Riptides (Lengths)

by Campbell, Steph

  “Just outside,” she says. “I work for a vineyard.”

  “Yeah.” I picture those rolling hills, the big blue skies, the cold nights. “You like it?”

  “I love it.” She has a killer smile. It blooms on her mouth and rises right up into her eyes. “I gave Cohen and Maren a package to the vineyard I work for. It’s this amazing little place that has the most fantastic wines. You like wine?”

  “I love pretty much anything fermented,” I say.

  “I noticed you tonight. You have a very charming vibe.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Looking for a job?”

  I think about Jess, about what may or may not be happening. I want to say, “No, not in Napa. I have plans. I have this girl waiting on me…”

  But something makes me say, “Maybe. You know someone who needs help?”

  She stops right there and opens a little purse dangling off her wrist. She scrawls some info on a business card and presses it into my hand. “I feel like such a shady recruiter, but the place I work at is desperate for good help, and I just get a good vibe off of you.”

  I take it and thank her, pressing the card in my pocket, sure I’ll never wind up using it. We finish the dance, and I introduce Rowan to Grandpa Beckett. Two minutes later, they’re laughing and spinning across the floor like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire reincarnated.

  “Dude.” Whit comes up behind me and scowls. “You sold me down the river. How the hell will I ever get Grandpa to dance with me again now that he’s danced with her? She’s stiff competition, and I love dancing with that man!”

  “Can I sub in for him?” I ask, grabbing her hand.

  She gives an exaggerated sigh and rolls her eyes. “I guess. You’re no Donald Beckett, though.” She grins and winks as I lead her out, and watches Cohen and Maren over my shoulder. “They are so adorably in love. I love it.”

  “Yeah. I’m happy for them.” The words I say are meant to be happy, anyway. Too bad I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  “Oh shit. The baker?” Whit bites her lip and presses her eyebrows together when I nod. “So sorry, Enzo. You deserve way better.”

  I manage a weak laugh. “Not only did she hurt me, but she may have inadvertently caused epidemic food poisoning. I hear Marigold made the cake?”

  Whit’s grin is huge. “I’ve been giving her baking lessons! I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think everyone will be pleasantly shocked. And Rabbi Haas shouldn’t have to restock the Pepto.”

  “Nice,” I say, feeling some relief. “I love Marigold, but diarrhea is the last thing I need on top of this shitty day. Pun intended.”

  Whit squeezes me in a hug. A pity hug.

  Fuck me.

  I’ll take it.

  THIRTEEN

  The wedding is over, the reception cleaned up, and I’m exhausted as hell, but I’ve still been all over creation searching for Jess. Her shop. My place. That little spot on the pier where we sat tucked behind the lifeguard stand all night long, kissing until our lips were sore and her neck was raw from the scruff of my five o’clock shadow. The only other place left I can think of is O’Shea’s, and, to be honest, even if she isn’t there, I could use a car bomb— or twelve right about now. I pull around the back of the dive bar and her car is there, bathed in the glow of a streetlight. When I see it, it’s like the damn heavens have parted are shining down on it.

  I finally found her.

  And it isn’t until I’m actually standing in the doorway of the crappy bar—— until I can actually see her, slouched over onto the bar top alone that it hits me.

  She didn’t show to my brother’s wedding.

  Not for me, or the cake.

  She chose instead to come have a pint at the place we met. What the hell am I walking into?

  “Tequila. Doesn’t matter what kind,” I say, sliding a bill across the bar.

  Jess knows I’m here. Next to her. But I only catch the sideways glance of her eyes before she returns her gaze to her near empty glass of scotch.

  “Thanks, man,” I say to the bartender who passes me my drink. I waste no time throwing it back, savoring the way it burns, drawing out the inevitable.

  “I guess you want to know why I didn’t show,” she says, rattling the remaining ice cubes in her glass.

  “What I want…” I steady my breath as I take the stool next to her, and reach over to wrap my arm around her tiny shoulders. “What I want is to know that you’re okay. Are you?”

