CYM yelled to the customers and staff lingering around. “See! You cannot hug over social media. This—” he pointed to Clare and Dylan in their embrace, “—is why your online presence will never truly satisfy you.”
“Fight the power,” Dylan said.
With her cheek against Dylan’s chest, Clare watched Mary lead CYM toward the door. Then she whispered, “Thanks for the hug.”
“What time are you off?”
They made plans, and Clare walked him out so she could finish work. She set the flowers into a plastic cup in her office and busied herself with paperwork. When her shift finally ended, she bid farewell to her staff, grabbed her flowers, and met Dylan at her truck. She let him drive.
“I missed navigating this monster,” he said.
“I’m sure.” Clare didn’t want to ask him about New York yet, and he didn’t seem keen on sharing. Nor did she want to talk about Nebraska. He looked tired, or sad. Maybe both.
They sat in the coffee shop and sipped their drinks. “It’s nice to be home,” he said.
“I thought I’d be happy to be back in Nebraska, but I ended up missing California. You know what I missed most, besides you and Angelica?”
“What?”
“Those damn gyros at the truck near the store. Crazy, right?” Clare shook her head.
“That’s not crazy. They are really good,” Dylan said. “You know what I missed most? Besides you, of course.”
“What?”
“Our beach. I was at the beach Friday night, but the beach in New York isn’t like our beach.”
“Yeah, our beach is pretty great.”
They sat in silence again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Clare asked.
Dylan met her gaze. “Not really. You?”
“Nope,” she said.
“That’s what I love about you, Nebraska,” Dylan said. “We’re always in sync.”
Clare smiled and sighed. It’s what she loved about him too. She wanted to shake him or shout it out, but she held her tongue.
Love was one of the many things she wouldn’t be talking to him about tonight. Maybe ever.
Chapter 16
Dylan
Dylan and Clare lounged in their coffee shop making small talk. She looked different to him. Her hair looked blonder. Her eyes look greener. Her freckles looked more pronounced. Maybe Clare looked different because he had been looking at Jenna’s dark features for the last five days.
Jenna. He pictured her leaning back to rinse her hair in the shower. Dancing with him on the red carpet. “I feel like a princess,” she’d said.
As if she’d read his mind, his phone chimed her newly added ringtone. As part of their decision to try out the long-distance relationship, they’d decided to talk to each other at least once a day.
He answered the call, turning away from Clare. “Hey, beautiful.”
“I miss you already. Come back,” Jenna said.
He smiled at the sound of her voice, then stood and walked toward the door. “Two weeks,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Alex brought me chocolate-chip mint, and we are watching The Empire Strikes Back. He’s reciting the lines and hogging the couch.”
“Lucky guy.”
“What about you?”
“At the coffee shop with Clare.”
“Lucky girl. Everything okay with your flight?”
“Yep.” He stepped outside and paced in front of the shop, avoiding eye contact with the passersby. “I wish I was there with you.” He imagined her hair, her skin, and her lips. The mornings he’d woken up tangled around her.
“Me too. The bed’s going to feel so empty,” she said. “Two weeks, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll let you get back. Have a good night, Dylan.”
“You too, beautiful. Hi to Pops,” he added.
When Dylan returned to the table, Clare sipped her coffee and scrolled through her phone. She smiled when she realized he’d returned. “How’s Jenna?”
“She’s fine,” Dylan said, not wanting to talk with Clare about either New York or Nebraska yet.
“Good.” Clare leaned forward and showed Dylan her phone. “I have some places I want to find in LA. You think you could help me?”
He appreciated her change of topic. “Shoot.”
“Okay. First, a church. I don’t really care what denomination, I just want to start going. Then a horse farm. And maybe… a yoga class?”
“You did bond with Crazy Yoga Man! How could you?” Dylan teased.
His shoulders relaxed, and he leaned back in the chair as he listened to Clare relay the story about CYM and his issues with social media. He laughed at her terrible impersonation and reenactment.
“Did you take any photos while I was away?” Dylan asked.
Clare told him about her photo tour of Nebraska, and that she’d ventured to the Santa Monica Pier and taken some shots of the Ferris wheel.
“But I wanted to take you there,” he whined. “How’d you even find it without me?”
“I’m not totally incompetent. We’ve passed it a million times. And you were otherwise occupied with your new girlfriend.”
“You could have waited. I’m supposed to show you everything. Without that, I have no purpose in life,” he said dramatically.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever sounded like an actual actor,” she said.
“Clare! I’m insulted. I live my craft, you know.” Dylan peeked at her over his cup.
“Yeah, right,” she said, rolling her eyes.
That night when Dylan lay in bed, alone for the first time since Thursday, he listened to the quiet and let his thoughts wander. He still had Clare and California, and the thing with Jenna—well, It is what it is, he thought, borrowing Jenna’s phrase about her relationship with Alex. It would work or it wouldn’t, and he couldn’t spend his time worrying about it. Still, he hoped it would work. It’s time to move on.
