by Anne Conley
“What?” He asked, all innocence.
“Nothing.” She smiled back.
They drank their coffee in near silence, which surprised Renae in its comfort. It wasn’t awkward at all. Her thoughts weren’t all about stripping him naked and taking him to bed. Instead, she was picturing him wearing pajamas, drinking his coffee with the Serendipity Herald sprawled out in front of him, feeding their baby oatmeal. Surprisingly, the image came naturally without her having to force it, and that scared her for some reason. She couldn’t get her hopes set on him wanting that. He was a middle-aged man who had no children. Most men his age with no children had a reason for it.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she looked at Jason.
“How old are you?”
“I’m forty-six. You?” He kept the tone conversational, but his eyebrow quirked with curiosity.
“I just turned forty-five.”
“The forties aren’t so bad.”
She nodded. Sure they weren’t bad if you were doing what you wanted to with your life. “Why don’t you have any kids? Have you ever been married?”
Jason shrugged, “I don’t really know. I’ve never really found the right woman to settle down with.” His eyes sparkled at her with an intensity that made her uncomfortable. “As for the kid thing, I guess I’ve always been really careful, or lucky.”
Here came the million dollar question. Renae swallowed thickly before asking. “You don’t ever want kids?”
Another nonchalant shrug. “Sure, I would like kids. But I’ve gotten so old, I’m not sure it’s feasible, you know? By the time I have one, I’ll be close to fifty. I’d be throwing a ball around out in the yard on my walker.” He chuckled softly, his eyes scanning the room.
He’d seemed so nonchalant about it all, she couldn’t help but feel the relief bloom in her stomach. At least he wasn’t totally against kids. So why couldn’t she just say it?
Because so far tonight was so perfect. She didn’t want to ruin it. She was being selfish, and she knew it, but was powerless to say the words.
He was studying her kitchen, and she looked around, trying to see what he was seeing.
Renae lived in an older house built in the fifties, and remodeled in the seventies before she and Cody had bought it in the nineties. Cody had said he would work on it, but as soon as they’d married, he’d started going out instead. She’d replaced appliances as they’d died, but the stove had never broken down, so the harvest gold stove stood out from the dark brown cabinets. The refrigerator was white and covered with newsletters, work schedules, check stubs, bill reminders, and random pictures.
Her kitchen counters were filled with appliances and mixing bowls, cluttered but still neat. The window held fresh herbs growing in small pots. Next to her sink was her wine/liquor space where she kept bottles of wine and margarita ingredients. Renae’s kitchen didn’t really have all that many cabinets to store things in, so she had to put a lot out on the counters.
She watched Jason stand, looking at the fridge door. He carried his cup to it, looking at a graduation picture of Kelly.
“Is this your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“She looks like you. Gorgeous. You should be proud.”
“I am. She’s really an amazing young woman.” Renae was having a great time, and Jason had seemed so open up to now. She asked the next question with trepidation. The two other guys she’d tried to date hadn’t been interested in Kelly at all. “Would you like to see more pictures? I’ve got some hanging in the living room…”
He turned to her with a warm smile across his face. “I’d love to.” A flood of relief surged through Renae as she led him around the corner to her living room. There was a wall of framed photos behind the small television.
Jason studied them in order. The first one was a picture of Cody, Renae, and an infant Kelly camping in Arkansas. “How old were you in this one?” He shot her a poker face, and she wondered if he was trying not to judge her decisions or her husband. Whatever it was, she appreciated the purposeful blankness.
“I was a very young bride, but we managed to wait until I was twenty-six before we got pregnant. I’m almost twenty-eight in that picture.”
Jason managed a non-committal grunt before moving on to the next picture, a collage frame of baby and toddler Kelly in various poses. He slowly studied each picture before moving on to her school pictures.
