“What is so funny?”
“I was just thinking about the store yesterday,” he said, swallowing his laugh.
“What about it?”
“How Jake and I had that contest, that race to the end of the aisle,” he said, smiling. “The one where we were bouncing up and down on those giant balls.”
“Oh, yeah,” I chuckled. “He was so serious about that race. He looked like he had prepared his whole life to race you down the aisles of Robertson’s on those bouncy balls.”
“He thought he was going to lose too, especially with the way my body darted out ahead of his,” he laughed. “He forgot my legs were much longer and I could move with speed and agility.”
“It was amazing to watch,” I said, looking over at him. “Especially when you ate shit about three-quarters of the way down the aisle and went rolling out into the clothes rack. I hadn’t even realized that a group of employees was standing there watching until they started clapping for you.”
“That was not my proudest moment,” he said laughing. “My ass went straight up in the air, and that ball must have flown about fifteen feet.”
“It should be,” I said.
“It should be what?”
“One of your proudest moments,” I replied, looking out at the orange skies. “Do you ever take the time and think about your past? I don’t mean like the immediate past, but your childhood. You always remember the oddest things, things that at that moment didn’t seem to make any difference, but as you get older, they are the things that end up defining you and how you live your life. It’s strange, really.”
“You’re right, I never thought of it that way,” he said. “I wonder what Jake will see when he looks back.”
“You, ass in the air, laughing hysterically,” I said, with a smile.
“I hope so,” he said, looking over at me and raising his beer. “I really hope so.”
I smiled back at him, then returned my gaze back to the sky where the moon was starting to become bright in the heavens. That single memory had touched me; it had moved through me, taking another piece of me and handing it over to Luke. He really had no idea how many pieces of my heart that he and his son held, but it was starting to become more than I could count. I used to think that memories were the best part of life, but after the baby died, I prayed and begged that I could forget those memories, realizing that what mattered most was the time you actually spent making them. But time was finite, and it moved quicker than I could handle, especially in this situation.
I took in a deep breath and sipped my beer, feeling the alcohol moving down my throat and into my belly. The real reason I tried not to drink was because I feared that my ability to forget—to pick and choose what I wanted to think about—would be lost because alcohol relaxed my steely grip. But right then, sitting under the stars, it was okay. That beer was enabling me to relax my shoulders and revel in those memories that had just occurred. Maybe the visions of events burned into your brain weren’t that bad after all. I mean, they kept people from making mistakes, even children younger than Jake. The emotion behind the memory was what pushed you forward or pulled you back, depending on your own fragility and will.
I was tired of memories pulling me back; I wanted those that would catapult me forward. Jake and Luke seemed to be able to give me those kinds of imprints. The kind that drove me to wake up at the break of dawn and cook breakfast, read a book, or sometimes just relax, enjoying a cup of coffee. The reality of it all was the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to get rid of that while I was here. No matter how hard I tried to keep my distance, there would be laughter, tears, and conversations. There would be events imprinted on my brain that would carry over until the task was done, until I was released to go back home and figure out what to do from there. That would be the moment I would hate the memories—when I knew I could no longer make any more with Luke and Jake.
The cold breeze began to pick up, and I watched as the trees bowed and shook from the force. I set my empty beer bottle on the table and pulled my arms around my knees, goosebumps
beginning to creep over my arms and legs. It was getting cold, and my thoughts had been completely interrupted by the sudden change in temperature. You could see the clouds moving overhead and the predicted storms moving across the streaming light of the moon. I felt like it was my heart that the weather was imitating, but I pushed it away, knowing that I might as well enjoy my time because whether I liked it or not, it was going to leave an imprint.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Luke
It was a beautiful night, and the colors of the sky really lifted my blue spirits. I hadn’t wanted to take Jake back at all. In fact, it took everything I had to actually get out of the car and take him inside. He wanted to leave Galileo, his stuffed animal, with me so that I wouldn’t be lonely, but I knew his mother would give him a hard time for leaving it behind, so I let him know that I would be okay, just knowing I would get to see him soon. I was almost glad that Quinn and I had spent the evening in silence, allowing us each to reflect on the weekend, and look toward the future.