***
Alex
After Dylan’s departure, Alex made it his life’s mission to keep Jenna occupied and happy. When he wasn’t playing ball, he spent his time worrying about her, calling her, texting her. She wallowed for a while after that first night of Star Wars and ice cream, and she talked about Dylan constantly. Alex was sick of hearing it. But he listened and answered her million questions about everything Dylan. Day by day, she perked up as her trip to LA approached.
The next weekend, Alex finished a day game and Jenna had a nighttime rehearsal, so in between she met him at the ballpark in time for the sun to set on another beautiful August day. One of their favorite things to do, with the help of a ten dollar bill to their favorite groundskeeper, was to sneak into the empty ballpark and play. Alex grabbed a ball and gave Jenna his mitt, and they walked toward the outfield together.
As they strolled to center field, he asked her about work, about dancing, about the class she taught. He asked about Scott, Dom, and Penny. He watched as she told him her news, looking so pretty and animated and alive. He loved her energy. That she could rehearse until midnight, run with him in the morning, spend the day at work, and still glow. To Alex, that’s exactly how he thought of Jenna—a glowing light in his life.
As they played catch, Jenna brought up her favorite subject—Dylan. Alex tried, really tried, to tell her everything she wanted to hear, but something inside him finally cracked.
“Enough, Stecs,” he said. “Can we please not talk about Dylan? You’re obsessed.”
She missed his throw, and it hit her in the thigh. Despite her talent for dancing, she had zero athletic ability when it came to team sports. He’d been trying to teach her the basics.
“I know. What’s wrong with me? Maybe I’m in love. Do you think I’m in love with him?”
“How the hell would I know? Even if you were,” he said, leaping to catch her totally inaccurate throw, “where can it possibly lead?”
“What do you mean?” she asked. She missed his t
hrow and had to run after the ball.
“He lives in California,” Alex shouted.
“So what?” she shouted back.
“So that’s kind of far away to have a relationship with someone, isn’t it?” he asked. “Out of sight, out of mind, and all that?”
“There are planes, Alex,” she said snottily. Her throw landed about ten feet in front of him. He jogged to pick it up and tossed it back to her.
“You’re going to fly back and forth to see each other? You almost got fired for calling out two days last week, and you had to lie to get your LA trip approved. Scott blew a gasket with nationals coming up. You had to get someone to cover your pain-in-the-ass girls’ ballet class,” Alex said. “Did you ever think maybe it’s not the best idea? You’re both grounded on separate coasts.”
She walked the ball back to him, and they sat down in right field. “Stop,” she whined. “You’re making me sad.”
“Why not just fuck around when you’re on the same coast? That’s what I would do,” he said.
“That’s because you’ve never been in love. You’ve never had anyone you wanted to spend your time with, who you can imagine waking up to every morning.”
How wrong you are, he thought as he looked at his love. His love who thought she was in love with his best friend.
“Every morning with the same woman? Sounds like a nightmare,” he said to cover his true feelings. “Seriously, though, how do you have a relationship with someone who you only see once in a while and spend the whole time in bed with? How do they ever learn all the important, little stuff about you, like…like how you like your coffee? Or whether you are neat or messy? Or whether you floss?”
“Whether you floss? Is that important?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to think of examples.”
Jenna stretched on her back on the grass, crossing her feet at the ankles and resting her head on her hands.
Alex continued, “What about how you have to be dragged out of bed in the morning? How your shower water is way too hot?” She studied the sky as he recalled all the little facts he knew about her. Softer, he said, “How you like to change your pillowcase every day. How you can only sit on the train facing forward, not backward.”
Jenna switched her gaze from the sky to Alex, and he was sure she could read his thoughts. He leaned back and lay next to her, propping himself up on his elbow to face her. Now only inches apart, she looked at him with big, brown eyes, and he felt that familiar pull, the pull that wanted her closer, always closer.
He shifted his gaze, afraid he’d let her in too far, but kept talking. Almost in a whisper, he continued, “How you’re scared of thunderstorms. Your love of birthday cake. The way you pace back and forth when you talk on the phone.”
“Alex,” Jenna whispered. She reached up and cupped his cheek, her voice pleading with him to look at her. He wouldn’t, but he pressed his cheek into her hand.
“When you’re nervous, how you tug on your earlobe.” She moved her hand to his ear and rubbed his earlobe with her thumb while the rest of her fingers reached the back of his neck.
He knew he was letting her in, but he couldn’t stop. He remembered the word…intimacy. He kept going. “How when you’re overtired, your left eye gets bloodshot on the outside. But only the left one, and it’s always on the outside. But it still manages to be one of the two most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.” His voice cracked, as though it wasn’t his.
Jenna’s fingers touched his hair, and she nudged his head closer. He braved a look at her eyes, scared out of his mind. Scared of his feelings. Scared of hers. Scared of the next thirty seconds and what it would mean for them. She leaned up on her side, on her elbow, his mirror image. Although they lay inches apart, it felt like miles, and he wanted nothing more than to close the space between them.
As he studied Jenna’s warm skin, her big, brown eyes, her pink lips, he remembered Uncle Nino’s party. The day she moved into her apartment downstairs. The first time she told him she loved him, and the time he refused to let her love him. He thought of how angelic she looked on her bed that morning with Dylan, the sun shining on her bare back.
