by Mae Martini
“Yes, it’s Joan, and no, of course not.” She had just hit the end key of her cell phone and placed it down on the counter near the cabinet with the cups and reached for one. She poured the coffee and handed it to Gia.
Cream, right?” Joan walked to the refrigerator.
“Yes, please. Is Annie not feeling well again?”
Joan handed her the cream. “Yes, I hope she’s all right.”
Gia smiled at her. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“You’re leaving?”
“In a few minutes. I have a two o’clock flight home.”
Though, breakfast was over, Joan pulled out a small dish and lifted the cover of one of the cake plates that was on the counter. She took out one of the chocolate muffins and placed it on the dish. “Have a seat. These are fresh.” She put the dish down on the island counter and Gia pulled out a chair and sat.
She did not realize until then just how hungry she was. “This is delicious, Joan. Thank you. It tastes just like how my mom made them.” She took another bite of the muffin and washed it down with a sip of coffee.
“Does she use liquid chocolate or the powder?”
Gia looked up from the rim of her cup. “Oh, no. My mom passed.” She put the cup down and picked up a piece of the muffin.
“Oh, darlin’, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no. It’s all right and she’s been gone so long, I really don’t remember what she used. Her recipe died with her. She never wrote it down.”
“Mind if I ask how?”
Gia shook her head. “No, not at all. Hit and run, years ago, when I was sixteen.”
Joan nodded her head in understanding.
“Do you fly a lot?” Joan asked as she looked at the rolling suitcase by Gia’s chair.
“Too much. I’m so tired of it.” They exchanged smiles. “You must know Jake pretty well.” Gia said.
Yes. I’d say so.” Joan chuckled.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Does he.” She paused. “Does he have a lot of girlfriends?”
Joan looked at her and smiled. “He’s dated quite a few girls, but as far as I know, when he’s in a relationship, it’s only him and her.”
Gia sipped her coffee and watched Joan as she took off the plastic wrap on a bowl that was on the counter and pulled out dough.
“Jake is a good boy. I’m so proud of him. He’s thoughtful, gentle and caring. He has a great business head on him and I love the man he has grown to be.”
Gia smiled at hearing this woman talk about Jake in that way. They must be close, she thought. She, too, liked all those things about him.
Gia let out a sigh.
“What?” Joan asked as she worked the dough.
Gia tilted her head at the way Joan said that one word. It reminded her of Jake.
“Nothing.” She paused. “I think Jake is still in love with Jennie.” She didn’t know why she blurted it out in front of Jake’s help. She put her head down, sorry for saying it, but it was out there and there was nothing she could do about it.
“No, I don’t think so. I think he is enamored with a pretty blonde.” She winked at Gia.
Gia picked her head up in panic. She didn’t catch the wink. “Oh, no.”
Joan let out a little laugh. “Who lives in California and surfs.”
Gia smiled at her when she realized she was talking about her and it made her feel good that he must have spoken of her to Joan.
“I don’t know about that.” She looked down at her watch. She took another sip of her coffee and then rose up with her cup and plate and placed them in the sink. “I have to get to the airport.” She was just about to turn the water on to wash them.
“Oh, don’t even think of it. Leave them. I’ll throw them in the dishwasher when I’m done with my mess.”
“Thank you, Joan.” She didn’t know what propelled her, maybe it was the motherly vibe she picked up and longed for, but she went over to Joan and gave her a kiss on her cheek as she said thank you.”
Gia walked out the door and she got a funny feeling that she might not be back ever again. It saddened her to think that. She really liked Jake a lot, but she wasn’t comfortable with his ex-girlfriend around him, and she thirteen hundred miles away. Joan made her feel good about him being enamored with her, but she didn’t know just how much Joan knew of her boss’s love life.
Chapter 15
Standing at the bar, Jake picked up his third shot glass of whiskey. He swirled it around in the glass before putting it to his lips and downing it. This one went down the smoothest so far, he thought as he watched a girl by the juke box flirt with a couple of cowboys as she swayed her hips to the music in such a seductive manner. He’d seen her in there a time or two. She was always alone and always flirting. She caught him watching her, and she put a hand through her long dark hair and shook it out as she smiled his way.
Jake had called Cord and Rory to see if they wanted to go to Roxy’s that night. Both of them were busy with their significant other. Cord with his wife and Rory with his girlfriend, his sister. It occurred to him that he didn’t have a significant other. He thought he did up until that afternoon. So he opted to go by himself. He hopped into his truck with the song ‘Am I The Only One’ in his head, and drove to Roxy’s.
His heart fell when he found out that Gia didn’t wait for him to come back. She said she would. She didn’t even pick up the phone when he tried calling her that last time. He left a message that he was sorry and that he was on his way home and would be there in ten minutes. Yeah, he took longer than he wanted to, but after Jennie’s parents would not let her come back home to live, he had called his mother and asked if she could stay there. He figured it was better there than his place. He didn’t think Gia would be too happy with Jennie being in the same home as him, and at the time he called his mother, Gia was still there.
They did allow her to pack a few things from her room and he settled her in at his mother B&B, that’s what took him too long. Still, Gia said she would wait and she didn’t.
