I tell him I’ll be there.
I watch him fight.
He wins.
Duh.
I ride with Kinney and his douchebag baseball buddies. They make comments the entire ride home and purposely call me the wrong name, basically telling me the names of the other girls he’s fooled around with. Kinney has already told me everything. From what he calls a harmless kiss to something much more, I know it all.
I’m tired of dealing with him.
I secretly just want Jett.
And I want Kinney to go away and stay away.
Kinney drops me off and I don’t kiss him goodbye.
One of the baseball players yells that someone else will take care of Kinney tonight.
I don’t even care.
All I can think about is the pizza place.
I have the name.
I get the address.
And nothing is going to stop me from seeing Jett again.
And it’s kind of cool.
Maybe pizza will be our thing.
Hopefully for the rest of our lives together.
Jett ate two slices to my one. Only because my stomach was full of butterflies. I tried to tell myself it was anxiety and guilt, but it wasn’t. It was butterflies.
We stood outside at our cars, sharing a cigarette, when Jett looked around.
“I need to get out of these clothes,” he said.
Yes you do…
My cheeks flushed. “I do too. My clothes. This dress. I don’t wear dresses. I hate it.”
“I know, sweetheart,” he said. “You can take off if you need to.”
“I packed a bag.”
“What?” Jett asked.
“I packed a bag. Change of clothes. I mean, a small bag. For some stuff. I figured I’d roll up jeans, a shirt, and a hoodie. Why not, right?”
Jett studied me in silence. “I did the same thing.”
“You never planned on going back home,” I said.
“Neither did you.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
Which seemed to be something like a defense mechanism.
“Well this just got interesting,” Jett said.
“Has it been anything but that for us?” I asked.
Jett shook his head. “I’m looking to get out of this town for the night.”
“I’m sure everyone can use a night away once in a while,” I said.
Which made me laugh inside my head.
I hated on Kinney for traveling and now I was going to just do a spur of the moment trip. With Jett?
Not a trip. Just to get out of this town. I’m here to help him.
“I’m getting changed,” Jett said. “I’m dying in this stuff.”
He had already lost the suit jacket and the tie.
Now he stood outside of his car and kicked off the shoes and unbuttoned the shirt.
He turned and stripped it off.
My eyes went wide.
There was a generous mix of new and familiar muscle that grazed the back of his shoulders and down his back.
He reached into his car and took out a bag and unzipped it.
He put a t-shirt over his head, which prompted a certain part of my mind to yell Booooo! Don’t!
Then he dropped his pants.
That’s when I turned.
My cheeks red.
He was in boxers, but still…
I stared as far as my eyes could go, letting him get dressed.
When he was done, I turned around and he looked like the Jett I always knew.
“Your turn,” he said with a grin that melted parts of my body that shouldn’t have been melted by him anymore.
“I’ll wait,” I said.
“For what?”
I opened my mouth.
Did I just subliminally assume we’re getting a hotel room or something?
“I mean, I’ll get changed inside the bathroom,” I said. I nodded to the pizza place. “That’s what I meant.”
I ripped open my car door and grabbed my bag.
I ran into the pizza place and to the bathroom.
I scrambled to get changed.
The bathroom wasn’t gross but it wasn’t the cleanest bathroom I’d ever been in either. I made sure nothing touched the floor. Especially my bare feet.
After dancing around for a few minutes, I was changed, comfortable, and I looked at myself in the mirror.
What the hell are you really doing here, Julia?
I shook my head and answered my reflection.
“I have no fucking idea.”
15
THEN
Jett
It wasn’t a hotel, but it sure as hell wasn’t some rundown motel you’d see in a horror movie or a crime show. Just your regular, U shaped motel that sat three minutes from the highway and was within walking distance from a little town that looked quaint in the daylight and had the appeal of busy city at night.
How did I know all of that?
That didn’t matter one bit.
I was doing exactly what I planned on doing.
With the exception of Julia showing up.
I looked over my shoulder as the phone rang on the other end.
We were in Room 13.
Perfectly fitting for everything going on in my life.
I offered to get her her own room.
She refused.
I opened my mouth to start asking questions out loud when I heard Wes’s voice.
“Hey, kid,” I said. “Just need to know you’re there.”
“Where’s there?” Wes asked.
He’s drinking.
“Wes, you have to take care of yourself. I know you don’t want to hear that from me.”
“Where are you, Jett?”
“I’m in a motel, kid. I couldn’t stay there.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling.”
“Hey, no drinking and driving, Wes. If you need anything, you call me. Got that? I need you to call me. Don’t fucking do anything-”
The call went dead.
I let out a sigh and put my hand to a yellow painted concrete wall.
“He’s as stubborn as you, isn’t he?”
I turned and Julia stood a foot away from me.
“I’m not stubborn, sweetheart,” I said.
She laughed. “Wow. So you live in a world of denial?”
