The bags were overstuffed. It occurred to me that the increase in clothes given to me by Anderson made it impossible to get everything to fit. As if Avery and Genevieve hadn’t done enough to help me, I would have to ask them to come and retrieve the items I couldn’t pack. Those were calls that would have to wait. I had to remove myself, and not having a cell phone wasn’t enough to delay my departure.
My capability to hold it all in was successful until I merged onto the Ohio turnpike. A flood of fragmented conversations between Anderson and I overtook my will to not think about anything. Every beginning conversation that was popping into my mind segued into ‘just having some fun’.
He was just having fun. He had a background check done on me. He was being careful.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have allowed myself to fall in love? Wait… I had fallen in love with Anderson. The fact that he came from an entirely different world than I did wasn’t difficult to understand. The fact that he played by entirely different rules was where I had made my mistake.
It was a little after three in the morning when I pulled into my driveway. I was home. I was where I belonged. I was where I wouldn’t be hurt. New York was not the fairytale I had imagined. It was a real city with real people, and I was not made of that cloth.
I had departed believing Graham would not be interested in my coffee shop idea. I had gone to experience a city I had been dreaming about since I read my very first romance novel. Returning to Michigan under cover of darkness wasn’t how I’d planned to return.
When does anything I plan ever work out as it’s supposed to?
40
Jurnee
The smell of coffee woke me up, only to have the events of the last twenty-four hours come crashing back down on me before I even opened my eyes. My mattress held me like I was a long-lost child returning from a trip around the world. Pushing my face into the pillow, I exhaled, trying to get my body to fall back asleep, so I would stop thinking. It didn’t work.
“Finally.” Derrick closed the book he was holding and tossed it on the table. “Get some coffee, and let’s talk about it.”
“Do we have to?” Standing in the kitchen doorway, the feelings of being home again weren’t as comforting as I had envisioned when I left New York the day before.
“Of course, we do.”
With a quick watch check, Derrick made his way to my coffee bar and prepared a fresh cup. “Would you rather head to Fidler’s on the Grand to talk over chicken and waffles?”
My stomach flopped at the mention of food. I hadn’t eaten anything since Anderson shared his Cheetos Puffs with day drunk me. “Coffee’s fine.”
“Sit. I’d like to understand why I woke up to find a new car in my neighbor’s driveway, who, I might add, is supposed to still be in New York City.”
I shrugged my shoulders as I cupped the warm mug of coffee in my hands and stared out my window at the fall colors descending on the trees. “It happened again.”
“Wait, what happened again?”
“I fell in love with a man that didn’t fall back.”
“Hold on. Did you just say you are in love with Anderson?”
The lift in his voice made me shake my head. “That wasn’t the key point of what I said. Yes, I am one hundred percent in love with a man that was just having a bit of fun.”
“What’s wrong with having fun? You used to be fun.”
“First, not having fun fun, but this-isn’t-serious having fun. Second, I am still a lot of fun.”
Why was my best friend in the world not connecting with me? What if we didn’t know how to be each other’s safe space? What if the distance had ruined our friendship on top of getting my heart broken? “This is way too much for me right now.”
“Jurnee Joplin Messer” My body stiffened at the sound of my mother’s voice and the backdoor opening.
“Did you know they were coming?” I growled under my breath.
“Yes, because we all check-in whenever we are moving around the city now.”
“Jurnee, please tell me why I never hear about your visits home from my own daughter.” She took me in for a hug from behind, and I grabbed onto her harder than she was expecting. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
Her words should have comforted me, but they did the opposite. I swallowed hard, and thankfully the tears stayed away. One look in Derrick’s direction and I knew he was the one that called my mom.
“Nothing.”
“Well, your dad is on the golf course but says we should all go out to dinner. He said to invite your new beau.”
“He’s in New York.” The words fell out of my mouth. I should have said: ‘he’s not my beau,’ but I wasn’t ready to deal with the follow-up questions. “Mom, I drove all night. I’m really tired. Raincheck on dinner. Okay?”
“Of course. Are you here through the weekend?”
“Maple, you know Jurnee wasn’t going to miss the big Michigan game.”
I mouthed a ‘thank you’ at Derrick as I took a long, slow sip of my coffee.
“Good Lord, you and your Spartans. No! We shall not have any conversation worth having until after the biggest game of the year is over.” She kissed my cheek.
Derrick stood to kiss my mother as she retreated toward the kitchen and then waited until the back door closed before speaking again, “You’re here for a while? What’s a while? I thought Graham and Anderson wanted to get this up and running sooner than later.”
“I’me going to tell Graham I need some time to think about it, but if I decided to not continue, he could have the concept.”
“Have the concept? You think Graham wants to run a coffee shop chain?”
