True Divide

by Liora Blake

  Surprisingly, the whole thing seems to work. And rather quickly, too. I’m sure the wine and the heat of the water combined are what make for mental oblivion, but when my mind starts to fuzz pleasantly after only five minutes, I’m still a little surprised at its effectiveness. Perhaps my mind just needed a break. It simply couldn’t manage one more minute of worrying, fussing, waiting, and wanting for Jake.

  I let my body slip a bit deeper into the tub. Once my chin is nearly touching the water, I close my eyes and try to forget. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he got home, went to a bar, and met some beautiful girl who can cook and likes outdoorsy adventure. Maybe he just realized this whole thing is a giant joke. Oh God, maybe something happened with his plane.

  All these theories seem plausible because it’s almost nine o’clock and he isn’t here, and hasn’t called or even texted. I’d take one measly word, if that is all he can muster. Maybe even an abbreviation. “OMW.” On my way. Although, knowing Jake, he would probably choose one word. “Coming.” Then chuckle to himself at all his witty dirtiness.

  A tapping noise in the distance registers faintly in the back of my brain as I swallow another sip of wine. I sit up out of the water a bit more and tilt my head toward the open doorway.

  Once I settle my focus there, it happens again. I want it to sound like a knock on a door, signaling Jake on my stoop, but it doesn’t. It’s only a single tap, almost the sound of something hitting the side of the house. A few seconds later, it happens again. So faint. The wine may have accentuated my hearing somehow. Then I realize a more likely reason for the strange, faint, unpatternable sound.

  Stanley.

  Stanley is my raccoon. Well, not my raccoon as in one that I own. Rather, he’s the raccoon that routinely terrorizes my trash cans, my chimney, and occasionally, my roof shingles. He’s been known to rip out sections of wood in order to burrow under my front porch and mangle perfectly good outdoor chair cushions into tidy messes of torn-out filling and fabric. I’ve put chicken wire over the chimney opening and bungee-corded the trash cans shut, but Stanley is wildly persistent when it comes to getting what he wants. Not much deters him. Short of trapping and ending him for good, I’m plain out of ideas. While I respect his tenacity, I wish he would take his business elsewhere.

  Who knows what he’s up to now. Perhaps he’s fallen in love with the shiny look of the nails holding the siding to the house and is succinctly tearing each one out with his little raccoon-y fingers. Maybe he’s just tapping on the window to see if I’ve lost my mind completely and might let him in this time. That way he could just open the fridge and take whatever he wants out. Despite knowing I probably won’t catch him in the act, I trudge out of the water, dry off, and slip into my robe to investigate. At least I might be able to shoo him away, if only for the satisfaction of doing so.

  Tiptoeing down the hallway, I find myself scuttling close to the wall, as if I’m about to surprise a burglar in the act, instead of shooing away an overzealous raccoon. At the end of the hallway, near the doorway to my childhood bedroom, I hear it again. Up this close, it’s less of a tap than a thwack.

  Leaving the lights off, I sneak into my old room and catch the last seconds of something hitting the bedroom window.

  Thwack.

  What the hell? Is he tossing pinecones at the window or something? Stupid raccoon. Hell-bent for attention on a night when I only want to get tipsy and forgetful.

  Thwack.

  Enough. I’ll toss a shoe at him or something. Luckily, my old bedroom is now my version of a walk-in closet, so shoes and a variety of other handy projectiles are within easy reach. Stomping over to the window, I twist the old latches at the top to unlock it, then shove it open just as Stanley’s latest toss zings through the air and manages to land at my feet. Not a pinecone. I bend down and grab it.

  Before I can fully appreciate the weirdness of recognizing the offending projectile as a frosted animal cracker, a familiar throaty chuckle breaks the silence. I stick my head out the open window and peer around.

  “Jake?” I say in a half whisper, half holler.

  When he steps closer to the house, appearing from under a heavy branch of the oak tree in the side yard, he’s grinning and laughing loudly.

