Can You Love Me Now?: (Oakland Hills Short Story 3)

by Gretchen Galway

  Jake waited with his sister by the door.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” she whispered.

  “You’re in love with that Simon guy,” he whispered back. “I already guessed.”

  “No, I mean I am, but it’s about Sasha.”

  “Sasha’s in love with Simon too?”

  She slapped a hand over his mouth and looked behind them. “Hush. Seriously. Listen.”

  He sobered, thinking about how oddly Sasha had been behaving tonight. “Is she sick?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Oh my God, what—”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s—” Jody chewed her lip for a moment. “Promise me you won’t do anything. But you have to know. I think it’ll be better for her if you know. You’ll behave better.”

  “What’s the matter with how I behave?”

  “You’ll stop flirting.”

  “Please. I don’t—”

  “Do you care about Sasha?”

  “Of course I care.”

  “No, I mean, care care,” she said.

  Suddenly uneasy, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What are you asking, Jody?”

  “You aren’t secretly in love with her, are you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Yeah, well, she is with you. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  His stomach felt as if he’d eaten sixteen donuts and then ridden up Highway 1 in the backseat of an old Buick with a chain-smoker. “That’s impossible.”

  Jody shook her head and opened the front door. “You’d better go now. I don’t want her to see your face.”

  “But—”

  “Melissa and Eduardo will find you on the sidewalk. It’s not too dangerous around here. Nobody’s been shot in months.” She slammed the door.

  He spun around and stared at the peephole.

  Was his sister insane? Had her relationship with Simon, her friend Melissa’s with Eduardo, and even Nana’s love affair made her see romance around every corner?

  The cold evening wind cut through his thin jacket, clearing his mind. Clues from a decade flashed before him. Odd comments, lingering glances, a nagging, inexplicable tension that didn’t make any sense.

  Unless it was true.

  Sasha?

  Him?

  Years ago, he’d thought of little else. But she’d been so young, almost a foster sister in their house, and he’d forced himself to turn all that lust into platonic admiration.

  Well, not all of it.

  When Eduardo and Melissa finally returned to drive him home, he was staring up into the glow of the city sky, wondering if there was a way he could sleep on the couch after all.

  But by the time he got home, after being trapped in a car with two people even more obsessed with each other than his sister with her new boyfriend, he’d dismissed it as crazy talk.

  She was too smart to care about him like that.

  ❄

  In the morning, Sasha stared into her coffee, wondering why she kept torturing herself. She could’ve sent a gift through the mail. She could’ve chatted with Melissa and her new boyfriend instead of stalking Jake. She was too smart to be so stupid. For God’s sake, when would she outgrow the stupid?

  “Cheer up,” Jody said, waving her phone at her. “I’ve got great news.”

  “I’m cheerful.” Sasha hated it when people said she looked unhappy. She had a grumpy resting face. It was biological.

  Jody strode over and joined her on the couch. “Turns out Simon and I have to work next weekend, so we can’t use that free Tahoe cabin after all, even though they’ve got three inches of fresh powder.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Sasha said, frowning. “How wonderful for you.”

  “Not for me. For you.”

  Sasha peeked at her out of the corner of her eye. “You’re giving it to me?”

  “Interested? It’s yours if you can get the time off.”

  “Of course I’m interested.” If anything would help Sasha snap out of her stale teenage angst, it would be getting out of town. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch. It belongs to the neighbors. Well, my old neighbors, now Jake’s neighbors, up in the hills. Next door to my grandmother’s. Simon works at the startup that the woman’s son founded and he—” She waved her hands. “Anyway, it’s complicated, but trust me. It’s yours if you want it. It’s empty. They already gave me the key code for the door.”

  Sasha turned and looked out the window. The rain they’d been having must’ve dropped early snow up in the Sierra. The Bay Area was still gray and gloomy, sending her into her annual seasonal affective disorder. Maybe it was nothing to do with Jake Lapinski. Maybe she just needed a vacation.

  She threw her arms around Jody and squeezed. “I do want it. Like nothing I’ve ever wanted in my life.”

  Even him.

  Chapter 5

  JAKE PUT HIS SKETCH PAD on the portable easel and smiled at his newest portrait subject.

  Damn, he was ugly.

  First of all, one of his eyes was significantly larger than the other. Secondly, his teeth stuck out. And finally, most unfortunately, he was missing most of his hair. In fact, it looked like he’d never had much to begin with. Other than bushy eyebrows, what the poor thing did have appeared to be growing out of his nose—right above the tongue that was flapping around.

  “He’s cute,” Jake told Trixie, the woman who had commissioned the portrait of her mixed-breed Chihuahua.

  She laughed. “You can’t fool me. I can see you’re terrified. But don’t worry. I don’t expect you to make Zeus look like anything other than what he is.” She scratched the ugly little dog’s bony skull. “A bundle of love.”

  In spite of his confidence in his abilities to make any creature look appealing, Jake relaxed. “I look forward to getting to know him better.” Trixie and Zeus lived next door to his grandmother’s house, the one he had just moved into and hoped to buy. It sat up in the East Bay hills overlooking the San Francisco Bay in a neighborhood he’d never be able to afford on his own, no matter how lucrative the pet portrait market had been for him. He’d have to have tenants and operate as his grandmother had, semi-boarding-house style.

