All the Waters of the Earth (Giving You ... #3) (5 page)

The night before, after swimming and making out in the pool, we somehow tore apart from each other and ended up back in our separate homes, in our separate beds. I didn’t know what he did in his bed, but I sure know what I did in mine.

Tonight, tired, leaning against the doorjamb, his coat swinging, he gave me that thrill that he was taking the time to see me, even though he worked so much. As much as this excited me, however, I still felt the need to be cautious. I didn’t know him and I was wary to invest too much in pleasing a guy. I got so epically burned pleasing Carlos.  While I leaned against the doorjamb under him, he noticed my scantily dressed body, then shook his head and blinked.

“I have a lot of clients who bring me samples as gifts,” he said in his low voice, “but this one I thought you would like.” He handed me a bottle of Santa Barbara chardonnay. 

“Thank you,” I said, happily cradling the wine.

“I was thinking that you could chill it and we could drink it tomorrow night,” he continued. “I should be able to get out of the office earlier tomorrow. By earlier, I mean earlier than,” he looked at his watch, “nine forty-five.”

“That sounds great—” I started and his fucking phone sounded.

He let out a breath, pulled his phone out of his pocket, looked at it, and muttered, “Fuck.” He gave me an apologetic look. “I have to take this but I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m sorry.” Leaning in, he brushed his lips against mine.  Then he kissed the tip of my nose and closed the door behind him. I heard him answer the phone as he crossed the way over to his unit and unlocked his door.

The sound of his door shutting made my brain click into place.

What was I doing?

I didn’t want to be second place to a phone call.  No way in hell would I be a convenient booty call for a guy with no time for me.  Alarm bells rang in my head because I did not want my self-esteem hanging on whether a man thought I was worthwhile.  I knew I was worthwhile.  I’d spent the last twelve years building my own self-esteem about my body and my choices so that I knew this deep down in my soul.  I wasn’t going to sit around all day and wait for him to come to me when he thought it was time to see me.

That said, he was just so goddamned pretty and playful when he wasn’t working, it was hard not to. I felt really, really, really pulled to him.  And he said he felt the same way.  Otherwise, why was he even making the attempt to see me?

So apparently I
was
just sitting around waiting for him to come to me, under the circumstances.

I padded down the hall, turning off lights, and started washing off my makeup, thinking it had been
never
since I let a man see me without makeup.  I got into my bed to read, but I put my e-reader down and thought about it.

I liked Jake.  I also saw how little time he had for me.

If a man is into you, he makes time for you no matter what he does and no matter how busy he is.

But Jake seemed to be trying hard to make time for me, despite the fact that he was phenomenally busy.  And I liked it.

So I didn’t know how to take this. I decided to sleep on it.  I turned my e-reader on, face clean, hair up, and started reading.

The following morning, no brilliant conclusion had come to me overnight. As I showered and dressed, I realized that I had to proceed with caution, not get overly attached to responses or attention from Jake, and have fun and see what happened.

That evening, Rob sat on the porch with me, drinking milk, while I sipped a sparkling water in a glass, looking at the lights on the surface of the pool.

“How you doing in school, mijo?”

“Good,” he answered.

“Not good enough of an answer for your mama,” I returned. “What’s that mean?”

“I got a ninety-three on my spelling test, a ninety-five in math, and an eighty-nine in social studies.”

I nodded. “Those are good grades. But numbers and data aren’t everything. How are your friends?”

“Good,” he answered. 

When I looked at him, he kept going. “Cody is fine and he likes to play Minecraft too. So does Ramón.”

“And your teacher?”

“She’s nice.”

I nodded. “What do you have coming up in school?”

“Winter pageant and then we have to get started on our science fair project.”

With kids, sometimes you had to press them, otherwise you would just get yes/no answers. But when they started talking, that was where you could find the gold.

It was time for him to go to bed and I went inside and tucked him in.  I decided to get out Jake’s wine, and, feeling optimistic, I got out two glasses to go with it.  If he didn’t come by, I’d still have a drink by myself.

I sat out in the dark night, looking out and listening to the quiet noises of the complex and the occasional car driving down our street.

Jake’s patio door opened and he stepped out, wearing dark blue jeans and a tight, white t-shirt, looking immediately for me, and walking right over. In that getup he looked like he should be leaning against a muscle car, with a pack of cigarettes rolled up his sleeve, his jet hair spiky and his eyes so blue they were almost black in the low patio light.

“Hey, there you are,” he said pleasantly.

I hopped up from my perch and walked over to the waist high partition between our patios, where he was standing, bracing his arms on the wall. I gave him a slow kiss, our noses mashing, our tongues meeting.

“Want a drink?” I asked after I pulled back from our kiss.

“Yes, please.” 

I went over to the table and poured him a glass of the cold white wine, handing it to him. He dragged his patio chair over by the wall and put his feet up on the front railing, talking with me. “This is a much better way of ending a day than at the office.”  He took a drink of the wine. “The wine’s good too.” He looked out at the pool. “So how long have you been a single mom?”

“In other words, how old am I?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I guess. I’m thirty-five.”