  “Yes, Shoelace. Were you expecting someone else?”

  “I was expecting Stanley. Are you really throwing animal crackers at my window?”

  Even in the near darkness, I can see Jake’s expression darken a little. “Who the fuck is Stanley?”

  “Don’t curse so loud,” I hiss. “I live next door to the town preacher. Stanley is a raccoon. He’s usually the one creeping around my house in the dark, doing weird stuff.”

  “This isn’t weird; it’s charming and romantic. It’s like a real-life romantic comedy down here.”

  I roll my eyes, knowing he probably can’t see since I’m only backlit from the light on in the hallway. “Just come inside. You don’t have to skulk outside my bedroom window anymore. Go ahead and use the front door. I’m pretty sure my parents won’t catch you.”

  Instead, Jake chuckles and jumps up a few feet to grab a low branch on the oak tree. Only after he pulls himself up and begins to shimmy up higher, swinging his legs up to curl around another, sturdier branch, do I realize what he’s doing.

  I drop my voice back into the shout-whisper. “Goddammit, Jake, get down from there! You’re going to kill yourself.” Another snort comes from him, just as he shimmies heel-toe down a stout upper branch toward the roof pitch near my window. “Don’t you dare! I mean it, Jake. I’ll shut this window if you don’t stop.”

  Before I can enact my threat, he’s at the end of the branch, grasping another above him with his upstretched arms, ready to swing. Then his legs are in the air, coming toward me and the open window. I step back just in time for his feet to touch the windowsill, his hands still grasping the upper branch, and watch as he fluidly manages to secure his legs while moving his arms down the branch, monkey-bar-style. Once he is close enough to grip the top of the window opening with one hand, he half topples and half leaps into the darkened room.

  “See? I’m fine.” He feigns dusting off his shoulder and grins.

  Ducking around him, I slam the window shut and secure the latches at the top again. “No. You’re crazy. You could have hurt yourself, you moron.”

  When his body comes against mine, arms wrapped about my waist with one hand already tucked under the edge of my robe, my hands are still gripping the window latches. The abrupt press of his body tosses me forward a bit; only the fact I react and brace my arms keeps me from falling directly into the glass. Still, my face comes so close to the window that I can see my suddenly unreliable breath fogging a small spot on the glass.

  “You really think I would do anything that might risk injury?” Jake’s hand slips farther inside the robe, his fingers lazing over my belly, then moving up until he has my breast fully cupped in his palm. When I react to the feel of my achingly heavy flesh filling his hand with a miniscule moan, he moves his thumb in toward his palm, trapping my now-hard nipple there, and begins to roll it gently. “Especially when I knew what was waiting for me? You. My pretty, sexy Lacey? No fucking way I would risk anything that might put me out of commission.”

  Another heavy moan leaves my mouth, fogging an even larger space on the glass. Jake continues to play with my nipple, so gently it’s maddening, and I end up arching my back just slightly so his hand might begin working the flesh harder.

  “I was worried you weren’t coming.”

  Jake’s hand stops. His head lifts up from where it was previously resting against the space between my neck and my shoulder. “Why would you think that?”

  “You didn’t call or anything. I thought maybe you changed your mind.”

  He sighs. “Christ, I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that.” Finally, his head dips down again, lips finding the sensiti
ve skin behind my ear, placing a soft kiss there. “It’s been a long time since I had to worry about telling someone where I am or what I’m doing. I dropped into bed at two a.m., right after I got my last flight on the ground in LA, and drove home. Once I’d slept enough to be safe in the air, I just packed my bags and tried to get here as fast as I could. I wasn’t trying to be mysterious, just wasn’t thinking about anything but getting here.”

  Instead of asking anything more, I push my hips back into him and wait for his reaction. At this point, with him finally here, I’m not much interested in catching up on anything but his hands on me. We’ve spent weeks teasing each other, the interlude in the Beauty Barn storeroom ratcheting up the tension even further. Waiting any longer seems insufferable now.