His silence was killing Renae, and she desperately wanted to know what he was thinking. This was the hardest part of any relationship she’d tried to have. Exposing the man to her daughter. With the other men, Kelly had been at home, so she hadn’t brought them home to meet her until several dates in. This time, with Jason, Kelly was older, so Renae was getting it over with. If he didn’t want to date a mom, he didn’t have to. Even though he was going to be a dad.
He managed a snort at the collage picture of Kelly’s high school years, presumably because he’d found the retro ‘spirit’ day at school where she’d obviously attempted an eighties look. Her side ponytail, neon shirt, purple and turquoise eye shadow, and giant hoop earrings to match the shirt wouldn’t have necessarily given up the gig, but the huge sign she was in front of espousing Serendipity high’s eighties extravaganza gave it away.
“You’re a great mom. I can tell.”
While she’d been lost in memories of eighties day, Jason had turned and was studying her.
“How?”
“She looks so happy in every one of these pictures, and she’s obviously healthy. She has lots of friends, doesn’t seem to be lacking anything. It’s just hard to imagine you did it all by yourself.”
“Well, my parents helped a little.” Renae hedged. Truthfully, her parents had only done the bare minimum to help her out in the beginning. They had been against the marriage, thinking Renae too young, Cody not worthy. They’d seen his controlling machinations and tried to warn her against him. At the time she’d been blind to their common sense. She’d probably married Cody out of spite, but hindsight is twenty-twenty or some such. They had been right, but she wouldn’t trade anything for Kelly.
“Unless they did most of it, you still get the credit.”
“Yeah, well…” Suddenly shy at the attention he was heaping on her, Renae turned back to the kitchen to refill her coffee cup. She didn’t really need it, as it was she would be awake all night, but she needed something to do. When she returned to the living room, Jason was sitting on the couch, legs crossed, the picture of casualness. Renae couldn’t help but imagine him toeing off his shoes, remote in hand, relaxing for the evening.
“Do you have any movies to watch?” He asked her. “Unless you’d rather I go. I will, if you want me to, but I’m enjoying your company.”
She moved over to the cabinet under the TV. “No, I am too. Let me see what I’ve got.” She rummaged around the DVDs, coming up with a few for him to choose from. Of course, he chose The Ring, which substantiated her theory of not sleeping at all. Church would suck tomorrow.
She handed him the remote and watched as he toed off his shoes. Renae couldn’t stop the satisfied smirk on her face. “Do you mind if I go change clothes? I can’t watch TV all dressed up like this.”
“By all means. Get comfortable, please. It’s your house.”
Renae went back to her bedroom to put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, finding a blanket to cuddle under. When she went back into the living room, Jason had turned off the lights, adding to the spooky atmosphere of the horror movie. Great.
She started out watching the movie on the opposite end of the couch, but pretty soon she found herself flush against him, needing to feel human contact. They shared her blanket, but it wasn’t a sexual thing. It was comforting to feel his warmth pressed against her body. To her delight, he jumped when she did, but when she looked at his face to see if he looked scared, he showed very little emotion. Only his eyes held the fear that she knew her entire face was projecting.
At some point, on
e of his arms crawled around her shoulders and he pulled her close to him. At another point, she reached for his other hand, holding it to her chest and squeezing it when she closed her eyes against the soggy girl in the movie. His warmth and comfort was something she had never experienced, though had often wished for. She tried not to dwell on that thought too much. In Renae’s experience, dwelling on the positive was inevitably a mistake. It always set her up for a let-down.
After it was over, Jason let out a pent up breath. “I forgot how freaky that damn movie was.”
“Not me, I remembered. I won’t be sleeping tonight.” She laughed nervously and unfolded herself from the ball she’d curled up into on the couch, standing and stretching.
Jason stood too. “I guess I should go. As much as I would like to stay… I don’t think you want a repeat performance.”
