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“I want a redwood tree, thin, maybe about 6 inches long, on my spine. Starting at the base of the neck,” I tell him.
“Can I draw it?” Jake asks.
“Um, yeah,” I say, with only a hint of hesitation. Not because he isn’t talented, because I know that he is.
He pulls a small sketchbook from his bag and flips through a lot of very full pages until he gets to a blank page. I recognize it as the same one he had with him when he came to my bar that first time and disappeared into himself in that dark corner, and I wondered if maybe we are the same kind of people. So, I tell him yes, he can draw it, and we wait while Jake draws this thin, delicate redwood tree with an intricate root system. He lets me watch over his shoulder, and I’m impressed both by the detail and that it barely takes him any time at all.
“Do you hate it?” he asks when he’s done and hands me the drawing. “Do you hate the roots? Because you didn’t say anything about roots, so it’s okay if you do.”
“No, I don’t hate it. It’s…fitting,” I tell him, and I kind of want to cry, but this isn’t a crying moment. It’s just that people don’t do things like this for me, so I don’t know how to react when it happens. Neither of us say anything else, we just stare at each other for a minute. Then, one of the artists asks if we are ready now, I sign some papers, initial that I am not inebriated in any way, and head back with the guy behind the counter while Jake hands another guy a different picture from his book, and they get started, too.
Mine is finished first, and I go to find Jake. He’s not quite done, but I can see what it is. It’s an anchor; the top is a compass and the base holds a body of water surrounded by mountains, with a tiny boat in the middle.
“A sailboat,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “I missed out on taking you sailing this year, but we’ll go when it gets warmer. You’ll like it, too.”
“It looks great. It looks amazing, really. You won’t be mad at me for this tomorrow?”
“No. Are you going to be mad that you have a piece of art on your body forever that will always make you think of me?”
I have a mild panic attack. Shit. I hadn’t thought about that. The lump in my throat is back and my heart rate jumps up. He sees it, and doesn’t like it, so I make my response light, “No. It’ll be…a nice story to tell my grandchildren someday.”
“Our grandchildren,” he says, turning to look straight ahead again. We don’t talk again until he’s finished, but it hangs there, heavy.
The sun has started to rise by the time we’re finally leaving. In Seattle, at this time of year, it must be well into the morning. Realizing this hits me hard. Aren’t I too old for this? Don’t I have to work later today, and I still haven’t slept?
“Jake! It’s the next fucking day!” I tell him.
“Well, technically, it’s been the next fucking day for a while. You just got off work…today,” he offers.
“Okay, yeah, but I have to work today AGAIN. I need to go home and sleep. God, what are you doing to me?”
“Okay, so let’s go home and sleep,” he says, kissing me. “Come to my home, and we’ll sleep, and I’ll make you breakfast, and then you can go to work.”
“And I’ll help you with tattoo aftercare,” I laugh.
“And yeah, you can do that.”
We walk back in the cold first light of the Saturday sun, down a street that I didn’t know could be so quiet, towards a place that I didn’t know could feel so comfortable. And once we’re finally inside, curled up under Jake’s ridiculously soft down comforter, he snuggles up behind me and says to the back of my head, “I love you, Ruby.”
I swallow hard and say, “I love you, too.” It’s hard, but I do mean it. At least I think that I do. It’s not a feeling that I’m deeply familiar with, and the words come out thick and soupy and make me feel far too vulnerable. I wonder briefly if I’d misheard him. He doesn’t say anything else, and soon he’s snoring heavily behind me. As tired as I am, I know sleep won’t come for me for a while. I stare at the wall for the next hour, trying to grapple with what the hell happened in the last 8 hours.
eleven
It’s3:00PMbeforeI finally wake up to the smell of something delicious that I wasn’t used to smelling. Jake made good on his promise to make me breakfast, or brunch, in the middle of the afternoon. Caprese sandwiches with fresh mozzarella. I laugh to myself a little because it’s fancy and a bit pretentious, like how I used to see him. Now, I just saw him as mine. He says something about perfect timing and waking me up that I don’t completely take in because I am busy staring at this gorgeous, shirtless man in front of me, and his new tattoo, cooking for me. I think he keeps talking, and the next thing I know, there’s food and coffee in front of me.
“Ruby? You okay?” he asks.
“Yep, I’m just…taking it all in.”
“Do you like you see?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Did you hear what I said about tomorrow?”
Oh, shit. Tomorrow. I’d almost forgotten about that day I’d been dreading for the past week. How the fuck do people act at fundraisers? What do I do? I’ve only seen them on TV shows and movies, but I’m fairly certain the bulk of it will be mingling and small talk, and I’m not good at those things under the most comfortable of circumstances. In fact, I’m sure there will be a plethora of things I am going to be expected to do or, at the very least, be expected to bear enthusiastic witness to that I’m either admittedly terrible at or entirely inexperienced. For instance, what if I don’t even know how to eat the food, like onTitanic? I’m sure there’s going to be a shit ton of forks.