And today, with her on the grass in her dance rehearsal clothes, her hair back in a messy ponytail, he couldn’t remember a time she looked more beautiful, because in her eyes he saw what he had been trying to avoid since he met her.
Intimacy, yes, but more…
Love.
They leaned their heads closer to each other, and Alex stopped caring. He stopped caring about his past, his hang-ups, his two best friends starting a long-distance relationship together, and simply focused on her eyes and that love he could see in them. It warmed him from head to toe, and when he couldn’t stand the distance anymore, he reached his free hand behind her neck and mirrored her. Then, noses almost touching, her eyes widened.
A deafening noise. Scary, loud, close. The ground vibrated. The sound came from the sky.
“What is that?” he yelled, looking up. They jumped as a jet plane flew overhead. The ground shook, and the plane passed over so low that Alex felt he should duck. Jenna covered her ears as she squinted into the sky.
She mouthed something as the boom of the plane passed over them. “Is it crashing?” she screamed.
“No, it’s too low,” he said.
As the plane disappeared, they continued to stare into the blue sky. “Are you okay?” Alex asked, when the ballpark quieted.
She smiled. “I’m fine.”
He knew the moment had passed.
“We should probably get out of here,” she said in a shaky voice.
“Yeah, you have rehearsal. I need sleep.”
They walked in silence to the dugout. Alex carried Jenna’s bags to the subway and watched her train depart before heading back to the ballpark.
On his way home later that night, he thought about the plane, feeling relieved and disappointed at the same time. “I’m a damn mess,” he said to himself as he walked off the elevator to his apartment.
Yolanda’s typical yellow Post-It note was stuck to his door. He peeled it off and reminded himself he didn’t want a relationship. He called Yolanda, because that was what he needed and wanted, not some fucked-up drama with Jenna, and now his best friend, thrown into the mix.
Chapter 17
Dylan
In the days after he’d returned to Cali, Clare replied to his texts, but he had the sense she was avoiding him, and he wasn’t sure why. Still, he missed her.
His life was filled with “Lusty stuff” as she called it. Meeting after meeting, interview after interview, but he really wanted to see her, to talk to her, to relax with her, and to focus on something besides himself and the gladiator movie. Soon he would be traveling to promote and wouldn’t be around as much, and he feared when he left, she’d fade from his life forever.
So Friday morning, Dylan called her.
She picked up right away and said, “Hey, Lusty, whatcha doing?”
Dylan exhaled and the tension released from his chest at the sound of her voice. “I was going to ask you the same thing. Are you at the store?”
“I’m not due there until four. Late shift. You in Hollywood?” He heard the clinking of dishes in the background and then the water run. She probably finished her cereal. She could eat cereal every day and not get tired of it.
“Believe it or not, my schedule is free today. I’m supposed to meet my trainer, but I can do that anytime. Wanna hang out?” For the first time since he’d met her, he wasn’t sure she would say yes.
But she did. “I was going to go check out some churches in my neighborhood. Just peek in, see if any of them inspire me. Want to join? Then we can go goof off somewhere for a while.”
“I’m not much of a churchgoer. Can’t you do that another day?”
“I want to start going again on Sunday. I’m not going to do anything churchy. I’m just going to walk in, look around, and walk out. You won’t get struck by lightning or anythin
g.”
He hesitated and she added, “Gosh, would it kill you? Don’t be such a baby.”
If he had to go on a church tour to see Clare, he guessed he could suffer through it. “Do I have to dress up?”
“No, Dylan, you do not have to dress up. Yeesh.” As he often did with Clare, Dylan had the urge to laugh and hang up at the same time.
Dylan drove to her apartment. Clare had left the door open for him, and a hissing Angelica greeted him. “Dumb cat,” he whispered. Then to the apartment he yelled, “Clare?”
“In here,” she yelled from the bedroom.
Dylan walked through the little hallway to her living room and looked around. The sun shone through the big windows, reflecting off rows of black picture frames lined up on her floor. There must have been thirty frames in all different sizes. Each held a photograph.
Dylan squatted and looked at the pile leaning against Clare’s couch. He flipped through five photos. One was a landscape, maybe her horse farm. There was a close-up of people cheering, obviously at a sporting event. An older man in a stable, brushing a horse. A group of girls clinging to each other, laughing as they walked out of a bar.
Clare squatted next to him as he stared at the photos.
“These are great,” he said, smiling as he checked her out. She wore a white shirt with a ruffle around the neckline and a long, flowery skirt. Her blush snaked down her neck to her ruffle.
Her eyes gleamed as she smiled back and twisted her hands in front of her. “Do you really think so?” she asked.
Dylan flipped to the picture of the man with the horse. “I like this one. He’s not even smiling, but he looks content brushing his horse.”
“That’s my dad,” Clare said, examining the picture.
“Really?” Dylan flipped to the frame with the picture of the girls leaving the bar.
“Those are my friends.” Clare pointed to them in turn. “Cindy, Melissa, and Emmy. I wanted to remember how happy they looked that day, so I shot it.”
The Love Square Page 16
