Date Night: Romantic Tales

by Liz Madrid

  “I’d love to,” she says, and Jax guides her to the dance floor, his hand warm against hers. She remembers having to take dance lessons when she was twelve, and so she could practice in between sessions, she’d enlisted Jax as her partner, demanding that he know the steps if he were to be a proper gentleman. She had to teach him what was expected of him as the one to lead her across the dance floor. And he’d been a fast learner, even though his father had to teach him other things, things that only a father could teach his son. Like how to hold a woman in his arms—not too tight or he’d end up frightening her away, and not too loose that she’d think he didn’t care about her at all. Just right, his father told him. Hold her just right, enough for her to know that she’s safe in your arms.

  And it hits Taylor then, at how safe she feels in Jax’s arms, his deep blue eyes seeming to drink in the sight of her. She can see his gaze moving across her face as he studies her, as if memorizing her features. She lowers her eyes, blushing at the attention.

  “I’m sorry for staring,” he says. “It’s just that you…you’re even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”

  She blushes even more, and she’s grateful that at least the dim lights on the dance floor don’t make her predicament too visible. “Stop it, Jax.“

  “It’s true,” he says. “But you were always beautiful, Taylor. You really have no idea just how beautiful you are.”

  For a few minutes, they just dance, and Taylor feels herself being swept off her feet with the way Jax guides her across the floor so effortlessly like she’s floating. He makes it seem so easy, and just then, the thought of warm honey crosses her mind again. For it’s exactly how she’s feeling at that moment as if he had just drizzled warm honey on her skin and at that moment, was just about to lick it off.

  “I heard you graduated magna cum laude from Harvard,” he says, interrupting thoughts of his tongue on her skin, giving her goosebumps. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” she says. “It was just summa cum laude—“

  “Ever so humble,” he says, chuckling. “Still, it’s more than I could ever achieve in a lifetime.”

  “I’m sure you’ve achieved a lot already, Jax. You just hate talking about it. So, what about you? What have you been up to?” She asks, realizing that while her life has been written about in society magazine—the perils of being born rich—she doesn’t know a thing about Jax since he left other than Greg considers him a close enough friend to invite him to his wedding.

  “Nothing beyond fixing bikes and making sure they run well enough to keep customers satisfied.”

  “Motorbikes?”

  He nods. “Yes. That’s how I ran into Greg. He bought one of my customs.”

  Now it made sense. She’d been wondering how Greg had somehow evaded telling her that he and Jax were friends, but ever since he bought a custom-made bike two years ago, he’d been pretty much devoted to riding with his buddies one weekend a month. But then, why would Greg tell her about Jax? As far as everyone was concerned, Jax was persona non grata to the Kenneman household. Her father even forbade the mention of his name, even if Jax’s parents had worked for the Kenneman’s for over twenty years.

  “But you enjoy it,” she says, pushing thoughts of her father away.

  “I do,” Jax says. “But enough about me. I hear your Frank is some hotshot defense lawyer and that your dad really likes him.”

  She makes a face. “He’s not my Frank, by the way.”

  “Hard to believe that, considering that he thinks you and him are going to get married in a year. He told me in the men’s bathroom.”

  She frowns, stiffening in his arms, but he bends forward then, bringing her into a smooth dip that turns out graceful only because of body memory. They’ve done this before, when they were both twelve, and she was showing him how to dip her ‘properly’, the way her dance instructor had shown her. Only he’d done his dip differently, the way his father had shown him, for it was the way his father danced with his mother. And of course, Jax’s way made her feel safe then, just as it does now.

  There is a light applause around them, and Taylor realizes that the song is over and the band leader is saying his thank-you’s and goodnight's to anyone still sober enough to listen. Even the staff has already begun to strip the tables of their linens and stack the chairs.

  “Thank you,” Jax says, bowing his head ever so slightly, reminding Taylor of a prince in one of those cartoons she grew up with. Only this prince was wearing a suit that didn’t quite fit him even though it didn’t lessen his appeal at all. Gazing into his blue eyes was enough to remind her that there was more to a man than what he wore.

  Taylor mumbles something that sounds like ‘you’re welcome’ but she doesn’t remember, for she’s floating across the floor, feeling his hand soft against the small of her back. She finds herself in the main lobby, and he’s standing in front of her, loosening his tie and looping it around his hand before slipping it into the pocket of his jacket, now draped across his forearm.

  “It was wonderful seeing you again, Tay,” he says.

  “How long before you finally decided to come over and say hi to me?” Somehow he’d eluded her search for him earlier. Not that it had been easy to spot him, for Frank had been all over her. And because Frank was one of the groomsmen and she, in her hideous pink dress, was one of the bridesmaids, she was stuck with him until after the first dance. He finally only left when a woman spilling out of her dress asked him to dance, and Taylor hasn’t seen him since.

  “Long enough to know that you were taken, at least by Frank,” he replies. “He kissed you. I saw it, and that was enough.”

  She frowns. So that was why Frank did what he did, and why she’d seen the look of fear in his eyes just before the doves were released. Did he see Jax long before she did? Was that why Frank was all over her, like a predator marking his prey?