The dark haired girl made eye contact with him again and walked his way. His eyes dropped from hers and scanned her body, taking in her tight jeans and white clinging tank top, outlining her ample breasts and he noticed her nipples were hard. She placed a thumb on the top of her jeans and pulled down a little, revealing a tattoo. It was hard to tell because of the lighting in the bar, but he thought it was of a sexy devil. As she got closer, he brought his eyes back up to hers, after confirming that it was indeed a sexy devil, and kept a hard expression on his face.
“Well hello, Cowboy,” she said, dripping with sexuality. “Buy me a drink, handsome? I’ll make it worth your wild.”
Knowing the chicks around these parts were loose, and he was feeling buzzed, Jake turned his attention to Billy, who was behind the bar. They instantly made eye connection. Jake raised his glass indicating he needed a refill and when Billy got closer, Jake said to him, “Give her what she’s drinking.” He gestured to the woman next to him.
After Billy placed her drink on the bar, she picked it up and raised it to Jake. She took a sip and placed it back down. Batting her eyes in a flirtatious manner, she said, “You look a little lonely tonight, cowboy. I can help you overcome that.”
Jake stared at her a moment as if contemplating. “Finish your drink,” he said just before he picked his up and downed it.
The woman, whose name he didn’t know and didn’t want to know, picked up her drink and downed it, too.
He put his hand in his front pocket and stuck out his elbow. She slowly wrapped her hand around his bicep as he pulled her close to him. Together, they walked out into the parking lot.
He walked her to his truck and pushed her up against the back of it and pressed his body against hers.
She brought her arms up and wrapped them around his neck. “Kiss me,” she said, sounding all breathy.
Jake pulled back a moment to look at her face and slowly smiled before h
e brought his lips down to hers. The kiss started out lightly and he began to roam his hands on and around her ass as his shaft grew and pressed between her legs.
She let out a low throaty moan and moved her hand to his bulge and pressed up and down. But as Jake continued to kiss her and rub up against her hand, he got a weird feeling, like he was missing something. He wasn’t sure what at first. His lips demanded hers in an almost punishing fashion in search of it.
Gia came to his mind. Ah! He, then, knew what he was searching for and abruptly pulled back as his erection deflated. “They’re not as soft as hers,” he said, mostly to himself.
She tilted her head, not understanding.
“You’re not her,” he said loud enough for her to hear him. He became fidgety and turned around, giving this girl his back. At that moment, he hated himself for the weakness he had shown. It was wrong, he didn’t want this. He wanted Gia. Why was she always running from him?
The dark haired woman placed a hand on his bicep. “Relax, baby. Let-”
And before she could finish, he shook her off, turned and walked to the driver’s side of his truck. “No. Get out of here. Go back inside. I’m not what you’re looking for.” He opened his door, got in his truck and started it up. He watched the girl’s enraged face as he drove off.
When he got to his home, he shut the truck off and sat there a good half hour, thinking about Gia and what went wrong. He came to the conclusion that yes, he fucked up. He got back to the house about fifteen minutes before she had to leave in order to check in on time at the airport, and he missed her by five minutes. It dawned on him that she did wait till the last possible moment, give or take ten, and that he had let her down. It wasn’t right, he knew, but he couldn’t understand why she left without reaching out to him. He tried calling her and texting her that afternoon, but she ignored all his attempts. Why did she always feel the need to flee?
Disconsolately, he got out of the truck and went up to his room. He thought about calling her and confessing that he slipped up that night. Shaking his head, he realized she might not care. He didn’t know if it was over between them. He didn’t know how she felt because she wouldn’t talk to him. He was so frustrated and saddened at the thought that it could be over between them.
His head hurt and he wasn’t sure if it was the over-thinking or the liquor. Eventually, he climbed into bed and fell into a restless sleep.
****
That night, when Gia was in bed, she looked at her alarm clock. It was almost ten-thirty. She called Jake. When his voice mail picked up, she didn’t bother leaving a message. She placed the phone down on the night table and fell asleep thinking about Jake.
Earlier, at the airport, while waiting for her plane, Gia took out her phone. She had heard it ring and had gotten the chime that there was a message earlier when she was driving to the airport. She didn’t bother to look at it then. It had to be from Jake and she was too steamed at the time to hear from him. She had flung it back in her bag.
Still upset with him after boarding the plane, she, at least, decided to play his message. She blew out a breath and shook her head. She held the phone in her hand as she leaned her head back on the head rest and closed her eyes, contemplating her next move when the pilot’s voice came through the speaker system of the plane asking everyone to power down their devices for take-off. Well, that took care of her contemplation. She shut the phone off and threw it in her bag.
All that week, Gia went to work with Jake on her mind and came home with him on her mind. She was relieved she didn’t have to travel that week and as a result, she got in a lot more surfing sessions at Huntington Beach. Out there in the water was the only place Gia got any peace. She’d always let her mind relax and feel the waves. She had met up with her friends Loki and Sam a couple of times, but mostly she was out there alone, save for a few surfers she didn’t know. And on one of those days, a small pod of dolphins.
