One Week - By Nikki Van De Car Page 0,41
us. And I did get to hold Jacob.
It wasn't until Jess and I were shown into one room for the night that I realized the problem with this plan. I guess I figured it being the Midwest and all that Mandy wouldn't want to encourage that sort of thing, but then again it is a small house and she's already putting up her mother and Herbert and Martha. So we were pretty lucky to get the tiny attic spare room, considering.
I had sort of forgotten about last night's humiliation. I mean, not really, because how do you forget that sort of thing, but I was just…distracted, I guess. Jess and I were getting along, and then there was the hypoglycemia drama, and then dinner with Mandy and everybody, and I just didn't think about it until Mandy closed the door and Jess and I were alone on the other side of it.
He offered right away to sleep on the floor. Of course. I mean, obviously he wouldn't want to sleep in the bed with me. Not that I'd ever have offered again. We took turns in the bathroom and I took my pants off under the sheets. Jess's boxers had cows on them.
As I reached over to turn off the light, Jess said, “I had a really fun day. I mean, apart from the near-coma and all. They've all been really fun, actually.”
I bit my lip. “Yeah.” They've been the most fun I've ever had.
But I switched off the light and neither of us said anything else. I thought I would be awake for a long time, but I slept forever and didn't dream.
I watch Jess sleeping now. There's a stream of light pouring in through the small window near the slanted ceiling, and it's filled with sparkling dust motes. What will happen when we finally get to New York? However it is that we get there? Will we ever see each other again? I realize that I can't imagine not seeing Jess every day. I can't even imagine not seeing him every minute of every day.
I know he doesn't feel the same way about me. I mean, he said as much. And I don't know when exactly I started feeling this way, I just know that it is the case. And I hope it goes away really soon.
Jess's eyes blink open and he looks up at me and smiles. “Good morning, sunshine.”
I rest my chin on the edge of the mattress and smile back. I can't help it. “Good morning back.”
Jess stretches and sits up so that his face is level with mine. “How'd you sleep?”
“Better than you probably,” I say, nodding at the hard attic floor.
Jess brushes something—dust, I guess—from my cheek, and shakes his head. “Oh, it wasn't so bad.”
I suddenly can't breathe—and I don't want to. Everything feels frozen in place, and I want it to stay just like this. Jess leans forward and gives me a soft, gentle kiss. Just a brush of lips, really. He moves his mouth to the place where his fingers had been a moment ago, and across my cheek down to my neck.
And then he pushes back away from the bed and stands up.
“I guess we should figure out our next move,” he says.
I sit up, drawing my knees up to my chest, keeping the blanket wrapped around me. “I guess so.”
Jess clears his throat and turns around to pull his pants on. “I don't know about you, but I'd like my stuff back,” he says over his shoulder. “We should probably call Amtrak and see if they can hold our things for us in Chicago, and then we'll catch the train to New York from there.”
“Okay, but how do we get to Chicago?” I reach for my pants and start pulling them on under the covers. I suppose if I were more like my namesake I'd just saunter out of bed in my underwear—which in that version of myself would be lacy and sexy—but there's just no way I'm doing that.
Jess pulls his T-shirt over his head. “Well, that part we might have to, uh, improvise.”
We head downstairs to find Martha wide awake and bustling around the kitchen. Mandy is sitting at the kitchen table and Peter, her husband, is holding Jacob in this weird position where the baby is looking at the floor.
“He likes it,” Peter says, shrugging. “Maybe it relieves gas or something.”
“Coffee, anyone?” Martha asks.
“Please,” Jess says gratefully. Mandy looks longingly at the coffee pot but