Love Today

by Delaney, Delia

  “ ‘Violent Lady’,” he revised.

  “It’s going to be ‘Single Lady’ if you don’t knock it off.”

  “ ‘Jared’s Lady’?” he tried.

  I had to think about that because it sounded odd at first. In a matter of weeks I went from Zack to Jared, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. But this was what Zack wanted; he wanted me to be sure. Now I knew he was right, just by the way I felt about Jared. I knew I had to give it a chance.

  “I think I can handle that,” I replied.

  He seemed surprised, like he’d been teasing me but I’d actually agreed.

  “Isn’t that what you want?” I asked.

  “Yes, it is,” he quickly replied. “I’m just…I mean I assume things have changed for you or…”

  I sighed and said, “Okay, should we lay some things out? Zack pretty much dumped me so he could be in Switzerland for a business deal. He claims he wants me to feel free to date other people so I know for sure if I really want to be with him when he comes back. It hurt. A lot. It still does. But on the other hand, I’ve been struggling a lot with, uh… Well, with how I feel about you. It’s the reason he questioned his relationship with me. You’ve been right all this time; I’ll admit it. So I guess in a way he saw something that I needed, even though I’m mad at him. I still care about him, but I’m not sure where this is all going to end up.”

  Jared barely nodded. I wasn’t sure what he thought about all of that, but I owed it to both of us to be completely upfront.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “So…I’m kind of like on a trial basis?” That sounded terrible, and I was going to object, but he chuckled and said, “It’s fine. It is what it is. Besides, every relationship starts as a trial basis.”

  “True.”

  “And to be honest with you, I’m thrilled that you finally got a clue.” I glared at him jokingly and he smiled and pulled me close to him. “Okay, I’ll stop ruining this for myself. But before I leave for the night, you have to promise me something.”

  I looked at him for several seconds before I asked, “What’s that?”

  “That you’ll always tell me how you feel about…well, us. It doesn’t matter what it is, but I want you to me honest with me. Please?”

  I knew what he meant, especially because Zack was still in the picture, and we did talk about that for a while. By the end of the night I felt pretty happy. Jared was an amazing guy, and however things turned out in the end, I knew that I could trust him to be the kind of person to always care about me no matter what. That meant a lot to me, and it was the only reassurance that I had to go on.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Is he here yet?” Maggie exclaimed, coming out of the bathroom. She went to the window for the fifth time in twenty minutes to see if Jared had arrived.

  “Maggie, it’s only eight in the morning.”

  She looked at me like that meant absolutely nothing to her and said, “Then he should be here already.”

  I assumed that meant Jared told her a time. I guess “sometime by nine” worked for me, but not for Maggie.

  “He’s here!” she screamed. “He’s here! He’s here!”

  The main reason for her excitement was that Jared was bringing by her Christmas present before we left for California the next day. We decided to have our own little Christmas party since Maggie and I would be leaving town, and Jared would be spending time in Las Vegas with his mom’s family. Originally we were going to do it at Jared’s house, but his interior had been repainted and the smell was still pretty strong.

  “Hahaha! Look at Clyde!” she laughed.

  She’d been pointing out the window, and then she ran to the door to open it. I watched curiously as she patted her thighs for the dog to enter, and then I laughed.

  He had on reindeer antlers and a big red bow.

  When Jared walked through the door my smile grew even more. He attended to Maggie and her excitement first, and when she was content with the promise of presents “soon enough,” he came into the kitchen to greet me next.

  “I didn’t realize it was a pajama party,” he smiled, pulling me close to kiss him.

  “I didn’t realize it was a play clothes party,” I countered, swatting the butt of his worn jeans.

  He smiled again and said, “And what would you do if I smacked your butt like that?”

  With a shrug I replied, “I don’t know. But I figure you’d be a little sweeter to me than that,” I added, batting my eyelashes.

  “Ha, you’re the devil in disguise.” He kissed me again and said, “What can I do to help?”

  “Well, first I had to get this roast in the slow cooker for later. I figured you could tame the wild animal while I shower and get dressed, and then the cinnamon rolls can be consumed.”

  He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Tame that thing? No, way.”

  “Well ‘that thing’ woke me up at five a.m. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood.”

  “You have a good mood in you somewhere?” he quipped, moving just before I could retaliate. He laughed and said, “Easy, tiger.”

  “You know, I’m beginning to think someone else writes all those beautiful, sweet songs you claim to be yours. Surely they don’t come from you.”

  “But I love making you think that they do,” he smiled.

  “So who should I really be thinking about when I hear them?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Okay, I don’t want you to think about anyone else.”

  I pretended like it was too late for that and he took my hand to pull me to him. He sang a line to one of his songs and I teased, “Aw, you’re going to sing stolen songs for me?”

  I wrapped my arms around him tightly and laid my head against him. There’s just something about having a song sung for you…

  “Are you guys kissing?” Maggie asked, entering the kitchen.

  “Does it look like we’re kissing?” Jared teased her. “You want us to start kissing?”

  It was funny when she just shrugged, but I left the two of them in the kitchen so I could get ready for the day.

