Page 41 of When He Saved Me
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I’d expectedwe’d go to a nice steakhouse, so Jamie surprised me when he took me to a little out-of-the-way Mexican restaurant on Southwest Boulevard. He told me the only true way to celebrate anything was with tacos and margaritas. Knowing I still had to play a gig, I limited myself to one Modelo but thoroughly enjoyed watching Jamie get a little sloppy after a couple of margaritas.
He approached food the same way he approached everything, with exuberant delight. And in between bites of tacos, rice, and beans, and sips of his margarita, he regaled me with tales of his childhood. How he broke his arm when he was twelve in a sledding accident, of summers spent learning to ski at their lake house in the Ozarks, and winning the 100m freestyle race at State his senior year. He teared up when he told me about his childhood dog, George, a hound rescue who’d died when he was sixteen, and laughed until he cried when he told me about the time he locked himself out of his car while it was running and how when he called Asher to come to the rescue, Asher had run out of gas on his way to help. They’d both had to call his mom, who’d laughed her ass off before arriving with a spare key for Jamie and a gas can for Asher.
He’d had an all-American childhood, while mine had been…something else. Something less. He’d lived his life in color while mine had been endured in shades of gray. I told him how I’d fallen in love with the piano and played in the school jazz band. I shared about the poetry competition I’d quietly entered my freshman year and how I’d placed third, but I hadn’t told anyone. I told him about my parent’s absence in my life and how I’d always done my best to go unnoticed because that was easier than making waves. I’d long ago stopped yearning for their love and had simply wished for them to leave me alone. I told him about how I’d met Carmen that fateful day in an abandoned classroom and how she forced me to attend prom with her and still drug me to charity events with her when she didn’t have a date.
I hadn’t wanted to bring the mood down, but I’d wanted—needed—to be honest with him. I hadn’t felt like we could move forward if Jamie didn’t understand where I’d come from. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life drowning in regret over the way I’d handled my upbringing, but I didn’t think I could move forward without confronting the reality of it either.
Through all of it, Jamie listened as if the meaning of life was held somewhere within the story of my childhood. He listened without pity and without offering any sort of platitudes. He just…listened. And when we were finished and it was time to go, he pulled me to him in a hug, offering comfort without words.
We’d originally planned to take two cars to dinner so Jamie could head home while I headed to Ivory, but I was glad we’d ultimately decided to take one since Jamie was not in any condition to drive. Ashley had texted that she was spending the night at the Felton’s, so Jamie was free to spend the rest of his evening with me.
Throughout my gig, Jamie sat at the bar, sipping water while I played, listening attentively. He didn’t fiddle with his phone or make small talk with his bar mates. His attention was on me as if he and I were the only ones in the room.
We were quiet on the way home, lost in our own thoughts. The day had been one I was sure I wouldn’t soon forget. Making cookies with Annie and spending time with Jamie all filled me with a warmth I wanted to wrap myself in like a blanket.
We made our way up to my apartment just after one in the morning and prepared for bed. I was less shy about stripping in front of him this time, climbing under the covers in just my briefs. He climbed in behind me, pulling me close, my back to his chest, just like we’d slept on Monday, only this time with a lot less clothing. His heat permeated my skin, and my dick gave a halfhearted twitch, but I wasn’t sure I had the energy to do anything about it. I’d been up at five for my shift at the The Daily Grind and had been going nearly nonstop since. Paired with the emotional energy I’d expended today, I was a virtual zombie.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“For what?” Jamie asked, the whisper of his breath tickling my neck.
“For today. For everything. For just…being you.” My words were a jumbled mess in my punch-drunk state. I hoped he could understand them.
He pressed a kiss to the spot right behind my ear, and I thought he whispered, “You’re worth it. You’re worth everything.” But I might have heard that in my dreams.
CHAPTER21
JAMIE
When I was ten,my father passed away. He had a massive stroke and collapsed in his office at work. He had been relatively young and healthy, so it came as a shock to us all. I missed school for two weeks. Our house seemed to be constantly full of people. Aunt Cathy and her family were there nearly every day, though Ashley and Cody were just two and four, so it was a little harder for her to help out since she was constantly chasing my cousins. My paternal grandparents, who were still living at the time, came to stay with us for a month.
And it seemed no matter where I turned, no matter which room I walked into, someone was crying. My mom carried a box of tissues with her everywhere she went. I didn’t know how someone could cry so many tears, but I knew my mom and dad had loved each other very much, so I supposed she was bound to cry a lot.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t cry. I thought perhaps something was broken inside of me. I was old enough to understand that death was permanent, that my dad wouldn’t be coming back. And I felt sad about it…really, really sad. But I still couldn’t cry. I wanted to ask Asher about it, but his bio dad had hit him when he was really little, so I thought he would probably feel differently about it.
The funeral came and went. Our house was full of crying people and more food than we could ever eat. The number of visitors waned, I went back to school, and eventually, my grandparents went back to their home in Arizona.
It was on the first Saturday after everyone had left, that the dam finally burst.
Like a moth to a flame, the scent of coffee and bacon drew me into the kitchen. But when I climbed on the stool to see what my dad was cooking for breakfast, I realized it wasn’t my dad cooking. It wouldn’t be my dad ever again.
Mom made most of the meals in our home, but breakfast had always been Dad’s domain. He said Mom deserved to sleep in and have someone else cook her a meal for a change, so nearly every Saturday, and sometimes on Sunday, he made breakfast. Omelets. Pancakes. Waffles. Biscuits and gravy. If it was a breakfast food, he made it.
Sometimes he let me help, and those were my favorite times. It didn’t matter if I made a mess of the batter or accidentally flipped a pancake onto the stove. Dad always patiently helped me clean it up or showed me the right way to do it the next time. And when it was all finished, we’d arrange everything on a tray and take it to Mom. He always let me take the credit, even though he’d done most of the work.
But on this Saturday, it was my mom doing the cooking. And I didn’t know why, but it made me angry. This was our thing, mine and my dad’s. It wasn’t hers. She didn’t know that the secret ingredient in the pancakes was the extra splash of vanilla or that the key to a good sausage gravy was heavy whipping cream rather than that low-fat stuff.
I watched while she stirred the batter, immediately noticing it was too thick.
“You’re doing it wrong!” I shouted at her. “It’s all wrong!”
She turned and looked at me, eyes wide with concern. I wasn’t prone to outbursts. This was completely unlike me. I felt unhinged and out of control, but I didn’t know how to stop it.
She set the batter aside and turned the burner down on the bacon before approaching me, her hands held out in front of her as if approaching a wild animal. “Honey, it’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
“No, it’s not!” I shouted again. “The batter’s all wrong! You’re messing it all up!”
