Page 95 of Finding Jack
“There wasn’t anyone I wanted to take out. Now I do.” He watched me as I processed that. “Look, I was a head case when I moved here. It’swhyI moved here. I needed to get as far away as possible from all the noise in my life. It worked.”
“Except now I’m here…making noise.”
“Not that I mind, but while we’re on the subject, can I ask why?” he asked, setting his sandwich down. “Why did you decide to come?”
Here we were at the threshold of our first real conversation in person, the kind you have when you’re dating someone, and you want it to go somewhere. “Why did you invite me?”
He studied me for a long moment. “I needed to know,” he said. “I’ve been in a fog for a long time. You’ve been a steady light. I wanted to know what I’d find if I followed it.”
Ranée was wrong. It was Jack who was making me swoon, not the other way around. But even as his words sent a soft, warm glow through me, a flicker of worry trailed it.
“You’re frowning.” He leaned forward to brush his finger over the furrows on my forehead. “Was that the wrong answer?”
“Not if it’s the truth. It’s just…” I tried to figure out what the flicker meant. “I don’t know. The light in the fog thing. It’s rescue imagery, you know? And once you rescue someone or get rescued, there’s this moment of intense ‘yayness’ and then you both move on and that’s it.”
He looked like he was trying not to smile. “‘Yayness?’” he repeated.
“I’m a programmer, not a poet.”
“Could’ve fooled me with talk like ‘rescue imagery.’ But I get it. It’s kind of like how no one wants to be a rebound. You don’t want to be a rebound from my hermit life?”
It pulsed like truth where the flicker had been. “Basically.”
He took the sandwich from my hands and set it down. “I can’t make a single promise. The reality is that we’re committed to lives in two different places, and there’s nothing we can do about that. But you’re here now. I want to be in this moment, for as long as it lasts, before you have to go back to your life. I don’t think we can solve anything, and I’m sure if we try we’re only going to frustrate ourselves. Let’s not do that. Let’s just be here, right now, like there is nothing else to worry about, nothing to fix.”
I reached up and tucked back a piece of his hair that hadn’t made it into the elastic. “I’ve wanted to do that for weeks.”
“Then do it as often as you want this weekend. Deal?”
What else was there to say? He was right. All that mattered was right now because I couldn’t do a thing about anything else. “Deal.”
And then lunch got cold as we disappeared into countless long, sweet kisses.
Chapter 35
When we finally made it outside, Jack led me to the only vehicle in the parking lot besides my rental car, a black BMW that looked out of place amongst the pickups and SUVs that I’d seen while driving around.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I don’t know what a perfect first date is in Featherton, but I know what I want ours to be. I thought we could drive around, I’ll show you the sights and the surrounding area, the kind of stuff I like to do, and then we can grab some dinner and I’ll show you my place and we can watch that dumb medical show together. In person.”
“And I can jab you in the ribs every time you point out what they’re doing wrong?”
“Sure. I’ll even make sure that you’re tucked in next to me so it’s easier for you to get me with your elbow.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Featherton was pretty in early spring, bright with the inevitable Oregon greenery, but this wasn’t a town that had dressed itself up to attract any of the resort business from Mt. Hood. It had a shabby but comfortable feel, with common sense concrete sidewalks instead of cobblestones or bricks. Some of the signs bore faded paint, but they all hung neatly, and every window was clean, and no litter clung to the corners of buildings or street signs, the way it did in San Francisco.
I thought it would take longer to drive as he pointed out different businesses or told me about each place, but apparently, he spent all his time going from Annie’s to the tiny grocery store and the laundromat and didn’t know much about the rest of the little shops. After two blocks of this, I interrupted him. “Park there, please.” I pointed to an empty spot on the street.
He steered into the space without arguing. “Did you need something?”
I grinned and leaned over to kiss him. “That. But also, I can’t believe you don’t know more about these little places. We’re going to explore, and we’re starting here.”
He glanced at the sign over the door of the business. “At Grove Hardware?”
“Yes. Why not?”
He shook his head but climbed out of the car and met me on my side. “Let’s explore the mysteries of the hardware store.”
