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Although, I know the answer to that is a no. We may be moving quickly, but that’s only because we bared our souls to each other years ago. She knows everything about me and I know everything about her.
Jessie is the woman I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with.
Right now, we’re just going through a rough patch. Every couple goes through them.
Except—how would I know? I’ve never bothered to be in a long enough relationship to know.
Maybe that’s her problem with me. Maybe she’s worried that this is going to fail because I’ve never been involved with anyone else in a serious relationship.
I exhale slowly, trying to calm my pounding pulse. I’m at the wilderness center to improve my emergency rescue training. Today, I have to focus on that, not all the potential problems that could be riddled throughout my relationship with Jessie.
As Patrick starts the lesson on emergency vehicles, I keep watch on Jessie from the corner of my eye. She scribbles notes into a little notebook, sketching out the vehicles and labeling some of the parts.
She watches the lesson with the intensity that first drew me to her all those years ago. Jessie is the kind of woman who throws herself into everything she does. It’s obvious that she’s passionate about helping people.
Jessie was born to be a doctor, and I’ve only made that harder for her in the last couple weeks.
She might not be the kind of woman to give a blow job at work. And no matter how hot it was, I’ve never been the kind of man to receive them at work.
Patrick passes out working models of the vehicles and Jessie starts to pull the snowmobile into pieces. She looks at where the search and rescue kit is kept inside it as well as the other parts.
When I lean a little closer to her to get a look, she flinches and turns her body away from me slightly.
“Have you ever ridden a snowmobile before?” I ask, keeping my tone light and friendly as I pick up the rescue truck and start digging through the little metal box in the bed.
Jessie shrugs. “Not often. Every now and then.”
Well, at least she’s speaking to me in longer sentences now.
“When’s the last time you were on one? I used to go out with Mark when I visited my sister a couple times last winter. I thought it would be a good way to blow off some steam, but more often than not, we ended up back at his cabin, cold and hungry.”
Jessie looks at me, her lips pressing together. Her gaze flits around the room like she’s looking for anything else to talk about. Or an escape.
“I like it. Brea and I used to go snowmobiling a lot in college. Some of the guys from one of the frats had a couple.”
It’s the most she’s said to me since the day my father showed up at work. I don’t know how to feel or what to say right now. I don’t want to call attention to it, but I feel like sooner or later we need to talk about the cold shoulder she keeps giving me.
Whatever weird thing is going on between us, I want to get it out and in the open as soon as possible. I don’t want to sit here and pretend that everything is fine between us when it’s clearly not.
Instead of saying anything else, we fall into a tense silence as Patrick goes through the rest of the emergency vehicles. He leads everybody out to the shed and shows us the vehicles, having the group get familiar with them.
Jessie drifts away from me, joining some of the others near the ambulance. I sigh and head over to Patrick as he looks at the flatbed loaded with snowmobiles. They’re strapped down to the bed, ready to go at any moment.
“Do you think we’re going to have a chance to use these while we’re doing training?” I ask, looking up at them.
Patrick nods. “We’re going to unload them in a minute and run a few training drills. After that, we’re going to break for lunch. This afternoon, each one of you is going to take a turn driving the ambulance and the flatbed to make sure you know how to handle them.”
At least that will be a couple hours where I don’t have to try and force a conversation with Jessie.
Lunch comes too quickly, leaving me and Jessie sitting at our table with our slices of pizza in front of us. Even though I should be eating, I have no appetite.
All morning, Jessie did whatever she could to be as far away from me as possible. Now that we’re having lunch, she’s chosen to sit beside me, but neither of us have broken the ice.
I sigh and push my pizza away, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms. “Right now, we’re on lunch. Which means that we should be able to talk as friends, at the very least. As your friend, I want to know what the hell is going on. You’ve barely spoken to me in days and you can’t even bring yourself to look at me today.”
Her eyes widen and she stops in the middle of taking a bite of her pizza. She watches me, her gaze wary as she finishes taking the bite and chews her food slowly.
We both know she’s stalling for time. As much as I want to call her out on it, I don’t. My impatience isn’t going to get the better of me yet.
