“What’s so funny?”
Jillian felt herself blush which was a very rare occurrence for her. “I was getting…” she looked around the restaurant “…turned on by you looking at me and then your tongue lapping along your sandwich.” Her laughter turned into an actual snort as she lost control of the moment. “But then it reminded me of Marvin Housby.”
“Marvin?”
She nodded. “Greta told me he masturbates to the pictures on the ValuPak coupons, like the girls on the Hardee’s ads.”
AJ cleared his throat, blotting his napkin against his mouth to hide his own humor.
“You looked like one of those girls on the Hardee’s commercial, and I looked at you like Marvin Housby and burger babes.”
“You think I look like a girl?”
“No. Just the way you were tonguing your sandwich.”
“I wasn’t tonguing my sandwich.”
The growly beast that sat across from her brought such life to an otherwise barren existence. The uniqueness of their love could never be compared to anything else. Luke had the best of her and she didn’t want it back—not ever. But AJ filled her lungs with life after death, he gave her so much hope that there was in fact light beyond the darkness.
“What’s the first thing you remember?”
“About what?” He dipped a French fry in ketchup.
“Your life.”
All she wanted to do was crawl inside his head as he looked out the window past the mountains to many years ago. Just a glimpse, that’s all she needed, a small piece of his innocence.
“I’m not sure. I think it’s the first time my mom took me camping. My father had been deployed for almost a year and so we went camping with my aunt, uncle, and my two cousins in Northern California.”
He smiled at the window. For a small moment in time he wasn’t fighting the cancer or PTSD. It was just a boy and a memory so special he kept it safe for over forty years.
“It was in the fall like now, and cold, as in freeze-your-ass-off cold. I must have been three or four. We huddled around the smallest fire ever. If any of us breathed too hard it nearly snuffed it out. My mom made s’mores except she forgot the graham crackers so we just sandwiched burnt marshmallows between two pieces of milk chocolate. I went to bed with sticky hands but my mom didn’t care. She still zipped me up in her mummy bag with her to keep me warm. When we arrived home my dad was waiting on the front porch.”
Jillian—Jessica—knew how it felt to not know if or when her father would come home. Every time he walked through the door felt like Christmas.
They finished eating, letting his childhood memory linger in the air around them like a delicate bubble that neither wanted to pop. Eventually their waitress popped it for them.
“Can I interest either of you in dessert?”
They both shook their heads so she handed AJ the bill. “Your daughter has your smile.”
AJ shot a lethal scowl at the back of her head as she continued on to another table.
“Lunch is on me, big daddy.” Jillian grabbed the bill.
“No tip. Not one penny.”
*
A private call to an unreceptive and pissed off McGraw and thirty minutes later they were pulling into a parking lot of a sporting goods store.
“Did you forget your yoga mat?”
“Funny, big daddy, but you know I don’t do yoga.”
“If you call me that one more time—”
“Make it good … really good. Maybe even a little sexually deviant.”
AJ glared at her as she killed the engine. Big daddy’s eyes slipped to her boobs again.
“Wait here.”
“Why?”
“It’s a surprise.” After blowing him a quick kiss she shut the door and jogged to the entrance. Less than ten minutes later she and two employees pushed out carts overflowing with gear.
“What’s all this?” AJ asked, stepping out of the Jeep as Jillian opened the back and loaded everything with the help of the store employees.
“I’m taking you camping.”
“You’re serious?”
She nodded her head, signaling for him to get back in the Jeep as she climbed into the driver’s seat.
“How did you get all that stuff in such a short amount of time?”
“I offered to screw anyone who gathered my list in under five minutes. As you probably noticed it took closer to ten so I’m off the hook.”
AJ frowned.
“I’m joking.” She squeezed his leg. “I know a guy.”
“A guy?”
“Yes.”
“By any chance is he the same guy who’s responsible for the pain medication?”
“Yes.”
“A doctor?”
“Satan.”
“You sold your soul to the Devil for me?”
With a slight head cock, she stared at the road, thinking about that assessment. “No. I’d say the Devil sold his soul to me.”
Jillian felt AJ’s gaze on her, but she kept her eyes trained ahead—to the future, a million miles away from her past.
“Grocery store?”
“Of course. But you can come in this time. We need grub for a few days.”