by L. Philips
My mother takes one look at him and recognizes a kindred. “Ah, the prodigy!”
Jamie winces with embarrassment, and I mouth a “Sorry!” to him as Mom scoops him into a hug. “So talented. I couldn’t get over the painting you gave Sam. I could stare at it for hours.”
“Bring it down, Mom,” I say. Obviously, it was too much to hope for that she would just hand us the car keys and we could be on our merry way.
She lets Jamie go, but not without offering him food first.
“A sandwich? Cookies?”
“Mom. The keys.”
“I’m sorry, am I embarrassing you in front of your boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s official, then, huh?” My mother clasps her hands together, hopeful.
“You didn’t tell her I’m your boyfriend?” Jamie asks, pouting, playing like he’s hurt.
“Oh my god. Keys. Please?”
Mom hands me the keys to her Prius and pats my cheek. “Don’t be out too late. Your father is planning major revisions tonight and he can’t have you barging in, interrupting his flow.”
Jamie finds the whole discussion wonderfully ridiculous and snickers all the way to the car. “Your mom is great.”
I roll my eyes. “Get in. And stop encouraging her, would you?”
“What? She’s fun.” We pile into the car and the Prius silently makes its way down the road. Jamie watches me intently. “So your dad is back?”
“For now,” I say. Truthfully, I haven’t seen him enough to notice. He came home from New York two days ago with his latest manuscript marked up in so much red it looked like it was bleeding, and he hasn’t come out of his office since. “I think he’s going to help me edit my writing samples for college applications soon.”
If he remembers, anyway.
It’s like Jamie reads my mind because he says, cautiously, “Well, I’m no writer, but I read a ton. If you want an extra pair of eyes, I’d love to read your stuff.”
I look away from the road to look at him. “Really? That would be great.”
“Of course. That’s what boyfriends are for, right?”
“It’s probably written in the fine print.”
Jamie laughs and I park the Prius in his driveway. I lean over to kiss him good-bye but he puts two fingers on my lips, stopping me. I make an undignified sound that might be the kind of sound a puppy makes waiting on a treat.
Jamie’s smile is one part amused and one part triumphant, and I scowl.
“Why don’t you come in?” he asks after making me wait a few more seconds than I like.
In. He’s never invited me in before. My palms start sweating instantly, like the giant geek that I am.
“I . . . um . . .”
“Mom has the late shift tonight. She won’t be home until almost midnight.”
“Okay.” I stare at him.
“So. We’d be alone.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. Unsupervised. No chaperone. Completely scandalous.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“You just seem so confused about what I’m trying to say.”
I laugh, embarrassed, and cover my face with my hands. “Not confused.”
“Shocked, then?” He wiggles his eyebrows in a way that reminds me of Landon. “I only look like an angel, you know.”
I laugh so hard at that I get tears in my eyes. As out of character as it is for Jamie to comment on his looks, that doesn’t make it any less true.
“Are you sure?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says, and to his credit, there’s no hesitation. He cocks his head at me. “But maybe you aren’t?”
When I don’t answer right away, Jamie settles back into the car seat and stares out the window.
“Jamie . . .”
“It’s okay, Sam,” he says, but his voice is tight so I think it’s probably a lie. “I wouldn’t be sure about me either.”
“It’s not that,” I say. I put a hand on his knee and he looks at me, finally. “I’m sure about you.”
He just looks at me, with those pale blue eyes all wide and hurt, and that’s all it takes for the whole thing to come tumbling out of me in a big rush. I tell him about Landon, about how he and I behaved together and how for the longest time I blamed that dysfunction on us getting physical so soon, never realizing that we just had an incredibly unhealthy relationship, period. I even tell him about what Travis said, although I don’t tell him it was Travis who said it.
“And regardless of knowing the difference now, I guess I’m still a little scared. Okay, a lot scared. Because I would never want us to be the way Landon and I were. I like us too much, Jamie.” He folds his hand over mine. “I like how we talk and joke around and care about each other’s art. If I ever get so jealous of you painting that I ask you to stop it, or get so jealous of every guy that looks at you, I don’t know what I’d do.”
Jamie is looking at me, but it’s like he’s not seeing me. His eyes are focusing on something different, like a memory. “Sam, I have a question.”
“Okay.”
“Was it ever you that acted controlling? Or was it just Landon?”
I think about it for a moment. “Unless I’m not remembering right, which is a possibility, it was mostly Landon.”
“And you recognized that there was something wrong about it, even if you didn’t get the root of the problem exactly right.”
“Yeah.”
Jamie cups my jaw in his hand and forces me to keep his gaze. “Then why on earth do you think you’d do these things to me? You need to stop blaming yourself for what was mostly Landon’s problem.”
I open my mouth to defend Landon, but Jamie isn’t done.
“And furthermore, I’d never do those things to you. Do you know how much I love it that you write? And so what if you take a lot of time to do it. That just gives me time to paint. We both have things we love to do, Sam, and yeah, those things require some time apart, but that just means that we have incredible experiences to share when we see each other again. It makes us both better people.”
