“You mean Charli and Jack’s or mine and Peter’s?”
“Both,” said Mary Pat, smiling.
six
THEN
JACK GOT WHIPPED by a few towels in the locker room before his team’s weightlifting session started the Monday after he told Charli how he felt. His teammates wouldn’t stop teasing him for turning down Mandy for Charli, calling it “a mistake he would always regret.” Mandy and a few of her girlfriends weren’t too happy about it either. They TPeed his truck in the freshman parking lot, leaving a cardboard sign on the dashboard that said “Cheater.”
Jack didn’t care. He was into Charli, and that was all that mattered to him.
In time, his baseball buddies came around to his decision. After a few months his catcher, Mike, said to him as they were tossing the ball around, “Charli’s really something else, Jack. I was wrong buddy.”
Even Mandy apologized for her behavior. After seeing the way he and Charli were together at a party, she came up to him, a little tipsy and confessed, “I want what you two have.”
Since Jack and Charli were building on a great friendship, it was no surprise that what they had was so special. The physical stuff was new though. Initially, Jack was concerned that Charli saw him too much as a brother. He’d had feelings for her for a while, but she’d only recently started seeing him differently.
The first time he put his hand up her shirt and slid it between the crease in her jeans while they were fooling around in the back of his truck he said to her, “Are you sure this is okay?”
“Jack,” she said, sitting up and scooting closer to him. “It’s not like I’ve never been attracted to you. I just never imagined this would happen. I never let my mind go there. If I had . . . if it did . . . well . . . let’s just say I’m into it.”
Chemistry ended up not being a problem for them. It seemed every time they were alone together, he and Charli were making up for lost time.
“This sure beats the high fives and fist bumps I used to give you in here,” Charli said to him one afternoon when they were making out in the baseball dugout. She had come to meet Jack after practice and had watched the last few minutes from behind the chain-link fence.
“I’m with you on that,” Jack said, smoothing out her hair and pressing his lips to hers again. Jack had always loved the scent of the baseball dugout—that mix of Icy Hot, freshly cut grass, and dirt mixed into the air. But the smell of Charli’s shampoo and her vanilla grapefruit perfume that day . . . wow. It kicked that baseball dugout scent in the ass.
Jack rounded the bases with Charli one at a time, never stealing despite his strong feelings for her. He knew that going all the way was a point of no return. There was no going back to being “just friends” after that, so he was careful about moving too fast.
But it was hard not to. After a couple months of dating, Charli told Jack that she’d gone on the pill.
“It takes a month to be most effective though. My body has to get used to it. So, maybe we could plan a night or something. Do it then?”
That was all Jack thought about in January.
Then when February came, Charli voiced some more concerns.
“What if I’m not good at it?” she asked him the night they were set to take their relationship to the next level as they were driving back to Jack’s dorm from dinner. “I mean you’ve been with other girls, but you’re my first.”
Jack explained that it wasn’t about being good. “Just the fact that it’s you will make it way better. And besides,” he said, reaching over to the passenger seat and taking her hand, “it’s not like I loved any of them.”
Charli perked up in her seat. “Is that a backwards way of saying you love me?”
Jack had never used the big L-word before. But there it was. Out in the open.
“Haven’t I made it obvious?”
“I guess, but you’ve never come right out and said it.”
“Well, I’m saying it now.” He clenched her hand tightly, feeling relieved that he’d finally gotten it off his chest. He’d been too nervous to tell her for weeks. “Honestly,” he went on, “I think I always have.”
Jack ended up just talking with Charli that night. About it. About everything. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that they considered doing it again.
This time it wasn’t planned. It was the middle of the afternoon. They had run to Jack’s dorm to escape a rainstorm they’d been caught in the middle of while they were walking back to his place from class. Charli peeled off her sweatshirt in the doorway and accidentally pulled her shirt off over her head too.
“Oops,” she giggled, covering her hands over her black bra, the one with the lace and the thin straps. “Mike’s not home, right?” She quickly checked down the hall for his roommate, the catcher on the baseball team.
“In the library,” Jack said, his eyes on her bare, wet skin.
“Oh, good.” She sounded relieved as she looked back toward him. “Do you want me to go grab a towel or something? We’re soaking wet!” It seemed to take her a minute to realize that his thoughts weren’t on drying off.
Jack took a step toward her and slid his hands down her arms.
“Actually, I was thinking . . . maybe now would be a good time.”
She winced a little, which wasn’t exactly the reaction he had been hoping for.
“You don’t want to?” he said.
“It’s not that. I want to. I really want to. It’s just . . . well . . . I’m sick.”
Sick was their code word for her time of the month. “Aw, really? Weren’t you just sick like two days ago?”
“Try twenty-eight.” She chuckled, although he could tell she was disappointed too. “But, hey, when I’m better, okay?”
Sure enough, the day she was “better,” they got into a late night make out session in Charli’s bedroom. They were supposed to be studying, but their books had been pushed to the floor, and their note cards were scattered on her duvet.