As the wind blew across the back porch, I looked over at Quinn, who was grasping her legs tightly now. It was obvious that she was cold, and I didn’t want to force her to be miserable. She looked so beautiful in her contemplative state, sitting under the rays of the moon.
“Why don’t we go inside,” I said. “It’s getting pretty chilly out here, and we have a bit to clean up.”
The dishwasher had completed its cycle, and there were still counters to clean before we called it a night. Immediately we both went to work, doing whatever needed to be done to get the house back in order. I didn’t realize until Quinn moved in how much better I felt having a clean and orderly house. Not that I was a slob, but I was a single man living alone, so most of the time I took shortcuts. Quinn liked to clean up before bed so she could start fresh in the morning with no mess and no fuss. As I sprayed the counter and wiped it down, I got this knot in my stomach, immediately realizing that everything was feeling eerily domesticated, something I had tried really hard to get away from. It made me nervous, so I picked another beer out of the fridge and downed it, smiling at Quinn, who was looking at me with raised eyebrows.
She giggled as I walked over to the trash can and tossed in the bottle, making me think about Sarah and how she never let me have beer in the house. How she wanted everything perfect, but never really understood the idea that sacrifice was required to get it there. I pushed Sarah from my mind, realizing that thinking about her was not what I wanted to do at all. What I needed to do was keep my independence, since I had worked so damn hard to get it. I had to remind myself that what was going on in this house was temporary and that sooner rather than later, I would be back on my own, free to date whoever I wanted at that moment, and responsible for everything in my life and in Jake’s. I would have to make breakfast, do laundry, and drink alone at my house, probably wishing Quinn was back there with me.
What was I saying? In just a few months, I would be back to the single life, which I loved, and I could really be with whoever I pleased. From the outside, that statement sounded fantastic since it gave me complete control over my life, and I didn’t have to share that with anyone. On the inside, though, I knew that it wasn’t going to make me happy. At that moment, Quinn was the woman who I wanted; she was the woman who was going to make me feel content and full. She was the woman who had my full, and undivided attention, something that hadn’t happened in a very, very long time.
There was just something about her that revved my engines and put a lump in my stomach, and completely turned my world upside down every time I was near her. There was something about Quinn that made her so amazing to be around. She was beautiful, sexy, resourceful, and she was constantly putting others first, even when it was obvious that she needed to take care of herself. There didn’t seem to be a selfish bone in her body, and that was not what I was used to when it came to women. I was used to the cheerleader who had been more worried about checking her makeup every five seconds, and seeing what her friends were doing, than having any kind of conversation with me. Of course, at the time that was exactly what I wanted, since anything else just made things more complicated. Such complication was not what I needed at that point, but things had fallen into that realm before I even realized it.
I shifted my position, my mind falling to my dick that was struggling inside my pants. It was no joke; ever since the first night Quinn moved in, I had woken up with a hard-on every single morning. It was actually starting to get kind of painful, and that wasn’t my M.O. at all. I wasn’t the guy who usually poked you in the back in the morning unless I happened to wake up completely turned on. I tried to make excuses for it, telling myself it was just the fact that it had been a couple of weeks since I had gotten laid, but in the back of mind, I knew that was bullshit. I knew Quinn was running through my mind all the damn time, and that in itself was causing me to get a giant boner at the sound of my alarm. All in all, that wouldn’t be so bad, except I was waking up in my bed all alone, without Quinn there to take care of it for me.
There was no getting around it: I thought Quinn was sexy as hell, and I wanted to feel her close to me. Just standing in the kitchen next to her made it hard for me to control myself, and as her back was turned, I reached down and adjusted my cock, trying desperately not to stare at her ass. She was wearing these cute little cotton shorts and a tank top to match. It wasn’t summer time, but I was assuming that was what she wore to bed. If I had it my way, she wouldn’t be wearing anything to bed, and I would be in there with her. As I moved my eyes down her back, over her tight ass, and down her legs, I noticed she was standing barefoot on the tile floors. I didn’t know what it was, but there was something so unbelievably hot about her standing there with no shoes on. Her toenails were painted a light pink, and every time she put something away she would rise up on her tiptoes. Needless to say, I could have stood there all day watching her unload the dishwasher.