by Ward, Alice
“Andrea,” Jace called from next to me. I turned my head to look at him. “I’m right here.”
I was entirely too frightened to answer, so I simply gave a stiff nod.
Right then, the cable started to lift me up into the air. At least it moved at a fairly slow and steady pace, not that my stomach cared much as it twisted and knotted. I watched the people out around me, getting smaller and smaller by the minute, the nervousness growing heavier, thicker by the second.
At last, we reached the top. A few brief seconds of quickened breaths, of knowing that I was about to drop passed. And then, just when I thought I might burst from the anxiousness buzzing through every fiber of my being, I plummeted down, down, down toward the ground.
My heart flew up into my throat, but still, I managed to scream with an intensity that instantly made my throat raw. The ground was quickly approaching, so fast, my brain and body weren’t really sure how to process the fall. I was supposed to be safe, but falling from sixteen stories was anything but. Not that there was anything I could do at that point except pray that the cable held out.
When the end of the drop came, my body flung back up, but instead of bouncing, I flew up and out. As my body took flight, soaring above the crowd of people below, it felt as if my stomach had been left behind. Awe and adrenaline and excitement coursed through every nerve ending as the wind whipped at my hair and face. Only then had the fear subsided long enough for me to remember that Jace was still up in the air with me.
“Amazing, right?” he yelled, face glowing with exhilaration when I chanced a glance in his direction. He had his arms out wide, like a set of wings, as he flew through the air.
My answer came in the form of hoots and hollers because, in that exact moment, there weren’t words to describe the surreal experience. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d felt more alive, more aware, more free than I did right then and there.
All too soon, our flight was over and our bodies were being brought back down to earth. As they unsnapped the cable, my legs, which had apparently forgotten how to handle gravity, tried to give way. A set of strong arms wrapped around me, supported me, saving me from making an embarrassing spectacle of myself.
“I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” Jace whispered into my hair.
Mixed with the dizzying adrenaline pumping through my veins, his citrusy scent was downright intoxicating. Without even realizing it, I was leaning back against him, taking it in, enjoying the way his body felt against mine, the way his arms seemed to have been made to protect me from falling, just as they had in that moment. Of course that was just asinine; no man’s arms were made for just one woman. But my body wouldn’t listen to my brain right then, and I was too preoccupied with enjoying it all to care all that much.
“You hungry yet?” he asked, gently helping me find my balance again.
“Mmmhmm.” The sound came out more like hum or a purr than a confirmation.
I swore I could feel him smirking, which thankfully snapped me out of my ridiculous haze.
“Alright then, what do you feel like eating?”
“Pizza?” I asked, hopeful that this amazing park could top off my day with some greasy, cheesy carbs.
Jace gave a quick nod. “Primo’s Pizzeria it is.”
***
Sitting across from each other at a little table for two, Jace and I shared a pepperoni pizza and an order of golden fried cheese sticks.
“This is so good,” I muttered, grabbing a second slice, careful not to let all the topping slide off onto the metal serving tray.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” Jace said with a smile.
“Very much,” I said, just before lifting the slice to my mouth. But then, just before I took a bite, I felt this little pang of guilt. I set the slice down on my plate and then stared at it, as if somehow, it might ease my discomfort over everything—Sean, the break-up, taking advantage of Jace’s kindness. “Thank you. For bringing me here today. I’ve had a lot of fun, more than I’ve probably had in years.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching across the table to push a wayward strand of hair from my face. “It’s no problem. I’m just surprised you came with me. And that you’re an adrenaline junkie.”
My eyes shot up to meet his. “I’m not—“
With raised brows, he cut me off. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Well, admittedly, I think my body needed the wake-up call. I—I don’t know what happened to me.”
Jace’s lips tightened into thin lines and his brow pulled tight. “You know,” he said, pausing to clear his throat. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
“About what?” I asked, lifting my slice to my mouth again. This time, instead of pausing, I shoved a bite into my mouth.
He pulled his shoulders back and cleared his throat again. Oh, this was going to be bad. I could feel it.
“Your... relationship.”
I damn near choked on the bite I was chewing. It took a few minutes to remember how to chew and swallow, and by the time I did, he had a napkin raised for me. I took it gratefully and wiped my mouth, buying time before we continued the awkward conversation.
“I know it’s none of my business,” he said, continuing, despite my apparent discomfort at the subject. “But you don’t really seem like the kind of girl to throw her whole entire future away over a break-up. From most girls,” he lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug, “I could see it. But in you? Let’s just say I didn’t expect to see you like I found you this morning.”
Carefully, I chewed over my words before opening my mouth. The last thing I needed was to go and piss him off and then find myself stranded in Arlington without a ride. All the while, he watched me intently, as if just waiting for me to give a good reason for lying in bed the past two weeks, barely coming out to even go to class.
“It was two weeks,” I said, softly, at almost a whisper, hoping it would hide my irritation. “I know that, to... some people, that might not seem like a very long time to mourn the ending of a relationship. But for me... let’s just say that it was five years of my life, washed down the drain. And Sean was more than just my past. He was... everything I’d built my future around. Besides my career, of course.”