A whole minute passes before I speak. “You really love it that I write?”
Jamie’s smile is big. Genuine. “I do.”
The list, and the hopes I’d sent out to the universe or the Goddess or whatever, pop into my head. I’d put “talented” on there. I guess what I should have also put down was “appreciation for my own talents too.” Regardless, the Goddess seems to have thought ahead for me.
Maybe I owe Meg another meal at Seven Sauces.
“And you’d really help me with these samples for my college applications?”
“Of course.”
“Good, because I think my dad is going to forget.”
Jamie nods. “Sounds like he’s busy right now. So come in. I’ll read them and tear them apart for you,” he says, eyes dancing with humor. “If you can handle it.”
“You can’t be any worse than my father,” I say, and it’s a joke but it’s also true. I glance over at Jamie’s house, considering. Jamie notices.
“We can stay at the kitchen table and I swear I won’t make a move.”
Which reminds me of Travis a little, and I laugh. It’s a little soggy sounding. Imagine that. Someone shows me they care and suddenly I’m a crying fool.
“Deal. Jamie, it’s really . . . I mean, Landon wouldn’t have . . . and it’s awesome that you . . .” I give up. “Thanks for doing this.”
“I told you. That’s what boyfriends do. Or they should,” Jamie says, and I pick up what he’s laying down: Landon should have treated me better.
“You sure you’ve never had a boyfriend before?”
“Never, but I feel like I’ve been training for it my whole life.” Though his voice is light, there’s a seriousness in him that I can
see and sense. His eyes are focused, sharp, like his Jubjub bird. I recognize that feeling, down to my bones. I open my mouth to say something, I don’t know what, but Jamie speaks again. “You know how you said you thought we were supposed to meet?”
“Yeah?”
Jamie lifts a hand to his throat, fingers the knotted cross lying there. “About a week or so before you came to Seven Sauces, I prayed for the first time since Dad died, Sam. I prayed to find someone. And I know I’m going to sound crazy . . . like a religious freak or a superstitious idiot . . . but . . . it can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
My whole body tingles, every hair rising up, my nerves on high alert. I could swear there’s a buzz or a hum in the car.
I shake my head. “No, Jamie. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Because I don’t think you’re a freak or an idiot for saying that. Anyone else might, but you’ve met just about the only other person in this podunk town, besides Meg, who doesn’t believe in coincidences.”
Jamie kisses me then, and there’s another hum, though it might be a feeling more than a sound. He pulls away briefly, then kisses me again. “One more. Improves the odds that I’ll actually behave myself inside.”
He winks, which is about enough to make me throw any self-control I have out the window, but thankfully when we go inside he does behave, and I leave a few hours later knowing how to fix my stories.
Fourteen
“Well, what do you think?”
I’m sitting at the little desk in my room, turned around in my chair so that I can look at Landon, who is surrounded by about thirty of my best writing samples. It’s Sunday afternoon and he’d called, bored out of his mind, wanting me to come over. But I’d been putting off sending in college applications long enough, and if I wanted to get them all done before Christmas break, I didn’t have much choice but to work on them now.
So he’d come over here, grudgingly without any pot because my parents were home. (Don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of that. Goodness knows they did their fair share in college, and probably before and after. Hell, they probably do it when I’m not around. But can their sweet baby boy indulge? Noooo.) I’d set him to work too, reading through all my samples for his opinion.
“I don’t even know, Sam. You know I’ve never been good at giving you criticism.”
Not exactly true. More like he never wanted to. But I press him, because this is far too important right now. “Come on, Landon. Help.”
“They’re all good,” he says. “You’ve changed a lot of them since the last time you had me read them. For the better.”
I grin. “Jamie helped a lot the other day.”
Landon looks surprised at that. “Well, it’s better than what I could have done. You should ask your dad, not me. They’re up to his level now.”
“I want a layman’s opinion,” I say, which is kind of a lie. I really want Dad’s opinion, but that will have to wait. If I get it at all.
“I am extremely layman.” Landon picks up one of the stories again and holds it out to me. It’s the story about the music critic. I grin.
“Jaime really liked that one too.”
“I can see why,” Landon says, nodding. He begins to gather up all the other papers that are burying him but continues talking. “There’s something about the way your writing sounds in that. Not that the others aren’t good, but that one sounds the most like you. When did you even write that? I’ve never seen it before.”
“Last week. With Travis. He, um . . . he played guitar while I wrote it. Put me in some kind of trance.”
Landon sits up, papers gathered in his hands. He arches a brow. “Sounds sexy.”
I know that my face relaxes into something like a dreamy grin, and I hate it, but whatever. “It was. It felt very, um, intimate, I guess.”
Landon snorts but he doesn’t quite meet my eye. Instead, he concentrates on all the papers in his hands. “Where are you applying, besides NYU?”
