Bachelors In Love

by Jestine Spooner

  That much was true. He figured Mari would fight him to the death over paying half of wherever they stayed, so he didn’t even bring it up.

  “Kind of pointless to plan that far in advance,” Mari shrugged. “I just decimated my vacation time for about a year and a half.”

  “Yeah,” Jay winced. “Me too. Is your org really strict about that?”

  “Eh,” Mari weighed her head back and forth. “Yes and no. They want to hold everybody to the same standard, but there were a few years there that I pretty much just let my vacation time up and evaporate. So they kind of owe me. Plus I always make sure my projects are more than finished before I go.” She pursed her lips. “Except for this time.”

  “You were in a hurry to get out of Ocean City.”

  Mari cleared her throat. No point in hiding this. She sure as hell hadn’t hidden Jay from Linc. She wasn’t about to hide Linc from Jay. “I was in a hurry to get out of the house before Linc left for his trip. The idea of being completely alone in that big old place. Knowing I didn’t live there anymore. Blech. It gave me the willies.”

  “Did he kick you out?” Jay’s brow furrowed almost violently. He hadn’t thought of that before and it made his jaw tight to think of it.

  But Mari just laughed. “No way. Of course not. I know you’re not partial to him, but trust me, Jay. Linc is the nicest man on the planet. Seriously. If I called him up and told him that you and I needed to move into that house he’d let us live there rent free.”

  Jay recoiled from that particular fictional scenario. Just the thought of it made him a little nauseous. “You’re not making this easy on me, Mari.”

  “What’s that?”

  “This whole thing is a lot easier when I can just think of Linc as that douche in a suit who used to kiss my girl.”

  Mari crossed her eyes in annoyance and frustration, but there was a small smile on her face. “Well, this is real life, so of course that’s not true. And if you want the truth, it was much closer to the truth that you were the surfer bro in board shorts that used to kiss his girl.”

  Jay stuck his tongue out and shook his head, sliding one warm palm up from her knee and wedging it under one of her thighs, almost companionably. “That doesn’t work for me. Besides. I saw you first. So that means no matter what, you were originally my girl.”

  Mari rolled her eyes again. “Glad we’re using playground logic. That’ll really put some rhyme and reason into this pile of tangled spaghetti I call my life.”

  Jay kissed her at her temple and chose his next words very carefully. “Maybe we should table the surfing vacation thing, if it’s too big of a trip. And our next vacation should be somewhere domestic.”

  Mari turned to him. His careful tone and cautious eyes confused her. “Where are you thinking?”

  Jay cleared his throat. “South Dakota. We could visit your aunt and uncle. Besides, I’ve never seen the Badlands.” He shrugged. “We could camp.”

  “Oh.” Mari furrowed her brow and looked away from him, settling back into her seat. She didn’t say anything for a long time. She was quiet for so long that Jay started to worry that he’d really put his foot in his mouth. He should be easing her into this lifetime commitment thing and here he was, asking to meet her family and return to her hometown.

  “I eat leftovers directly out of Tupperware containers, cold, and then put them back in the fridge.”

  Jay swiveled his head to look at her, puzzled by her non sequitur. But he took it in stride. “Lower waste that way. You don’t have to do more dishes or waste electricity by running the microwave.”

  She nodded and put the side of her thumb between her teeth, tugging absently on a hangnail.

  Still completely puzzled, but unwilling to push her too far right now, Jay faced back forward, let the time pass.

  It was when they were shuffling onto their next flight, a few hours later, that Mari turned back to him again. They’d gone on to talk about other things, not returning to Sioux Falls or anything mildly future related. But when they took their seats on their next flight, Mari turned to him with that same facial expression as she had before.

  “I like to win fights,” she said.

  Jay turned to her, raised an eyebrow. “Okay.”

  “Sometimes at any cost.”

  His blue eyes darted back and forth between her green ones. “Okay.”