She had received a couple of texts from him on Wednesday and paused before answering his question asking her if she was flying to Texas that weekend. She heard nothing more from him at that point.
Friday night was a bad night for her. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking of Jake. She did want to be in Texas, with him in the worst way, even more so than being near the ocean. She also remembered that Annie and Cord were going to tell their friends that Annie was expecting a baby.
****
Jake didn’t try to get in touch with Gia until Wednesday. It killed him, but he wanted to see if she would get in touch with him first. She didn’t. So he texted her. Just a simple ‘hi’. He was relieved that she answered back with a simple ‘hi’, also. When he texted asking her if she was coming in that Friday, she hesitated with her answer but wound up texting back, ‘no’. He didn’t text or hear from her anymore that week.
Chapter 16
On Saturday morning, Gia drove over to her father’s house. She and he had a long talk over breakfast that she had cooked for them. She told him about the fight she had with Jake.
“It doesn’t sound like a fight,” Luke said.
Gia let out a sigh. She knew his next sentence.
“It sounds like you ran away.”
She knew that’s what it was. She just didn’t understand why she always fled when things got awkward for her.
And for the umpteenth time he had told her it was a trait that her mother had. He could recall, in the beginning of his courtship with her, Jessica would run away at the slightest insecurity. He’d never forget the time he was waiting for her outside a store. They had only been dating a month, and he ran into his cousin, Denise. They talked and laughed a while and after she left, he realized Jess was in the store a really long time. He went in to look for her, but couldn’t find her. He panicked and not knowing what to do, he decided to go to her house, she didn’t live far from there, and sure enough he found her on her stoop looking heartbroken.
He had sat down next to her and put his arm around her. She moved closer to him. He asked her what happened and she told him she figured he’d rather be with the girl he was talking and laughing with and so she left.
Lucas recognized her insecurity at that point and reassured her she was the one he wanted to be with, before telling her that, that woman was his cousin.
Lucas recalled other times she fled, and knew it was insecurity issues. He had learned to accept that because he was crazy about the woman. He didn’t understand it, but accepted it nonetheless. She was a beautiful woman who never thought she was. She was smart and funny, and through the years it became evident that his daughter was an exact clone of his Jess. Gia had one of the smartest minds in her business. She was always being sought out for her opinions and knowledge, even making speeches to crowds of her peers. She’d have you in stitches with her sense of humor when she was comfortable with you. Yet, she had that one flaw. No confidence when it came to men.
He knew, from all those years that he couldn’t change Jess, that Gia would not grow out of it either.
After breakfast, Gia took a surfboard and a radio and headed down to the beach. She stood the board up in the sand and plopped down and turned the radio on. She sat there for what seemed like an eternity just looking into the ocean, taking in all that her father had told her. There were a few people in the water surfing and body boarding and a few people on the beach, but no one close to her.
Having her father explain her flaw to her again, did nothing to reassure her. She thought maybe she should talk to someone about it. It wasn’t a problem up until now. Until she ran from Jake again, the one guy she wanted to be with more than anything. He was different from the other guys she had dated in the past and she feared that she had messed it up with him this time.
Cruisin’, by Smoky Robinson had been playing on the radio. Gia paid no mind, she was lost in thought.
She felt his arms come around her as he sang along, softly with Smokey, close to her ear. He had plopped down with his legs wide and scooted up to her back
.
She jumped at first, and he lightened up a bit on the hold, but she quickly realized it was him. She felt his familiar protective arms, smelled his unique musky scent that drove her wild and heard his soft melodic voice, and quietly sighed as she leaned back into him. When the song was over, he whispered in her ear. “Please don’t run from me anymore.”
She was too speechless to say anything. She just nodded her head and then began to relay a recollection. “When I was younger, about eight or nine, Marco, Lola and I spent a summer by my aunt’s home while my mother went to help her with her coat factory business. I hated being there. I missed my friends back home. After the first month there, I made a friend with this boy who lived on her block, and one day we were playing with his trucks-” She felt his little chuckle.
She smiled. “-Then we got bored and were just walking around. He stuck his face in a broken, old metal air conditioner cover, the kind that gets mounted into the brick wall, and then he screamed, and a wasp came flying out. He cried and screamed and I knew he got stung, but I got so scared, I took off running.” Her smile had since faded and a look of anguish appeared. “I never saw the boy again. I stayed in my aunt’s house for the rest of that summer, too afraid to see him again because I had known I didn’t do the right thing and help him. I can’t even remember his–Matthew. Huh! His name was Matthew.” She turned her head and looked incredulously at Jake and blew out a breath, shaking her head. “For the life of me, I could not remember his name… until now.” She paused, reflecting on the story as she stared, unfocused, at his sinewy shoulder. “I also have never told anyone that story before.”
“Perhaps retelling it jarred your memory.”
She turned back around and leaned into Jake’s chest again. “Perhaps.”
He squeezed her tight, then brought his face down to her neck and she heard him inhale deeply through his nose. He then brought his mouth up to her ear and softly said. “I’ve missed your sweet scent, Gia….. Kiss me.”
