Jack Who? (Book 1 Draft Version)

CHAPTER 5: FIVE MONTHS LATER

♪♫••══════ CHAPTER 5: FIVE MONTHS LATER ══════••♬ ♭

  RUSS
Hey
11:35 PM

Hey
sent 11:36 PM

My fingers brushed hesitantly at the screen of my phone before typing in a return greeting. After pressing send, I pushed at the melted ice cream carton suddenly feeling queasy when the smell assaulted my already hyper senses. The message had waked me from a dead sleep, still in my clothes, on the couch, in front of a flickering television .

RUSS
How ru
11:36


How was I? Not well, but he was the last person that needed to know.

Okay you?
sent 11:37 PM



RUSS
Ok
11:39 PM
 

RUSS
ru wearing red
11:45 PM

This flirtation coming, now, of all times, was laughable and I glanced down at the now wrinkled autumn brown blouse, loose to cover the weight I had gained lately. He was speaking of the red lingerie in his memories, and this was also amusing.*With the extra pounds, I was now spilling out of my bras in a way I never had. Unfortunately, I was also spilling out of everything. Unable to listen to his lines, I joked to throw him off, because it had been so long between texts.

Who is this?
sent 11:53 PM

RUSS
Jack
11:53 PM

Jack Who?
sent 11:55 PM

RUSS
riiight
11:56 PM

;)
sent 11:57 PM

RUSS
So what ru wearing?
11:58

Obviously, he was not deterred from his one track lines, and my mind slipped pleasantly back to how seductive he could be. While I was mulling over this bizarre situation, my phone buzzed, chimed, and blinked again with the next text.

RUSS
u dont have to be wearing anything ;)
11:59

Lol.
Sent 11:59 AM

RUSS
No loling! pic PLEASE
12:00 AM

RUSS
waiting ;)
12:01 AM

As you will be forever
Sent 12:01 AM

RUSS
come on...
12:02 AM

Pushing to a sitting position, I searched the cushions for the remote to mute the loud infomercial, then pecked at the keys.

I don’t do sexting
Sent 12:05 AM

RUSS
u lie
12:05 AM

He was right. I would for him, if I weren't currently a cow.

How would you know? Ever sexted or even texted me?
Sent 12:09 AM

Scowling at the display, I easily discounted the couple of past short text sessions he had left hanging, and nervously rested my phone on my pudgy abdomen. Before I could even turn the t.v. off, and take myself to bed, my phone came to life again, this time with a ringtone.

Five months ago, after the best hour or so of my life, I had promptly come home to my tiny apartment, listened to the album he had given me, and eventually chopped a ringtone from one of his songs.

Never had I heard that ringtone until now.

Accepting the call, I spoke nervously into the device, voicing what had become our standard greeting in print. “Hey!”

The voice from so many of my dreams, both day and night ones, returned, “Hey!” Just as I remembered, it was warm, husky, and sweet. “Does calling count?”

Smiling into my phone, I rested my head to the back of the couch. Letting my eyelids fall closed, I brought his face to the forefront of my memory banks. “It does. Equals at least ten texts.”

“Only ten? I was thinking twenty easy.”*The humor in his voice fluttered at my insides.

“Fifteen,” The compromise left my amused lips.

“Ok fifteen,” He was agreeable from his end. A few seconds of silence ticked by, then his next words were startling. “Come see me.”

My eyes shot open, unseeingly staring at the dust beasties on the blades of the ceiling fan. For a few months I had been constantly tired and let the cleaning go. “Where are you?”

“LA. The next leg of the tour doesn't begin for a couple of months.”

The assumption that he was making the invitation because he was on tour nearby was wrong, and I let out a sigh of relief as well as disappointment. “When?”

“Now. Tomorrow, whenever.”

My laugh was nervous, disbelieving, regretful; full of so many nondescript and indescribable emotions and when I didn't jump at the offer, he continued, “Come on, I'll show you the sights.”

The only sight I wanted to see was him, but I was a sight he certainly did not want to see; he just did not know it yet. “It sounds great, really. But I have work...”

Jack was not easily deterred. “You have sick days right? Vacation?”

“Actually no,” The lie was slight. Regarding vacation, the two precious weeks due would be used in a few months.

“Call in sick anyway. Or tell them that a dude in LA will will throw a t.v. off a balcony, endangering innocent tourists if he doesn't see you...Do whatever, just do it!”

The historical image of Zeppelin's drummer,*in a rage, tossing a television from a suite window made me smile, and even briefly wonder if Jack was currently lodged at the infamous hotel himself. But, reality soon stole any amusement.*

“I wouldn’t be paid.” That much was true as my sick days, rarely used in past years, had now been used up in just a few months.

“Let me worry about that.”

“I can't.” If he was offering to pay for my missed days, as well as the trip, the offer was generous, and I had pride, but the real reason for my decline was rooted deeper. A reason I could not tell him.

The lack of an explanation and hollow excuses created another bout of silence, then he asked ever so quietly, “Can't or won't?”

With all of my heart, I wanted this, but fate had already intervened long before this phone call. The Marissa in his head was not the Marissa he was currently appealing to. “Can't. You know I want.” With an attempt at humor I changed won't to want.

“Are you married?” The blunt question was his next attempt to see any reason in the situation.

“What?! No!”

“Then come. I don't see the problem. Even if you are going out with someone, you should take a free pass.” He was back to joking, so I was caught off guard when he quietly confessed, “When we kissed...you are the first person I kissed in a long, long time...”

“That's hard to believe,” My answer was honest, and somehow calm, while my heart raced.

“Not really. If you are me. A kiss and sex are not the same..."*He was right about that; Kel and I had all but stopped kissing months before our breakup.*"...I was looking at you, so pretty and sweet, and I had to kiss you. And Maris, that kiss, and everything that happened was—was something I think about a lot.”

I could not believe the conversation was at this level. Why, after so many indifferent months would he tell me such things? Did it change what I was hiding? My eyes dropped to the extra weight I had put on since seeing him. He wouldn't be accepting. I was sure of it.

“I want to come, I really do. But I--” Trailing off, I tried to sort my feelings into words.

“But?” The prompt came softly after a very long pause. His next words were notably cooler, ”Since you can't or wont, and wont tell me what the deal is, have a nice life Mariss.”

“Wait--” But my appeal was to dead air. And hearing him say his shortened version of my name, a nickname that had come from knowing him for less than two hours, months ago, released a torrent of tears.

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