  Jake twists his arms around my body tighter and shoves his length squarely against my backside. “I don’t see a bed in here. Not feeling incredibly patient right now, so let’s stop fucking around. Show me those sheets of yours.”

  Dragging me away from the window, he orients us to leave the room, dropping his arms from around me and simply taking my hand in his, our fingers loosely intertwined. Just as I reach the doorway, he stops me with a tug on my arm.

  “Wait. Just one kiss in here before we leave. Like we used to when I would sneak through that window at midnight.”

  I remember exactly how it used to feel when he did. Especially how it was just before we started having sex. The way Jake would sit on the edge of my bed while I tucked myself under the sheets and rest against the pillows, awkwardly talking about nothing at first, until he whispered something that made my skin tingle. “I thought about you all night, Lacey.” “Your hair looked really pretty today.” “God, you smell so good.”

  Quiet, simple teenage flatteries. But I’d have given anything over the last few years to hear the same words from a man. As long as they were spoken in honesty, those would have been so much better than a bunch of fattened-up compliments that don’t mean anything. Because Jake was telling me the good stuff. I think of you. I want you. God, as dumb as it sounds, he was really only saying one thing. I really like you. That alone was enough to make me want to throw the covers off and drag him under them with me.

  On those nights, he would eventually edge closer, finally leaning in to press his lips to mine. The first few times, we stopped right away. I think we both thought the fact we were on a bed meant if we didn’t stop, we might end up getting it on within seconds. Under my parents’ roof and in my bed.

  Then one night, I couldn’t take it anymore and crawled out of my sheets, straddling him and kissing him so eagerly I ended up biting his lip a bit too hard. I was a little worried he was going to pass out for a quick second. But once he got the picture, he just grabbed me close, hands up under my sleep shirt, and didn’t stop touching my bare skin, everywhere, until I whimpered out for him to stop. I could feel how hard he was, so close that when I moved my hips just right, I swore I might break apart under the next grind against him. I was still new to knowing exactly what I needed, but not so much that I didn’t know how to touch myself and think of him when I did.

  Only when his hand made its way between my legs, in jerky but still effective moves, did I realize how perfect it could feel to give your body to someone who truly wanted it. Who acted as if touching you was the best damn thing that ever happened to him. Because when you spread yourself open to that touch, it made you wet and hungry—wild for everything you knew he wanted to give.

  Jake smiles softly and takes my head in his hands. I immediately begin to hold my breath. I want him to be in charge, to kiss me whatever way he wants. Soft and closemouthed? Hesitant but with his tongue teasing mine? Full-on heavy groaning, desperation with nipping and biting? All of the above? Fine. Please.

  He settles on something in between. Lips just somewhat parted, not enough to use our tongues against each other, but enough that it leaves so much to anticipate. Even if he said it was a throwback, a kiss in the doorway of my teenage bedroom, what he’s giving me is all grown-up. Because he’s kissing me like only a grown man can, patient but hot, steady but intent. The best kind of kiss a man can give. The kind that means he’s only offering a taste, knowing you’ll ask for more. Beg for it, really. Because when he stops, you’ll end up stuck there, like a dope, with your eyes closed for a bit. When you open them, he’ll be waiting there with only the hint of a smile on his lips, as if he’s been existing on every second of you standing there weak-kneed and panting.

  Then he’ll just say one thing.

  “Sheets, Shoelace.”

  Back down at the end of the hall, with Jake’s hand in mine, I pull him into my bedroom, and after flicking on the bedside table lamp, he lets out a whistling exhale.

  “Thank fuck for this.” He makes a lazy gesture at the room.

  “What?”

  “I know this probably sounds nuts, but I was a little worried you sleep in your parents’ bedroom. And nothing about that turns me on. Would have been totally weird.”

  Laughing, I realize how strangely nostalgic this must be to him. That I live in the place I grew up. It must feel odd for him to be back here, in this house where he and I spent so much time together, after so long.

