It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chick Lit

by S. E. Babin

  “That’s what I said, too!”

  Jensen chuckled. “Thought you might like to join us.”

  I blinked in surprise as last night’s visitors words came back to me. I had to make this right. But I couldn’t bring myself to be in his presence for too long because it made me angry. Why had he left me, and why had he never tried to reach me again?

  “Um, thanks for the invite, but I have to work late tonight.”

  I was totally lying, and from the look he gave me, he knew it, too.

  “Those books won’t shelve themselves, huh?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Right.” I gave a little wave and headed back over to the register. “Have fun.”

  He lingered at the door. “Sure you don’t want to go?”

  “Lots of work.” I motioned to a pile of paper beside me. I didn’t have any idea what it was, but it looked convincing enough.

  He nodded and let himself and Marie out, being thoughtful enough to lock the door after him.

  I put my head down on the register desk and groaned. How was I going to get through them living here?

  Less than two weeks until Christmas.

  * * *

  Turns out I was much better at avoidance than I thought I was. The bad luck settled down for a little while, especially when I managed to avoid seeing Jensen for the entire day. It was when we were around each other that things got weird. It was like the universe screaming in my ear, hey idiot, when are you going to ask him the question you’ve been DYING TO ASK FOR TEN YEARS NOW?

  And I always managed to avoid asking it, even though it put a lump in my throat and a burning in my heart.

  I left early one evening to go check on Christopher. I was doing a good job of avoiding him too, but if I did it too much he put a guilt trip on me and moaned about how much his leg hurt. It was one week in and if he had been hooked up to a machine I might have pulled the plug by now. I was able to set him up by the television each day with a refrigerator I set up by the couch filled with drinks and sandwiches. He tried to guilt me into taking time off, but I flat-out refused. I didn’t want to spend any extra time there. It was bad enough I had to go back and sleep at home, especially since one night I caught him trying to sneak into bed with me.

  I suspected his leg hurt a lot less than his ego did these days. I didn’t think I’d be able to put up with him for the entire six weeks without losing my sanity.

  I turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door quietly. He slept a lot during the day thanks to the pain meds he’d been given, so I hoped I could sneak in, make sure he had what he needed and sneak back out for dinner.

  The sound of moans coming from my bedroom alerted me. Oh God, what if he had fallen or something? Could he not reach the phone?

  I dropped my bags by the door and rushed toward my bedroom.

  A thought hit me as soon as I pushed the slightly open door further. What was he doing in my bedroom?

  A woman sat on top of Christopher in the throes of ecstasy.

  The moans were obviously not from someone in pain.

  Anger rose in every fiber of my being, but I bit my tongue and stepped out before they saw me.

  I was going to have to burn my bed later. I went into the living room, unplugged the fridge so his sandwiches would spoil and unhooked the cable box from my television and shoved it into my oversized purse.

  I couldn’t face that jerk tonight. I grabbed my keys off the table and left the house as silently as I’d come in. I would deal with him tomorrow and shove him out the window if I needed to. I was sure it would count as justifiable homicide.

  My face burned with embarrassment during the ride back to the store. Katie had already closed up shop by the time I returned, so I shoved the key in and pushed into the bookstore, tears streaming down my face. Tears of anger, embarrassment and regret.

  Just the day before, Chris had told me he loved me and he wanted to give us another shot and for one horrible moment, I’d considered it. Just to keep from being lonely.

  Jensen stood at the coffee machine, staring at me with concern.

  “Oh,” I said and wiped the evidence of tears from my face.

  “Jess?”

  “Hi, Jensen. Sorry to bother you. I just came back here to grab something.”

  I was getting good at lying to him.

  Jensen shook his head. “Obviously.” He poured another cup of steaming coffee, dumped a little cream and sugar into it and walked over to hand it to me. “What happened?” he asked as I took it from his fingers.

  “Nothing.”

  He sighed and took me by the free hand. I allowed myself to be led over to the comfortable sitting area I had designed.

  “Sit,” he demanded.

  I sat.

  He sat in front of me and stretched his legs out onto the old, scarred wooden table my grandfather had placed in here so long ago.

  “Where’s Marie?”

  His lips quirked. “You’ve become quite adept at avoiding questions. And me.” His green eyes searched my face. “Sleeping. She had a long day.”

  “Oh,” I said and sipped my coffee.

  “Jess, look. I know things are unresolved between us, but at one time you could tell me anything. What’s stopping you now?”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “You left me. Years ago. Without a word. And you want to know why I don’t trust you?”

  His gaze darkened then. “I had my reasons.”

  I snorted. “And I was never important enough to be a reason.”

  Jensen leaned forward. “What happened tonight?”

  “And I’m good at avoidance?”

  Jensen didn’t answer that question.

  I sighed. “Christopher and another woman were screwing in my bed when I came home to check on him.”

  His eyes widened in shock. “You’re going to have to burn that bed.”

  I laughed with little amusement. “I’m going to have to figure out how to get him out.”

