Page 34 of Fighting For You
Bones and I did a puzzle and listened to music on the lowest possible volume while Jess slept.
At some point, my mind had slipped from thinking of her as Pop and had fallen into the cruel trap of Jess.
Then there was that time you called herbaby,and she wasn’t so out of it she didn’t notice.
She likely didn’t remember it now. I couldn’t say why or how the word jumped from my mouth, but I couldn’t take it back.
Could it be the soul-filling tenderness you feel for her and the way she makes you want to be soft and gentle and do whatever she wants? Could that be why you called her?—
Oh, well. Not a helpful line of thought, and again, she likely wouldn’t remember it or might think it was all a dream.Hopefully.
I peeked in on her to make sure she didn’t seem like shewas febrile again, but she was simply sleeping. Her color looked better, and she was, overall, perking up.
She’d stepped away at just the right time earlier. Her apology and kind words about my grandparents had sideswiped me. I hadn’t guessed she’d come here to apologize for what she’d said—Jess wasn’t the kind of person to say something she didn’t mean. But her regret over saying what she did,whenshe did, hit me in a surprisingly painful way I couldn’t explain.
For a few minutes there, we’d simply talked—shared in the human connection of grief and loss over my grandparents, and joy for her mom’s happiness. It’d been…
Good.
I’d needed the quiet and the mind-numbing practice of fitting pieces into place and making sense of a bunch of nothing so it turned into something. But as late afternoon approached, I started cooking. The vegetable beef stew I’d put in the crock pot earlier smelled amazing, and I just needed to turn out the dough for the no-knead bread and let it rise while the oven heated up. She’d be hungry whenever she woke, and I wanted to have dinner ready.
My appetite had reasserted itself lately, and the idea of sharing a meal with Jess made it somehow more ravenous.
Then maybe, if she wasn’t too tired, we could sit together and watch a movie or… whatever. Now that she’d been here a few days, I’d gotten used to her. And now that we weren’t spewing insults and frustration back and forth, it only made me want more of this gentle, if temporary, detente between us.
But the snow had stopped last night. We’d likely be able to leave tomorrow morning. Might even be able to go tonight, if she wanted, which I should really tell her. I could drive her—I could bring Kenny back with me to get her car.
Would it all crumble once she was better? Once we left here?
No doubt, the fantasy would come to an end. This waking dream I’d been stuck in since she crossed my threshold, and her words amidst delirium last night…
I was a different man than before she’d come here. I couldn’t unknow what she’d said… that at some point, before everything, she’d wanted me. Wondered about how it might be between us. Maybe even wished I would smile at her.
Eyes closed, I could feel her finger press between my brows.
“Hey. Sorry I slept so long.”
The sight of her standing at the edge of the kitchen with her arms wrapped around herself and a pair of my sweatpants she must’ve found in the drawers nearly drowning her stole my breath. I let out ahuh, a mix of a laugh and something else unintelligible, as my gaze dropped to the excess material pooling at her ankles.
“Oh, yeah.” She looked down, then curtseyed as she held out the material on either side of her thighs. “I borrowed these.”
It shouldn’t have been appealing. My heart should’ve had no response to her borrowing my clothes. After everything over the last few days, why would that make my gut tight? “Whatever you need.”
She tucked her lips together, then her gaze shifted behind me. “Wait, are you making homemade bread?”
I’d just uncovered the dough. In another minute or two, I’d pull the Dutch oven from the heat and dump the dough in so it could bake covered for half an hour.
“Yes. It’s a simple recipe.”
Her eyes stayed glued on the dough until they shifted to meet mine. “I really don’t know you, do I?”
I stepped closer, wiping my hands on a towel to give them something to do. “It’s been a long time since we knew each other.”
She hummed. “Maybe so.”
Not wanting to drown in the memory of the past and get stuck on the landfill-sized pile of baggage between us, I pulled the Dutch oven off the heat. “Want to watch some TV until dinner’s ready?”
“What do you have in mind?”