  She stared at him intently, like she was trying to communicate something that he wasn’t quite sure of. “And then I feel terrible afterward and somehow talk whoever I was fighting with into comforting me. It’s really selfish.”

  “Uh huh,” Jay murmured, waiting expectantly for her to explain where the hell she was going with this.

  But Mari didn’t say more. She just jammed that thumbnail back into her mouth and stared out the window again.

  Jay reached over and threaded his fingers through hers. “Mari—”

  “Oh lord, you have another admirer,” she muttered, glaring through slitted eyelids.

  Jay looked up into the face of a very toothy flight attendant whose eyes were practically eating Jay alive.

  “Can I help you with your seat belt, sir?” The flight attendant asked, leaning into Jay’s space.

  “Ah, no thanks,” Jay squinted his eyes at the man’s name tag. “Craig. I’ve got it handled.” But Jay couldn’t help flashing just a little bit of the grin that had gotten him extra goodies on more flights than he could count. “But I wouldn’t say no to some cranberry juice. And maybe some club soda?”

  Craig, overjoyed to be getting in good with the Abercrombie Model in 12B scampered off immediately.

  “You unabashed flirt,” Mari rolled her eyes at Jay. “Shameless.”

  “What?” Jay raised his shoulders. “It’s getting us drinks before everybody else and at least this guy didn’t shove his goods in my face like that last lady.”

  Mari rolled her eyes again but couldn’t help but smile when Craig the flight attendant came scurrying back with five different kinds of drinks and huge cups of ice for them. He may have also slipped them extra pretzels.

  That smile remained on Mari’s face for the next few hours. Miraculously. She kept waiting for the heaviness of reality to settle on her shoulders. For herself to get slapped across the face with her homelessness/ dumpedness/ messiness of her life. But the moment just kept… not coming. Not even when Jay stacked her checked bag on top of his and wheeled it all out. Not when Jay dumped their stuff in the trunk of his hybrid, that he so rarely drove. Not when he paid to get out of the long-term parking lot. Not when he automatically started driving toward his house.

  It wasn’t until Mari stepped through the front door of the small house that was so, so Jay. Pictures on the walls, minimal clutter, homey and comfortable. It was then that a frown sunk over her. A whole body sensation that had her thumb finding its way back to her mouth. She dragged her bag into the living room and set it next to the couch.

  Jay dumped his bag in the bedroom before coming back out for hers. Mari put a hand on the handle to keep it close to her. “I’ll keep it out here.” She cleared her throat. “With me.”

  Jay looked from his slightly dumpy living room couch to Mari. “Honey, it’s gonna be awfully crowded on that couch with the two of us.”

  Mari pursed her lips. She wasn’t sleeping in his bed tonight. It was a death sentence and she knew it. She absolutely refused to go from Linc’s bed to Jay’s. Never having had one of her own in between. That was just… no.

  Sleeping in Jay’s hotel room had felt different somehow. This, she looked around his house, just felt so final. Like she was shacking up.

  Mari looked up at him from the couch. “I don’t like parties. I know you’ve seen me at two of them in the last few months, but I don’t ever want to go to them. I’m stubborn. Sometimes I just like to get my own way even if I’m screwing myself. I like to be alone. But I don’t always know when I need it, so sometimes I’m just a dick to the people around me until it slowly occurs t
o me that I need alone time. I hate grocery shopping so I never do a whole big run. I just run into the store for this and that like three times a week. So I’m always out of stuff I need. I don’t like talking about work when I’m at home. So you’ll never know what’s going on with that part of my life. Linc didn’t even know my coworker’s names. I want a dog. A big one.”

  Jay’s face grew more and more serious as she talked. He finally understood what she was getting at with this ever-growing list of things that were hard about her. She was trying to talk him out of loving her.

  Or at the very least, she was trying to be up front about everything so he couldn’t blame her for it later. Jay sighed. Long and hard. Apparently talking wasn’t working. So he was going to have to do some showing.