Charli’s breath quickened as Jack inched his way down her body, running his lips across the hollow between her breasts, her stomach, the soft skin in between her thighs.
“Jack?” she said. His name sounded more like a moan than anything else.
“Yeah?” His voice was deep, heavy, in between her legs.
“I think I’m ready now.”
Jack snapped his head up quicker than an infield pop fly.
“Geez!” Charli scooted backwards, grabbing a fist of the duvet with her hand. “I take it you are too?”
An embarrassed laugh escaped him. “Sorry. You just got me . . . well . . . excited.”
“Clearly.” She nodded to the bulge in his jeans.
Jack nudged her playfully. Charli smiled and then curled up beside him.
“You know,” she said, “even though we’ve already talked about this, it’s kind of weird to think that tonight’s that night where there’s no going back to just being those two kids ever again. I mean if this whole thing doesn’t work out with us, it’d be too strange to be just friends having had sex.”
“I know. But it would already be weird considering we’re in love and have done other things, right?”
“I guess,” she said, snuggling closer.
“And it’s worth it to me to get to experience everything with you. The friendship and all the other stuff.”
He lay there with her, listening to the rain patter down on the roof, a sound as familiar to him as Charli’s soft, steady breathing. “I don’t know about you,” he said. “But I’m all in.”
Charli didn’t miss a beat. “I’m all in too.” She sat up and looked at the bed then, the same way Jack sometimes stared at the baseball field before a game, like she was trying to imagine how it would all play out. “So,” she finally said, “we just start by kissing?”
“Sure,” Jack said, sitting up, “like we always do. Then we’ll go from there.”
“Don’t you think it’s kind of funny that at one point in our lives w
e swore we would never do this with anyone?” she said.
“You mean when we stole that sex education book from the library during recess in the second grade and saw all the naked pictures?”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “And then remember when Mrs. Lane caught us with it and gave us the sex talk early? Just you and me in the classroom with her?”
“She was so graphic. We were seven!”
“I know! What would she think of us now?”
“I have no clue. But picturing my second-grade teacher right now doesn’t really help get me in the mood.”
“Come on.” Charli crossed her arms over her chest. “Aren’t hot teachers every guy’s fantasy?”
“You’re my fantasy,” Jack said, and even though his tone was lighthearted, it was enough to change the feel in the room.
His heartbeat kicked its rhythm up and matched the rain’s—fast, hard, thunderous. He lit the vanilla scented candle on Charli’s nightstand and then flipped off the lights. She was just a silhouette when he turned back to her. Legs. Body. Lips.
“So,” Charli cleared her throat. “I guess now’s when we start the kissing?”
Jack swallowed hard, thinking to himself that he couldn’t believe this was finally about to happen. “Yeah,” he said. “Now’s when we start the kissing.”
Jack didn’t remember much about how that first time felt for him. His focus was on Charli—listening as she told him when he needed to slow down or adjusting when he felt her nails dig hard into his back—but he did remember one moment very vividly. It was a moment when their eyes locked, and he saw all their history in a flash, just like someone might when he was on the verge of falling out of life and into death—throwing the baseball around, school bus rides, backyard campouts, swimming in the river behind their houses, kissing her outside her dorm room window for the first time—all of it. And an undeniable connection to Charli pulsed through him.
In that moment, Jack felt that nothing could ever break the two of them up. His heart belonged to Charli completely.
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seven
NOW
GIANNA KEPT HER eyes peeled for Peter’s black Mercedes as she walked the familiar two miles to work, just in case he was already on his way to Hayden’s to propose to her. She certainly hoped he wasn’t. She needed more time.
She thought of Charli and Jack and wondered if the opposite was true for them. Had too much time passed? They’d each been so sure of their feelings for one another back when they were together, but now, after five years apart, was each questioning the bond they’d once had? Were they both in a panic this very minute too?
Oh no. Up ahead.
Not a black Mercedes but a black limousine. What if Peter was inside it? He was a man of grand romantic gestures. Gianna could imagine him renting a limousine for the evening to whisk them away once she said yes.
He had no idea she might not say yes.
It was because of all the compliments. Gianna was always paying Peter compliments. It was hard not to. He was always doing things worth complimenting.
Like two nights ago, at dinner. They were at their favorite seafood place. Fancy joint. Right on the Willamette River. The food was even better than the sparkling water view. When the check arrived, Gianna grabbed it and paid, something she did on occasion, even though Peter always offered to pay and could pay. He made almost as much money as she did.
“How happy are you to be dating a guy who isn’t intimidated by your success?” he’d said.
Gianna’s last serious boyfriend, Fred, had been intimidated and used to make her feel bad about her income, something she’d never understood. It was the twenty-first century! What did it matter whose paycheck was bigger?
“You make everyone I’ve dated before you pale in comparison,” she told him. It just sort of spilled out of her. Because it was true. None of Gianna’s four serious boyfriends before Peter had come close to measuring up to him.