  It had been two weeks since Jared first kissed me, and the day after, I had a weird conversation with a five-year-old. I wasn’t sure what she would think of how things had changed with Jared, and I wanted her to understand that I really cared about him before she ever saw us kiss. She really didn’t have much to respond; it wasn’t like she seemed to care who my boyfriend was. It kind of gave me mixed feelings, but I was glad that she at least “approved” of Jared.

  But the hardest part was when she asked if I would still kiss Zack too. The easiest way to answer that was to remind her that Zack was a long ways away, and I was glad that she didn’t challenge it any further. I was honest and told her that I really cared about Zack and that he would always be important to me.

  Then she told me that she missed him, and my heart fell. I already sensed that she did since we still talked about him all the time, but to hear her say it out loud like that made me feel bad. She understood that he was in another country, and for now he could only talk to her on the phone, but I worried about how much my choices were going to affect Maggie. I did want her to have the best life, and I wanted that for myself as well, but when was I ever going to feel content? When were all my questions going to be answered, and when was I ever going to feel completely comfortable with my choices?

  Our tiny little Christmas party was wonderful that day. Jared brought in Maggie’s present after we ate breakfast, and because it was kind of big, I thought she was going to pee her pants. He told her not to get too excited because he wasn’t sure if she’d actually like it, and I didn’t have a clue as to what it was so I really didn’t know if she would or not.

  He also had a few other gifts for her, smaller but certainly not insignificant, and bless his heart, I’m sure those were his back up plan. He’d asked me beforehand if it was okay to get her several things (so that it was an actual “Christmas”) so I told him he could as long a
s he didn’t go overboard.

  He smiled at the word overboard.

  The large gift that he got her—the one he’d had for her for over a month—was an electric keyboard. And I knew it wasn’t just any keyboard; it was a really nice one. Maggie did think it was pretty cool—the thought of having her own “piano” made her day—but once Jared showed her all of the things she could do with such a keyboard…she was elated.

  They played around with it for thirty minutes, and Jared even taught Maggie a simple song. It made me wonder if she would actually like to learn how to play the piano, and I later found out that it was Jared’s desire that she would. That made me happy—that he was willing to teach her such a skill—and since Jared was going to teach Maggie, I decided I wanted to learn as well.

  “Yes, it worked,” he quietly praised himself.

  It made me laugh, but I really was excited that he was going to teach the both of us.

  After a few other presents were opened—Barbies and dress up clothes and other “girly” things for Maggie—Jared handed me a gift.

  “What? You didn’t need to get me anything.”

  “Ha, I couldn’t wait to get you something.”

  I smiled as I looked at the silver package in my hand. My first thought was that it was the same sized box that Maggie’s spoon had been wrapped in, and I was going to tease him about it. But I decided to just open it, and with Maggie right next to me eager to see what it was, I didn’t have time to realize it was also the same size as a jewelry case. I briefly studied the black box and looked at Jared suspiciously.

  “I can’t take it back because it was a custom design just for you,” he shrugged casually.

  “Jared…”

  “Just open it.”

  I did open it, and I didn’t know what to say for a few seconds. Finally I said, “Wow, that is…so beautiful.” I removed the necklace from the case and held it in my hands. It was a treble clef and a bass clef that together formed a heart.

  “Wow, are those real diamonds?” Maggie exclaimed.

  I knew they were; two beautiful diamonds that made the dots on the bass clef.

  “I kind of have a hard time with gifts,” Jared said, taking it out of my hand. As he brought it around my neck to secure it he added, “I guess I like to give things that are a little bit of myself. I love music, and I know you do too, but I also wanted something that was as beautiful as you are. I realize that’s an impossible feat, so this was second best.” He took my hair that I’d gathered out of the way and allowed it to fall over my shoulders again as he faced me. “Merry Christmas, Taryn.”

  I didn’t say anything at first. I was thrilled with his gift because of how unique it was, but especially because of whom it was from.

  “I love it,” I said, holding it in my fingers. “Thank you so much.” I leaned forward to kiss him, and if Maggie hadn’t been in the room—even though she was busy playing with her new toys—I might have gone a little overboard with my affection. However, I remained in control and kept my kissing to a minimum.

  “So Maggie,” I said. “I think it’s time to give Jared his Christmas presents.”

  “Yay!” she cheered as Jared said, “I don’t need—”

  “Sure you do,” I interrupted. “We couldn’t wait to get you a gift.”

  He smiled as Maggie ransacked the remaining presents under our little tree. There were gifts there for my family as well as a few for Jared, and she immediately went for the one that she had wrapped for him herself.

  “Is this one?” she asked, trying to read the name on another. She knew her alphabet and how to read a little, but since my dad’s name was Jerry, sometimes she got them mixed up when we’d practice working on names.

  “Yes, that’s one of them.” I left the couch to help her out, but she was already excited about finding those two and brought them over.

  “Wow,” Jared said. “Did you wrap this all by yourself?”

  I smiled at his playful smile, and Maggie was excited to answer affirmatively.

  “Open it!” she commanded.