  “Even I don’t need a microeconomics degree to see through all his crap,” she says stiffly. “I can decide for myself what I want to do with my life, not my father, and definitely not Frank.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way,” Jax says. He takes a deep breath and smiles. “It’s late, and I have to get going. It was wonderful to see you again, Tay.”

  He plants a soft kiss on her cheek, one that makes her hold her breath for her heart seems to have developed a weight problem, and it’s dropping to the ground with a thud. She reaches for his hand, grasps it and looks up at his blue eyes.

  “I waited for you, you know,” she whispers. “Then one day, I just stopped waiting. Daddy said you’d moved on and it was your decision not to let me know.”

  He chuckles drily, shaking his head. She’s grateful that he doesn’t extricate his fingers from her grasp. His hands feel rough against her skin. A worker bee’s hand, her father used to call it. Is that what you want? Just a worker bee when you can do so much better than that?

  “I can’t tell you who to believe, Tay.”

  “Then tell me,” she hisses. “Tell me what happened. Why did you disappear without a word?”

  He frowns, his eyes searching her face again. She wonders what he’s thinking, why there’s a flash of anger in his eyes, though it fades away, replaced by a look of sadness.

  "Your father fired my dad for stealing,” he says, frowning. “I thought you knew.”

  She stares at him. “I had no idea. What did he say was stolen? Your father is one of the most honest men I know.”

  “Whatever it was, your father never told us,” he says. "He just said he wouldn't press charges if we left quietly. All of us, even though it was just me he wanted gone. But Dad always said we were a package deal, and so we left as a family. That was right after that graduation party."

  "But you weren’t guilty of anything! None of you were,” Taylor stammers. She’s so confused, the memory of entering an empty house coming back to her. How could anyone leave that fast? Her father must have hired some moving company. It was the only rat
ional conclusion.

  "Does it matter now?” Jax’s words sting, only because he’s right. No one stood against Marcus Kenneman III. His word was law. Even she had to earn a degree from Harvard just to give herself the credibility to stand up to him.

  "Was it because of us, Jax? That kiss that he saw from the balcony, that made him assume that we'd slept together—“

  “Well, we did, though, didn’t we?” Jax says, before chuckling drily. "But that was five years ago, and we've all moved on since then. You, off to Harvard. Me, wherever life took me. Even Natasha, though I never came on to her, like she claims I did. Ever since we were both six years old, there was only you."

  “Jax—“

  He extricates his fingers from her grasp and runs his hand through his dark hair. “God, I need to get going, Tay. I’ve got an early start back tomorrow."

  As he walks towards the front desk, away from the door leading to the guest cabins, Taylor grabs his arm. “Wait! Aren’t you staying here?”

  Jax shakes his head. “I just came for the reception. But there’s a Travelodge down the road and as of this afternoon, they still had a vacancy—“

  “You’re not staying anywhere else, if I can help it, Jax Logan!” She says bravely, looping her arm around his and not caring who sees them. She’s not going to let him leave her just yet, not without some resolution between them. Her voice softens as she continues. “I can get you a room, or you can stay with me.”

  He stops. “I can’t do that, Tay. That’s not what I came here for.”

  “It’s late,” she says. “What if there is no vacancy at that Travelodge? Anyway, I have one of the biggest cabins in the property and it’s way too much cabin for one person. Perils of being rich, you see. Everyone thinks you need the biggest everything when you don’t.”

  Jax smiles though there’s no happiness there.

  “My point is,” she continues, stammering, “it’s a big cabin, and there’s even a sleeper sofa and a skylight so we could look at the stars. I’ll even promise not to touch you.”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary,” he smiles. “I should be the one making that promise.”

  “I don’t care who’s supposed to promise what,” she says, feeling bolder now. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, Jax. And even if you don’t need some resolution, I know I do. And now, knowing what my father did, I need just one night where we can…we can just talk.”

  “Just talk?”

  She nods. “Yes. Just talk. It’s a start, right?”

  Jax finally agrees, but not before taking a backpack, leather jacket and motorcycle helmet that he’d checked with the front desk when he first arrived. When they walk past Frank having sex with an unidentified blonde outside his cabin door, his pants down his ankles, the woman’s legs around his waist, they ignore him. They make it to a cabin set on stilts, just along the edge of the trees, and climb the winding stairs, giggling at the sight they’d just seen.

  “I hope the bugs zero in on his butt,” she giggles as she pushes open the door and they step inside.

  “He’s probably too drunk to notice that they already have,” Jax says as he shuts the door. He turns to face the interior of the cabin and catches his breath as he scans the view from the door.

  “It’s quite impressive,” he says, running his fingers along the wood panels that are constructed from reddish brown walnut heartwood. It gives the whole cabin a homey feel, no matter how modern it really is with the latest gadgets available.

  Jax picks the sofa bed in the living room and freshens up in the guest bathroom while Taylor stays in the master bedroom. When he emerges from the bathroom, he’s wearing only a guest bathrobe, and his cheeks color when he admits that he sleeps naked.

