So Much to Learn
Page 23
~*~
I made it to the flat in record time by driving almost as erratically as I had the night I had found Brad in bed with Allison. Slewing my car into my usual parking spot, I noted that Jack's Ute was parked in another spot a little further down. Thundering up the stairs, I struggled for a few moments getting my flat key into the lock, but eventually, burst into the main room and looked wildly about.
The place looked pretty deserted, but I shouted Jack's name a couple of times and stuck my head into each of the rooms just to be sure that was the case. Jack’s jacket and bag were sitting on the bed in his room, and his keys were on the kitchen table so he had to be somewhere nearby.
Where was he? I forced myself to stop staring around like an idiot, as if expecting Jack to pop out from behind the fridge or out of the oven, and think sensibly. Once I'd done that the answer came to me immediately.
I ran out of the flat and pelted up the next two flights of stairs until I came to the big heavy metal door with 'Roof Access' spray painted on it in a fluoro yellow. I pushed it open and immediately felt the cool night air lift the pieces of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail over the course of the day, and whip them crazily around my head.
Peering through the blonde strands, I saw Jack leaning against safety rails at the far end of the roof staring out at the view. Not able to wait even the few seconds it would take to reach his side I shouted, "Jack!" And, although the wind tried to whip the word away, he heard me. Lifting his hand in greeting he began to walk towards me and, pushing the hair out of my face, I met him halfway.
"Hi," he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling warmly. "Have you had a good-?"
"So," I cut across him, my tone vicious enough to make him rock a step back from me in surprise, "apparently it’s totally obvious that you’re into Haley."
"What?" He asked, his face a picture of complete confusion
"And, having seen how keen you were to rush to her rescue on Sunday night, well hell, any night of the week actually, I guess I see why everyone thinks that." I tilted my chin up so I could meet his troubled gaze defiantly.
"Wait. Someone told you I’m into Haley?" He asked slowly and then, when I nodded curtly, he added, "OK, and? People say crap all the time, why are you so upset?"
"I'm upset because it seems that, no matter how much I try to not think about her, every time I bloody turn around Haley's there,” I almost howled. “And I don't even mean physically, someone's talking about her or I hear her voice through a sodding door for example." And, to put the feather in my 'I'm being an obnoxious child' cap, I gave my foot a little stamp.
Jack looked down at my foot then back up at me, his eyebrows raised as if to say 'what was that?' But what he actually said was, "So this is about Sunday then. Look, I told you before, she needed help with her car, that's all."
"But that's not all!" I objected. "There's always something else, something she needs to borrow or shelf she needs putting up, and, on top of that, you and Matt invite her out with us all the time even though you know that I-“
"Now we're getting to it," Jack interrupted. "This isn't about Haley at all, it's about you. So, please, just for one moment, stop ranting about Haley and tell me what’s up with you. And don't tell me nothing because, as oblivious as you claim both Matt and I are, even we’ve noticed you've been a total nutter the last couple of days." His expression softened as I stared at him, my hard expression slipping as he dealt out some reality. "Come on now, the truth."
The wind had picked up, pulling at my loosely tied pony tail until the hair tie slid out and my thick hair danced gleefully around my face, seemingly revelling in its freedom. I didn't care, though, I was too busy trying to think how I could explain what was going on with me in a way that would make even a tiny bit of sense.
"Sunday night," I muttered, eventually.
"What?"
"Sunday night," I repeated, this time a bit louder. "You're right, this is about Sunday night. When we were on the couch together I felt…" No that was going a bit too far, I revised my sentence. "…well, anyway, I thought that something was going to happen. I was flying pretty high on that something and it turns out that you weren’t feeling anything." I was blushing so hard by this point that I could feel my cheeks throbbing.
"Hey, what makes you think I didn't feel anything?" Jack said gently and the fact that he was trying to be nice and not hurt my feelings made my face burn even more.
"Oh, I don't know," I said scathingly, resorting to my tried and true method of going on the attack when what I really wanted to do was flee, "maybe the fact that the second there was the slightest interruption you dumped me off you and practically bolted out the door?"
"That's what you think I did?" He said wonderingly, pushing a hand through his hair and making it stick up even more.
"No, that's what I know you did,” I said pointedly. “I was there, Jack, and you beat a pretty hasty retreat, you've got to admit." That he was trying to deny what happened was just making me angrier, did he think that I would have just forgotten?
"I wasn't running from you!" He exclaimed. "I was trying to do the decent thing, and not just for Haley, but for you too."
What? I gaped at him for a moment and then gestured for him to explain what he meant.
"We'd just had this big serious talk about why you're uncomfortable around guys and you'd told me more about that jerk at the party and, well, you'd done the whole crying thing..." He looked a bit uncomfortable at this point and I grimaced. Why was it that guys got so weird over a girl crying? It's not like we do it on purpose…well most of the time anyway.