  “Maybe try throwing him out the window?”

  “Justifiable homicide, right?”

  Jensen chuckled. “That guy sounds like a douche. Why’d you hook up with him?”

  My mouth thinned. “Gee I dunno. Because I’m a weak-willed woman who needs a man to support her?”

  He raised his hands in surrender. “The sarcasm is strong in you.”

  I glared at him.

  “Sorry,” he said, his expression sheepish.

  I sighed and rested my head against the back of the thick loveseat. “He makes me laugh. He’s a kid at heart.”

  Jensen said nothing but the air moved and I felt the cushion beside me depress. I opened my eyes to see him sitting beside me.

  Danger, Jess! Danger!

  I scooted further away from him.

  “I owe you an explanation,” he said and didn’t try to move closer.

  I nodded. “I think one is in order.”

  He reached out and took the cup from my hands and set it on the table. Then he reached for my hands again and clasped them in his own.

  I fought to keep the emotions off my face. The warmth of his hands enclosing my own was enough to start a fire deep in my stomach. I waited.

  “I never should have left you. It was...complicated.”

  “Life is complicated. But it doesn’t mean you get to run away from it.”

  A sad smile quirked the side of his mouth. “You’re right. I was young and stupid.”

  “So what happened?”

  He squeezed my hands a little tighter. “I was going to ask you to marry me.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  “But my parents didn’t approve.”

  My mouth opened and closed a few times before I could formulate a response. “It still doesn’t answer why you left.”

  “My mother and father were in the process of splitting up while we were together. My announcement of true love and marriage came at the absolute wrong time. There was a fight. A big one.”

  I s
till didn’t see where he was going with this. “I don’t understand. Help me understand.”

  “My father took the ring I’d bought and threw it into the woods. My mother told me to pack my things. And if I didn’t, I would have been thrown into the street because my father wouldn’t let me stay.”

  “So you left?” I asked, numb.

  “I had to.”

  “But you could never call? Or write? Or any of it?”

  He let go of my hands and dropped his head into his hands. “I couldn’t. We moved from state to state, rarely slowing down. Mom had an RV with no phone access. It was a different time.”

  “You left me a note.”

  He nodded. “Inadequate, I know. But how could I explain it?”

  I stood. “You explain it with honesty.”

  “Jess -”

  “No. I can handle all of it except -” I paused for a breath, almost too angry to speak. “Except you never came back. Even when you could have. You moved on. You got married. You had a child for crying out loud!”

  His face looked stricken. “I should have. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what you’d think of me.”

  As I started to walk away, I turned to him once more. “I would have said yes, Jensen. And we could have made it work.”

  I stepped into my office and shut the door behind me with a soft click. Then I turned on music from Spotify, rested my head on my arms and cried for the next two hours.

  6

  I woke up the next morning groggy and completely discombobulated.

  “Coffee,” I groaned as I tried to get off the old, uncomfortable couch I’d shoved against the office wall when I first took over ownership. Once I managed to stand up, I stretched to get the cricks out and groaned again as everything in my body locked up in distress.

  I felt like I’d been run over by a tractor trailer, and right that second, the events of last night came barreling back at me.

  “Oh, Pandora,” I muttered. “You are a savage mistress.”

  I patted down my hair, opened the door and peeked my head out to make sure I was alone. Thank God it was Saturday and we didn’t open until noon. I checked the wall clock. It was only eight. I blew out a breath once I saw the coast was clear and headed in to make a pot of coffee.

  But I was too late and had I been more awake, I would have smelled the roasted beans.

  Jensen leaned against the counter, eyes wary but unable to keep the smile off his face. “Good morning.”

  “Go away,” I mumbled.

  He handed me a steaming mug of coffee. I had to stop the urge to jump on him like a rabid hound and take it away. Instead, I reached my arm out as far as it would go so I didn’t have to step any closer to him.

  One dark eyebrow rose as he held it just out of arm’s reach.

  “Give it to me,” I demanded.

  “I can’t,” he said, with a fake surprised expression on his face. “I. Just. Can’t. Seem. To. Reach. You.”

  I growled, stepped forward to reach in, only to have Jensen snatch the cup back and curl his arm around my waist and pull me into his chest.

  I froze in shock.

  Jensen leaned in. “You’re going to listen to me for just a minute and then I’ll give you your precious,” he whispered.

  I whimpered. Both from his proximity and my desire for coffee.

  His chuckle rumbled against my ear.

  “If I screamed would it help?” I grumbled.

  “You’d scare Marie.”

  “I hate you right now.”

  “Walking into this bookstore was the best thing that could have happened to me. I haven’t been back in this town for very long, but I knew I wanted to come back and raise Marie here. What happened between us is something I cannot change no matter how much I try. But what I can do is try again. And promise you I will never walk away again, no matter who tries to take me.” His voice was low and urgent.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “But as much as I am to blame, Jess, you never looked for me either. I woke up every day, sometimes in a new town, and wondered if today would be the day I saw you walking down the street. But I had no way to make it on my own. No job, no prospects and no college degree. I couldn’t come back to you and ask you to marry me with no way to support us.”

