Her eyes flutter open in and she pulls away. "Jake, what are you doing?"
I try to soften her reaction. “Maybe we should go out sometime. Get to know each other better.”
She sits back and looks at me like I've lost my mind. “What?”
“I’ve thought about this a lot,” I lie. “I like you, Jasmine. Maybe we could try–”
She laughs—laughs at me. I've never had a girl laugh at me when I expressed interest before. “Jake, you are so sweet, so old-fashioned. I believe you would actually go out with me, maybe even marry me, to fulfill some sense of honor, some sense of obligation.”
I duck my head. “I didn’t mean it that way...”
“Yes, you did.” She’s laughing again. “You know women raise kids by themselves all the time now, don’t you?” Her expression softens, and she puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. Being with you would be amazing; I’m sure it would be. You are so sweet, so gorgeous, and I know you’d be a great dad. But you don’t belong to me. You never could.” She looks me in the eye. “You belong to Jess. You always have.”
I turn away. “Jess doesn’t want me. She has Michael.”
Jasmine hesitates, like she’s not sure if she should say anything, but then she does. “I don’t think she’s in love with him.”
My heart skips a beat. “Did she tell you that?”
She shakes her head. “It’s just a feeling I have. The way she acts when they’re together is just off. She's not herself anymore, and she doesn't look at him the way she looks at you.” Jasmine leans back and adjusts the blanket wrapped around her son. “Jess needs time to heal. She and Matt were close. This is really hard for her.”
Time again. The whole idea makes me mad without knowing who I'm mad at—at Jess, at myself, at time maybe, for moving on without making anything better.
I shake my head. "It's been really hard for me. Really hard for you. We’ve all had the same time to heal. Why can we get on with our lives when she can’t?”
I must be louder than I think because the baby fusses. I concentrate on his face while I bounce him in my arms, but he keeps fussing. Jasmine takes him back. He settles against her chest and goes back to sleep.
“I don’t know," she says. "There’s no handbook for grief; it affects everyone differently. Maybe we’ve moved on with our lives because we had to. We have people counting on us. Jess is kind of at a different place in her life. She only has herself right now. The place I was not too long ago. I know how much Jess loved you. I think she still has feelings for you. Even if she won’t let herself feel anything right now.”
The constant ache in my heart throbs stronger. I wish I could believe that Jess still feels something for me, or that she feels nothing for Michael.
I stand up to leave, and Jasmine gives me a hug with the baby between us. “Thank you for everything. You really saved us. I’m sorry I laughed. It was a very sweet offer. If you had asked me three days ago, I might have taken you up on it.” She squeezes my arm. “I’m happy to have you as a brother. If Stevie is anything like his dad, it will take all of us to raise him.”
forty-six
Borrowed Trouble
March 2006
Something about fixing a car. The way everything fits. Solving the puzzle, putting the pieces together. Comfortable—me and Tyler, in the shed, listening to the radio and the rain on the roof. I’m more content doing this than I thought I would be. Working on her car. I guess not technically hers anymore, but touching the engine almost feels like touching her. It brings back a flood of memories—Jess sitting on the fence, watching me work, talking, laughing at something I said. I always liked it when I could make her laugh. Actually, I liked everything about being with her. Now I know all I had to do was reach out, pull her into my arms, kiss her, say the word and she would have been mine—back then.
Was I really that blind?
I’ve thought of that a lot. What if I had paid more attention to her earlier? What if I hadn’t waited so long? Would it have been easier to hold on to her now?
Tyler brings me out of my thoughts with his questions. He picked this up quickly. If he keeps working at it, someday this car may even be street-ready. Maybe even more street ready than when Jess used to drive it.
Ty leans against the side of the car and takes a long drink of his soda. “I’m still looking for a better engine, and I want a custom paint job, and glass packs like on your car. Performance-enhancing stuff, not just cosmetic.”
“Slow down. I can’t afford that stuff, and I have a real job.” I wrap a piece of grease rag around a bolt to help me get a better grip while I loosen it.
“But your car is fast, right?”
I shrug. “It can hold its own.”
“So you’ve raced it?”
“A couple of times, actually I...” I trail off, catching the glint in his eye. “No.”