He sounded hurt, and she wanted to reassure him. He’d been so agreeable all night, and they’d gotten along so well. Renae touched his arm. “It’s not that I don’t want that, Jason, I do. As long as we’re talking about that amazing night we shared.” She watched as he nodded. “But I was really drunk that night, and I want a real relationship with you. Not like a marriage or anything, but I don’t want something based on great sex. Does that make sense?”
He nodded soberly, waited a beat, then his face cracked into that grin that made Renae willing to do anything. “Great, huh?”
She laughed. “Stud-muffin caliber sex.”
He stilled, a perplexed expression on his face. “I don’t know what that means.” She answered with a shrug, secretly amused by his confusion. “But sex in the future is still on the table, right?”
Renae nodded. “Yes, I think so.” It was something she’d considered, repeatedly. Especially at night when she was supposed to be sleeping.
“Good.” He lowered his head to hers and kissed her. It was such a sweet and tender kiss, considering they’d just been talking about how great the sex between them was, that Renae was caught off guard. She’d been preparing for a conquering kiss of triumph, since she’d just agreed they might have sex someday. But this kiss was a consuming kiss, his warm lips softly nibbled on her lips and when she opened, he slowly swept his tongue inside, softly overwhelming her senses, until yet again she was a trembling mass of nerves. He seemed to sense it, and his hand came to her lower back where he supported her. He didn’t pull her closer, or press himself against her, he just held her, kissing her softly. When his other hand reached for her face, she couldn’t stop herself from melting into him.
Her own hands tugged on his hair, adjusting the position of his face so she could deepen the kiss. As much as she loved the tender kiss, Renae wanted more. She whimpered into his mouth as she pulled his hair, and something seemed to snap inside Jason. He hauled her against his body and a primal sound came from the back of his throat. He trailed kisses across her cheek and down her neck, whispering about her smell and the things she did to him.
“No control around you… so fucking perfect… want more.”
She pulled his head back up to her face to keep kissing him and wrapped one arm around his neck while her other hand snaked down his chest. She felt like a volcano had erupted inside her and her veins were filling with molten lava. The only thing to quench it was Jason.
When her hand reached his impressive erection, she pressed against it, and that primal noise came again from his throat.
“Stop,” he groaned. “God help me, if you don’t want this right now, you’d better stop.” Her t-shirt was balled up in his fists, knuckles taut and white and he was gritting the words out between clenched teeth. She realized then what she’d done right after telling him she wouldn’t have sex with him.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do all that.” Taking a step back, he let go, but his hands stayed up in front of him, as if he could only force the fingers open but not make his arms go to his sides. She straightened her hair. “I kiss you, and it’s all over. I guess kissing isn’t such a great idea, either. Not until I’m ready for the rest…”
The look on his face would have been comical if it hadn’t been so real. “Are you serious? I can’t kiss you?” His mouth wouldn’t close, and the look of sheer disbelief in his eyes was cartoonish, especially with the wrinkles on his forehead.
“Okay, not necessarily no kissing, but I seriously need to learn some control.”
He slowly relaxed his face, and then a slow smile covered his face. “I think I might can come up with something for that. Don’t move now.” He dropped a quick kiss on her cheek and turned before she could respond.
“See you at church tomorrow?” He winked and walked out the door.
She stood at the window by the door, watching him gracefully mount his motorcycle, start it, and merge with the machine as together they roared down the street. Sighing heavily, she rested her forehead on the glass, letting the cool pane seep into her heated skin.
She wasn’t the least bit tired as she’d predicted even before the scary movie, so she decided to go into the guest room where she kept all of her old pictures and look for Jason.
In Mrs. Faulkner’s Third grade class picture, she finally found him. Her stomach somersaulted at the image of an extremely young Jason. His clear blue eyes shined from behind a pair of thick glasses, cowlicks shooting his dark hair in all directions. He wore a t-shirt with thick orange and yellow stripes and looked ready to be anywhere but there, standing still on the back row of a class full of fidgety eight-year olds.
