“I’ll know,” he whispers back. “You’ll know.”
“I won’t tell,” I promise. “You want to… don’t you?”
I suddenly feel like Aspen is right. I feel it right down to my soul. Jake likes me. Inthatway. He does. A countdown starts outside at ten. Everyone must be doing it because it’s loud.
I feel his breath on my cheek and then… he breaks me. “No. I’ll never want to touch you. Like that. Can’t happen.”
I step away, stumbling over the vacuum and slamming into the water tank so hard it makes a gong-like noise.
“Shit, you okay?”
“I hate you,” I hiss as the door swings open.
Casey scans our faces as I squint against the intruding light. “You guys didn’t do anything?”
“Smart choice, Jake,” Logan calls out, happily. Asshole.
“He’s gross,” I say righting myself and pushing past Jake. “It would be like kissing my brother or our family dog.”
I ignore the relief on Logan, Finn and Declan’s faces and the confusion on Aspen’s and head right up the stairs. I’m going to finish the gingerbread men for the Christmas social. Then I’ll make one just for me, one that looks like Jake, and I’ll take it outside and stomp on it with my boots until it’s dust. Then I am going to go home and cry. Forever.
Terra
Eleven years later
“I have to pee.”I turn away from the crowded restaurant and the front door where he’s standing, and make a beeline through the opening between the counter and the bar and push my way through the swinging door into the kitchen. Everyone is so busy that no one pays attention to me. I pass the cooks and the line prep team and march into the break room.
I give a curt wave to the two employees in there before heading straight into the bathroom and locking myself in one of the two stalls. Then I let go of the breath I didn’t know I was holding and cover my face with my hands as it heats up like a log thrown on a bonfire.
I have to pee?
I haven’t seen Jake Maverick in almost three entire years and that’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth? Yeah, that was pure and utter genius. Ugh. I’m a semester away from being a certified trauma and addiction therapist and that’s how I act under pressure? Someone should call my school and have them kick me out.
I knew Jake was coming home today. The whole damn town knew. If they didn’t hear it from his excited best friends, my brothers Finn and Logan, then they saw it on the Ocean Pines News & Notes Blog. Last week they did a lengthy post on how the new Lieutenant for the OP Fire Department was a returning local boy. Jake Maverick was leaving his post as Lieutenant on King’s Rock, Maine’s Fire and Rescue team to return to his hometown, as a hero no less, since he won the Medal of Valor last year. My Mom has spent all week planning a little party for him tonight so Iknew. And yet, when he walked through that door and our eyes connected for the first time in seventy-one months, it wasn’t just the bell above the door that jostled. It was my emotional equilibrium.
The fact is though Idohave to pee, I realize as I stand in the bathroom stall, drowning in humiliation. But what else is new? I pull my hands from my face and undo my jeans, turn around and yank one of the seat covers out of the dispenser. As I go about my business I wonder what the hell he’s doing here already. Finn and Logan said he wasn’t getting into town until the evening and it’s only a little after one in the afternoon.
My entire plan has been obliterated. I was going to finish my shift at four, go for a walk on the beach and meditate, then shower, spend stupid amounts of time doing my hair and make-up and put on that cute new sundress I picked up last week for this specific reason. And of course pair it with a shrug I found in the same sage green color that’s in the sundress’ flowers so he doesn’t notice my arm. It’s still kind of misshapen and discolored from my dialysis treatment this morning. Nothing to worry about but ugly as hell to look at.
But he’s here. Now. And he already saw me, makeup-less, in my grubby work jeans and my Hawkins Lobster Shack shirt that I’m certain has some stains on it from the vanilla bean milkshake that sloshed everywhere when the machine started to act up again.
When I’m done actually peeing I flush and head out to the two sinks, washing my hands and staring at my reflection in the mirror. I look tired. I have a gray tinge to the skin under my eyes and I’m pale and not just because I haven’t been to the beach once this summer. I use my damp hands to try and fix my hair. It barely hits my shoulders, but because I work in food service I have to pull it back. So it’s in a short stubby ponytail at the back of my neck and there’s a billion clips holding the sides back. I stupidly bought children’s clips covered in glitter and unicorns. Because clearly I don’t mind looking like a quirky goofball when my lifelong crush lives a seven hour drive away. But now he’s seven seconds away and I look like an idiot.
I resign myself to two facts: I can’t do a damn thing about any of it, and we’re in the middle of a lunch rush so I can’t hide in here any longer. I turn, face the door, take a big breath, and head back to face this disaster head-on.
I step out into the bustling restaurant from the kitchen. Jake is sitting at the counter now. Finn is on the other side of it grinning at him like it’s Christmas and Jake is Santa. I suppose it is exactly like that. Finn, my other brother Logan, and Jake were inseparable until three years ago when Jake took a job at a fire station clear across the state of Maine on the Canadian border.
Finn pulls his phone from his back pocket. “I’m going to tell Logan you’re here.”
“No personal phones while on shift,” Declan announces. He’s in a suit as always. Deck is in charge of our advertising and marketing at Hawkins Lobster Shack, mostly because he refuses to serve customers. But also a little bit because he’s got a degree in it from Harvard. He smiles at Jake. “This time I’ll make an exception. Welcome back, Maverick.”
Declan and Jake grab hands in one of those stupid bro handshake-hugs that are all clapping and slapping. I grab my tray off the counter where I left it as a table waves their hand in my direction, probably for the bill. I step through the opening between the bar and counter and that’s when he touches me. Jake wraps a big, warm hand around my wrist.
I freeze. Well, my forward motion freezes, my insides are actually melting and swirling like chocolate in a double boiler. I’m suddenly thrilled my long-sleeved work shirt shrunk a little in the wash so his fingers are touching my skin and not the fabric. I turn and look at him. Big freaking mistake. He’s better looking than I remembered and I remembered well.
“Not even a hi, Tink?”
My nickname. The one he invented. The one only he uses. My insides are officially nothing but goo. And I hate him for it. “Hi Jake. Welcome back. Bye Jake.”