“Iowa, University of Michigan, Cornell . . .” I reach into my memory for more names. “Brown.”
“Cornell? Brown, really?” Landon asks, clearly surprised, then he backtracks. “Not that you’re not smart enough, I just can’t picture you at an Ivy League.”
“I know, it’s a little bit weird, but they have great creative writing programs. And Dad says that the connections alone would be worth the admission.” I shrug at him. “Where are you applying?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Landon, most schools want applications in by the beginning of the year.”
“I know.” He sets the papers aside and picks at a loose thread on my bedspread. “But I don’t have any clue what I want to do, so I can’t choose a school anyway.”
And for the first time, it hits me hard: I may not have my two best friends with me next year. I expected it with Meg. For as long as I can remember she’s talked about how she’s going to go to Hocking College to get one of their forestry degrees, so she can commune with nature professionally. I knew she wouldn’t be with me in New York or wherever I end up.
But Landon . . . I guess I always figured he’d go with me wherever I went. I never even considered the possibility that we wouldn’t live in the same place. Not once.
The thought makes me feel like I’ve had too much coffee—jittery and unbalanced, and so I blurt out, “Apply to NYU.”
Landon chuckles sadly. “And what? Brown? I’m not smart like you, Sam. Hocking probably won’t even let me in.”
I’m about to argue with him, to tell him that he’s smarter than I am in so many ways, but my phone vibrates in my pocket and the Cure’s “Lovesong” plays loud and clear through my jeans.
“Sorry, it’s Jamie. Hold on.”
I answer the phone and turn away from Landon, who is lying back on my bed and staring up at the ceiling now, looking forlorn. I try to concentrate on what Jamie’s saying, but his voice isn’t nearly as persistent as the urge to crawl next to Landon and comfort him. I never could tolerate it when Landon seemed sad.
Jamie tells me he got called in to work and won’t be home until eleven thirty, and I promise to stay up for his call. He asks me what I’m up to, and I tell him I’m doing college applications. He laughs evilly and says he’ll leave me to have fun with that, and I hang up.
Landon sits up, studying me. “You didn’t tell him I was here.”
“Didn’t I?” I ask. “Guess it didn’t come up.”
He studies me more, enough that I grow fidgety under his gaze. It’s not like I was hiding it from Jamie, but, friends or not, it’s a little strange to say to my boyfriend, “Oh, my ex? Yeah, he’s just lying on my bed right now. No biggie.” Especially since I’m fighting the urge to snuggle up to Landon on said bed. Even if I just want to cheer Landon up, that won’t sound good no matter how you spin it.
“I should go,” Landon says, and I’m relieved to hear him say it. I probably should invite him to stay for dinner because neither of his parents cook, but I don’t find the voice to ask him.
“I’ll walk you out.”
I follow him to his car and we both lean up against it, quiet for a minute, before Landon says, “Thanks for killing the boredom.”
“Hey, thanks for your help.”
“My opinion about anyone’s writing isn’t help, trust me, but . . .” He gives me one of his trademark quirky smiles. “Send that one out. I think it’s your best.” Then his grin fades. “I’m glad Travis could inspire you that way.”
“Oh, he didn’t really,” I say, and it feels kind of like a defense.
“Sure,” he kids me, and opens the door. “See ya.”
Back inside the house, my mom comes out of the kitchen, a wooden spoon dripping something red as she walks toward me. “Did Landon leave? I was just about to invite him to dinner.”
It’s true, Gina Raines loves just about everyone she m
eets, but she’s always had a big soft spot for Landon. She mothers him even more than she mothers Meg, and Meg’s practically her adopted daughter. In fact, I clearly remember that one of her biggest smiles was for Landon, the first time I invited him over after our breakup. It was like the prodigal son had returned.
“It’s okay. He needed to get home.”
For the second time that day, someone studies me a little too intensely for my liking. “Is everything okay?”
If only I knew.
I sigh. “Something just feels off, you know? And I don’t know why or if I’m just imagining it.”
Ugh, I wish I hadn’t said anything, because now not only is she studying me, she has this insulting look of pity on her face too. Then, to add insult to injury, she reaches out with her free hand and ruffles my hair. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough, Sam. Now wash up. Dinner’s done.”
“Okay. Hey, Mom?” She stops her trek back into the kitchen to turn around. “Will you read something later? Landon said it’s the best thing I’ve ever written but I’m not sure.”
“Of course. Did your father look your samples over?”
“No. He’s been so busy with his own work,” I say. “I hate to bug him.”
Mom sighs, and I sense that whatever she says next isn’t going to be good news. “He’s going to have to go to New York again, Sam. Interviews, awards, a few marketing meetings. He can’t get out of them, as much as he’d like to.”
“How long?”
Mom shrugs. “I’m not sure, but he’ll be back a few days before Christmas. I made him promise that.” She gives me an apologetic smile. “I’ll make sure he reads your stories. I promise. He can read them on the plane, if nothing else.”