Kyle was her college boyfriend. She could tell he hadn’t been popular in high school when they met freshman year at The University of Portland. But when he blossomed their sophomore year, his ego went through the roof. By the time they were juniors, the studious, shy guy she’d fallen for at freshman orientation had transformed into a macho meathead she was no longer attracted to.
Rich had exuded passion. They met while Gianna was getting her master’s in business at Portland State. He was an art student. Everything about their relationship was intense, in a good way—their conversations, their chemistry, the sex. Oh, the sex! So, this is what the hype is about, she remembered thinking after their first time. She would have kept dating him . . . if she hadn’t found out he was also dating someone else.
(“Interesting,” Linda had said, with a thoughtful nod, when Gianna relayed this story. Which meant . . . what, exactly? Gianna had wondered as she left that session. What had Linda been trying to say? That men she had a spark with would cheat? That men who were overtly sexual tended to want to be sexual with everyone? Was that true? Gianna was very sexual herself, and she knew she wouldn’t cheat if she were in a relationship that was completely fulfilling. But maybe men and women were different in that way.)
Then there was Evan, the cute, intelligent banker, whom she met when she turned thirty. In hindsight, Gianna’s eight-month relationship with him shouldn’t have lasted longer than two or three dates, but they met after a long period during which Gianna seemed to be only meeting men who lacked conversational skills, maturity, financial stability, or all of the above. The fact that Evan was normal and responsible made Gianna overlook his stubborn, selfish ways until she simply couldn’t anymore.
She’d then dated Fred, the financial analyst who said he was, “intimidated by her success” for two years in her mid-thirties.
Recalling these relationships made her feel nothing except relief that they were behind her.
If she and Peter ended things, however . . .
Would she turn into one of those women? Like Karen Willis, her friend from college? Or Stacy Reis, a friend of Val’s? Both were married. Both still talked about a particular ex-boyfriend often and wistfully, in a way that made Gianna think they probably lost sleep some nights, lying there, wondering how different their lives might have been had they ended up with those impossible-to-forget-exes instead.
Gianna didn’t want to live with regret, and if she broke things off with Peter, she might. What if she never did meet someone better suited for her and came to realize Peter probably had been The One, months or years later? Did that mean she should marry him?
“Yes, no, yes, no.” She tried out each response to Peter’s question, trying to evaluate how each answer felt as it rolled off her tongue. Ugh! It wasn’t working. Picking up her pace, she crossed a busy intersection and undid the top few buttons of her trench coat.
If she didn’t marry Peter, one thing was sure, he’d start seeing someone else right away.
“I’m a bit of a serial dater,” he’d admitted, early on. “I don’t like being alone.”
This was only after they’d shared two bottles of wine at his place, of course. Peter was not a man who typically opened up unless he was loosened up, which Gianna sometimes thought might be why at times it felt like their spark was missing. It was hard to emotionally connect with someone who was always so . . . what was the word? Put-together? Poised?
Maybe it was best if she put it this way: His day-to-day behavior reminded her of the way most people acted when they were in the middle of a very important job interview. His best foot was always forward. (Which, she supposed, was better than being with someone who never put his best foot forward. She’d dated that type too. Fred came to mind.) Ha! Now it sounded like it was just impossible to win with her. Maybe it was.
“So, why didn’t it work out?” she’d asked him that night. “You know, with any of the others?”
“Simple,
” he’d said. “None of them met my criteria for what I’m looking for in a life partner. You have everything. You are everything.”
Gianna remembered thinking that that was the exact same reason she was into him.
It was still the reason she was into him, she realized now, picking up her pace.
“A partner meeting our set criteria is the most important thing,” she heard Linda now. Linda was Team Peter. She hadn’t come right out and said this, but she might as well have.
“Sparks fade,” she kept stressing to Gianna in their sessions. “I’d encourage you to focus on whether or not you and your partner share values, agree on how to spend your finances, enjoy each other’s company, and have similar visions for your future. You’re looking to build a life with someone, not have a passionate fling.”
Gianna got her point. But if meeting set criteria was all that determined whether or not two people got married, then couldn’t Peter be happy with any attractive, successful woman with a sense of humor? And wouldn’t she be happy with any man who had similar looks and personality traits as Peter? What made the two of them meant for each other? Sometimes she thought she might be more confident in their relationship if they didn’t meet each other’s criteria and they loved each other in spite of this. If their connection felt like it defied logic instead of was based on it.
A grassy park with a towering evergreen tree in the middle came into view, and Gianna decided she would cut through it to shave off some time. She had run through the park a couple of times and knew there was a concrete path that would let her out one block from Hayden’s.
Gianna found the path and had just turned down it when something caught her eye. A long white dress was lying beside the gnarly trunk of an evergreen tree. What was that doing there? An elegant dress? Lying in a park? In the rain?
Her curiosity was piqued, but she kept walking.
“But I loved him!” A hysterical, high-pitched voice startled her. She paused and looked over toward the evergreen tree where the voice had come from. Someone on the other side of the tree snatched up the dress and then Gianna heard crying. Now there was another voice . . .
Waiting at Hayden's Page 5