“Look.” My shouting startled Derrick. “I’m exhausted. I’m not sure why you can’t understand that Anderson saying that I’m nothing serious and that this, he and I, are just for fun is hurtful. I used New York to sharpen my skills at dating so I wouldn’t get hurt again. Guess what? I got hurt again. You know what that means?”
Tears ran down my face as Derrick sat stoically watching me. “What does it mean, Jurnee?”
“It means I’m the problem. I’m the common dominator. Me.”
“There is nothing wrong with–”
“Of course, there is something wrong with me. What did Deegan tell me? I wasn’t the type that a guy took to the country club dance, but I was like Jo from Facts of Life. The type that you walked through the dance and right out the back door to do dirty things to when no one’s looking.”
“Are you finished?” Derrick was on his feet with his hands on his hips, shaking with anger. “If you could please take a five-minute break from your pity party, I will tell you what I see. You have fallen for some assholes. That is for sure. Straight, self-centered, no future goals or plans type of assholes. But I saw the way Anderson watched you.”
“You–”
“I hear you. You overheard a conversation. Do you have any context or idea of what they were talking about? Did you hear both sides of the conversation? You jumped to some random conclusion and ran away because it’s what you do. Where’s your phone? Shall we see if he’s tried to contact you?”
“I forgot it at his place.”
“You drove across the country alone without a phone. Are you fucking kidding me right now? If I didn’t know you’d stab me with multiple forks, I would call your mother and tell her how unsafe you were.”
“Can I just go back to sleep? I’m tired.”
“You’re tired?”
“I’m tired. I don’t want to argue. I just want to get some sleep.”
Abandoning the cup of coffee, I returned to my bed. I breathed in the Michigan air and looked around my room at all the pictures of places I had dreamt of visiting. Home is safer.
41
Anderson
Jurnee’s fully charged phone vibrated in my hand. The phone was locked, but the screen came alive to display six missed calls and twelve unread texts. Every fiber of my body screamed that
something was off as I stood in the center of her tiny sublet. She had gone home not feeling well the day before. But Jurnee, and most of her belongings, were gone.
I rubbed my hands over my face as I tried to make sense of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. How had we gone from waking up in each’s arms after our first night of making love to me standing in an empty sublet?
Anderson - Hey Derrick, it’s Anderson. I can’t get ahold of Jurnee. Any ideas?
Derrick - I’m staring at a rental in her driveway.
Anderson – What the fuck? She’s in Michigan?
Otis was sitting at the island, eating a bowl of cereal when I walked in. Life as an actor was grueling at times, but mostly he floated back and forth between New York and L.A., with sporadic weekends at his ranch in Montana. A quick nod of the head was all the catching up we required.
“She left.” The words cracked. “She was the last person who I ever thought would bail on me.”
“Wait a minute.” He placed the cereal bowl next to him and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling on the ends in disbelief.
“Yesterday, we were here together. She didn’t show up to work today, so I went to her sublet. Almost everything’s gone. Check this out, everything that I purchased for her, she left.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“Nothing.” I thought back to waking up next to her. I had watched her sleep until it was time for my swim. She said that she was afraid in the beginning to let it really sink in that I was real.
“She asked me if this was real because she was so happy.”
Otis shook his head. “Something had to have happened.”
“I made her coffee and went for a swim. Then she went home.”
“What made her go home? What did you do after the swim?”
“I got a call… from my dad. Oh fuck.”
“What?”
Mentally scanning my every step through the house during that conversation. I had left her in bed. I didn’t see her when I went into the bathroom. “She couldn’t have heard.”
“Well, she’s in Michigan now.” He was king of the obvious. “So, it seems she overheard you. The question is, what did she hear you say?”
Otis was right. The only way this all made sense was if she overheard my conversation. “He asked about Jurnee.”
“Page Six makes it all the way to France?” He got up and returned to his perch with a couple of beers in hand. “Probably going to need this.”
Accepting the beer, I tried to remember exactly what I said. “I told him she was from Michigan. Which he already knew.”
Otis shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes, “Obviously.”
“I said I was just having fun–”
“And?”
“That it didn’t mean anything, and he didn’t need to worry himself.”
“Yeah, so, my guess, Jurnee heard some or all of that. What did she say when she left?”
“She left a note.” Otis’ hands flew in the air. “I know. It just said she wasn’t feeling well. The girls got pretty drunk yesterday afternoon.”
He took a long pull of his beer. “A note. Ouch.”
“I have to talk to her.”
“Voicemail?”
I held up her phone. “She left this charging on my dresser.”
“Jurnee flew to Michigan without a phone?”
I shook my head. “Worse, she drove.”
“She drove to Michigan without a phone? Wow. That is really unsafe. She really wanted to get away from you.”
“Thank you, Otis. Thank you very much.”
“Fine. Let me ask you a question.” He placed his beer on the counter, and his expression morphed into one that matched the seriousness of the situation. “Is there any part of you that is relieved that she returned to Michigan?”