"I was trying to give you a bit of space so you didn't think that I was all 'that's terrible, but never mind, sweetheart, that's in the past now so give us a kiss’,” he continued. "But mostly I was trying to show you that I'm not like those guys who've messed you around before, I'm really not." His voice, so sincere and sweet, damn near broke my heart and I wanted to scream 'But I know you're not, I already know!' But somehow my mouth construed that as,
"So to show that you're not like the guys who've messed me around and ultimately gone off with other girls you messed me around and went off with another girl? Your logic is truly astounding." A piece of hair whipped me in the eye as I finished speaking as if to say 'shut up, idiot!'
"I didn't go off with another girl!" Jack exploded, his voice rising as I had so rarely heard it do. "For God’s sake, stop bringing Haley into this, it’s not her I was thinking about, it was you." His voice dropped suddenly and, as if he couldn't help himself, his hands came up and cupped my face gently. "It was you," he repeated and his expression was so intense I felt my breathing become ragged.
We stared at each other for a moment and, although I desperately wanted to just wrap my arms around him and tell him that I believed him, some little insecurity in the back of my mind prompted me to whisper, "Prove it."
"What?" Jack's hands pushed my tangled hair away from my face so he could look at my expression searchingly. "What do you mean?"
"You say that it’s not Haley, it’s me and I want you to prove it." My mouth was on complete auto-pilot now, saying whatever it wanted, it seemed, without any consultation with my brain.
"How?"
I took a deep breath and looked straight into his blue, blue eyes.
"Kiss me."
I spoke so softly I half hoped that he wouldn't have heard me, but I could tell by the widening of those gorgeous eyes that he had.
I have no idea where I got the courage to do what I did next.
As if in slow motion, I reached up, pulling his hands away from my face and placing my lips ever so gently against his. It wasn't a proper kiss by any stretch of the imagination, it was an invitation and it was up to Jack whether he accepted it or not.
For a moment the pair of us seemed to be frozen in time, I held my breath as if scared that any move I might make would scare him off. My lips were tingling and the butterflies in my stomach, as if delighted t
o be released from their cage, had sprung to life and launched themselves up through my chest and into my throat.
Kiss me, I willed with all my might, please just kiss me.
But, in the next second, Jack had pulled away from me and muttered one Earth shattering word.
"No."
My eyes filled with tears hot with humiliation and I released my held breath in a constricted choke of surprise.
No. So that was it. Well he'd pretty much spelt it out for me with that one.
"Fine." I meant it to come out as defiant, but to be honest, it sounded much more like a sob. Scared I was about to burst into full on bawling, and I've already explained how unpleasant that looks on me, I turned from Jack and made a dash for the door. I wanted the hell off that roof!
"Wait!" I heard Jack shout, but there was no friggin' way I was going to wait.
I reached the door, grasped the cold metal handle and pulled at it. It didn't budge. For one awful moment I thought that somehow it had locked and that we were going to be stuck up there until someone realised we were missing and, considering we lived with Matt who probably wouldn't notice if a piano landed on his head, who knew how long that could be.
Then, of course, I realised that Jack had caught up with me and had one hand on the door, keeping it closed.
"Let me out!" I blinked quickly to keep my tears from sliding down my cheeks. "You've had your say, I get it, and I've got some tute work to prepare for tomorrow so let me out." I pulled at the handle with both hands, but the door didn't even move a millimetre. Frustrated by my weakness I slapped the hard, metal surface of the door and then leant my forehead against it, unable to understand why Jack wanted to humiliate me like this.
"Tally." I felt his free hand land on my shoulder, but I shrugged him off.
"Leave me alone," I said miserably.
"No, I won't leave you alone." He put his hand on my shoulder again and managed to gently turn me around this time. "You clearly didn't get it."
"How ambiguous can a flat out 'no' be?" I asked in a pathetic imitation of my usual scornful tone.
"I don't want to kiss you-" he began and I lifted my red eyes to him angrily.
"See? That is what you meant-"
"You didn't let me finish," he said, a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth in a way that made me want to smack it right off him. Seeing that dangerous look in my eyes, no doubt, he continued quickly, "I don't want to kiss you to prove something to you that you should already know."
He gave me a moment to let his words get through my barrier of anger and hurt then continued, "Kissing you for that reason seems wrong and tacky. But, God, Tally," he dipped his head so that we were so close I could feel his breath on my lips, "give me another reason, any other reason, and hell and high water wouldn't be able to keep me from kissing you."
How could two sentences so completely alter your world? For a moment there I think I actually felt the world tilt to adjust to this new, thrilling revelation.
The look in his eyes as I met them made me want to cry more than ever and, in fact, a couple of tears did finally make a break for freedom and slip down my cheeks. Using his thumbs he gently wiped them away and smiled down at me. "Well go on then," he said, continuing to gently brush my cheeks with his thumbs even though all traces of my tears had been obliterated, "give me a reason. I bet if you think really hard you could even come up with two."
And, finally, I felt myself smile in response, although it must be said it was a fairly weak one as I wasn't really able to fully keep up with all the ups and downs I was experiencing.
"Well," I said shakily, "how about because I want you to...and because I think you want to, too."
"Now see those," he said softly, as my eyelids fluttered closed, "are two very good reasons."
And then he kissed me.