I opened my mouth but stopped.
Denial? Are you in denial? Are you…
An idea hit me.
“Time for the rules,” I said.
“Rules?” Julia asked. “Since when do you have, care about, or follow rules?”
“No names,” I said. “At all.”
“Names? What kind of names? Our names? You want to have fake names?” Julia gasped. “Can we do that for real? Can we go to a bar and fuck with people?”
I couldn’t help but smile when I was near her.
“Hold on a second,” I said. “That’s not what I meant. I meant names. Actual names. No names. No…” I looked around. “Look, sweetheart. I’m here to forget everything for one night. Okay? Because when I get back into town, it’s all waiting. The shop. The family. People say time moves forward but sometimes I feel like I have to give it a little push to get it going.”
“Okay,” Julia said. “Your point…?”
I reached for her left hand.
My thumb slid along the diamond ring on her finger.
She ripped her hand away and put it behind her. Like I had exposed a deep dark secret or something.
That’s what I didn’t want to talk about. I didn’t want to hear names.
And I’d do the same for her, except there were no names.
There were nights. That was it. Just nights. Dawn would come and I’d slip away like a vampire. And there wasn’t a part of me that regretted it and there wasn’t a part of me that ever would.
We stood in silence for a few seconds and then Julia put up her pointer finger on her right hand. “I’ll be right back. I forgot something
. In the room. Wait here.”
She jogged back to the room.
I leaned against the yellow painted concrete wall.
There wasn’t even a second to process what was happening at the moment. Which was good. Because if I was in a clear state of mind, there was no way in hell I’d be sharing some motel room in some town with Julia. At least not without our lives about to be torn apart.
Julia came rushing out of the room just seconds later.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“Fine,” she said.
Her cheeks turned red.
I quickly reached for her hand again.
She gasped and turned, putting herself against the yellow painted concrete wall.
I was inches from her body.
She looked up at me, her face burning red.
My hand crept along her wrist, the softest touch I could offer her. An icy fire climbing up my arm, threatening to stop at my heart and smash whatever was still left there.
I watched her bottom lip quiver.
She hasn’t been kissed in a long time, Jett. That means ‘he’ isn’t around right now. Which isn’t a surprise. Even if ‘he’ was around, ‘he’s’ not doing it right. ‘He’ doesn’t know how to kiss her. ‘He’ doesn’t know that Julia isn’t the kind of woman you just kiss. It’s not about a quick peck or something cliché. It’s about…
My thumb slid over her ring finger and there were no longer rings waiting.
No wedding band.
No engagement ring.
“Jett…”
“No, sweetheart,” I said. “I’m not Jett anymore. Remember?”
“What?” Julia asked.
I took my hand away and grinned. “We have to pick our names and our story… so we can fuck with people.”
* * *
I watched her and marveled.
She faced some guy named Tag. At least that’s what the guy told her. Which didn’t matter because he thought Julia’s name was Becky.
Her goal was to get two drinks out of Tag.
Then I’d step in.
I sat two seats down at the little bar, still not really taking it all in. The fact that I had started my day waking up to go to a funeral for a kid. And now I was faking names to get drinks at a bar.
Just for the hell of it.
“So I told him to eat the dog poop in the yard,” Julia (Becky) said to Tag.
She laughed and slapped Tag’s arm.
“What did he do, gorgeous?” Tag asked.
Smooth, man, smooth.
“He told me I was crazy,” Julia (Becky) said. “Want to know what I did then?”
“What?” Tag asked.
“I screamed. He got scared and thought I was going to hurt him. But I just chased him out of the house. Into the yard. With the dog poop. And wanna know what he did?”
I shook my head.
Some guys would do anything to get laid.
Julia was rattling off a fake story about dog shit and this Tag guy was eating it up, hoping to eat her up later.
Ha.
“What did he do?” Tag asked.
“He ate it,” Julia (Becky) said.
“No.”
“Yeah.” Julia (Becky) grabbed Tag’s arm. “He really did.”
“Did you let him back in?”
“No,” Julia (Becky) yelled. “I told him he had shit breath and we were done. And I wouldn’t let him back in.”
“Damn, gorgeous, are you something special,” Tag said.
He touched her leg.
I made a fist.
Julia (Becky) gently swatted his hand away. “Gorgeous enough for another drink?”
“You haven’t even had the first one,” Tag said.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“I like to drink a lot. Fast. So I like to have a couple drinks at a time. Speeds things up. You know?”
“Goddamn,” Tag said.
He ordered another drink and I stood up to make my entrance.
When the drink was put on the bar, I put a hand on each barstool… Tag’s and Julia’s (Becky).
“Can I help you?” Tag asked.
“Just getting a drink,” I said.
I reached and Tag grabbed my wrist. “Hey, man.”
“Don’t do that,” Julia (Becky) said.