  He began sketching the head in cobalt blue. Zeus smiled at him, panting happily as if he knew he was being immortalized and appreciated the gesture. “Will I be doing portraits of all the dogs?” He’d seen at least two full-breed Chihuahuas trotting around the house.

  “Let’s see how you do,” she said.

  Jake turned his attention to the textured paper.

  Smiling, Trixie patted his knee. “Don’t look so serious. I was only kidding. Of course I have to do all of them. Zeus is my favorite, but it’s never good to be too obvious about that sort of thing.”

  He met her smile and kept working. “Not serious. Just tired. I look forward to doing all the portraits you’d like.”

  “Do you ever do people?”

  “Absolutely. Although they do tend to have a wild look about them.”

  “Maybe I’ll have myself done, just to creep out the kids after I die.” She clasped her hands together. “Can you make my eyes look like they can move? Like I’m watching them move around the room?”

  “Not without a visit to the craft store.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “We should do it.”

  Living next door to this woman was going to be fun. From the way his uneven jaw stretched wider, the dog seemed to enjoy her laughter too.

  “You’re too young to be talking about dying,” Jake said. “My grandmother’s much older than you and she just shacked up with a retired carpet dealer in New Mexico. They’re talking about buying an RV and driving around the country for a few years.”

  “Good for her. I always felt Liliana was too isolated up here on our mountain. Family is nice, but a single woman needs romance.”

  He grinned at her. “Is that why you set up my sister with Simon?”

>   Her eyes widened. “Me?”

  From what he’d heard from Jody, Trixie had gone out of her way to get them together at a key moment in their tempestuous relationship. Now look at them, already talking about marriage. “Have any plans for me?” he asked. “A single guy needs romance too.”

  “Sounds like you get plenty of that.” She finger-combed Zeus’s nose hair. “Your grandmother thinks you should leave the girls alone and get serious about your career.”

  All the humor drained out of him. He picked up a fresh pastel and began the challenge of capturing Zeus’s tongue in two dimensions. “She said that?” Nana never had liked the pet portrait business, and would rather he had a prestigious advanced degree like his sister. Never mind he made a great living. He was fast, he was good, he had a popular website that accepted Paypal. People sent photos and videos from all over the world, more than he could keep up with. Doing a live sitting like he was today with Zeus was rare.

  “She never was much of an animal person,” Trixie said.

  “That’s not it. She’s afraid I’m going to starve.”

  Trixie reached around the easel and squeezed his thigh. “You feel pretty solid. Not wasting away.”

  His smile returned. Between Trixie and her cockeyed, bald, mixed-breed tiny dog, he couldn’t help it. “I haven’t had to eat ramen in months.”

  “But you work hard, don’t you? Liliana said you do these portraits seven days a week.”

  “I don’t enjoy the day if I’m not drawing something,” he said. “Might as well get paid for it.”

  “So, you’re happy just being over there in the house working and working without ever going anywhere?”

  “I just moved in,” he said. “The thrill hasn’t worn off yet.”

  Trixie sighed. “That’s too bad.” She kissed Zeus’s bald skull.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Just that, well, I thought you might help me out with my son’s place up at Lake Tahoe,” she said. “But I wouldn’t want to drag you away from where you’re happy.”

  He sketched the curve of Zeus’s tongue, which seemed to have grown another inch. He’d heard Trixie had a few grown kids, so he didn’t know why she’d need his help with anything, but he was thinking long-term with the good neighbor thing. “What kind of help do you need?”

  “Oh, no. You’re happy as a clam here. You probably hate the snow, anyway, and they just got inches and inches of it.”

  Growing up south of L.A., he associated snow with the best family vacations they’d ever had. No school, sledding, lobbing snowballs at his dad. “I love snow, actually. I didn’t realize it had come so early this year.”

  “My son Mark has a cabin up there. I’m worried about the pipes freezing. He hasn’t gone up and winterized it yet. He’s so busy with Rose and his work, you know? And Liam and April have lives of their own. I suppose I’ll go, even though I do hate driving in the mountains.”

  He assumed the stream of names belonged to the rest of the family, people he’d never met. “I’d be happy to go.”

  “What about your work?”

  He pointed at his fishing tackle box filled with supplies. “It’s portable. I can work anywhere.” The thought of being up at Tahoe with fresh powder under his feet was appealing. The sting of screwing up yet another relationship lingered, and a change of backdrop might help.

  And what his sister had told him about Sasha had started to bother him. It couldn’t be true. Surely he would’ve noticed. But…if it were…

  An odd tightness twisted his gut whenever he thought of her. Was it guilt? Embarrassment? Regret?

  Glee?

  “I’d be happy to go up there for you guys. Just tell me when and where.”

  Trixie beamed, her eyes as wide as the dog’s. “Really? How wonderful. You could go this weekend? On such short notice?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  “I hope so, Jake,” she said with a smile. “I sure hope so.”

