Unspoken (16 page)

“I’m about to drive someone home, anyone else?” I scrunched up my nose as he smiled down at me so
you won’t tempt me.
He winked. Connor asked him to take Alexa to her place because he was taking care of some other guys.

All the way to Alexa’s place she kept on blabbering and blabbering about Mika’s dad. She really missed him even though he’d been out of the picture for more than 3 years. He wasn’t even that much of a presence before that. That made my alcohol induced thoughts wander to a very stupid place. I began thinking what would happen if I got pregnant with Leonard’s baby; he wouldn’t be there for us, he would be traveling a lot and not being there for most of baby L’s milestones. Yes, I gave the hypothetic baby a name, but when he was home he would be an amazing father. I sighed and turned to look at Jackson, would he leave
Sally
? Would he stay with me? He would be a great dad; I’d seen him with Mika and he was awesome and panty-drop worthy. What if I got pregnant? Would that be what made him stay with me once and for all? I shook my head trying to imitate Jackson and see if my thoughts would really leave my whole aching-to-be-pregnant body.

“Stop,” he said and I panicked. Had I voiced ANY of my thoughts out loud? “You are comparing us,” he said. I sighed. I wasn’t. I kind of was but that had evolved into some crazy thinking that I wasn’t ready to revisit with him.

“Jackson, I think you should either go to your place or crash at Connor’s because you are not safe with me tonight,” I said truthfully.

“I agree,” he said very calmly but I could clearly see his knuckles go white because of the mean grip he had on the steering wheel.

Once we had dropped Alexa at her place and I tried, key word there, to help her into bed Jackson took me home.

“You can get in bed by yourself, right?” he asked with his hands in his pockets while I opened the door.

“Yes, I’m not that drunk,” I nodded.

“Good. Take two aspirins and at least one glass of water before going to bed,” he smiled, Getting up to
work tomorrow is going to be a bitch
.

“I know,” I raised my eyebrows as I stepped inside my house, “thanks for the ride,” I shrugged not knowing what to say because usually he didn’t drive me home. We’d just come back home together and he’d crash in the sofa bed.

“See you tomorrow, Mar,” I heard him say and when I turned to look at him he was already in the car and leaving. I closed the door behind me and went upstairs, grabbed a couple of aspirins from the bathroom cabinet and drank two glasses of water before going to bed; I didn’t even bother to change clothes, so I just took off my jeans and sweater and slept on the t-shirt that was underneath. It had been a really weird night and I had to be up in 5 hours, I just wanted to sleep.

Thankfully, I slept great but still when I heard the alarm going off I silently prayed for it to be some kind of notification on my phone, or someone calling but no dice. I opened my eyes and saw 4:00 am in the screen. I closed my eyes for a while and screamed into the pillow. I was so tired and my head already felt a bit bruised. I sat down on my bed and reached for my phone almost knocking down a glass of OJ. My mouth watered, suddenly it seemed that I had eaten all the sand at the bonfire, but I didn’t remember getting any OJ the previous night so I thought that if it had been there more than 24 hours it wasn’t wise for me to drink it.

“I got it for you,” I heard Jackson’s voice and saw him going up the stairs.

“Didn’t you go home last night?” I wasn’t that drunk, I knew that.

“Yep,” he placed in my hand an aspirin. “I came back half an hour ago to help you get ready for work,” I hated him. He went and did all of this and made my heart swell and jump like it was the Olympics inside my chest.

“You barely slept,” I said taking the aspirin and downing the delicious OJ that I had drooled over before.

“I don’t really need it and you really need company. Everyone needs company when they are miserable,” I shrugged in agreement.

“Why don’t you have a shower while I bring you up your breakfast,” Why was he doing all of this?

“Thank you,” I said getting up and walking to the shower. I can’t say the shower made me feel better, the hotness of it made me want to puke but in the end it did relaxed me. When I went out I found, as promised, a quick breakfast that consisted on fruit, not so fresh since it was already winter, and a buttered toast.

I ate it slowly after dressing in my usual black pants and white shirt and found out that my stomach didn’t reject the experience of food.

“Ready?” Jackson appeared at the top of the stairs again.

“How can you be so cheerful?” I got up and looked for my jacket and bag.

“I wasn’t drunk last night,” he chuckled.

“Let’s go,” I took the stairs slowly, trying hard to be gentle with my brain that I was sure would be able to feel the reverberation of my feet on the steps. By the time I was out in the street was already in the care checking out his cell phone. “Ugh!” I was sure I’d rolled my eyes.

“You are NOT cute when you are in a bad mood,” he said as the engine roared to life. At least he was honest. I hated when men said,
You’re cute when you are mad,
that will never be true. A woman in a bad mood will never be cute; she can be scary, terrifying, or completely and absolutely straight Samara-coming-out-of-your-TV creepy. NOT CUTE. I was in a bad mood and it had nothing to do with my headache or mild hangover, I was slightly in favor of saying that it may had been that I made a fool of myself the night before and that was really bothering.

“Did I look stupid last night?” I asked Jackson as we drove to the bakery. I usually walked because it was like 10 minutes away, 15 during winter because the wind froze my bones, but today I was thankful that Jackson was driving.

“Not at all,” he shook his head, his eyes not leaving the road.

“Be honest, Jackson,” I looked at him.

“You didn’t, Mar,” he sighed.

“Why are you doing this for me?” really why?

“What do you mean?” he frowned.

“Well, you are being way too nice. I practically attacked you last night,” I fumbled with my hands.

“You didn’t do anything I hadn’t done before,” he was right, “and I want you to know that I stopped you but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t want it,” yeah that made sense, “ You do know why I stopped you right?”

“Yes, I know,” I said annoyed but I didn’t know if I was annoyed because he stopped me or because I actually did what I did last night.