  When my dad died, Kate insisted I should have the house. She and James were settled and didn’t need it, so at the time, it was mostly about getting a mortgage-free house to live in. Once I got past the initial strangeness, I proceeded to spend the next two years changing everything. My mother was keen on a southwestern decorating style, which I hate. Every teal- and peach-painted wall went in favor of some version of warm white or cream. I tossed all the cow skulls, sand paintings, and kilim rugs. Once I was done, the inside matched the outside. Because a pretty yellow foursquare built in 1903 looks much better filled with comfy soft slipcovered couches, vases of pink peonies, and nothing obscuring the original honey-colored planks of pine flooring.

  Even better, Dusty convinced his contractor cousin to take on my dream of combining Kate’s old bedroom, the guest room next to it, and the adjoining bath into a large master suite. I got the whole thing done for a suitcase of beer and not much more.

  As Jake continues to take in the room, I actually consider asking if he wants a tour of my house. If only to prove to him that he won’t be ghosting around someplace that feels like a time machine stuck in gear. Then Jake locks his eyes with mine and I don’t want anything but him naked. He can explore and figure out how this is my house later. Right now he just needs to become acquainted with my sheets.

  “You said you wanted to see my sheets. You’ll have to come closer to do that.” Tipping my head toward the bed, I fight the urge to jump into the sheets and flail my body across the mattress as invitingly as possible.

  Jake chucks his fleece jacket onto the tufted bench at the foot of my bed and steps closer, unbuckling his belt as he walks. In the dim light from my bedside lamp, he looks wickedly ready, hair messy and that hard body obscured by his clothing, but every muscle still evident under the fitted long-sleeved T-shirt he has on.

  “I want to see something else first.”

  One hand comes to tug the tie on my robe. Both hands rise then and without the slightest ceremony or hesitation, he pushes it down off my shoulders and there I am, stark naked and suddenly petrified. The light couldn’t be favorable enough right now. The power shift of his remaining fully clothed while I stand here nude feels less arousing than I want it to. Combined with the pressure of his gaze on me, heavy and insistent, it makes my stomach roll.

  I almost want to faint. That’s how intense this feels. With Dusty, he wasn’t anything to brag about naked, so I always felt reasonably superior. With the nameless others, I was usually buzzed enough not to care.

  But Jake is so much to take in. So much that I can’t stand feeling less than perfect. I close my eyes and tip my head down. None of this mattered when he had my dress shoved up around my waist on my
desk, and he’s only seeing the other half of me now, but somehow that changes everything.

  His hand finds my chin and prods, but I don’t give in. At the very least, I need a minute to get straight here. Maybe down a fifth of whiskey. Either/or, really.

  “Hey. What’s going on?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  “Liar,” he whispers. He tries to nudge my head up again. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’ll fix it.”

  A half snort of a chuckle happens at my hearing his words, which makes me feel even less sexy. Where is the ability to utter a husky moan, à la some bygone movie siren, when you need it?

  “Take your shirt off. Something. I’m feeling a little uncomfortable right now. I need us a bit more evenly matched in the clothing department.”

  Without a word, he pulls off his shirt, and because I still refuse to lift my head, all I can see is the lowest part of his stomach, the space just above where his unbuckled belt lies open. That didn’t help at all. Other than to distract my hands, because I can’t resist touching him now, fingers tracing over each ridge, palms nestled where I can feel his breath moving.

  “Lacey, please look at me. You’re making me nervous. And I’m already nervous enough, so I need you to look at me. Show me that pretty face so I know what’s going on here.”

  How this moment turned, I don’t understand. Yet it has and I’m seriously considering sending Jake on his way, putting on my sloppiest clothes, and pretending this never happened. I thought I could handle this, him, but maybe I can’t. Not with him. Not when the man standing in front of me is good and sexy and more than I should probably hope for.

  When I raise my gaze, the look on his face shouts that I’ve ruined this whole thing. His brow is nothing but frustrated creases, eyes crinkled at the corners in confusion, lips slightly parted as if he wants to say something but can’t decide exactly where to start.