Her favorite was the one where the giraffe wore a red wig.
She hadn’t had as much time to draw when she was in Los Angeles. Tending to Jason’s problems had taken its toll on her and sapped her of her creativity.
As the clock neared midnight, she packed up, musing to herself on how nice it was to be free of him—physically and mentally. Jason was finally in the past. The strangling year of trying to help him had loosened its hold. How weird that only one month ago, she was in Los Angeles knotted and twisted over him. What to do, how to leave, what to say. Most of all, should she keep trying?
That’s why she’d stayed with him so long, despite his addiction. She’d wrestled with her own responsibility to someone like him. Should she abandon him when he needed someone most? Yet Jason had never truly needed her. He needed his drug, and that was the problem. He had never admitted he had a problem, and maybe if he had she would have stayed longer or tried harder. As it was, she simply felt free now. Being with him had been a long, slow suffocation. Caring for someone who didn’t care one bit about changing was like being frayed thin. He hadn’t wanted what she had to give.
She wasn’t really sure what it would be like to be with someone who did want what she had to give. But she’d felt a flicker of it with Becker. There was the right kind of give-and-take between them. They seemed to almost fit, as if all her lost and missing parts aligned with him, and vice versa.
She checked her phone once more. Still nothing. That was a bummer. She’d been hoping to hear from him. To reconnect and figure out what the hell they were doing next, even if it was only for a few more days.
She adjusted her skirt, shelved the book, grabbed her bags, put her leather bracelets back on, and left the store, locking up. On the walk to her bike, she noticed most of the lights in the Panting Dog were out except one. She wasn’t the type of woman to sit around and wait for a man. Her feet took her straight to the window, where she saw him on the other side, bent over a laptop, pushing a hand through his hair, staring hard at the screen.
She didn’t want to ignore her feelings anymore. She wanted to see him. She wanted to know him more. She wanted them to do the right thing. She tapped on the window and was greeted by a look that said he’d been missing her, that he’d been hoping she’d come by.
He rose and walked to the door. His deep brown eyes were dark and intense, and he looked at her as if he wanted to consume her and take care of her at the same time. He was beautiful in his jeans and a button-down shirt that begged to be undone. She’d only seen him in T-shirts and jeans, or T-shirts and running shorts, but here he was in a sort of California business casual, and the clothes fit him so well that it seemed a sin to take them off. But she was willing to commit that sin. Oh yes, she was willing.
“Hi,” she said as he held open the door. Her voice didn’t sound nervous or small. It sounded certain, like how she felt.
“Hi,” he said, and his tone mirrored hers. “Want a beer?”
Another nod.
He closed the door and locked it. She followed him, joining him behind the counter as he wrapped a hand around the tap. She dropped her purse on the bar.
“Good song,” she said, as she pointed to the speakers playing Kings of Leon.
“Good album. Can I interest you in a Labrador?”
“Yes.”
He poured two glasses, and she took a quick sip of her beer, barely tasting it, because she was elsewhere. She was several minutes ahead, picturing them tangled up in each other, not able to get enough. Life was short. Anything could happen at any time. Sometimes, you had to seize the moment and savor it for as long as it lasted. “You didn’t text, so I figured your phone must be broken,” she said, her lips curving up in a grin.
“My phone isn’t broken,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
“You are?”
He nodded and stepped closer to her. The physical proximity to him was dizzying, but there was more than that between them now. She swore she could see the emotions starting to show themselves, like the shimmer of a mirage visible under the desert sun. “I didn’t write to you because I don’t know what the fuck to do. You’re leaving town soon, and I can’t give you what you deserve, and I can’t stand the thought of sabotaging my friendship with your brother,” he said, and she heard the barrenness in his voice, but the bone-deep fear too. Then his tone shifted and softened as his gaze hooked on hers. “But you’re here, and that’s all I can seem to think about. Because even when you’re not here, you’re all I can seem to think about anyway.”