“Good,” He stopped the car right in front of the bakery and helped out of the car “I’ll be back in a few, ok?” I nodded and watched him leave. I needed to bake churros, a lot; I was mortified.

I baked a lot while drinking gallons of water and everything felt so much better by the time Greg got there to help me with some pies and cheese muffins and by the time Alexa got there I was almost human.

“Morning,” she said hanging her coat and purse on the hanger and then tied the black apron she used.

“Good morning,” I said sounding almost happy “how did you sleep?” I asked turning to look at her.

“Great,” her voice dripped sarcasm, “Question,” she asked, “Who took off my shirt last night?”

“That would be me,” I cleaned my hands on a cloth after putting in the oven a badge of apple hand pies.

“Ok,” she nodded, “You left on one sleeve,” she shrugged.

“Be thankful I didn’t puke on you,” I smiled.

“I am,” she finally smiled, “smoothies?”

“Smoothies!” those were sacred words to my ears.

“What happened between you and Jackson last night?” She asked me as she arranged all the necessary ingredients for the hangover smoothies.

“Ugh,” I rest my head over my crossed arms on the counter.

“What did he do?” Funny how she assumed it was Jackson who had done something.

“I tried to kiss him,” still hiding my face in my arms.

“Well, it’s not like he hasn’t done that,” the blender goes on and off and she pours the smoothies in tall glasses.

“He stopped me, Alexa!” I shook my head and gave a drink of the smoothie.

“THAT is humiliating,” she agreed as she downed the whole thing.

“I know!”

“Did he say why?” she sat on the stool behind the counter and checked the clock, knowing we still had 15 minutes before opening the doors.

“He didn’t want it to be because I was angry at Leonard for not showing up last night,” I shrugged. “I guess he was right.”

“That’s actually very sweet,” she said smiling.

“No, ‘sweet’ was the fact that this morning he got to my place at 3:30 to make breakfast and drive me to work,” I reached for a zucchini muffin that Greg had brought from the kitchen to put on display.

“He didn’t sleep over?” she asked me looking at my muffin with a disgusted look.

“Have a buttered toast. It helped me this morning,” I bit my muffin and went on, “we both agreed that he needed to spend the night somewhere else after I practically begged him to let me kiss him,” there I went being mortified about what had happened.

“You begged him?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Almost,” I shrugged, “I made a complete fool of myself.”

“I already told you that you didn’t,” I heard Jackson’s voice and practically jumped out of the stool where I was and ran into the kitchen.

“C’mon, Mar,” he went after me. Why couldn’t he let me be embarrassed for a while, “let’s not be all weird about it,” he grabbed me by the waist and put his chin on my shoulder.

“It’s easy for you to say,” I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a place where there was no Jackson or Leonard. It seemed it was impossible.

“I’ve kissed you too,” his mouth was way too close to my ear.

“I didn’t push you away,” I breathed. Seemed that my aching to be pregnant body still felt the need to find a donor; it wasn’t just the alcohol.

“I didn’t push you away either, Mar, I just want to kiss you when we are both sober, conscious, single if possible and because you want to kiss me, not because your boyfriend is not around,” he is still too close to my ear, his hands too close to my stomach in my hips.

“It wasn’t because he wasn’t around and you know it, Jackson,” I kept my eyes closed because it felt easier to be honest in that way.

“I know,” he paused and kissed my jaw, near, too near, my ear “still I want it to be different,” he let go of my hips and took a step back, I turned around and smiled at him,
Me too.

“I’ll be out there,” he walks away and I leaned my back against the door of the pantry.

“That was hot,” I heard Greg.

“You were here?” I asked confused.

“You both were too into each other and didn’t notice me,” he shrugged and kept on baking whatever he was baking.

Things were increasingly becoming dangerous for both of us. It seemed that I couldn’t be near him without feeling the need to touch him, kiss him or fuck him, and that would eventually end in disaster. I knew it; he knew it and anyone that was around us more than 5 minutes would know it too. I was, basically, fucked.

It seemed that that whole weekend was destined to suck ass because, that very same day, while I was baking some quiches for lunch hour I heard my mother’s voice.

“Marion,” I immediately raised my head like a gazelle that knows there’s a predator around and is about to become the prey; I turned and locked eyes with Greg. “Jackson?” I mouthed.

“I dunno,” he whispered and then shrugged. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t hear her voice at all and those were very bad news.

“Mother,” I ran untying my apron and undoing the bun in my head hoping, and praying a bit that Jackson wasn’t around. “Oh,” I whispered as soon as I set a foot at the front of the bakery. She was glued to one spot looking at Jackson’s table, where he was immersed in work not really noticing that she was here. “Mother,” I said in a calmed tone in that moment Jackson looked up and his face said it all. He wanted to hide underneath a table but my mother couldn’t take her eyes off of him. It’s funny how my mother could make a 28 year old man want to pee himself.

“Marion, explain,” she said in her lady like voice; from the corner of my eye I saw Jackson getting all his shit together, literally and metaphorically, and then I saw him walking towards the door.

“I’ll see you later, Mar,” he said and walked out of there as if he had seen a ghost.

“Coffee, Mom?” I asked as I took her to the table where Jackson was seated because it was the table with more privacy that’s the reason Jackson sat there every day.

“Sure,” I turned and nodded to Alexa that also looked like she was ready to die and she began making some coffee.

“How long has he been here?” she asked me and it was the exact moment where I needed to decide if I was going to tell my mom the truth or lie just like I did to Sara.

“Almost 4 months,” I said looking down at my hands.

“4 months?” she said angrily “4 months, Marion?”

“Yes, mother, 4 months,” I rolled my eyes.

“What about Leonard?”