"You can," Jack said, and he steered me away before she could continue. We'd gone about halfway across the lobby when he said, "How hungry are you?"
"I could do with that"--I nodded at the vending machines--"and a quiet corner to talk."
He pulled a key card from his pocket. "Got a second room. Talk there? Or . . . whatever."
Jack didn't even give a suggestive brow raise at the "whatever." He only accompanied it with a laconic shrug, as if he meant I could nap or take a shower. I knew better, though.
"I'll take whatever," I said.
His "Good" hardly rang with enthusiasm, but I grinned, as if he'd accompanied it with the smuttiest suggestion imaginable. We walked to the vending machines. He took his time making selections and feeding in the money. One root beer. One Coke. Two packets of Skittles, one of Starburst chews and a bag of licorice. He handed me all of it.
"What are you eating?" I said.
"Whatever you don't finish."
I shook my head and fed in a five, getting peanuts and a Snickers bar for him. I handed them over. "Energy," I said. "You'll need it."
Without the barest hint of a reaction, he put the snacks in his pocket, and we headed for the elevator. Silence as we waited for it to arrive. More silence as we got on. He hit the floor and then the Close Door button and only then did he glance my way, just for a split second.
"Hold the elevator!" someone called.
Jack reached out and jabbed the Close Door button again. A middle-aged businessman rushed over as I feigned checking my phone and prayed for the doors to shut faster. He managed to grab the door, and Jack's eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly. He glanced at me and then back, and shifted his weight, as clear a sign of annoyance as if he'd cursed.
I stood on the right side of the elevator car. Jack was at the left, near the front. When the guy walked on, he was looking at me, and he hit his floor without noticing Jack, too busy checking me out. And I was busy checking out my arm, making sure there wasn't blood showing, presuming that was what caught his attention.
"Here on business?" he asked.
I was wearing jeans--muddied at the knees--a denim jacket, a T-shirt and my sneakers were even more mud-caked than my jeans.
"Uhhh . . . " I said.
"We are," Jack said, and the guy jumped about a foot.
Jack didn't do anything except say those two words and turn a completely expressionless stare on the guy. But there's an edge Jack can flip, like a switch, and I have no idea even what it entails--stance, expression, eye contact or just a combination of all of the above. But the guy took one look at Jack and decided standing at the back of the elevator seemed a whole lot more comfortable. The far back, in the corner, putting the maximum distance between me and him.
I quirked a half-smile at Jack. He gave just the faintest roll of his eyes. The elevator stopped. He waited for me to get out first and then walked beside me down the hall. We reached the room. He put in the card, still taking his time.
He opened the door. Held it for me. Followed me in and fastened the locks. Keycard placed on the entry table. Then he glanced at me. It was a careful glance, a cautious check, because, you know, despite my signals, I might really have just wanted to come up here and talk and eat candy.
I shrugged off my jacket and laid it aside. My shoes followed. He just stood there watching, the kernel of doubt and, yes, disappointment shadowing his eyes, blinked back quickly because he was going to be a gentleman about this. I'd had a hellish day--chased, shot, hit my head . . .
Even when I walked over, coming within an inch of him and looking up, he held himself very still. I put my arms around his neck and said, "Missed you," and then I smiled and that was what he'd been waiting for--that smile.
His arms went around me, pulling me to him so fast I gasped, that gasp cut short as his mouth met mine in a kiss that knocked every other thought from my brain, knocked every worry from my brain. There was always that moment, when he came home, when he didn't immediately drag me off to bed, when he acted like it was the last thing on his mind, that moment when I wondered if the separation had given him time to reconsider, time to think this wasn't what he really wanted. I knew better. I knew him, and I knew this was just him, that perfect control waiting, teasing even, drawing out that reunion. Still, I worry every damn time that this time might be different. And then he kisses me.
He kissed me and it really was no exaggeration to say I forgot everything else, from the events of the day to the pain my arm. Hell, I wasn't even sure what was going on at that moment, just that kiss, that deep and hungry kiss and the next thing I knew, I was falling back onto the bed, without even realizing we'd moved from the front door. I was on the bed, and his shirt was off and then mine was, and I did notice that, kinda hard not to, with his hands on me, his touch making me gasp again.
Then jeans off and me pushed back on the bed, up to the pillows, and he was over me, still kissing me, hands everywhere they needed to be, and I wrapped my fingers in his hair and pulled back enough to say, "I really, really missed you," and he said, "Yes," and I could laugh at that. I would, later. Shake my head and laugh. But I knew what he meant, and I knew that was all he could give, maybe all he could ever give, and I was fine with it. Even if he could never tell me how he felt, he showed me, and that was what counted, and when he said, "Yes," he kissed me again and pushed into me and showed me, as best he could.
We lay in bed afterward. Jack was on his back, his arm around me, eyes closed. Not asleep. For Jack there are about ten levels of relaxation. This was the stage right before sleep, though, when he was chill enough to close his eyes, his muscles not quite slack. Chill enough, too, that I could prop up and watch him and not make him feel as if an enemy loomed. I could even brush sweat-soaked hair from his forehead and he didn't tense, his eyes didn't open.
I looked at him. The angular face that wasn't quite handsome. The crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. The shallow lines around his mouth. Gray cautiously invading his black hair. He grumbles about his age, but most of that discomfort can be chalked up to his career, which isn't that different from a star athlete, where retirement comes so much sooner than it does for everyone else. He's still nowhere near ready to be put out to pasture. He knows it; he just likes to grumble. Professional concerns aside, he looks damned fine for fifty, and I'll admit how much I enjoy this part, just watching him, running my fingers over his biceps, his stomach, his chest.
There's a surgically erased tattoo on his biceps. That's from those early days in Ireland, when he signed up to fight for what others believed in, because his brothers did and because, at sixteen, sometimes you're desperate enough for change and adventure and validation that you don't give a damn about the rest.
He'd spent his first big paycheck post-Ireland getting that tattoo removed. He'd eaten canned food and slept in parks because the check barely covered the surgery and he wasn't living with that tattoo a moment longer. I can still see the ghost of it. I once told him it can be more thoroughly removed now, but he only shrugged and said it was fine. Which meant he didn't want that ghost taken away. Didn't want the memory erased completely.
There were other marks. Scars and old cigarette burns. When I asked him about the burns, he just shrugged and said, "Part of the job." Just work. It happens. No big deal. Not to him, anyway, not beyond the fact that they too would signify mistakes he'd made. He'd survived. Survived and learned and improved and that, he'd say, was all that mattered.