Romance in the Rain

by Anthology

  “…and that’s the only reason I’m here today,” the woman finished. She looked at him expectantly.

  “Well, hallelujah,” JD said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “That’s all you have to say?”

  She had thick lips, a curvy build, and large breasts pushed up for display in a low-cut baby doll dress. Another time, JD might have found her attractive enough to make a pass at. He considered the idea, but quickly rejected it. Getting physical with another girl—one who wasn’t Maya—would feel like cheating. Not cheating on Maya—who probably couldn’t care less what he did—but being unfaithful to himself. Making out with Whitewater Woman would be like buying a knock-off Made in China Rolex watch from a street vendor. It was a quick fix that wouldn’t satisfy, and—in the long run—would only intensify his desire for the real thing.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Whitewater Woman. “I’ve gotta say goodbye to someone.”

  “Suit yourself,” she huffed.

  The crowd was thinning as JD made his way out to the porch. “I’m taking off,” he told Maya, ignoring Clint.

  To his surprise, she stood up. “Can you give me a ride downtown? My van’s still parked under the Alaskan Way viaduct.”

  “I can give you a ride later,” Clint said quickly.

  “That’s ok. I’ll talk to you soon.” Maya took JD’s arm. “Let’s blow this joint,” she said in an undertone.

  “I’m with you,” JD replied. “Nice meeting you, Brent.”

  Clint looked like a dog whose bone has been stolen. “You too, JC,” he said.

  JD drove downtown. “So how do you know Clint?” he asked levelly, keeping his eyes on the road.

  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Maya rolled her eyes. “Mutual friends,” she said in a bored voice.

  “Did you ask him for a show in his gallery?”

  “No. He suggested it tonight.”

  “I see.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. You guys seemed really cozy out there on the steps.” I wonder what he expects you to do for him in return.

  Maya glared at him as though he’d spoken the words out loud. “Is that a problem?”

  “No.” JD kept his tone neutral. He was Switzerland. “I didn’t know you were into art fags, that’s all.” Ok, maybe not Switzerland. Maybe more like one of the Baltic states who suspects its neighbor of siphoning its oil in the night.

  “I’m not into Clint, JD.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. He’s a pretentious snob.”

  “You can say that again.” When she didn’t respond, he pressed on. “Then why were you with him all night?”

  “I wanted you to understand that I’m not interested in you. Not in that way.”

  “So all that was an act,” JD said. “Was getting all close and Smothery your way of trying to prove something to me? Or to yourself?”

  Maya sat stiffly in her seat and looked out the front window. Only her hands, twisting the leather straps of her purse around and around, gave any indication of her internal state.

  “I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended that you’d go to all that trouble to show me how little you care.” JD knew he was saying too much, but it was better than keeping silent while the sting of her words infused his blood like venom.

  “I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, JD. I just want to be free.”

  JD shook his head. “I don’t get it. Have I been coming on to you? Have I done anything to make you uncomfortable? To cramp your style?”

  “No. But you want to. You fix these great meals every night, you help around the house, take care of the cat. And the studio shelves…” She gave him the stink-eye. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. You’re trying to seduce me.”

  “Girl, I already did that a week ago. Remember?”

  Her voice softened. “Oh, JD. You know I do.”

  “Was it that bad?”

  “No. It’s just not where I’m at right now. Please try to understand.”

  “Fine. If it’ll make you feel better I’ll cook ramen noodles for dinner, kick the cat and leave my underwear on the floor.”

  “Maybe just… don’t try so hard,” she said in a small voice.

  JD felt his cheeks burn. She might as well have punched him in the face. What the hell was going on with her? Why did she run so hot and cold? Living with Maya was like riding a rollercoaster. Only it was his emotions that were being twisted and contorted, lifted up and thrown down, from one minute to the next. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it.

  “I got a job today,” he said flatly.

  “That’s great!”

  “Which means I’ll be out of your hair in a couple of weeks. Unless you want me to go sooner.”

  Even after all the humiliation, he couldn’t bring himself to voluntarily walk out of her life.

  She was silent. Then she touched his arm. “Congratulations. I’m really happy for you.”

  “Thanks.” He pulled up next to her minivan, which was parked under the concrete overpass of the Alaskan Way viaduct.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said. “I’ll see you back at the house.”

  He didn’t say anything. Maya reached over and squeezed his hand.

  “JD?”

  “What?”

  “I want you to stay. Until you have the money saved for your own place.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will you please stay?” Her lips trembled and her eyes were damp, filled with a yearning he didn’t understand. Her strong, warm hand pulsed in his.

  He squeezed her hand and reluctantly let it go. Why won’t you let me kiss you? Why won’t you let me in? In a low voice, he growled, “Fine.”

  Chapter 4

  A week later on a blustery, overcast Saturday morning JD and Maya stalked the beach about a hundred yards from the house. Sand pipers ran along the waters’ edge, poking for bugs with their long, curved beaks. A heron stood in the shallows, scanning the choppy waters for fish. An off-leash terrier barked frantically as it chased a seagull across the sand. Everyone, it seemed, was out hunting.

