk. Jayne and Nick walked slowly, peeking in shop windows, not talking about anything in particular.

  “Guess this is kind of a girl thing, huh?”

  “Little bit,” he nodded. “But after all the SportsCenter I made you watch, I guess I owe you.”

  “Yeah,” she snorted. “You owe me. Right.”

  At the corner, they crossed over and started back the other side. Jayne slowed in front of Ellie’s store to check out her window display. She’d swapped out the gentle pastel-colored dresses for a few that were more along the lines of the “it’s on, baby” dresses. The pink and white ones were way over the top for Jayne’s liking, but the third one made her look twice.

  Made of the same jersey fabric as her green dress, this one was a deep aubergine, with wide straps at the shoulders, a full twirly skirt, and a twist knot centered in the gathered bodice. Not quite an “it’s on” dress, but edging a little in that direction.

  “Nice.” Nick’s voice was right at her ear, making her jump. “Can’t go wrong with purple, right?”

  “Right,” she murmured, moving on. They walked to the end of the street, then around the curve toward the yacht club. The sun had already started to dip, leaving the water bathed in ri
pples of orange and pink.

  Jayne didn’t linger, figuring Nick had probably had enough of this girl stuff, so she turned and headed back the way they’d come. The air was so still, so quiet, it was enough to let their footsteps be the only sounds, until, all too soon for Jayne, they were back at the store.

  She unlocked the back door and stepped inside, but Nick seemed to hesitate.

  “You coming up?” she asked. “I could make coffee.”

  He stuffed both hands in his pockets and looked at the ground for a second. “I, uh, I think I better get going.”

  “You sure?”

  He seemed to chew the inside of his cheek for a second before blowing out a low breath. “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He gave her a speedy peck on the cheek and before she knew it, Jayne found herself right back where she’d been last night: staring up at her ceiling wishing she could stop thinking about him long enough to get some sleep.

  * * *

  Bright and early next Saturday morning, with tissue box in hand, and Carter at his side, Nick pounded on Jayne’s door. He pounded again, but still nothing. Of course, with the way her music was making the whole building vibrate, there was no wonder she couldn’t hear him banging.

  Add a doorbell to the list of things needed at the store.

  “You mean you don’t have a key?” Carter leaned his back against the door and crossed his arms.

  Nick didn’t answer, just pulled out his phone, punched in her number, and waited. Three rings, then voice mail. Hang up, dial again. Voice mail. Sooner or later, the song would change and she’d hear it ring. Fifth time was the charm.

  “Hi!” She sounded a little winded. Probably dancing.

  Nick grinned into the phone. “You gonna let us in or what?”

  “Oh, um, yeah. Hold on.”

  With their phone line still open, he could hear her moving around inside, could hear her breathing as she jogged down the stairs to open the door. And the second he saw her, he knew.

  “Hi.” Maybe it was the way she looked, standing there in her robe with a Scooby Doo towel wrapped around her head, or maybe it was the way she opened the door with her phone still pressed up against her ear.