From Air (Wildfire)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

CALVIN

I’ve never wanted to share my past with someone as much as I do with Jamie. Also, I’ve never wanted to hide every miserable memory from someone as much as I do with Jamie. It’s a ridiculous dichotomy, but it makes perfect sense to me.

So here I am, staring down the edge of a cliff, and I don’t know whether I should run away or jump.

I do, however, know that I need to take a piss, but half her body is draped over mine in this tiny excuse for a bed. An inch at a time, I extricate myself from her clinging limbs and tangled sheets. By the time I step out of the bathroom, she’s claimed the whole bed, hugging her pillow instead of lying on it.

I grin. My sister used to hug her pillow instead of lying on it.

It’s nearly five o’clock in the morning, so I step into my jeans and pull on my shirt. When I kiss Jamie’s cheek, she doesn’t flinch, but she takes a longer breath and releases it in a contented sigh.

Thirty minutes later, I’m at my grandma’s house, changing into running shorts and hitting the pavement toward the nearest trail and steepest inclines.

In true Grandma fashion, she has breakfast waiting for me when I return. “Go shower before you sit with me.” She sips her coffee with a shaky left hand.

I inhale the sweet cinnamon from her streusel-topped coffee cake and grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

After my shower, I check my phone. There are no messages.

“Jamie is lovely.” Grandma eyes me intently when I sit beside her at the kitchen table.

“She lived in Florida her whole life until she moved to Montana last January. This year, she left Florida for the first time. Saw the mountains for the first time. Flew on a plane for the first time.” I sip my coffee.

“What do you know about her family?”

“Not a lot. Her parents died.”

“What else?”

I shrug. “I haven’t asked anything else.”

Her shaky hand sets the mug on the table. “Why?”

“I respect people’s privacy.”

“Perhaps asking her about her past would indicate that you’re interested, not prying into her private life.”

“Perhaps. But how can I know? So it’s best to let her share those details if she wants to.”

“I don’t want to die before you find love.”

“Then you’d better be immortal.” I smirk before taking a bite of coffee cake.

“Calvin David Fitzgerald.” She gives me the same scolding look she’s been leveling in my direction since she took over raising me twenty-two years ago.

“You’ve always told me to follow my passion. That’s what I’m doing. I love my job. And I love that I’m not accountable to anyone but you.”

“Love is passion.”

I make duck lips and shake my head. “Not always.”

“You are a stubborn boy.”

“I’m a stubborn man.” I chuckle.

“If you don’t converse any better than that with Jamie, then you’re just a boy.”

After last night, I’d say Jamie and I converse just fine. We simply use fewer words to communicate.

“She’s in her twenties—ten years younger than me—seeing the world for the first time. The reason she’s a travel nurse is because she doesn’t want to stay in the same place right now. We’re friends. And our friendship doesn’t require that level of disclosure. Respecting the path she’s on is something only a man would do.”

“If she took a permanent job in Missoula, would you be more than friends?”

This is a losing battle. My grandma knows I don’t want that life. She used to support and even encourage my choice to live alone. But her stroke took a lot of those memories. And that’s not all bad because she lost the most tragic parts of her life too.

“Maybe.” I lie because she’s my grandma, and I don’t know how much time she has left in this life. It seems pointless to disappoint her now.

She lights up. “You’re going to be the best father and husband, just like your dad and his dad.”

I nod slowly despite my knowing she will never live to see that day, and neither will I. “Thanks.”

It’s noon by the time I make it back to Jamie’s. I’m surprised she hasn’t called or texted me. I buzz her apartment.

She doesn’t respond, but the door unlocks. As I make my way down the hallway, a couple screaming at each other from another apartment fills the space. Their bickering fades when I reach the end door. It opens slowly, like Jamie’s lips curling into a dazzling grin. I take a second to admire her short yellow-and-green checked sundress.

“I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”

I step inside, drop my bag, and remove my sneakers. “Why? I told you I took four days off.”

“You didn’t tell me they were all for me.” She retreats backward until her butt hits the kitchen counter, and she reaches for the white rose I made her before I left this morning. “When I expect more from you, you give me less. Sometimes nothing. When I expect nothing, you give me more ... so much more. You made a flower out of a tissue. You took something most people use to catch snot and made an origami rose.” She twists the stem back and forth by her nose as if it smells like a rose, or maybe it’s to hide her grin.

“The sex was good. I always make a rose if the sex is good.”

She stops twisting the flower and flicks it at me.

I chuckle and catch it. “It’s a compliment.”

“I doubt it. What time did you leave?”

“Early.”

“How’s your grandma this morning?”

“Fine. Were you okay with me not coming back?” I sit at her desk, which is filled with plants and her laptop, and I set her rose next to a flowering succulent.

“Define ‘okay,’” she says.

“Not mad.”

“I was okay with you not coming back.”

“You’re the most spectacular friend ever.”

She barks a laugh, crossing her arms. “Only with you, Fitz.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a rental.”

I lift my eyebrows. “A rental?”

“Yeah. When someone rents a car, they don’t feel responsible for it. They drive it and return it. But when you buy a car, you do your research. You want to know you’re getting something with good ratings. Something dependable. It’s a huge purchase, so you want to feel satisfied with your decision. And if it breaks down or something goes wrong, you have to invest to fix it. With a rental, you can just exchange it for a different one.”

I think about her words. I’m not sure they make a lot of sense. “So if I hadn’t returned, you would get a different rental?”

Jamie grins. “No. The goal isn’t to rent.”

“You want to own a man?”

She turns and lifts her hair off her neck.

He’s mine.

Leaning back in the chair, I lace my fingers behind my head and exhale. “Well, what are your plans for this rental that you’ll have to return in two days?”

Checking her watch, her nose scrunches. “I have a class in an hour.”

“I thought you took four days off too.”

“It’s not for work. It’s a jewelry-making class.”

“Really?”

“Yes. One of the other nurses I work with suggested I learn new things. Explore my artistic side. She’s been a nurse for nearly forty years. She said nurturing your creativity is the key to longevity in this field. It’s a way to relieve stress while feeling a sense of accomplishment. Working in psych is rewarding in some ways but also a slow process. Mentally ill people heal at a much slower pace than someone recovering from surgery or something like a stroke or heart attack.”

When I don’t respond, she pushes off the counter and straddles my lap, hands resting on my shoulders. “The mind is complicated.”

I hear everything she stops short of saying. “Can I watch you?”

Her grin swells. “You want to watch me? I’m not good at making jewelry.”

“Well, I’m good at watching you, so one of us will feel successful today.”

Her thumbs slide along my jaw. “It’s only a five-minute drive. We have a little time. Maybe I can earn another rose.”

This woman was made for me, just not in the right life.

I grin. “Let’s see whatcha got.”