She could see the innocence of youth shining from his eyes, shining from the eyes of all the students in the class. Suddenly, she was assaulted with images of her own child, one with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Would it be a boy or girl? If it were a girl, would her hair have a slight curl like her own? She imagined an amalgamation of Jason’s and her best features, morphed together to create a stunning woman or man. Would they be happy like Kelly seemed to be? Or would they be more of a loner? Should she insist on raising it alone like Kelly? Or could she give up enough control to allow Jason to be a part of his or her life? Could she even trust him to do what needed to be done?
Was that what her hesitation with telling Jason about the baby was all about? Was she afraid of relinquishing control? Sure, she had done a fine job with Kelly and was proud of her efforts. But was that what all of this fear of telling Jason was based on? Was she afraid he would mess the child up somehow? She couldn’t do that. The baby was his, and she had to tell him. As soon as possible.
Or would he be more like Cody, claiming her as his own and forcing her to sever all ties to her friends and family? She couldn’t let that happen even though he hadn’t shown any tendencies towards that. She was a different person from the young girl who’d gotten married straight out of high school. Couldn’t she trust her own judgment?
Renae didn’t sleep that night, but it wasn’t because of the movie.
Chapter 19
The next morning, at church, Jason sat across the aisle, and one row back from Renae and a little lady he presumed was her mother. His dad sat next to him, writing furiously in a notebook, and Jason idly wondered if he was taking notes on the sermon, or if he was cooking up a scheme of some sort.
He could see Renae’s profile clearly while she watched the preacher intently as he spoke about the temptation of the Garden of Eden. He had to admit, the preacher was a compelling speaker, and Renae was rapt. He could see her eyes widen as she nibbled on something she’d retrieved from her purse. He smiled to himself as he watched her, his attention on the preacher fading. It was a story he’d heard before.
Jason didn’t really enjoy sermons much. They were all one person’s take on the Bible, a supposedly divine work. If it was so divine, was man really supposed to understand it fully? Historical research showed that early Christianity was a political machine to quell the rising “witchcraft” in Europe. Jason didn’t put a lot of stock in man’s interpretation of it.
Jason believed in the power of God, j
ust not the little people that stood in pulpits around the globe condemning people with their judgment.
This man, who was talking about God’s wrath on those who succumb to temptations of the flesh, had Jason tuning out almost immediately. This, in particular, was an aspect he’d always had a hard time swallowing.
If God created man and woman in his image, then He knew damn good and well that the human orgasm was the most intense physical experience there was. People were created to procreate. Period. All of the other stuff that separated man from the beasts (who were not sinners for having sex), was just gravy. The intelligence, the capacity to love all delineated people from animals. The sex part was animalistic, uncontrollable, and God didn’t judge for that. That was all Man’s power trip, in Jason’s mind, anyway.
While the preacher continued his sermon on God’s judgment for temptations of the flesh, Jason watched Renae. She seemed to be buying into all this. Her face had paled considerably, and she watched the preacher intently, her fingers clutching the hymnal to her chest, knuckles white.
It would have been cute, if he didn’t know she had to be thinking about him. If she was as inexperienced as she’d said, and he didn’t have any reason not to believe her, she had to be relating the sermon to their own experiences. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head. He sighed inwardly to himself, glad he’d come. Now he knew he had some serious work cut out for him if he ever wanted to be with her again. Pious points of view were the most difficult to overcome.
The preacher ended his discourse, and everyone stood to sing a hymn Jason was particularly fond of, Here I Am, not because of the message, but the arrangement plucked a chord inside him. He sang clearly, looking at Renae while he sang, urging her to see him. Really see him.
When the service ended, Jason and Joe filed into the aisle, followed by Jodie, his wife and two daughters, who had come up to visit this weekend. Joe seemed to be doing better physically, having gotten used to the boot, and not using the wheelchair at all. Having both of his sons there in church gave him a visible luster of pride, and Jason was glad he’d come.