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“Thanks for your dour two cents, Negative Nelly…And it’s not what I expect. I don’t expect anything.”
A catalogue of emotions cross his face. “What do you want then?”
His genuine curiosity draws me in, makes me want to be honest with him…makes me willing.
“I want my life to be a grand adventure. I want to wake up in Tokyo and go to sleep in Rome. I want to live a life worth writing about. I want to worship and be worshipped…” Now that I’ve gotten started I can’t seem to stop. “I want what my sister has, I want a once-in-a-lifetime love.”
A slow, one-sided smile creeps up his handsome face. “Is that all?”
“It’s a start…what about you?” I say, smiling back.
“What if I said I want all those things for you.”
His unexpected answer sets me back. It makes me feel foolish, like he’s teasing me again. “I’d say you’re full of it.”
Turner looks away, across the empty ice rink, his smile and the life in his eyes flickering dim. “I want to be left alone, Anderson. That’s all I want.”
Despite that he was just a world-class jerk, he sounds so defeated it troubles me.
Standing, he takes one last look at me and make his way down the bleachers. I watch until he disappears into the tunnel. Making me wonder if maybe, just maybe, in some wild outlandish parallel universe, Jake Turner was being honest with me too.
Two days later I’m standing over the kitchen sink staring out the window and discover he’s at it again. The shirtless wood chopping, that is. If he keeps it up, we’ll have enough kindling to heat the house for the next decade. The view does hold a certain appeal, however. Especially since it’s late in the afternoon and the sun is casting a golden, almost heavenly, glow on him.
I hate myself right now.
Absently, I turn on the faucet and the water sputters out. This is what the two hundred and fifty dollars I paid the plumber yesterday gets me.
“Not much to look at, but he’s a gentleman.”
Screeching, I wheel around to find Nan standing a few feet away, lazily petting Elvis. “Jesus. Can you keep the creeping to a minimum?”
Nan puts the cat down and Elvis sashays away, his tail at full mast. “My house, my rules,” Nan’s quick to remind me. “Means I can creep around as much as I want.”
“Yeah, I know what it means.” I grab the coffee beans out of the refrigerator, pour some in the speed grinder. “And I would hardly call him a gentleman,” I feel compelled to shout over the loud buzzing. Once that’s done, I spoon the fresh coffee grinds into the cappuccino machine, pull the lever, and wait for magic to happen.
A gentleman? Turner is a lot of things but a gentleman isn’t one of them. I’m still a little bruised over what happened at the rink. I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought we were sharing some deeply personal thoughts. And he turns around and ridicules me. What kind of person does that?
Cheap shots at my looks––those I know how to handle. But what he did cut much deeper.
“He’s the opposite of that––whatever that is.”
Except that he did save my life and is paying for my room. Can’t forget that. Because fair is fair.
Then it hits me. My grandmother just took a swipe at Turner.
“I mean, he’s not bad…looking, I mean.” A bout of awkward silence follows in which I fetch some milk and pour it in my coffee. I don’t know what just possessed me to come to his defense. God knows he doesn’t deserve it.
“He’s no beauty,” Nan says. “You don’t have to pretend for me. Now your dad, that’s a good-looking man.”
“You have told me at least a million times ‘never trust a good-looking man.’”
“Well, that’s true. But I’m talking about your dad, honey. That rule doesn’t apply to him. Try and keep up, will you. Now where was I? Oh yes, the girls used to chase him.” Nan’s face tightens. “Including the hooker.”
There she goes again. As much as I want to agree with her, I can’t.
“Okay. First, I can’t believe you’re making me defend Zelda. Please stop calling her that. She is not a hooker.”
“She sure acts like one.”
“I see age hasn’t taken the edge off. No, Nan. She doesn’t––and for the record, Jake is a beauty.”
Wtf am I saying? A beauty? I hate myself right now. “I mean…I don’t think…I mean, objectively he’s very handsome.”
Nan frowns. “What are you saying, child? Spit it out.”
“What I am saying, grandmother…” I can hear my voice rising as my frustration at this absurd discussion peaks. But the more I meditate on her disparaging remark, the more it gets under my skin. “Is that Jake is a very good-looking man. Objectively, he’s probably the second-best looking man I’ve ever seen.”
