AJ’s Fire (Hampstead Valley #3)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

AJ

We’d had a nice dinner after Vera’s dance lesson, where Jackson had basically told me he was done with the hookup scene. I’d missed my partner in crime but was so happy to have my friend back. We were back to texting stupid things to each other, adding raunchy limericks to our repertoire, and praising each other for our stunning poetic ability.

I found most of mine on the internet and assumed he did too.

Jackson had agreed to go out with me one Sunday, “Just to watch the game, okay?” But my brother called me in the afternoon and asked if I could watch Vera, as he’d been called in on an emergency.

Coffee Trainer: J needs me to watch V. We can watch the game at his house if you don’t mind.

I didn’t have to wait long.

Probie: Sure

Coffee Trainer: Sweet. Heading over rn. Come by whenever.

I walked the few blocks to my brother’s brownstone. My niece greeted me at the door.

“Is that you, Uncle AJ? I’m not allowed to open the door.”

“It’s me, princess, but wait for your dad, okay?”

“Daddy, Uncle AJ’s here!”

I could hear Jamie bounding down the stairs. “Go ahead, little one. Let him in.”

“Uncle AJ, we’re gonna have so much fun! Can we have pizza? What should we watch? I’m gonna draw a picture of you in your uniform. Did Daddy tell you? Uncle Joshy’s friend Devon is going to come stay with us. But it’s a really long way away. Not till after Christmas!”

A little shell-shocked, I latched on to the one question I thought I could tackle. Looking at my brother, I asked, “Pizza?” He nodded. “Yes, Princess, we’ll order pizza in a little while.”

“Okay! Let’s go draw!” Vera tugged at my hand, dragging me toward the long, narrow living room on the other side of the entrance hall.

“I’m not sure how long this is going to take.” Jamie apologized.

“It’s all good. We got this. Right, princess?”

“Right, Uncle AJ.”

“Thanks, man. And little one, be good for your uncle.” He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Love you, little one.”

“Love you, too, Daddy,” Vera shouted distractedly as she led me to a set of shelves in the living room that was completely overtaken by toys.

We laid on the floor for a while, drawing pictures of buildings on fire with stick figures standing in front of them.

“Daddy’s job is boring. He just sits and talks to people. Mommy got to be the vice president!”

“ A vice president, of a really big company here in New York City.”

“Daddy said she worked really hard, and he was really proud of her.”

“All true, princess. Your mom was amazing.”

“You were Mommy’s friend too. Right?”

I sat up while Vera continued to draw. I wasn’t sure I was the right person to be handling a conversation about Anna, but I loved my niece, and I’d loved her mom like a sister. I figured if I answered Vera honestly, it’d be okay. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to answer, but right then there was a knock on the door.

“Pizza?” Vera asked as she jumped up and headed back to the front door. I hadn’t even ordered yet.

“Wait for me, Vee!”

The New York game was later in the evening, so I was surprised to find Jackson with his head down as I opened the door, as if he was embarrassed. I’m pretty sure that in turn, I had a look of worry on my face. He met my stare, and I could see turmoil and stress in his eyes underneath his efforts to hide the emotions. But I knew him too well.

“You okay, Jax?” I started, but I’d barely gotten the words out when Vera interrupted.

“Jackson’s here!” She yanked him by the arm and led him into the house. I didn’t have time to get out of the way, and our chests grazed each other as he walked past, our faces close. Since I’d focused on his eyes a few weeks earlier, they seemed to mesmerize me any time he was near, and those few seconds seemed to go on for minutes, slow-motion-movie style, as I watched his countenance change from stressed to startled to something I couldn’t quite interpret. Then Vera dragged him forward, and his look shifted to amused. I could feel my heart pounding in the same slow-motion way as I studied him, and he stared back.

“We’re drawing!” is all Vera said to make those eyes shift, and as he transferred them to my niece, I felt the loss of them, like, in my gut and possibly lower. My concern over my friend had been overwhelming lately, and I had tried to push all strange thoughts about Jackson and showers and blow jobs from my mind. Sometimes they reared their ugly heads.

Ignoring my feelings, I decided that I would use our evening together to try to hopefully find a way to help Jackson, who still seemed stressed despite assuring me that he was over his crush.