  “We would have made it work.”

  Jensen pulled me tighter. “Maybe.”

  I rested my head on his chest. “I should have gone after you.”

  “Eventually. We were young.”

  I sighed. “Can I have my coffee now?”

  “Do you forgive me?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t exactly understand his reasons, but I knew how hard it could be to disobey your parents. But I’m not sure mine would have put me in that position. I finally nodded.

  “Can we try again?” Jensen tilted my chin up.

  I gazed into his emerald eyes and saw the hope and knew I couldn’t go through it again.

  It would shatter me.

  I pulled away. “I can’t, Jensen. I worked too hard to get over you. I can’t do this again. I want you to stay here as long as you need to -”

  “We are moving in the next week. I found a house close to here.”

  I nodded. “That’s good.”

  Jensen handed me the coffee and I accepted it gratefully.

  “I want us to be able to be friends,” I said, realizing how stupid it sounded.

  “Friends?” he asked and snorted. “Jess, I don’t have friendly thoughts about you.”

  I swallowed hard. “Right.”

  He brushed past me and stopped and turned around. With one hand he pulled up a strand of my hair and felt it in his fingertips. “This is not over.”

  Jensen turned and headed back up to the apartment.

  I stood there breathing like I’d just run a marathon.

  7

  All was fair in love and war, I thought as I pushed open the door to my apartment. I was armed with a can of mace and a baseball bat. I knew it was overkill, but I wanted Chris to know I was serious.

  He was lying on the couch fruitlessly trying to watch spotty television when I came in, snack wrappers and empty soda cans scattered around him. I was extra glad I’d taken the cable box.

  His gaze went confused then wary as I rounded the corner and he saw my accessories.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Get out,” I said.

  Chris blinked. “Excuse me?”

  I stood straighter. “Get your crap and get out of my apartment.”

  He sat up a little straighter and winced as he moved his leg, but I knew exactly what he’d been doing last night, so I felt no sympathy for him. He gave me a wary grin. “No can do. I have at least four more weeks of recovery.” He held his hands out as if to say whaddya do?

  “You can recover somewhere else.”

  Chris looked taken aback. “What brought this on, Jess? Come on, I’ve been a great house guest.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “Really? How so?”

  “I’ve been quiet, unassuming. I rarely ask for anything…” His voice trailed off as he saw my thunderous expression.

  “Don’t forget to say you never had any company over here,” I said in a deadly quiet voice.

  His eyes widened and his mouth gaped like a fish. “I have...no idea what you’re talking -” He stopped abruptly. “You were here last night.”

  I nodded.

  He raised his eyes heavenward. “How much did you see?”

  “Enough to know your leg must not be hurting too bad.”

  * * *

  An hour later I had Christopher sitting out at the front of my apartment waiting for a van to come pick him up. It was the same scene as a week ago. Just a different day. As I began to walk away, he reached out for me.

  “Jess, I’m sorry.”

  I pulled my hand away. “Sorry you got caught.”

  A white van rolled up. “Maybe,” Chris said. “But I still love you, Jess.”

 
I said nothing and watched him, once again, ride away from me. If that was love, I wanted nothing to do with it.

  8

  I was alone. Again. It took me a few days to clean up the whirlwind in my apartment that was Chris. And a couple more days after that to get all of the evidence of him and our relationship out of our apartment. It required taking a couple of days off work, but I think it was a good trade-off. Plus, I didn’t have to see Jensen after his announcement that we weren’t over. I liked him. Heck, I think I way more than liked him but I wasn’t sure I was ready to jump right back into a relationship especially after the disaster of my last one.

  He wasn’t ready to be friends, and that was okay, but I wasn’t ready to be a girlfriend again. So we were at an impasse. I didn’t have family locally and Katie was busy with hers, so Christmas dinner was just me with an enormous ham and multiple sides. I didn’t care that I was alone. It was Christmas, and I was going to eat until I couldn’t fit into my pants.

  On an even lamer scale, I had gone out and bought myself a few gifts to put under the tree. Even though I knew what they were, I was still going to have fun unwrapping them. Actually, that wasn’t lame. It was super lame. But it was okay. I was determined to enjoy this even if I had no one to share it with.

  I poured the hot cocoa I made out of the pan and into my mug, topped it with marshmallow fluff and took it into my living room. The Christmas Story was having a marathon, and I had a date with my television. I curled up, my feet warm in my ridiculous fuzzy socks, and flipped the television on.

  It was just getting to the fight scene in the street when my doorbell rang. I frowned. The only person it could be was Katie. I set my mug down and padded over to the door poised to greet Katie, but when I opened it Jensen and Marie stood there. Jensen was armed with presents and a soft smile.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi, Ms. Jess!” Marie waved happily. “Can we come in?”

  I opened the door wider, completely taken off guard. “Errm, sure?”

  Marie strolled in like she owned the place. Jensen followed her a little more hesitant.