Staring down at the bottle in my hand, I thought about my best friend’s words for a moment. “I could hardly breathe when I read Derrick’s text and realized she was gone. Man, I don’t want to do this without her around.”
“Like…”
“Otis, I want to wake up with her next to me. More importantly, I want to be the last thing she sees before she drifts off at night.”
“So, I guess you’re ready.”
“Ready?”
“You’ve been going at a slow drip for quite some time. It’s time to go all in.”
“Slow Drip.”
“That’s what you got out of what I said.”
“For Jurnee’s coffee chain, Slow Drip.”
“Slow Drip. For a coffee shop? I don’t know.”
“The Slow Drip.” I reached for my phone to call her, it went straight to voicemail. A text would have to do.
Anderson - I’m not sure why you’re in Michigan, but we need to talk. What about the name The Slow Drip for your coffee shops?
Anderson - Please call me so I can explain. I miss you.
Otis watched me as I hit send. We both turned to the phone vibrating on the counter. “You still have her phone, Genius.”
“FUCK! I know. I forgot, but I know.”
“You’re going to have to do something big.”
Then it hit me, and I knew what I needed to do. “Otis, have you ever been to a college football game?”
“Nope. Are we going to a game?”
“We are going to THE game. Saturday.”
“Saturday is Bryan’s engagement party. We can’t piss Faith off.”
“I think the game starts at noon. I can have the plane waiting. We can all change on the plane and go directly to the party. Hell, with the time change, we’ll get there two hours before the party even starts.”
“Are we doing this?” His phone was now in his hand, ready to start putting the pieces together.
“Fuck, yeah. I’m going to get my girl back.”
“Let’s get her.”
Anderson - Can you make sure Jurnee’s at the game?
Derrick - Game?
Anderson - Michigan v Michigan State
Derrick - Like she’d skip that game. Do I need to be angry at you? Did you hurt her?
Anderson - It’s a misunderstanding. I’m coming to get my girl!
Derrick - Oh Jesus. What did you do? Never mind, I’m on my way over to check on her.
Anderson - Don’t tell her I’m coming. Just make sure she goes to the game.
The three dots weren’t popping up. Waiting, I watched Otis bang out a text and get up for another beer. Ignoring all the texts from Otis in our group thread, I shot off a final text to Jurnee’s best friend.
Anderson - I promise to fix this. Please trust that I’m all-in and coming to make things right.
Taking a deep breath, I knew my life was about the change, and I couldn’t wait.
Otis - 911… Anderson fucked things up with Jurnee already and needs all of our help to fix it. She went back to Michigan.
Eric - Plan?
Otis - Michigan game on Saturday. He’s all-in.
Eric - Who’s going?
Otis - Everyone
Bryan - Engagement party is that night. Your plan better have me at that entrance of the party on time.
Otis - We’ll all be in L.A. two hours before the party starts, and we can get ready on the plane. None of us want to piss Faith off this early in the marriage. Don’t be a dick and get your ass to NY.
Bryan – On My Way
Eric - I’ve got meetings all day tomorrow, so the later, the better for me.
Otis - I’m with him, so I’ll let him know.
Anderson - Wheels up at 5am on Saturday. We’re going through the front.
Otis’s glance shot up to mine in surprise. “You know this will be bigger than Page Six if you play it that way. They will track us to the college football game, then the party. This is your last chance to shut this down.”
The alert on both phones reminded us there were two others in the conversation.
Bryan - Front door means the press will grab this and run
with it. People, if we’re lucky. TMZ, if we’re not.
Eric - Are you ready for that type of coverage? Your dad?
Anderson - She’s the one.
A text from Jurnee’s best friend waited unread on my phone. There was a moment of panic as I imagined she might be done with our relationship. Pausing before I opened it, I exhaled deeply.
Derrick - She forgot her phone at your house.
Anderson - I know. She drove all the way to Michigan without a phone.
Derrick - I know. She’s fine. But she’s hurting.
Re-reading Derrick’s text, my head fell back and closed my eyes. I tried to reassure myself that I would be holding her again soon. I’d make her understand how real this was.
Anderson - I’m coming for her.
42
Jurnee
I knew he was there before I opened my eyes. The banging of the back door had woken me, but the smell of coffee kept me from drifting off again. Sunlight poured onto my face, and I felt Derrick sit on the floor and lean against the bed.
“Black?”
“Am I new?”
A smile spread over my face for the first time in days. “No, you’re not new.” I sat up and accepted the double cupped coffee from Biggby’s, one of my favorite coffee shops in the city. My body hurt, so I stretched to try and get the blood flowing.
“It’s Saturday.”
I froze.
“I figured you’d want to get your tailgate on.”
“I sold my tickets.”
“Floyd said he has you covered.”
“You talked to Floyd?”
Mister Manhattan: A Hero Club Novel Page 20