In the living room, Vera tried to drag Jackson to the floor. “Hold up a sec, Vera,” he said as he emptied his pockets: wallet, phone, and keys ending up next to my phone on the coffee table. Jackson looked at me again, all smiles this time, as he bent down and picked up my drawing of Vera’s mom and dad. Unlike other members of my family, I had not in any way inherited the artistic gene. Jackson might have been confused about whether the drawing was my creation or Vera’s.

“Your work, Michelangelo?”

I shrugged. “I always preferred Donatello.”

“You know I’m not talking about turtles, right?”

“Ooh! We should draw turtles!” Vera contributed.

“Yes, we should!” Jackson agreed, and without compunction, he sat on the floor amidst a sea of crayons. Vera pulled another sketchbook from her shelf of books and toys and sat down next to my friend.

“My Florida grandma and grandpa took me to see humongous turtles. I want to go back! Uncle AJ, do you think Daddy will take me back to Florida? Ooh, and Daddy took me to the zoo here too. I want to go back to the zoo! What color is your turtle going to be? I think mine will be rainbow.” Vera started collecting crayons. “Red, purple, blue … oh, orange!”

Jackson had followed along intently, opening his mouth once or twice to comment, giving up eventually. As Vera settled in and started a new drawing, Jackson shrugged, picked up a crayon, and got to work.

I put a hand on Jackson’s shoulder, and he bolted up, like my hand was a stun gun shooting a jolt of electricity through him. He looked up at me, and I could see him tempering the look on his face. Funny thing, it had kinda felt like my hand zapped when I touched him. Ignoring the strangeness, I smiled down, and the awkward moment was swept away when Jackson smiled back.

“You good?”

“I’m great,” he assured me.

“Anything special on your pizza?”

“Usual is fine.”

“I’m on it.”

I sat on my brother’s couch and picked up my phone to call in an order, propping my feet up on the coffee table and watching my niece wrap another grown man around her finger. With my feet propped up, I could feel Jackson’s silent phone vibrating against the table.

“You need to get that, bro?”

I dropped my feet and reached for the phone, but Jackson interrupted.

“No!” he said so forcefully that Vera and I both jumped. “It’s nothing. Not important. I just have too many stupid notifications set.” I could see Jackson centering himself. “Definitely nothing I would interrupt coloring time for.”

Later that evening after pizza, a cartoon, and a few more newly created works of art, I left Jackson scrolling through his phone, half listening to the football game on the TV while I put my favorite princess to bed. I returned to find two beers on the coffee table and a bag of chips on the couch, where Jackson sat on one side, quickly putting his phone face down on the coffee table.

“Made yourself at home, I see.”

“Yeah, it’s been a while since I was here.” I followed as Jackson’s eyes turned to take in the wall of photos at the far end of the room. “I don’t know how Jamie does it. Every time I’m here, it reminds me of that day.”

I dropped to the couch on the other side of the snack food and cut Jackson off. “I don’t know if I ever really told you, but I hope you know, I don’t think I would have made it through that time without you. Helping out here, putting up with my emotional shit.” I choked up a little, thinking back to when Anna died. Remembering that day, which had been Vera’s birthday party. When I had gotten there, Jackson in tow, all I could think about was how long I would have to stay at the family barbeque before I could bow out, and the two of us could hit up one of the bars in the neighborhood.

Instead, I ended up staying in that very house for the better part of a month. Doing my best to support my brother and his little girl. Jackson right there by my side most of the time.

Jackson put his beer down before responding. “I didn’t do anything. You, man, you really stepped up to the plate for them. Hell, you’re still doing it, babysitting at a moment's notice. Hanging out with the hot moms at dance lessons. Oh my god.” He started to laugh. “Do you remember that time you went on the Explorer Girls campout? You were barely gone twenty-four hours, but you were an absolute mess! Bug bites and poison ivy. Not to mention the marshmallow in your hair.”

And just like that, Jackson had me laughing. “Don’t remind me. Those girls climbed all over me, like, the entire time. I had to draw a line in the dirt just to have enough space to get the campfire started. I also remember texting you that night about how worried I was about Jamie, only to wake up to a picture of the two of you and my brother Vance eating at that diner. You’ve … You’ve been there for me since the day we met, Jax. And I want to be there for you too.”

“You are, Aje. Always have been. You trained me and took me under your wing. My probation year could have been much more difficult if the great AJ Gordon hadn’t befriended the little rich kid.”

I shoved Jackson in the shoulder, and he pretended to tip over, his legs tipping my way and his socked foot brushing my calf. I had been about to tease him about … something, but for some reason all I could focus on was the spot where Jackson had brushed up against me, the whisper of it still on my denim-clad skin.

