“You’re not too far off,” says Jay, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Speaking of which, here she is now.” He answers the phone and steps away to talk.
“Don’t tell her I was talking about her,” Michelle whisper-shouts at him.
He gives her a wry nod and starts talking seriously on the phone. I wonder what that’s all about. Before I have the chance to ponder it further, Michelle grabs my wrist and practically yanks me across the table.
“Okay, I want to know everything that’s going on with you and Mr Magic Hands, and I want every last detail.”
Nineteen
I surprise even myself when I decide not to tell Michelle what happened between Jay and me. Here’s my reasoning: I want to save face, just in case it turns out that all this was to him was a roll in the hay. Michelle knows about my quest for epic love, and I don’t want her to judge me for letting my newfound libido lose the run of itself.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I know she wouldn’t judge me, but let’s face it, talking about sex is embarrassing. She’s always been the one to tell me about her bedroom adventures, not the other way around. To put it plainly, I have no problem talking about other people having sex, but talking about me having sex, well, that’s a whole other kettle of uncomfortable collar fiddling. I wouldn’t know where to begin in explaining to her just how spectacularly Jay managed to rock my world after what must have been a record-breaking dry spell.
“Nothing’s going on. He’s just flirty. He flirts with everyone,” I answer dismissively.
“Eh, no, he doesn’t. He hasn’t so much as given me a backward glance since I first met him, and that’s probably because he’s too busy giving you all his backward glances to even notice that other women exist.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re reading too much into it.”
“I am not, but if you want to sail your pretty little rowboat down the Nile and take in the scenery, then I’m not going to be the one to stop you.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you use twenty words when five will do? I thought they were supposed to teach you the opposite of that in marketing school.”
“Ah, now she’s getting bitchy. She always gets bitchy when she’s being defensive.”
“She would prefer not to be referred to in the third person, thank you very much.”
“She just did it herself.”
“She was trying to make a point.”
“Her point has been made.”
We look at each other for a second before we both burst into laughter.
“God, I fucking love you, Matilda, but I swear you’re the most neurotic girl I know.”
“Glad to hold the title.”
A minute later Jay returns, telling us he has to go out for a while, but he’ll be back later. He gives my shoulder a small, meaningful squeeze before he goes. Michelle and I watch a movie for the rest of the afternoon, and then I retreat to my sewing machine once she heads home.
It’s ten o’clock when I decide to call it a night. I furrow my brow, noticing that Jay still hasn’t gotten back yet. Worrying the screen of my phone, I hesitate over whether or not to call him and see if he’s okay. In the end, I decide not to. He’s a grown man. He doesn’t need me checking up on him.
In bed I toss and turn, as I usually do when I’m alone in the house. When I was a kid, I used to have nightmares about being kidnapped in my sleep and taken away by bad men all dressed in black. I’d wake Dad up constantly, screaming my head off until he came and calmed me down, reassuring me that it was just a dream. Over the years the nightmares faded, and I know Dad was glad that they did. He never said it, but I could tell he worried the nightmares were because of what happened the night Mum got killed. The kidnappers in my nightmares were always the same men who shot Mum.
A little while later, I hear Jay arrive home. He comes upstairs, and I hold my breath as I listen to him walk in the direction of my bedroom. Not knowing what else to do, I pretend to be asleep. My door opens, and the house is so quiet that I can hear him standing there, breathing, watching me for the longest time. I can’t help holding my breath expectantly.
Is he considering coming inside?
He doesn’t. Instead, he closes my door and goes to his own room. What was that all about? He moves around in his room for a while, doing his usual pacing that I tend to hear him do at night. The pacing is oddly reassuring to me, and I find myself drifting off to the sound of it.
Hours later, I wake up. It’s still dark, and when I glance at the alarm clock on my bedside dresser, I see it’s three in the morning. My heart is racing, and I can’t tell why until I hear what it is that woke me up. Loud, pained sounds are coming from Jay’s bedroom. I jump out of bed and hurry to his room, worried that he’s somehow been hurt. When I get to him, though, he isn’t hurt. His body is curled in on itself in the foetal position as he clutches his knees to his chest.