  A spurt of water rose up from a tiny depression in the sand. JD thrust his shovel down hard into the wet sand and leant his weight on the handle to bring up a large mound. The sand crumbled and fell away, exposing the clam. Its shell had been smashed by the metal shovelhead.

  JD flung his shovel down in disgust. “Damn! I keep doing that.”

  Maya came over, holding back her hair with one hand as the wind tried to whip it across her face. “Keep your shovel vertical when you dig. The clam will burrow deeper to get away, but they tunnel straight down. And put it behind the clam, like this.”

  She whacked the ground with the flat of her shovel and watched for the tell-tale squirt. “The larger the hole, the bigger the clam,” she said. She pounced on a donut-shaped hole with raised edges and demonstrated the technique with her own shovel, plunging it straight down, rocking it back and forth in the heavy sand, and finally bringing up a large, smooth clam with an oval shell decorated with brown concentric rings. Its neck poked out on one side like a fat white tongue. “Bingo,” she said, shaking it off and dropping it into her bucket.

  JD glanced into her bucket and counted nine razor clams, compared to his paltry three. “You’re showing me up. A snip of a girl like you. It’s embarrassing.”

  She slapped him on the arm, her green eyes dancing. “You must be off your game today. First one to get to fifteen clams wins.”

  He grabbed her wrist playfully. “What’s the prize?”

  She smiled and arched an eyebrow. “Winner’s choice.”

  JD’s heart started to beat faster. With one small tug he could pull her up against his chest and kiss her. He let go of her wrist.

  “I better get digging.”

  Not unexpectedly, Maya won, although JD picked up speed and finished a close second. They walked back to the house with their shovels
slung over their shoulders. Maya whistled the marching tune from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

  “I’m gonna put up the studio shelves today,” JD said. “All the prep work is done. You’ll be loving it.”

  “Need some help?”

  “That’d be great.”

  “I’ll rinse the clams off and meet you in there. Could you put my shovel away?”

  “Sure.” He poured the clams from his bucket into hers and took her shovel. “So, what’s your prize gonna be?”

  She held up the bucket. “You make me dinner with these.”

  “Ever heard the expression, Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How about instead of making you dinner, I show you how to make it yourself? That way, you’ll be able to go out your front door and forage for a meal anytime you like.”

  Maya agreed enthusiastically.

  “I’ll run up to the store and get all the ingredients,” JD said. “We’re gonna need champagne.”

  “Does that go with clams?”

  “Champagne goes with anything. I got my first paycheck yesterday and I’m feeling flush.”

  “In that case, why don’t you pick up some of those chocolate truffles from the bakery section for dessert, too?”

  “You got it.”

  The clams—cooked in a simple broth of sautéed garlic, water and white wine and sprinkled with fresh herbs—were succulent and tender. JD ate heartily. Between clamming in the morning and putting up the studio shelves in the afternoon he’d worked up a big appetite. Once the shelves were installed, he and Maya arranged and organized the studio. She now had three sections of shelving. To the left of the shed entrance were shelves for the greenware—the unfired clay—to dry, and for the bisqueware—clay that had undergone the first firing and was ready to be painted—to cool. Cooling shelves for the final, glaze-fired pieces were located on the opposite wall. JD had also made a table from a wide board resting on two saw horses to hold ceramics that were ready for shipping to Maya’s out-of-town customers.

  To make things more festive, they decided to eat at the table rather than at the kitchen counter. Maya had thrown a colorful Indian cotton print cloth over the scarred wooden table and set it with her handmade plates and wine goblets. The centerpiece was a large urn out of which spilled wild red roses from the garden.

  JD refilled his goblet and held it up. “A toast to the chef.”

  She held up her own. “And to the carpenter. I love my new shelves.”

  JD noticed that Maya had only picked at her food. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t like your own cooking?”

  “I guess I’m not that hungry.”

  Under the table, her bare foot touched his. He thought it was an accident until she kept it there, adding weight to her words.

  “Thanks for today,” she said. “It was perfect.”

  He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Hey, anytime.”

  Their eyes met.

  “We should go out,” Maya said. “Have a drink, celebrate.”

  JD was happy celebrating right there at the beach house. “Sure, if you want.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “But it’s so comfortable here.”

  “We could watch a movie,” he suggested.

  “How?” She glanced at the empty wall across from the couch.

  “On your computer. We can stream something from one of those online movie channels. I can move the computer out onto the coffee table in the living room,” JD said.

  “Too complicated,” Maya said. “Let’s just swivel the screen around and watch on the bed.”

  “If you want to. But then we’ve got to watch a war movie, or a thriller.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if we watch anything halfway romantic I’ll probably try to kiss you.”

  “You can’t,” Maya said. “You promised, remember?”

  “I’m not a freaking saint, Maya. That’s like putting a man dying of thirst in a river and telling him not to drink.”

  “Fine. I can’t stand war movies, so thriller it is.”

  “Fine.”