“Twenty-nine. I had Rob when I was seventeen. His dad was my boyfriend in high school for a short period of time. And then we did it and he left me.” Jake’s face twitched. “It’s okay, he showed me who he was and I deserve better. I deserve a guy who will watch out for me, not one who will leave me.”

“You’re right about that.”

I sipped my wine.  Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I asked, “Why do you work so much?”

He let out a breath. “That’s a long answer. I guess part of it is ingrained in me from my dad. He worked really hard and he wanted me to do so. He pushed me in school, he pushed me in my career. I always wanted him to think that I was, you know, up to snuff. Sometimes he was a real taskmaster. I guess that’s a longer story. It’s complicated. I love him and I resent him at the same time. Well, that’s one part at least.”

“And the other part?”

Jake looked at me. “I don’t know the reason,” he said quietly. “I’m not balanced. I work a lot. Probably too much. I don’t have time for relationships. I’ve always drowned myself in work.”  He paused.  “I mean, I exercise. I do a couple other things. But other than that, I’m at the office as much as I can be. I’ve always picked work as my escape from, I don’t know, life.”

“That sucks. You need to live.”

“I know. I think that’s part of the reason why I’m so attracted to you. I keep thinking of reasons to come see you. I want to know every single thing about you. I want you to talk to me for hours. I want you to get me out of the office. So that’s part of the reason why I can’t stay away from you.”

“Part of the reason?”  I had to know the other reason.

“The other part is that you are so fucking sexy, I can barely stand to be near you. You’re some sort of J. Lo lookalike. You are a knockout. I have to keep this wall between us otherwise I would be all over you. And you have a kid asleep in there and I can’t do that.”

Holy shit. It appeared that the attraction was way mutual.  My next words reflected the see what happens part of my earlier decision.

“You can come over,” I whispered.

Jake stared at me, then slowly set his glass down on the ground. Before I could process, he moved. Like a gymnast, he vaulted over the low wall and pulled me out of my seat by my armpits. In a quick move, he sat down, then set me into his lap so that I was straddling him and pulled me down to him, crashing his lips into mine, kissing me breathless.

I responded by exploding as well. My hands rubbed up and down his torso, then made my way to his back. I ran my fingers through his thick, dark hair, under his jaw, behind his neck. My tongue explored his mouth as much as his tongue explored mine.

And his hands went roaming, over my clothes, along the curve of my waist, down my ass, pressing me into him, feeling my breasts over my bra.

We broke apart, breathing hard, staring at each other. I leaned in to kiss him.

“We can’t take it farther right now,” he said against my mouth, “but I really want to.”

“Me too.  But you know Rob’s dad has him on Saturday night.”

“Yes. I’m taking you out.”  He kissed me again and I thought that he was being too much of a gentleman to complete the thought—that he looked forward to what came after taking me out even more.

On Saturday morning, I arrived about fifteen minutes early to the art school, greeting the professor in the otherwise empty classroom. The first session of a new life drawing class began today, and the professor had booked me as a model for the whole eight weeks. I’d arranged for babysitting for Rob during the times that the class met when I had him on the weekends, but today I was free to do whatever I wanted because he was with his dad.

The huge, airy room had an empty space located in the center of the room for the model to pose, circled by easels staggered all around. Every art student would have a different view and be drawing from a different angle. I’d been to this classroom before, so after I chatted with the professor, I headed to a small room off to the side to undress and wait until it was time for me to model. I always brought a white, waffle pattern robe to wear.

Even though I’d done this before, I felt a familiar sense of nervousness and anticipation about the public nudity that this job required. In some ways, having dozens of pairs of eyes on me was nerve-racking. But in other ways, I felt incredibly liberated when I modeled.  Free. There I’d be, standing before them, naked as a baby, allowing them to look at me, to record me.

Art students trained their hands to record what their eyes saw. They focused on lines and curves, on spatial arrangements and on proportion. They didn’t really see me as a person, but as an object to draw with pencil or charcoal. A beautiful object, perhaps, and one with the flaws of humanity. But still, it did not feel personal. I felt separate from them.

Normally, the class would do a series of quick sketches while I held various positions for as long as I could. Projects might be to draw the inside of me, the weight, not focusing on the outer lines. Other times, the professor would have them draw my movement, in scribbled lines.

And sometimes I’d recline or sit on a chair and stay still, often with my eyes closed, while they drew me for lengthy periods of time.  The professor had requested this work today.

Again, I felt a freedom and a beauty being part of this process. I rarely saw the finished products, although occasionally the students would show me. I’d experienced every emotion in seeing myself as a nude, from gasping at how accurately they captured me, to cringing at the focus on a flaw, to trying not to laugh at particularly amateur art. But still, it was lovely to see people engage in creativity.

It was important to me to create something or assist in the creation of something that did not exist before it came out of me, whether it was a phrase on a page, or here, as the subject of a drawing or a later painting. If I really thought about it, all of nature is creating all of the time—children are growing inside women’s wombs, plants are dividing cells and creating new growth, and mountains are being built up, as in the lava in Hawaii, or eroded down. All around us are creations.  Allowing the artistic process, without judgment, without critique, to me, was essential to the experience of being human.