  I push the hair that’s fallen in her face back over her shoulder and see her cheeks are stained with tears. Her features contorted with pain.

  “Jess, baby, it’s just a cake. I told you if you couldn’t get it done, it wasn’t a problem. Marigold swooped in and saved the day. I mean, it was no Jessica Mills kosher Mexican chocolate creation, but coconut poppy seed did the trick and everyone was totally happy, so seriously, no worries.” I try to keep my voice light, like I’m not fucking worried sick about her.

  “It’s not about the cake.” She swallows so hard, I can see all the delicate bones in her neck.

  “What is it th——” I start. Then stop. Because I may be blind where Jess is concerned, but I’m not a total idiot. “Oh. Right. Okay. I get it. It’s not the cake that kept you away. It’s me.”

  “It’s not that simple, Enzo.”

  I suck in a quick breath. “Nothing with you ever is,” I say, but then regret it. Because when things were good with Jess, they were fucking amazing. Feeling her in my bed the other morning when I woke up was the most natural, simple, good thing I’ve ever felt, and right now, I’m aching to go back to that feeling again.

  “What’d I do?” I ask. No use beating around the bush. She bailed on my brother’s wedding and maybe just broke up with me, so I get that I must have screwed up royally. But as I’m sitting here, watching her sip the remains of her drink then call for another, I’m wracking my brain for what I did and coming up with nothing.

  “What did I do, Jess?” I repeat.

  She doesn’t answer, and instead, holds up her left hand. The hand that she pressed over my mouth the other night while we were lying in bed together so that she could say “I love you” first. But this hand is different today.

  Because this hand has a white gold band around her dainty fourth finger. A symbol of eternity…an eternity with someone who isn’t me.

  My breath leaves me like I’ve been sucker punched in the gut, and I actually fold over onto my stomach in response to the guttural pain.

  “What the hell?” I choke out.

  “He came back a few weeks before schedule, even though we agreed I needed more time to work through things. He surprised me, and I didn’t have time to explain to you. You have no idea how ashamed I am. I never expected it to turn out this way. I’m sorry,” is all she says. Her eyes are pleading with me to understand but I don’t.

  At all.

  I don’t want to say the words. I don’t want to admit the truth that’s staring me in the face, but I’m sick of turning a blind eye and being the biggest goddamn sucker. “You’re married?”

  As soon as the words are out in the stale, yeasty bar air, I know they’re true. So many tiny details and confusing situations line up and click into perfect sense.

  There’s love-blind. And then there’s being a fucking idiot. I definitely chose the idiot route.

  “It’s a long story,” Jess pleads, her eyes swimming with more tears, her voice cracking around the words. She blows a breath out and presses her bangs back with a shaky hand. “I tried to tell you. So many times, right from the beginning.”

  “Bullshit,” I spit out, slamming a fist on the bar.

  “Enzo, I did. That day you came to bakery, I promise you, I tried. The night we met, I tried. And the day I told you about my mother’s watch. That day…we got interrupted. Too many times. And I was caught up in you, so I…was… I was stupid. So stupid. I swear to you I never meant to lie. Or to hurt you…I was confused. I was thinking so many things t
hrough, and I wasn’t supposed to meet you, and then you were there and I just…I just couldn’t walk away.”

  “That was pretty damn selfish then, Jess. To me and Mr. Jess. Where is he by the way?”

  She takes a long pull from her watered down drink and her cheeks go bright red. But this isn’t that gorgeous blush that made me fall so hard for her. This is shame, plain and raw on her face. I hold my breath while she answers.

  “He’s in the military.” Her voice is soft and she closes her eyes like she doesn’t want to face this crazy mess we’re up to our necks in.

  “Perfect,” I say. So many little comments over the last few weeks are crystal fucking clear now. “So what, you were screwing around with me while he was off in some desert?”