  He turned from her, mid sentence, and strode back into his bedroom. He grabbed his bag, with one, longing look at his own bed, and dragged the suitcase back out to his car. He came back in for Mari’s suitcase and gave it the same treatment. Next he came back in for Mari, grabbing her hand and hauling her up from the couch. He flipped off the lights and locked up his door behind them.

  “Wh- what the hell are you doing?” Mari sputtered as she stumbled along behind him.

  “If staying at my place is going to make you insist you sleep on the couch and list your potential faults like a crazy person then we’re going to sleep someplace where neither of us live until you get your freakin’ kilter back.”

  Mari stared at the back of Jay’s head as she followed him to his car, slid into the passenger seat. Driving away from his house, she felt her panic start to recede. But a new feeling took its place. A full-bodied amazement and wonder at how well he’d automatically understood exactly what had been going on. It was almost like he’d known exactly what she was thinking without having to ask. He’d just packed up their things and brought them back to the car.

  For the first time, something fluttered in Mari’s stomach. It felt like the smallest little wing of hope. It was the first moment that Mari realized that Jay actually knew her a little bit. Not in just the whirlwind of intense emotion that had come along with the hurricane. But he actually knew her. Mari Brady: person of the world. Quirks and all.

  Jay pulled up to a stoplight and made a phone call. “Hi. How are you? Yeah. It was great. Really great. The surf was good. The company was better.” Jay glanced at her and listened to whoever was talking on the other end of the line. “Uh huh. Listen, can Mari and I stay in your guest room tonight? You heard me.” Jay laughed for a second and then cleared his throat. “Is, uh, is that right? Alright well. I won’t ask questions if you won’t.” Jay laughed again, this time a little nervously. “Okay. Love you too.”

  “Who was that?” Mari asked as Jay hung up the phone, tossed it in a cupholder next to him and pulled through the light.

  Jay cleared his throat again, a slight blush on his cheeks. “That was Ryan, Eli’s dad.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “You told him you love him.”

  “Yeah,” Jay shrugged easily. “We’ve been saying that to each other as long as I can remember, I told you he’s like my dad.”

  “Right. So we’re staying at his house tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Jay said as he leaned back in the seat, one hand draped over the steering wheel. Mari was struck by how dang good looking his hands were. “I would have called my mom. But I figured that staying in my childhood bedroom probably wouldn’t help with the, uh, whatever it is that you’re feeling.”

  She hummed in the back of her throat, vaguely agreeing. But she wasn’t thinking about that right now. She was thinking about the pink that had stained Jay’s cheeks when he’d been on the phone. “He said something that embarrassed you.”

  “Yeah,” Jay ran a hand over the back of his neck. “He, uh, told me that we were welcome to stay over but that he wouldn’t be sleeping there tonight.”

  Mari laughed, clear as a bell. “Wow. And you told him that you wouldn’t ask questions about his situation if he wouldn’t ask question about ours.”

  “Yeah,” Jay repeated, his cheeks going pinker as he shook his head. “I still can’t believe he’s dating my mom.”

  “Have you confirmed it?”

  “Not verbally. But you saw the way he kissed her at the Superbowl.”

  Mari’s humor dimmed a little bit, remembering everything that had happened in the wake of that night. “It was easy to get swept away that night.”

  Jay nodded, reached for her hand. “God, it feels like that was a million years ago.”

  Mari looked out her window and watched a neighborhood go by. “A different lifetime.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They stayed in Ryan’s guest room for three nights before Mari found a place of her own to rent. It was a studio apartment with high ceilings, good light and zero counter space. But it was close enough to the ocean that Mari could taste the salt on the air and she could afford the rent. Perfect.

  Jay didn’t spend the night at his own house for almost three weeks after they moved Mari into her place. Which was ridiculous, considering how much bigger Jay’s house was than hers. But they both tacitly understood that there was some sort of magic for her in having her own place. Feeling like a guest or a freeloader was her absolute nightmare right now.