“Of course,” Jace said, his eyes narrowing as a shadow passed through them. “But wasn’t your career your top priority?”
“Yes, I suppose it was—Is.”
“But you haven’t talked to your boss since before turning in the piece on the band?”
My eyes dropped to my plate again. He was right. I hadn’t talked to Marcus since the day I’d left for Corpus Christi. The day of the kiss. The day before the column on Reckless had come due. I probably didn’t have a position anymore, and if I did, I would be lucky if it would include distributing copies to the campus book store. But I didn’t sink into my pit of despair before realizing that there was no reason on the planet that Jace Richardson should have known this information.
I narrowed my eyes and glared across the table at him. “How would you know that?” I asked, my volume low but my tone full of venom.
“Whoa there, firecracker,” he said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I only called Marcus to check and see when the feature would be published. I save every clipping the band is in. That’s when he told me that it might not make it into the paper.”
The volcanic activity in my veins quieted, which only made me feel even more deflated about not finishing the damned article. “Oh,” I said, softly, dropping my hands to my lap.
“Well,” again, he cleared his throat. “I—uh—bought you some time.” He averted his eyes, as if ashamed for meddling in my career.
“What do you mean?”
“I told Marcus it was kind of my fault that it was taking so long for you to complete it,” he said, slowly bringing his eyes back to mine. “And before you say it, it wasn’t an outright lie, if you think about it. It was kind of my fault. I just didn’t tell him
the why behind it.”
My mouth flopped open a few times before I could find the words to speak. On one hand, I was livid that he had stepped in and made my career, or potential lack thereof, his business. On the other, I was grateful that he may have, in fact, bought me enough time to finish the piece and save my job.
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally confessed.
“Thank you would be nice,” he offered, that smug grin, just a shade short of genuine, pulling at his lips. But it was just enough to ease my anger and my worries.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, my voice sounding about as broken as I felt. But obviously not that broken if I’d allowed my life to slip through my fingers like I had. And over what? Sexual attraction?
And just like that, the entire cycle seemed to have started over.
“No, you know what,” I said, pushing my chair back the metal scraping on the brick floor beneath our feet. “I’m not thanking you. You—you started this with all your sexy towel-wearing and panty dropping voice. You just had to kiss me. No regard for my relationship, which you knew about. And then I’m supposed to just thank you for meddling in my life, yet again? Sorry, Mr. Sex on Legs, you’re not getting it.”
I threw my napkin on the table and stormed toward the door. I should have known I wouldn’t escape that easily; Jace was right behind me, matching my huffy stomps, step for step. No sooner than we’d made it outside, he snatched my hand and whirled me around to face him.
“In case you’ve forgotten, you kissed me, too, Andrea.” His chest heaved with emotion. His eyes burned with angry passion. “And I’m pretty damn sure you enjoyed it.”
Instinctually, I started backing up, backing away from him, but again, he matched me step for step. My back hit the wall outside the pizzeria. There was nowhere to run so I smacked him. But it didn’t even faze him. I raised my hand to slap him again, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand to the back of his head.
“Apparently, you need reminding,” he said, his lips lingering right over mine. “Because I know you want this as much as I do.”
Those eyes, alight with fire and passion, melted me on the spot. The electricity buzzing from his body forced my lips open, allowing a huff of air to escape. But it hadn’t come out angry or huffy like I’d wanted; it sounded hungry, desperate, inviting.
Oh, God, he was right. I wanted this.
He wasn’t the one to close the space between us. It was my body that betrayed me, shoved me up on my toes, stretching that short distance to bring his lips to mine. My hands were the ones searching and exploring the softness of his brown hair, the back of his neck, his taut shoulders, his bulging arms. And it was him that broke free from my tangle of limbs and shaking body.
“Feel better now?” he asked, his chest heaving.
I gulped, hard, my throat refusing to work.
“Now, if you still want to leave me here, take off on your own, miles from campus and no way to get home, you go right on ahead, firecracker. But if you’re staying with me, we’re going to talk about how to get your life back on track because I’m not going to sit idly by while you throw it away.”
“But I loved him.” The weak, tearful words almost tasted like a lie; considering my current circumstances, they sounded like one, too.
“Love or not, no man—me included—is worth giving up your future for,” he said, running a gentle finger over my cheek. “Of all people, I would have thought that you knew this. Someone so determined and head strong. Your life, your future wasn’t ever about him.”
“What do you know about futures and planning?” I asked, my voice still no more than an angry whisper.
He inhaled deeply and then held his breath for a brief second, the tightness of his lips suggesting either annoyance or contemplation over what he should or shouldn’t say. Finally, he released the breath in a whoosh of air, pushing himself off the wall and away from me. “More than you might think,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck before turning to walk away.
Against my judgment, or maybe in morbid curiosity, I followed after him. He wasn’t really trying to escape—or at least, it didn’t appear so—but he continued to walk, not even looking back to see if I was following. Maybe he’d known that I would all along.