  A half-hour into the movie, JD realized he had no clue what was going on. He was far too aware of Maya’s close proximity, and he could feel the warmth emanating from her body. He wasn’t able to pay attention to the little figures babbling and gesticulating on the small screen. When Maya leaned forward to grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl placed between them, her hair tickled the side of his cheek.

  JD kept his hands firmly pressed into his lap. But he felt antsy, ready to explode. Sitting so close to her without touching was an exquisite form of torture.

  “Are you following this?” Maya asked. She put a kernel of popped corn into her mouth and crunched it, staring at the screen.

  “Nope.”

  “Me neither.” She returned his look. “Is it just a really bad movie, or what?”

  “Probably ‘or what.’ It’s your fault I can’t focus.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re distracting me. Sitting there, giving off all those pheromones.”

  Maya cocked her head. “For a carpenter, you use some pretty big words,” she said in a parody of a Southern drawl. Turning serious, she reached up and gently started to trace the contour of his upper lip with her index finger.

  JD cupped her chin and tilted her face to his. He kissed her softly, then with more passion as she responded with equal fervor. He raked his fingers through her hair.

  “God, you’re so beautiful,” he said.

  Maya melted into him, her arms wrapping around his waist to squeeze his ass. They sank into a semi-reclining position on the bed.

  JD tugged Maya’s t-shirt up over her head and unfastened the hooks on her bra. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with the ragged momentum of her breathing. As he sat up and pulled off his shirt, Maya kneeled and pressed herself against him. She moved from side to side, leaning back so that the points of her nipples brushed against his bare chest. JD groaned. Her fingers scrabbled with his belt buckle as he pushed her jeans and underwear down off her hips. She released his belt and his pants pooled around his knees. He kicked them off.

  JD drank in the sight of her. Her body was as pale as alabaster, but her face was flushed and full of passion. He wanted to possess her, to make her his own. Maya lay back against the pillows and JD leant over, covering her with his much larger body.

  He slid his hand between her thighs and they opened to receive him. As his tongue probed her mouth, he thrust himself into her, deeply. Maya let out a cry and wrapped her legs around him. Her nails scratched his back. He pumped rhythmically, aware of the shadows that danced around the room and the flickering of the television set behind them. Maya’s body arched to take him all the way in. Her eyes were closed. He waited until she opened them before allowing himself to let go. All the pent-up sexual energy that had been flowing through him over the past two weeks released itself as JD came inside her with a roar.

  Maya lay quietly beneath him as they caught their breath. Their eyes met and held, and JD felt as if they were really seeing each other for the first time.

  “You ok?” he whispered.

  She nodded. In the stippled darkness a panoply of shifting lights and colors were reflected in her eyes.

  I love you. The words caught in his throat like birds struggling to be released, but he closed the door on them, afraid that once they were out they would cause more harm than good. Maya startled easily. He didn’t want to scare her away or make her feel beholden to him. Instead, he kissed her. “It’s my turn now.”

  Gently parting her legs, he bent his mouth to her sex. Maya’s hands tangled in his hair. “It’s ok. You don’t have to.”

  “I want to.”

  She lay stiff and unresponsive for a couple of minutes. Then he sensed her begin to thaw, incrementally moving to adjust herself to his rhythm. He kept at it, flicking his t
ongue against the hard nub of her sex as he slipped one finger inside her. With his other hand, he pushed her legs further apart, pressing her inner thigh with the flat of his palm. Uttering a series of small whimpers, Maya began to writhe beneath him. As her movements and cries rose in intensity, JD twisted one of her nipples hard as his finger slid in and out of her. Maya shuddered and moaned and he felt the spasm of her orgasm against his mouth.

  Maya fell asleep in his arms. She lay with her back to him and he could feel the rise and fall of her breathing against his chest. For the first time since moving into the beach house, he felt as though all the pieces had clicked into place.

  He sensed that allowing him to pleasure her had meant more to Maya than the act of penetration itself. There was a level of trust involved; a conscious loosening of control, that for whatever reason was hard for her. He hoped it would be easier going forward. The sex this second time around had been amazing, whetting his appetite for more.

  He had fallen in love with her. She was everything he wanted in a woman; smart, beautiful, talented, independent. She knew how to work hard and also how to play. He couldn’t imagine ever feeling bored with her, or running out of things to talk about.

  Was now the right time to tell her? Or would it frighten her and slow the growth of intimacy between them? JD wasn’t sure. Their relationship was so new and tentative, and Maya still so skittish. There would come a time when he wouldn’t be able to contain the feelings welling up within him. But for now, he decided it was better to remain silent.

  He pulled Maya closer, drinking in the saltwater scent of her hair.

  “JD?” Maya’s whisper seemed to grow out of the darkness.

  “What?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cocooned in his embrace, she rolled over to face him. In the half-light he saw her creased brow, the tense line of her lips.

  He kissed her forehead. “What is it, sweetheart?”

  Her voice was small, childlike. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “What if you found out that I’d done something bad. Something I was ashamed of. Would it make you hate me?”