  “Okay, okay, sheesh…”

  He took his time opening one end of it, and Maggie couldn’t handle it anymore.

  “It’s a book!” she gave up, just as Jared turned it to face him.

  “It is a book. With the most amazing cover ever,” he added with a big smile as he stared at the picture of Maggie and Clyde.

  Then he seemed to realize that the rest of the book held a little more meaning as he understood what all of the art on it meant. The rest of the cover, and the back, was also plastered with dozens of little things—like movie stubs, pictures, pieces of restaurant menus, fortunes, candy wrappers, and anything else that reminded us of Jared or our time together. It was once a plain song writing notebook, but after we our added our touch and covered it with contact paper, tied ribbons on the ends, and wrote a special inscription on the inside…it was definitely one of a kind.

  “This is so awesome Maggie,” he said, seeming completely in awe as he studied every little thing. “Did you help do all of this?”

  She nodded and then flipped the cover open for him. The inside of the cover was custom-designed as well, with more of Maggie’s art and other little pictures collaged to make a history between the three of us. I could tell he was reading the message—or at least trying to with Maggie talking a mile a minute, pointing things out. I let the two of them discuss it for a while and I just listened.

  When he had a moment he shook his head at me and said, “How do you come up with these kinds of things? I mean I don’t even… I can’t even think of a better gift for myself, even. I mean…how’d you come up with this?”

  I shrugged and said, “I noticed you have a lot of notebooks you jot things down in. I don’t know if you actually write lyrics in them or just brainstorm, but I figured another one couldn’t hurt. And we wanted something personalized from us so… I guess it just made sense.”

  He slightly shook his head again as he continued to look it over, but Maggie was thrusting another present into his hands at the same time.

  “Another one?”

  “Two more,” she said, realizing there was another one somewhere amongst the other gifts.

  When she went to retrieve it Jared said, “Really, the notebook is—”

  “They’re just small things,” I said. “Nothing grand.”

  “Open this,” Maggie said. “It’s from me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, undoing the one end of it. He pulled out a little pen box that held a six pens, each personalized with different sayings like “Just Play”, or “You can never have too many guitars”.

  “They’re for the book,” Maggie told him.

  “Super cool,” he smiled as he picked up the first one to read it. “ ‘Rock, eat, sleep, repeat.’ Nice,” he chuckled. “That sounds pretty familiar.”

  Maggie went back to her Barbies after that as he read each of the pens. I tossed him the last gift and said, “Here, this is just from me. Maggie thought it was dumb since she didn’t understand it.”

  He smiled as he opened it up and pulled out the vintage-style t-shirt inside. He laughed, as I knew he would, and said, “ ‘More Cowbell.’ That’s rad, where’d you get this?”

  “I ordered it. After our night watching six hours of old SNL, I just had to.”

  “Wow, I don’t even know what to say. Man, you guys are the best at gift giving. Can I hire you to come up with ideas for me when I need to get gifts?”

  “Hmm, I’ll think about it.”

  He patted the space next to him so I slid over to cuddle against him. He kissed the top of my head and said, “Thank you, Taryn. This was the best Christmas ever.”

  I kind of laughed and said, “You make it sound like it’s all over. You still have your family gathering to look forward to.” He didn’t say anything so I pulled away from him to see his face. “Don’t you? I thought you were heading to Las Vegas to spend Christmas with your mom?”

&
nbsp; “Uh, I was thinking about heading there, but I never really made plans to. I just saw her a couple of weeks ago.”

  “So you’re not going to spend Christmas there?”

  “Uh…no, I don’t plan on it. She’s spending it with a bunch of friends anyways.”

  “What? So where are you going for Christmas? Your dad’s?”

  “Uh, negative on that too.”

  I made a noise of disbelief. “Jared, you’re not going anywhere for Christmas? How come you can’t spend it with your dad?”

  “He’s taking his new girlfriend to Barbados. Priorities, remember?” I didn’t know what to say but he smiled and shook his head. “It’s not a big deal. Christmas has never really been a memorable holiday for me until this year—unless you count the unpleasant memories, but I try to block those out. And I usually don’t spend holidays with my parents, anyway. I’ve been invited to a few gatherings…”

  “And are you actually going to go to one?” I asked knowingly.

  “Uh, no probably not.”

  “Then you’re coming to Kensington with us. Case closed.”

  “Then fine, yes I’m going somewhere for Christmas.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you to feel obligated. That’s not why I—”

  “I would have invited you anyway, had I known you were available. I thought you said you were going to your mom’s.”

  “Well, I’d planned on it, but then I spent time with her earlier this month, and she mentioned we were going to be doing the ‘friends’ Christmas at someone’s house. I really didn’t want to subject myself to that.”

  “Subject yourself to what?”

  “To her superficial friends. They’re her friends, not mine.”

  “Oh.”

  He studied me for a few seconds and then asked, “What does ‘oh’ mean?”

  “Uh…just…I’m sure you’ll be subjected to something with my family, I just don’t know what.”

  He chuckled and asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Um…well…”

  “You didn’t tell them who you were dating, huh? Well…that’s okay. I mean you can tell them whatever you want.”