“Listen to her,” I said to Tag.
“Who are you?” Tag asked.
“This is Ben,” Julia (Becky) said.
“And my breath don’t smell like shit no more,” I said.
“What?” Tag asked.
I swung my left hand and knocked Tag out of the way.
He almost fell off the barstool.
He stumbled away and looked pissed. “You fucking bitch. What the fuck is this? A shakedown?”
“Fuck off,” I said. “Unless you want to go outside and find some shit to eat.”
Julia (Becky) blew Tag a kiss.
He walked away.
“Ohmygod,” Julia said, laughing. “That was crazy.”
“That’s what you want to do? Make up names and tell that story?”
“What?” she asked. “Do you frequently do this?”
My mind raced way back to the day Julia got married. And what happened when I met someone at a bar. Jess-slash-Robin. The woman who saved my ass that night. The woman I never talked to again.
“Cheers, sweetheart,” I said.
We hit our glasses together and drank.
Julia knew how to order whiskey the right way. That was for sure.
“So what’s next?” I asked her. “New names? New gig?”
“Your turn,” she said. “You go up to a woman and do the same.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I’m not cool with fucking with a woman’s heart.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look, sweetheart, that guy was thinking with his dick,” I said. “So fucking with him is fine. But there might be some brokenhearted woman here. You know?”
“Oh, right. You’re just going to assume women are weak then,” Julia said. “You don’t think a woman can think for herself then? That a woman can’t just have fun? You think it always has to come down to a relationship? That we’re so dumb and feeble that we have to fall in love? You think we can’t just pick out a guy, have a quick ride, and say peace the fuck out?”
I put my hands up. “I stand corrected.”
“You better. Asshole.”
“Okay, Becky,” I said. “Calm the fuck down.”
I winked.
Julia bumped her shoulder into mine. “Don’t make me make you eat dog poop again, Ben.”
We laughed.
“I can’t believe he fell for that,” I said. “Some guys are just idiots.”
“Yeah,” Julia said. “Some really are.”
Our eyes locked.
I never meant to let you go, sweetheart. I thought I was doing the right thing, okay? You did so much for me after Scotty died. You pulled me out of so many fires and I didn’t realize you were the one getting burned just as much as me. So I thought I was letting you find your way. Or something. And you’re right. You want to talk about stubborn? Look up the word in the dictionary and there’s a picture of me that says ‘NOT JETT’ … and I’m goddamn sorry for it. Because if I pushed you into ‘his’ arms and you married ‘him’ because…
A hand pulled my shoulder, breaking up my thoughts and breaking my stare with Julia.
I turned and saw Tag with two other guys.
One of those was the one who grabbed my shoulder.
“Oh, fuck, Jett,” Julia said.
“Jett?” Tag asked.
I stood up. “She’s Julia. What the fuck is this?”
“You want to mess with someone?” the guy who grabbed my shoulder asked me.
“Fuck off,” I said.
I tossed him back like he weighed nothing.
And all three of the them jumped at me.
Julia let out a shriek that
got the attention of everyone in the bar.
Including the three guys.
She bought me two seconds.
I threw a right elbow and hit two out of the three guys.
Tag was left untouched.
Although his pride had been crushed by Julia.
I lunged for Julia and wrapped my arms around her.
I picked her up and she screamed with laughter as I ran for the door.
We blasted through the door and I turned to the right and ran, still carrying her.
I turned the corner at a restaurant and finally stopped.
I put her back against the wall.
She was eye level as I still held her.
She was laughing.
I was smiling.
I inched closer to her.
She inched closer to me.
The word marriage meant shit to me until it was Julia wearing my ring.
Even still…
“Cigarette,” she said.
“What?” I asked, my lips so close to hers.
“I need a cigarette,” she said. “I would like one. Please.”
I sucked in a breath and gently put her back on her feet.
Before breaking away, she grabbed my forearms. Her nails digging at me.
Not tonight, sweetheart, but I promise you… this isn’t over between us yet.
* * *
I had my back to one wall and Julia had her back to another.
We were across from each other, the distance between us a narrow alley.
The bricks smelled like dirty water with a hint of old garbage. But every now and again I’d get a whiff of something deep frying.
I watched Julia smoke and realized I never paid attention before.
Studying every little nuance.
Because it was just us for tonight.
For whatever this was.
“Hey,” I said to her. “No names. But you shut your place down?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”
“What happened?”
“Just wasn’t working,” she said. “Or I wasn’t feeling it. I still owe on the lease. So I’m paying. Which is so stupid. Draining my savings to keep up with a shutdown business. Smart move, huh?”
“I’m sure whatever the reason was, it was important to you,” I said. “That’s all that matters. You’re not letting the outside world get to you, right?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t know. It just… you ever think something is right and then hurry and do it and it’s not?”
HIDDEN CREEK NOW: a hidden creek high novel Page 17