  Chapter 6

  JUST AFTER NIGHTFALL ON FRIDAY evening, Sasha stomped the slush off her boots and pushed open the door to the mountain cabin. Snowflakes swirled around her, the first to fall in a fresh storm that was coming in. She’d taken a vacation day and drive up early. If she hadn’t, she might’ve gotten stuck on I-80 in her Beetle like a yuppie Donner Party of one.

  She flicked on the lights and whistled.

  Yes! Gorgeous honey-colored wood surfaces everywhere, all decorated with a woodsy log-cabin chic that she loved. Moving quickly to keep the wind and snow outside, she hauled in her backpack and groceries, then kicked the door shut behind her.

  How could she thank Jody enough for this? And the people who shared it with her in the first place?

  Incredible. She never would’ve rented a cabin like this on her own. She would’ve felt silly, one person in a big place like this, and after her engagement failed, she’d vowed to really, really get over Jake Lapinski before she dated anyone else.

  Gee, wonder why she was still single?

  No negative self-talk, no negative self-talk…

  She left her boots near the front door and peeked into the series of doorways off the hall that stretched ahead of her. There were four bedrooms, each in a cozy snowshoe theme, before a steep, winding staircase rose up to the second floor. She left her backpack in the last bedroom before climbing upstairs to a vaulted living room and open kitchen with a panoramic view of mountains, forest, lake, and starry sky.

  Score, score, score.

  Hugging her insulated bag of groceries, she skipped like a little girl across the floor to the kitchen and put them away. Two days, she could be here. Two entire days.

  Finding a switch near the door to the deck, she flicked it on and sighed at the sight of twinkling white snow falling past the window. The drifts were already piled up two or three feet high, blanketing the world in quiet fluff.

  She breathed on the glass and doodled a heart into the fog. And then wrote her initials inside the heart.

  Me, myself, and I.

  Party of one.

  She turned on the oven, poured herself a glass of wine, and unpacked the small dish of homemade lasagna she’d brought with her. Her home freezer was full of them, single-serving meals she could reheat after work and eat in front of the computer. It wasn’t that she was always working; there was video streaming and Facebook and Twitter and forums and shopping and—

  Who was she kidding? She was always working. That’s why she’d left the laptop at home, an act that was already making her twitchy.

  The lasagna pan looked tiny as she set it inside the gourmet oven. Excellent appliances for a rental, she noticed. She set the timer and brought her wine over to the patio doors to watch the snow shimmer in the flood lights. The driveway was just below the deck, and she could see the snow had already formed a thin blanket over the rounded roof of her little car.

  She was just finishing her wine when he arrived.

  ❄

  Jake pulled his old Saturn into the driveway, peering at the number on the cabin, confused there was already a car parked there. The tire marks were fresh, showing whoever it was hadn’t arrived much earlier than he had.

  After triple-checking the number, he killed the engine and got out, flinching as colossal snowflakes blew into his face. The storm was getting stronger every minute. He really didn’t like that other car in the driveway. Driving around looking for a motel in his wimpy sedan might end with him in a ditch.

  Snow caked his shoes as he climbed the stairs, and he was stomping it off over a grate at the threshold when Sasha Selkirk opened the door.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, not looking too happy to see him.

  Well, he sure was happy to see her. If she’d been a stranger, he would’ve had to find another place to stay. And, although he’d already decided his sister was deranged, he wasn’t completely able to forget the secret love thing.

  “Hold on, I want to get my stuff before the snow buries it
in.” He returned to his car, slow going on the icy stairs, and in a few minutes was inside the cabin with her, brushing snow off his hair.

  “What are you doing here?” she repeated.

  “Trixie asked me to come.” He didn’t like the way she was scowling at him, as if he’d screwed up. “What about you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Who’s Trixie?”

  “My love slave. She’s in the car but won’t come inside until it pleases me.”

  “Seriously, Jake. Jody said I’d have the place to myself. I was really looking forward to being alone.”

  “What does Jody have to do with it? This is Trixie’s son’s place.” At that moment, Jake realized Trixie had set them up, just as she had his sister.

  Sasha’s mouth opened. After a long moment, she closed her eyes. “Oh.”

  He noticed her nose was pink, reminding him of the night of the housewarming party. “Have you been drinking?” he asked.

  “Enough that I can’t get in the car and go home.”

  “Why would you?”

  “Because—” She took a deep breath, and then the calm, unreadable expression he expected from her was back in place. “Don’t you have a friend with you?”

  “A friend?”

  “You know, a girlfriend.”

  With his sister’s theory in mind, he studied her for signs of jealousy. And saw none whatsoever. Nothing at all. “No, I’m alone,” he said.

  “Oh. Well, then it doesn’t matter, I guess. I’m going home in the morning anyway.”

  “You are? You just came up for the night?”

  “Yeah, you know. Lots of work to do. Just wanted to see the snow.” She gestured at the doors along the hallway. “Help yourself. I’m in the last one.”

  He watched her walk to the stairs.

  Was he relieved he’d have the place to himself later? His gaze dropped to her hips, where her low-rise jeans had fallen below the waistband of her underwear.

  He watched her closely until she was completely out of sight, conscious of his accelerated heart rate, the warming of his veins.

  Not so relieved, it turned out.