  And Jay? Well, anything was fine by Jay as long as it meant getting to see Mari every day. Getting to kiss the glow of her shoulder in the sun when he woke up. Getting to watch her stretch in nothing but her underwear as she loped toward the shower each morning. And getting to surf and cook and bike to work together? Forget it. He was happy, at peace in a way that he’d never been before.

  Before the hurricane, he hadn’t known a love like this could exist. And after the hurricane, he hadn’t known if he’d ever get to experience it in person again. But now, he got to have his cake and eat it too. He loved Mari. And he damn near lived with her. Perfect.

  It was at the end of that third week in her new place that Jay felt the uncomfortable sting of the precariousness of their situation. Mari refused to call herself his girlfriend, they hadn’t spent much time with his friends since the vacation, and she out and out refused to talk about their future.

  Jay tried hard not to let it bother him. After all, he had about 95% of the things he’d ever wanted in his life. There was no need to be selfish. And besides, pushing Mari was a really good way to have her taking steps back from him. And he was flipping done with her taking steps back from him.

  So it was with all that in mind that Jay’s hand froze for just the barest of seconds as it brought the bite of cereal to his mouth when Mari said what she did.

  “I’m gonna go see Linc tonight.”

  Jay cleared his throat. “Oh? I didn’t know he was back in town.”

  Mari nodded and finished grabbing berries out of the fridge. “Mmhmm. Just for a few days before he’s back on his world tour.”

  Play it cool, he told himself, but there was no stopping the words. “Your idea or his? To see each other.”

  She eyed him for a second from across the counter before she crossed over her tiny kitchen and slid neatly into his lap. His hands came around her instantly and he welcomed the weight of her. The warmth of her. “His idea. And I’m starting to get deja vu.”

  Jay grimaced. The very last thing he ever wanted to do was remind her of the douche in a suit. So he took a route much more in line with who he was. Painful honesty. “I just feel a little funny about it because you loved him for so long. And I love you so much. And you guys like, just broke up. But, you know. I’m a big boy. I can handle complicated feelings.”

  Mari pulled her head back from the crook of his neck and eyed him. Something crossing her face that neither one of them could begin to interpret.

  “I don’t love Linc. Not the way you’re thinking.” It was with tremendous relief that she realized that she didn’t feel like she was betraying Linc as she spoke. Her stupid sense of loyalty was the one thing that was sticking around from
her relationship with him. It was her last remaining feeling, other than friendship. But as she spoke, she was realizing that her loyalty had started making a switch. It was much more with Jay than it was with Linc. “I don’t think I ever loved Linc the way you’re thinking.”

  Something surprised and vulnerable flashed over Jay’s face and it made Mari have to lean in and kiss him quick.

  “But he was really, really good to me for a long time,” she continued. “He was the only reason I got through those years after I lost you. And if it’s possible to keep him in my life then I want to.”

  “I understand,” Jay responded gruffly. “I guess, in a way, I kind of owe him too. For taking care of my girl when I couldn’t.”

  Mari nodded. “I know you don’t believe me, but the two of you would actually get along really well.”

  “Yeah, not happening,” Jay said, the words flying out of his mouth before he could stop them. He pursed his lips in regret, but Mari just laughed.

  “Fair enough.”

  Jay rubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed. “Alright, so, what’s the best way for me to act in this situation? I want you to be comfortable.”

  Mari’s heart swelled and words bubbled to her lips. She had to say them. She was gonna have to say them. Holding them back was starting to feel like a lie. But she couldn’t quite go there yet. There was something holding her back and she wasn’t sure what it was. So instead of putting words to the feeling that she was sure was being clearly transmitted in her eyes, she just answered his question.

  “One: Just don’t make it weird. Two: Tell me you love me. And three: Ask me how it went when I get back.”

  It was the first time that she’d requested for Jay to tell her he loved her and it squeezed something deep inside him, like a hand on a sponge. He’d told her a hundred times over the last three weeks and he’d always gotten the feeling that it had made her feel vaguely uneasy. But if she was outright asking for it? Well, he was going to give it to her in spades. With relish and mustard.