  She shakes her head. “No, he was just at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio doing some training the last few months. We were on a break. Well I was…I guess it’s complicated. It’s crazy complicated, and I was doing the best I could.” Her voice snags and a sob trembles in the back of her throat.

  Despite all the bullshit, she still has a pull on me. All I want to do is take her in my arms and fix this, fix it all for her. And me. But I realize that was probably the kind of thinking that landed me where I am now. I never had any intentions of getting involved with a woman who wasn’t available.

  I watch her and wait for the inevitable feelings to shred through me. I expect to feel rage, but all that bubbles up is pure, gutting exhaustion. The kind that rips me open and leaves me feeling boneless and achy.

  “I’d like to say that makes it better. Jess…” I rub my hand along the back of my neck, my mind racing, searching for something that will make me understand how she could do this.

  “Do you remember when I started to tell you about…everything? My past, my second family? The day you threatened to get rid of my watch?” Her eyes are wide, like an animal that’s terrified.

  What the hell does she have to be terrified about?

  “I remember. You told me about losing your mother and your boyfriend’s family all within a couple of years.” Damn. Time is fucked up. In technical terms, Jess and I had just met a few weeks ago. She’d told me that story days ago. But it felt like we’d known each other forever and spent years together. How could that be?

  “Lost my boyfriend’s family?” She rears back. “I…I don’t remember saying that.”

  I rub a hand over my face. “Alright. Maybe you didn’t come out and say it. I might have just put things together on my own. You were leaving, I was trying not to push you. I don’t remember all the details, Jess. That was back when I thought you and me were gonna have years to be together. To get to know every detail.” My laugh is short and hard. There’s nothing remotely funny about this. “What does it matter now?”

  “It’s just…that’s not the story.” She falters over her words and raises her hands in a pathetic half-shrug. “I mean, what happened was, I was too scared to lose my boyfriend’s family. So I clung on, even though I knew it probably wasn’t the right thing to do.”

  Vaguely, out of the fog of that day, I feel like I remember something about the boyfriend and the military…

  Shit.

  She’s playing with the little white gold band, studded with gleaming diamonds. Fancy; probably cost her husband a shitload.

  Her husband.

  She’s wearing a wedding band.

  My mind shocks back to Cohen and Maren’s wedding. The vows they swore to each other, the love in their eyes when they promised to be together forever. The way my brother held her tight to him, like he was daring anyone to come between him and the woman he loved with this fierce protectiveness.

  Jess had a wedding. She said vows. To a man who is her husband.

  It’s not all processing like it should.

  “My high school boyfriend and I were a pretty typical high school couple.” Her hollow, quiet voice brings me back to the bar and the story she never got to tell. She brushes the bangs out of her eyes and stares into some middle distance, like she was seeing her own history playing out in the dust-mote filled twilight of this bar. “I mean, I thought it was love. But he was my first. My first everything. And he’d been with a few girls before me, but not many. None who ever moved into his house and took his family hostage or anything.” She gives a bald laugh, like someone stripped all the happiness out of it.

  “Just because you moved in with the guy didn’t mean you were obligated to marry him, Jess,” I point out.

  “Well, I know that now.” She takes a shaky breath. “I sometimes imagine going to that lost, lonely teenage girl I was and telling her, ‘Look, it’s going to be okay. You don’t have to be a martyr. These people are good people. They’ll love you no matter what.’ But everything felt really complicated back then. Really fucking hard. I was so stuck. And I think he was too. He was always pretty stoic, I guess. We never really talked about our feelings or anything. And one day, he just came home with papers. He’d talked to a recruiter and joined the Marines.” Jess shakes her head, her eyes planted down, like she still can’t quite believe that’s how that day so far in her past had panned out.

  “Were his parents upset?” I ask just to ask. I ask because she stopped talking. I ask because, even though I know where this story is going, I guess I’m pretending like it’s one of those choose your own adventure books I used to read when I was a kid. Maybe if I throw in a twist, the continuum will change, and I won’t be facing having my heart ripped from my chest and shredded because the girl I fell totally in love with is fucking married.

