“Maybe Bobby and I will plan a trip there soon.”
“You should. Oh, and you’ll love this. We saw so many sheep all over the road. I’ll send you the pictures.”
We talk some more about nothing in particular. The same show we’re both binge-watching, mild celebrity gossip, plans to get dinner together when I’m back.
“So, how long are you going to be there?” my mom asks.
“I don’t know. Until we find Maggie, I guess.” I’ve been taking things one day at a time. I thought finding Maggie would make everything right again, balance the scale I’d accidentally tipped. But it’s entirely possible that Maggie’s just waiting to see my father in person before breaking up with him.
And maybe that’s the right decision. Maybe she recognized something true in what I said and leaving my father would be the right choice for her, but I don’t know—part of me feels like I need to be there. Like I need to talk to her. Like I need to see all of this through.
A soft knock sounds at my door, and I stand up quickly, the towel on my head tipping over and unraveling onto the floor.
“Someone’s here,” I say. “Can I call you back later?”
I walk and tell my mom “goodbye” and “I love you” before I hang up and peek through the peephole.
It’s Jacob.
He’s wearing the same T-shirt he’s had on all day, and the same jeans. His hair is wet—freshly showered, like me—and his glasses are lower than usual, sliding down the bridge of his nose.
I watch as he pushes them back into place, the gesture sostereotypically nerdy, so “Brains,”that it almost makes me laugh, but I sober up quickly.
Why is he here? Did something happen to Dad?
I open the door. “Is everything okay?” I ask.
“What? Yes, why—”
“With my dad? He’s fine?”
Jacob blinks. “Yes,” he says slowly. “He’s okay. I checked in on him before he went to bed. He’s tired, but he’s fine.”
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry, I just figured…” I trail off, unsure how to tell him I have no other idea why he’d be here. “Umm, you can come in if you want?” I pull the door open wider, but Jacob doesn’t move. He stares at me, his eyes flitting down, then up quickly.
“You’re—you’re wearing a towel.”
“Right. Sorry.” My face burns, and my hands fly to the top of my towel, holding it tighter against me.
His gaze follows the movement, and his eyes spark. There’s something familiar in his expression. It’s the way he looked at me when we were standing in a different hotel bedroom. When I was wearing even less than this.
Only he doesn’t act anything like he did that night. He backs away from me, stepping into the hallway. “I’ll let you change,” he says. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
The door swings shut between us, and I raise my hand to my forehead, flushed, my skin as warm as when I stepped out of the shower.
I can see the alternative way this scene could have gone, the way I would have tried to produce it. A PA would have already placed some candles in the room, so it would be lit in a soft glow. In the final cut there would be music playing, something soft when he first sees me in the towel, then building as he steps forward, his lips finding mine, unable to resist the pull between us. “We said we wouldn’t,”one of us would say, even as my towel comes undone, as he lifts me, placing me on the bed…
Okay, maybe this isn’t somethingI’dproduce, necessarily. This scene’s a little less reality television and more soft-core adult entertainment, but I got carried away.
I remember Jacob’s still waiting for me outside and quickly change, throwing on the jeans I picked up in Inverness. I finger-comb my wet hair and arrange my bangs as best I can. Then I open the door.
He’s facing the other way, as if he might catch me in some indecent state of undress again.As if he hasn’t seen everything already.
“Hey,” I say, and he turns around, his eyes bouncing to a few places—the wall behind me, the ground—and then finally landing on me.
“Hi,” he says. He tucks one hand in his back pocket, adopting a casual stance, and I wonder if it feels as unnatural for him as it looks.
“So,” I say, when he doesn’t add anything else. “Did you want to talk about something?”
