Jameson
It’s really early on a Saturday morning. Why is someone ringing my doorbell? This is my only day to sleep in. I crack my eyes open and get myself into a sitting position. Can’t answer the door in my underwear, so I throw on a t-shirt and sweats. When I open the door, there’s no one there, but what I’m greeted with does bring a smile to my face.
A plate of my favorite cookies is waiting for me. I pick up the plate and notice the paper underneath. My heart pounds, wondering if the insane stalker is attempting to poison me with cookies. Strange tactic, but okay.
I carry them into my kitchen and unfold the paper. In huge, bold letters are the words I am mortified. My fears are erased, and I grab a cookie and eat most of it in one bite. Millie can bake. These taste exactly like Nana’s.
I scoop up the plate of cookies, slide my feet into the sandals by my front door, and walk across the yard to Millie’s house. I imagine her pacing in her living room, worried about what I’m thinking about her. It pleases me that she cares what I think. It gives me hope that something real could develop between us.
She cracks open her door so that I can only see a sliver of her. “Did you come to return the cookies? You don’t forgive me?” she asks. Her voice sounds tortured at the thought of me not forgiving her.
“I came to share the cookies with you. It’s no fun having dessert for breakfast when you’re alone,” I reply. She opens the door fully, and I see the blanket fort still standing in the living room and the mess from her baking in the kitchen. She hugs me around the waist, and I hug her back while trying not to spill the cookies all over her floor.
“Can we have a redo in the blanket fort? I want to have happy memories of it.”
“Sure. Let’s actually watch a movie like we were going to yesterday,” I suggest.
We climb into the fort and spend an eternity scrolling through movies. She likes historical stuff and romantic comedies. I like westerns and war movies. The first movie that we can both say we enjoy is a John Wayne movie: North to Alaska. I never pictured her for someone who likes John Wayne. This only adds to her cool points. John Wayne is my man.
We start the movie and munch on cookies until our stomachs protest. My stomach is miserable from way too much sugar first thing in the morning, but I wouldn’t change anything about this moment. Millie scoots closer to me as she laughs at something ridiculous in the movie.
She cuddles up beside me, and I hold my breath, afraid that if I move or make a sound, she’ll move away. After a few minutes, I find myself relaxing, enjoying her laughter and soft touches. I wrap my arm around her and snuggle her closer.
Toward the end of the movie, Lo trudges into the living room in a sleepy haze and stops dead in her tracks when she sees us in the blanket fort. “Oh my gosh, did you sleep here last night?!” she screeches. Millie jumps up, destroying the top of the blanket fort, and assures her sister that I most certainly slept in my own house last night.
The finality in her voice is annoying, as if she would never consider anything happening between us. Less than a minute ago, she was cuddled into my side, and now she’s laughing at the thought of being with me. Her behavior says one thing, and her words say another. She’s giving me whiplash.
I stand up from the floor and make my leave so that Lo and Millie can have this discussion without me. It’s uncomfortable listening to Millie list off the reasons she and I will never happen when not a single one of her reasons is true for me.
“Let me get this straight… You catch her checking you out every chance she gets, and she was all over you this morning, but she claims that y’all are just friends and she’s not interested in a relationship?” Colby asks an hour later at the gym.
“Yeah. It makes no sense, right?”
“It’s clear what’s going on here,” Seth says as he grasps my sweaty shoulder. He quickly removes his hand with a disgusted face and wipes it on his sweat towel. “She’s using you for your body.”
Colby and I roll our eyes and ignore Seth’s comment. “Listen, I think she’s more interested than she wants to admit. Maybe she has commitment issues,” Colby says.
The theory would make sense. I’ve heard her say she doesn’t have time for a relationship and that she can’t handle the complications of one right now. They’re both weak excuses. If you ask me—which no one has—she’s scared of something. But what?
“Didn’t you say that her mom abandoned them when she was a kid?” Seth asks, reading my mind. A parent leaving could cause a lot of trust issues. Why did her mom leave? I don’t remember her ever mentioning it. Did her parents fight a lot, leaving her to think that all relationships are like that? Perhaps she saw only the worst side of love and none of the good.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen the results of a long, loving relationship. My mom was left to raise me without my father, of course, but Nana and Pops have been happily married for over fifty years now. I want what they’ve had together, and I’ll settle for nothing less. It’s why I’m thirty-one and still single.
It’s not that I haven’t been looking for someone or I have impossibly high standards. I’ve known that every woman I’ve dated doesn’t make me feel the way Pops feels about Nana. I was never impatient, waiting to talk to her again. My heart didn’t pound when I saw her. I didn’t get stupidly nervous around her.
I feel all of that around Millie and more. When I look in her eyes, I want to give her the world.
But what kind of world could I give her? One with a threat lurking around every corner? The current situation with my stalker is never far from my mind. She shouldn’t have to deal with all of that. She’s been through so much already. She needs someone with a drama-free life. A man who can make her feel safe and protected—not someone who brings the danger home with him.
As much as I hate to admit it, it’s probably for the best that we keep some distance between us—at least until I put a stop to these threats.