wallet? Or in your truck?” He liked to tuck business cards in the strap on the back of the sun visor.
“I double-checked both before I called. It’s probably on the counter. Or the coffee table. Probably. It’s there somewhere.”
“I’ll call you right back.” Maybe. Somewhere wasn’t a lot to go on.
There was no business card on the counter. Nor on the coffee table. It wasn’t in the spot he usually threw his keys or near the coffee mug where he tossed the coins he accumulated in his pockets. Maybe it was on his nightstand or dresser.
She hadn’t been in his bedroom. Maybe it was a subconscious effort at separation, but they’d always kept their doors closed. He’d been in hers, of course, but she still hadn’t been in his.
He’d said it was urgent, though, so she turned the handle and poked her head in.
The room was pretty much identical to hers. Beige. Brown. Blah. His bed was bigger and there was a straight-back chair next to his dresser, but that was it. He was surprisingly neat for a guy, and she didn’t have to wade through balled-up socks to get to the pile of scrap paper she saw on his dresser.
He might not throw his dirty socks on the floor, but the man would jot a note on just about anything. A reminder to check sprinkler system laws on the back of a gas receipt. A guy’s name and a number on the corner of a napkin. The deeper in the debris pile she sifted, the further back in renovations the notes referred to.
One crumpled piece of paper had the intriguing title of “Google searches.” Under that, in his slanted chicken scratch: trivia Concord, NH; bars trivia Concord, NH; Concord Tuesday trivia. In the margins were bar names and phone numbers. All had a line scratched through them. The next sheet of paper had the name of an auto garage. Then the Concord library’s number. And at the bottom of the pile was a small piece of paper that had obviously gotten very, very wet. She could make out the pattern across the top as that of her fridge memo pad, but her name and number were just a black smudge bleeding out into nothing.
He hadn’t been playing her, after all. He’d tried to call her. The evidence that he’d invested a lot of time and energy into trying to get in touch with her was spread across the dresser, and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. Why hadn’t she listened to her heart instead of her stupid head and believed him when he told her that? Repeatedly.
It didn’t matter now. They’d moved past that, but seeing how hard he’d tried to find her after just one night together squeezed her heart.
She loved him. Maybe it had been love at first sight or maybe it had crept up on her, but she knew it was real and she knew it was twisting her up inside. She couldn’t imagine what life would be like without him—other than painful—but it was almost time to go home.
She had a home. And she missed Jasper’s Bar & Grille and Paulie and everybody else. Her friends. Movie theaters. Takeout.
Jake loved the life he was making here. She could see it in him. He thrived on it and there was more than pride in his eyes when he stood in the pub and looked at what they’d done together. There was affection. He’d made this his home.
His home and her home were three hours apart as the highway rolled, but worlds apart in reality. And she wasn’t quite sure how he felt about her. She knew he cared about her and enjoyed the sex and her company, but it would take the forever kind of love to work through the obstacles in their path. Anything less would crumble under the weight of logistics and distance and absences.
* * *
A WEEK LATER , Jake looked over the dining room of Jasper’s Pub and felt the warm glow of satisfaction. It was finally opening night and they weren’t packed, but there had been a steady enough stream of diners to call it good.
They’d done the advertising and radio spots. Kevin had handled getting the website and Facebook page up. Now it was up to word of
“I double-checked both before I called. It’s probably on the counter. Or the coffee table. Probably. It’s there somewhere.”
“I’ll call you right back.” Maybe. Somewhere wasn’t a lot to go on.
There was no business card on the counter. Nor on the coffee table. It wasn’t in the spot he usually threw his keys or near the coffee mug where he tossed the coins he accumulated in his pockets. Maybe it was on his nightstand or dresser.
She hadn’t been in his bedroom. Maybe it was a subconscious effort at separation, but they’d always kept their doors closed. He’d been in hers, of course, but she still hadn’t been in his.
He’d said it was urgent, though, so she turned the handle and poked her head in.
The room was pretty much identical to hers. Beige. Brown. Blah. His bed was bigger and there was a straight-back chair next to his dresser, but that was it. He was surprisingly neat for a guy, and she didn’t have to wade through balled-up socks to get to the pile of scrap paper she saw on his dresser.
He might not throw his dirty socks on the floor, but the man would jot a note on just about anything. A reminder to check sprinkler system laws on the back of a gas receipt. A guy’s name and a number on the corner of a napkin. The deeper in the debris pile she sifted, the further back in renovations the notes referred to.
One crumpled piece of paper had the intriguing title of “Google searches.” Under that, in his slanted chicken scratch: trivia Concord, NH; bars trivia Concord, NH; Concord Tuesday trivia. In the margins were bar names and phone numbers. All had a line scratched through them. The next sheet of paper had the name of an auto garage. Then the Concord library’s number. And at the bottom of the pile was a small piece of paper that had obviously gotten very, very wet. She could make out the pattern across the top as that of her fridge memo pad, but her name and number were just a black smudge bleeding out into nothing.
He hadn’t been playing her, after all. He’d tried to call her. The evidence that he’d invested a lot of time and energy into trying to get in touch with her was spread across the dresser, and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. Why hadn’t she listened to her heart instead of her stupid head and believed him when he told her that? Repeatedly.
It didn’t matter now. They’d moved past that, but seeing how hard he’d tried to find her after just one night together squeezed her heart.
She loved him. Maybe it had been love at first sight or maybe it had crept up on her, but she knew it was real and she knew it was twisting her up inside. She couldn’t imagine what life would be like without him—other than painful—but it was almost time to go home.
She had a home. And she missed Jasper’s Bar & Grille and Paulie and everybody else. Her friends. Movie theaters. Takeout.
Jake loved the life he was making here. She could see it in him. He thrived on it and there was more than pride in his eyes when he stood in the pub and looked at what they’d done together. There was affection. He’d made this his home.
His home and her home were three hours apart as the highway rolled, but worlds apart in reality. And she wasn’t quite sure how he felt about her. She knew he cared about her and enjoyed the sex and her company, but it would take the forever kind of love to work through the obstacles in their path. Anything less would crumble under the weight of logistics and distance and absences.
* * *
A WEEK LATER , Jake looked over the dining room of Jasper’s Pub and felt the warm glow of satisfaction. It was finally opening night and they weren’t packed, but there had been a steady enough stream of diners to call it good.
They’d done the advertising and radio spots. Kevin had handled getting the website and Facebook page up. Now it was up to word of
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