  “His parents were happy.” She runs her fingertip over the whorls in the bar’s wood. “His grandfather was in the navy. His dad was in the army for a few years. It was like this right of passage for him. This way for him to become a man, I guess.”

  I think back to my bar mitzvah. I think about my brother-in-law, Adam, who was in the Israeli army. I think about boys and men.

  Am I a man? In the sense that Jess’s husband is a man? The way that Adam is a man? And why does this question come up now and cast a bigger shadow over the fuckfest that is my current situation?

  Jess is married to a man. A Marine. What the hell does that make me?

  A distraction.

  “That should have been the perfect out for you,” I point out. “He was going. You were staying. Clean break, all that.”

  Her fingertip moves in quick, random figure eights. “But I did care about him. I did…I do love him. And then there was this chance he could die. Which made me love him more. I mean, thinking about losing him made me love him more. And the uniform…”

  Jess realizes she’s gone too far even before she sees my look of total disgust. I’ve been sleeping with her naked body pressed against mine, ready to show her off to everyone I love and care about, ready to make her a solid part of my life. I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that she has a husband. A Marine husband. I don’t need to know how turned on she is by him in his fucking uniform.

  “I’m sorry.” Her apology sounds idiotic to both of us.

  “So you married him?” I say, not acknowledging her watery ‘sorry,’ wanting this story, this whole episode of my life, wrapped up and tucked away for good.

  Fuck this all.

  I want to walk away. I want to walk out of this bar and this down and say to hell with it all right now.

  “I married him.” She repeats the words slowly, like she’s coming out of some kind of amnesia cloud and just remembered that she did, in fact, chose to marry a man. A man other than the man she’s been fucking like crazy for the last few weeks. “I had no prospects. I had no way to go further than a minimum wage job in the shitty town we grew up in. As the wife of a Marine, I was able to go where my husband went. I could travel. He offered me his GI Bill so I could go to college. I had my own home, my own space. I had a family and security that I could count on for the first time since my mom died.”

  “Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way you hoped it would,
Jess.” I run a hand over my face and neck, feeling the tension bunching in my muscles.

  “We’ve been having problems for a long time, Enzo. We got together way too young, he went on too many tours before we were settled. We’d been married for years, but never actually lived together. Every time he came home, it was constant fights and when he went away on special missions, we’d go weeks without communicating at all. We just grew apart, I guess.” She sucks in a huge breath and her next words come out in a rush. “He cheated on me. He slept with another woman, many times, behind my back, and I had no clue. One day I picked up his phone because he forgot it on the back porch and a text came up. A bunch of them. Disgusting pictures and…sexting, I guess. I confronted him, and he confessed to everything. It broke my fucking heart. We did counseling, he wanted to give our marriage another shot…but I wasn’t sure I wanted that. I wanted a break. I wanted space and experiences without him. I wanted to get back at him, I guess.” She presses her lips together and shakes her head, her eyes fixed on the pitted wood of the bar. “You didn’t break up a marriage or anything.”

  “Clearly. Seeing as you’re wearing his ring,” I say, my voice edging on a sneer. I motion for the bartender to bring me another shot, and order another for Jess, too.

  Because what the fuck?

  “I don’t expect you to understand any of this, Enzo. I don’t expect you to care, or to feel sorry for me—”

  “I don’t. All three. I don’t,” I say, before I toss back the shot. I wince from the burn of the tequila, but more from the lie I just spewed. Maybe there’ll be a day when I won’t feel anything for Jess, but right now, right now the girl I love is broken and it doesn’t matter why or how bad my own guts are hanging out right now, I want to make everything right for her. But I can’t. I can’t because of that ring on her hand.

  “Okay.” Jess nods. Her voice is small and weak. Fuck I can’t stand to watch this girl hurt, even if she just gutted me. She reaches under the bar for her purse. “Okay, good.”

  “You’re in no shape to drive, baby,” I say. I reach out and start to touch her wrist, but she yanks it back.