Jack Who?

FIVE MONTHS LATER

 ♪♫••════════FIVE MONTHS LATER════════••♬ ♭

    
     RUSS
     Hey
     11:35 PM
     
     Hey
     Sent 11:36 PM
     
     Hesitantly, her fingers brushed at the screen of her phone before typing in a return greeting. After pressing send, she suddenly felt queasy when the smell of melted ice cream assaulted her already hyper senses. Stretching, she pushed at the carton until it was on the other edge of the sofa table. The message had woken her from a dead sleep. She was still in her clothes on the couch in front of a flickering television.
     
     RUSS
     How ru
     11:36 PM
     
     How was she? Not well, but he was the last person who 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 she glanced down at the now wrinkled black blouse hanging loose to cover the weight she had gained lately. He was speaking of the red lingerie in his memories, which was also amusing. With the extra pounds, she was now spilling out of her bras. Unfortunately, she was also spilling out of everything. Unable to bear his lines, she joked to throw him off, playing on the fact that it had been so long since their last 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 her mind slipped pleasantly back to how seductive he could be. While she was mulling over this bizarre situation, her phone buzzed 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 you got to give me something…
     12:02 AM
     
     Jack was no amateur at seductive texting. Pushing to a sitting position, she fished the remote from the cushions 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. She would for him– if she weren’t currently a cow.
     
     How would you know? Ever sexted or even texted me?
     Sent 12:09 AM
     
     Scowling at the display, she easily discounted the couple of past short text sessions he had left hanging, and she nervously rested her phone on her pudgy abdomen. Before she could even turn the tv off and take herself to bed, the phone again came to life, this time with a ringtone.
     Five months ago, after the best hour or so of her life, she had promptly come home to her tiny apartment, listened to the album he had given her, and eventually chopped a ringtone from one of his songs.
     Never had she heard the reality of that ringtone until now.
     Accepting the call, she nervously spoke into the device voicing what had become their standard greeting in print. “Hey!”
     The voice from so many of her dreams, both day and night ones, returned, “Hey!” Just as she remembered, it was warm, husky, and sweet. “Does calling count?”
     Smiling into her phone, she rested her head to the back of the couch. Letting her eyelids fall closed, she brought his face to the forefront of her memory banks. “It does. Equals at least ten texts.”
     “Only ten? I was thinking twenty easy.” The humor in his voice fluttered at her insides.
     “Fifteen.” The compromise left her 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.”
     Her eyes shot open to unseeingly stare at the dust beasties on the blades of the ceiling fan. For a few months, she had been constantly tired and had 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 nearby on tour was wrong, and she released a breath of relief as well as disappointment. “When?”
     “Now. Tomorrow. Whenever.”
     Her laugh was nervous, disbelieving, regretful. Her heart filled with so many nondescript and indescribable emotions. When she didn’t jump at the offer, he wheedled, “Come on, I’ll show you the sights.”
     The only sight she wanted to see was him, but she 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 your boss a dude in LA will throw a tv off a balcony endangering innocent tourists if he doesn’t see you. Do whatever, just do it!”
     The historical image of Zeppelin’s enraged drummer tossing a television from a suite window made her smile, and she even wondered if Jack was currently lodged at the infamous hotel himself. However, reality soon stole any amusement.
     “I wouldn’t be paid.” That much was true, as her 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 her missed days, as well as the trip, the offer was generous. She had pride, but the real reason for her decline rooted deeper. A reason she could not reveal.
     The lack of an explanation and hollow excuses created another bout of silence, and then he asked ever so quietly, “Can’t or won’t?”
     With all of her being, she wanted this, but fate had already intervened long before this phone call. The Marissa in his head was not the Marissa he now appealed to. “Can’t. You know I want...to.” With a stab at humor, she changed won’t to want.
     “Are you married?” The blunt question was his next attempt at ascertaining 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 she 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.” Her answer was honest and somehow calm while her heart raced. A guy like him had sex every night. There was no way she would believe him if was trying to tell her different.
     “Not really,” he continued and clarified, “I’m not saying I haven’t been with anyone. I’m saying I don’t kiss random women. At least I didn’t, until you. A kiss and sex aren’t the same...”
     He was right about that. She and Kel had all but stopped kissing months before their breakup. Sex had turned into almost passionless quickies, and it rarely involved kissing...
     “I don’t know why I wanted to kiss you so bad. But, Mariss, that kiss and everything that happened was– was something I think about a lot.”
     It was something she thought about every day and dreamed about all night.
     She could not believe the conversation was at this level. Why, after so many indifferent months, would he admit such things? Did it change what she was hiding? Her eyes dropped to the extra weight she had put on since seeing him. He wouldn’t be accepting; she was sure of it.
     “I want to come. I really do. But I…” Trailing off, she tried to sort her feelings into words.
     “But?” The prompt came softly after a very long pause. His next words were notably cooler. “Since you can’t or won’t tell me what the deal is, have a nice life Mariss.”
     “Wait–” But her appeal was to dead air. And hearing him say his shortened version of her name, a nickname that had come from knowing him for less than two hours, months ago, released a torrent of tears.

 ♪♫••═════════════════••♬ ♭