  “I traveled light,” he says. “I hadn’t really planned on attending Greg’s wedding, but I was in the area, and he’s been bugging me for months now.”

  “And you brought your own suit?” She asks, curious. She can’t believe she even asks him, but the ill-fitting suit has been on her mind from the moment she saw him. She’s never seen him in a suit since tonight.

  “Greg loaned it to me,” he said, his cheeks reddening even further. “I don’t think it would have been cool to show up in casual wear, even for a California wedding.”

  “You always hated wearing a suit,” she says. “But I’m sure Greg appreciated it very much, seeing you here tonight.”

  Jax doesn’t answer. He just smiles and walks to the closet to retrieve two fluffy pillows, laying them on one end of the couch.

  “Would you like to look at the stars with me?” She’s not quite ready to go to bed just yet. There’s still much to talk about. “Please?”

  “Sure,” he says. “Just like the old days.”

  That’s the whole point, she almost tells him but doesn’t. She’s looked at the stars while lying alone on her bed the last two nights, but tonight, she doesn’t want to do it alone. Not when Jax is right there with her.

  As he takes one side of the bed and she takes the other side, she presses a button on the remote, and the skylight slides open, revealing a magnificent sky ablaze with stars. Their hands make their way towards each other, pinkie fingers hooking together, just like they used to do when they were children and they’d lie on the grass and look up at the sky. They used to point out cloud formations during the day, and at night, they’d hunt for the Big Dipper.

  Tonight, the constellations keep them busy, and Jax is much more knowledgeable about them than he used to be. He points out Cassiopeia and then Pegasus, and soon they’re lying right next to each other, Taylor’s head resting on his shoulder as he points out Andromeda and tells her of how Perseus saved her from the sea monster Cetus after she was condemned to die for Cassiopeia’s boast that she and Andromeda were more beautiful than the nymphs.

  “Do you think she was really that beautiful?” She asks him when he finishes the tale. “Was her mother justified in her boast?”

  He turns to look at her. “I’m sure she was. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, just like you’re beautiful to me—inside and out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he murmurs, turning his attention back up to the sky.

  “Will you kiss me then?”

  Jax doesn’t say yes or no. He turns to his side facing her, cradles her face in his hand and kisses her, soft at first. It’s a soft brush of his lips against hers, countering the feel of rough hands against her cheek as day-old stubble lining his jaw scratches against her skin. But Taylor loves it. She loves the feel of him against her as his arms circle her, pulling her closer. Her fingers encounter his chest, hard and warm and she slips her hand inside his robe, loving the feel of his body, the muscles tightening beneath her touch.

  Suddenly he pulls away, and Taylor reaches for him. But Jax captures her hand and brings it to his lips, and she feels her heart sink. It feels like an enchanted moment gone too soon, like the clock striking midnight and everything returns to normal, though this time, the princess remains a princess. It’s the prince who changes, shifting back to the Jax Logan who disappeared after her father chased them out of town.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

  “It’s not what you think, Tay. This wasn’t the resolution I had in mind,” he whispers, bringing her hand to his chest.

  “Is there someone else?”

  He shakes his head, frowning.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I want you, Tay. You have no idea how much I do. But I don’t want this to be a one-night stand,” he says.

  “But I don’t want a one-night stand either.”

  He studies her for a few moments before he smiles. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “So what shall it be then?” Taylor asks as she leans her head on his shoulder again, doing her best not to touch him though she does, resting her palm on his hard chest.

  “A new beginning. And this time, we take our time.“

  She looks up at him
, frowning. “Are you sure?”

  Jax nods, grinning and she can tell he’s more relaxed, as if a heavy weight had just been lifted off his shoulders. “I’m sure. One day at a time.”

  “A new beginning, then. One day at a time,” she repeats as he lowers his face towards her and kisses her on the lips before pulling her close and they settle back down on the covers to look up at the stars again. Just like they used to do when they were little, when they made the pinkie promise to each other that they’d always be together—even if they have to start again from the beginning.

  DATE NIGHT

  Esme and Evan

  Since when did love stories only belong to the young? Did they have to end the moment one got married, had children and got saddled with a mortgage and college plans? As Esme parks the car in the driveway exhausted from her twelve-hour shift at the hospital, she doesn’t really want to know. Yet the thoughts crop up anyway, even as she grabs her purse and steps out of her car.

  At least, her co-worker Marina decided to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak—or should she say, by the balls instead? After walking past a Land Rover with steamed up windows in the employee parking garage, she’d spotted her fellow nurse slip out of the SUV and into her car parked next to it as Esme was backing out of her parking space. But in her rush, Marina had left the passenger door open, and though her companion had immediately reached for the interior door handle to shut it, Esme caught a glimpse of his face. Good for her, Esme had thought then, bold enough to have a quickie with the young hot medical resident, Wyatt Summers.

  No wonder the woman was glowing, Esme thinks as she unlocks the front door of the four-bedroom two-story house she shares with her husband and two children, and steps inside the foyer. After complaining to Esme a few weeks earlier that her husband had lost interest in her and may be having an affair, Marina had decided to have one of her own.