Or maybe I’d finally found the chink in the rock god’s armor.
Between Jace’s sudden brooding mood and the setting sun, it wasn’t hard to tell where we were going as I followed him through the thinning crowd. But just a little before the exit, I spotted my favorite ride, a ride that felt like home. I didn’t even realize I’d stopped walking to stare up at it until Jace was by my side, his head tilted up to look at it with me.
“You want to go?” he asked, the life in his voice sounding so much more deflated than I was used to.
I rubbed my lips together and released a little sigh. “No, it’s okay. You’re ready to go.”
I turned to face him, resigned to leaving, but he just stood there, looking at me, the conflict evident in his pinched features. “Last ride,” he finally said, lifting his chin toward the Ferris wheel.
Even if I’d tried, I couldn’t have stopped the smile of excitement from spreading across my face. “Really?” I asked.
He gave a quick, brief nod and then made his way to the almost non-existent line. In a matter of minutes, we were settled into a car and heading for the top.
“What is it about girls and Ferris wheels?” Jace asked, looking out over the edge of the car.
Despite the fact that he wasn’t looking at me, I shrugged. “I don’t know about other girls, but they have a Ferris wheel out on the Seattle pier. They make me think of home.”
And just like that, the nervous energy from being so close to Jace faded away, only to be replaced by a sense of heaviness and sadness. “I miss it.”
“You miss home, or you miss Sean?” Jace asked, turning his head to meet my gaze. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there was a sadness, an almost palpable pain resting in those chocolate eyes.
I stared out in front of me at the various rides and park visitors, unsure of my answer. There was definitely a part of me that missed Sean, but maybe that hadn’t been it at all.
Becca had told me, on more than one occasion, that there had to be a reason behind the kiss. I might not have known what that reason was yet, but I was starting to suspect that my ache for Sean was more about what I’d lost than what I really wanted. Why else would I have put so much distance between us over the years? Why else would I have kissed another man who clearly wasn’t my type but ignited so many sensations in feelings in me—feelings that I hadn’t had in years?
“I think..." I finally said, slowly, carefully, so as not to say more than I should. “I think I miss the idea of Sean. I do love him. Always have and maybe I always will, and it always hurts to lose love. But mostly, I think I just miss my home, my family, the rain, the ocean..."
“So you don’t miss him?” Jace asked, eyes narrowed, as if he were scrutinizing my answer.
I swallowed nervously. I’m not really sure why I felt so strange during our conversation, or why Jace really cared about my relationship with Sean. If things went anywhere with us, it’d be a fling, at best and an utter disaster at worst. But the anxious butterflies were still there, swarming around in my belly. “I—I don’t think I’ve really missed him for a long time.”
“Was it the distance?” Jace asked as the wheel jerked and then started its first rotation.
I mulled it over for a bit, biting at the inside of my cheek. Had it really been as simple as that? Or were there other factors at play?
“I think that was part of it,” I said, pausing for a moment longer. “But I think there was more. Like, I think maybe I felt like, once he moved up in his electronics company, as he built a name for himself, my career would be less important.” I turned to shoot a quick look at Jace as I said this next part. It was important for him to understand that Sean wasn’t a chauvinistic pig, not that he really had a rea
son to care.
“He was always so supportive of my dreams, encouraged me to go whatever college I thought would be best suited for what I want to do... but there was just something there, something I couldn’t put my finger on, like I was going to become the doting wife with her adorable little career, and when it came time to have children, I would be the one to make all the sacrifices. Maybe it was just me, maybe I’m the one who wanted it that way, or I feared it becoming that way, but it was there.”
“And you weren’t okay with that?”
I shook my head. “To be quite honest, I’m not even sure I want kids. I like them okay, I just haven’t ever really given it much thought. That was Sean’s idea. I figured, since I wasn’t passionate about it one way or the other, it wouldn’t hurt.”
“And did you talk about who would take care of the children?”
“We tried... but it always ended up being a sensitive spot for both of us. We eventually just committed to making our decision later, as we got closer to actually having them.”
Jace got really quiet for a while, long enough for the wheel to make a full rotation, long enough for me to wonder if I’d said something to offend him.
But then he cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes at the stars. “Sounds like maybe you were right,” he said. “And that maybe you had different goals in mind.”
“Yeah,” I said, sighing a little.
“You’re going to be okay, you know?”
The knife in my heart, the one I’d forgotten about most of the day, twisted just a little. “I know,” I said, quietly. “I just don’t know how I’ll ever forgive myself.”
Jace reached between us to grab my hand. I almost pulled away, but again, that comforting protectiveness won over my desire to put distance between us; and it wasn’t like I had anywhere to run. “It’s going to be easier than you think,” he said. “I would know.”
My head shot back in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I..." he trailed off for a moment, scratching behind his ear with his free hand. “I know what it’s like to be in Sean’s shoes. I know the anger that comes with it. I know the sense of betrayal. But most of all, I know that these things happen sometimes. We fall in love, but we also fall out of it. And sometimes, we really do want different things, a different future, and it all ends up working out for the best.”