I was staring at my calf like it was on fire, and I could sense Jackson following my eyes to figure out what was going on. I wouldn’t have been able to explain it to him if he’d asked.

My response didn’t come out in the form of a joke as I intended, but eventually I raised my eyes to his, and he quickly looked toward the TV as if I had caught him staring.

“I get why you didn’t tell anyone up front that you were a Dorso. We do give each other a lot of shit at the station.”

“You’re the first person I told.”

“I still don’t understand why you don’t live in some big mansion.”

“Don’t you think my apartment’s big enough? My parents tried so hard to convince me to live in Manhattan, but I really fell in love with our little community around Station Five. At home, hell, even in the beach house over Thanksgiving, it’s just so big and rambling, and there’s only the three of us. We can go a whole day without seeing each other. There’s literally an intercom system at our house in Scarsdale, for Christ’s sake. I don’t need much. And … can I tell you a secret?”

“You can tell me anything, bro.”

“When I moved here, the thought of having to take care of a place on my own, it was a little overwhelming. Another thing I have to thank you for, actually! Teaching me to cook and clean up the kitchen at the firehouse. Hell, you’re even the one who showed me how to clean a bathroom. Not sure it ever occurred to me that I would have to clean the bathroom when I lived by myself.”

I chuckled at my friend as a play on the screen caught our attention. We watched quietly for a few minutes, sipping our beer and sharing a bag of chips. I marveled that we never once reached into the bag at the same moment or brushed up against each other. It was like I almost wished we had.

At the next commercial, I took up the conversation. “You know I meant what I said, right?”

“The part about scrubbing my toilet with a toothbrush? Yeah, no. I think I figured that one out on my own.”

“I did not …”

“Oh, you did. For such a suave lady’s man, you are sometimes the king of dad jokes.”

“Okay, yeah. That does sound like something stupid I would say. But what I meant …” I dropped my tone, hoping to be serious. “What I mean is that you can tell me anything, bro. It seems like something’s still up with you. It’s all good if you don’t want to hang out and party anymore. If that’s not your scene anymore, more power to you.”

I soldiered on. “I’m worried about you, Jax. And I just … I just want to help. I’m here for you.”

When a phone vibrated this time, it was mine, not Jackson’s. I read the text and flashed my phone toward him.

“He’s on his way. Says he got his patient settled and hopes he can catch a few minutes of the game.”

Jackson stared at the phone and nodded before looking up at me. I could tell he was collecting his thoughts, and I let him.

Eventually, he spoke. “I’m fine, AJ. Really, I’m good. Yeah, I’m done with hookups, and I appreciate you understanding that. I … I miss the part where we hang out, though. Miss spending time with you like this.” He shrugged as if what he’d said was no big deal, but his eyes were anime-cartoon huge.

That puppy-dog look and his words had the muscles of my chest tightening and my stomach swooping once again. My pulse quickened, a visceral reaction to the vulnerable man before me.

He’d said it like he was confessing something, or like he was embarrassed. To me, it was the best thing he could have said.

“Shit, bro. I’ve missed you too!” So I can help, I thought to myself. “Let’s keep hanging out. We don’t have to party every night. Maybe we could do other stuff. You know, go to the movies, or, oh, they give those talks sometimes at the Y. And the chief really wants us to help out with that fundraiser.”

Jackson punched me in the arm like he’d done a million times before. I swear it felt like fireworks had exploded all around us. And it wasn’t just the comfort of him acting like his old self around me. Like my calf a few minutes before, it was as if his mere touch had ignited my whole body.

“Stop. You don’t want to do any of that shit. You want to go out and get laid! Please, really, it’s important to me that you don’t stop doing what you want. Especially that. You can’t just stop because I am.”

“Are you saying I can’t pick up at a lecture at the community center? It’s like you don’t even know my skills, man. Haven’t you been paying any attention the last five years?”

“Oh, I am well aware of your skills. But …”

“Nope, not up for discussion. I want us to go back to spending time together.”

“I guess I’ll look up the lecture schedule at the Y, then.” But Jackson’s phone buzzed again as he was picking it up, and I could see him subtly adjust his position on the couch so I couldn’t see whatever, or whoever, it was. My buddy still had a secret, and it just felt like I was supposed to be the one to help him deal with it.