Page 57 of The Ground Beneath Our Feet
Jake, who’d evidently hung out here before, opened the fridge, pulled out a beer, and sat at the counter next to me. As Ryan prepared fish and refused any help from me or Jake, he chatted about his business—a coffee chain—and surfing.
“I’ve never been,” I said.
“You should try it. If you want to borrow a board, let me know.”
“Thanks, man. Can’t wait to make a fool out of myself trying something new.”
Ryan chuckled. “Yeah, you’ll bail when you start. Like anything new. But in no time at all, you’ll shred.”
“I’ve never tried it,” said Jake. “I normally just go for a run. You lift weights?”
“Free running. Parkour. That sort of thing.”
Jake looked amused. “Cool.”
Ryan went outside to put the salmon on the barbeque. After he set it on the hot grill, he backed away, looking at the girls. “Amelia, did you know Mikey’s a gymnast?”
“Yeah, Jessica told me. Are you?”
With a grin, Ryan stood on his hands, his shirt falling to his face, his board shorts riding up over his knees, while she laughed at him.
“You goof!” He righted himself and came over and kissed her.
Memory like a football player who’d just been tackled, right? I’d better get back out there. With some stiffness, I hopped up to the railing of his deck, and then did a handstand balanced on the edge.
The waves crashed up behind me as I slowly pulled my feet down to the railing, stood up, and took a bow to a round of applause.
I jumped off, but I couldn’t give Jessica a kiss even though I wanted to.
“Nice,” said Ryan, and he gave me a fist bump.
We sat down to dinner.
While I didn’t want to keep tabs on Jessica, I noticed that she took fish and vegetables, leaving the bread and rice. She ate slowly and seemed to enjoy it.
Good.
She was doing better about managing the uncertainties of eating in the real world where she couldn’t control it. When she finished, I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I’m so proud of you.”
That earned me a private smile just for me.
After dinner, Amelia put on music, and we all sat outside watching the late spring sun go down over the Pacific Ocean. Jessica sat so close to me, I thought she’d touch me. But she didn’t.
Lucy reached over and tapped her knee. “Jessica, you must come dancing with me sometime. After the baby is born. Just girls. Jake doesn’t dance.”
Jessica smiled. “Oh, I don’t know.”
I could tell what she was thinking. She wanted to dance, but didn’t want anyone to see her.
Mental note to self: Take Jessica dancing as soon as she’d let me.
After the party, we drove home, and I held her hand. She stayed quiet, looking out the window.
When we stepped into the clean house—I’d hired a house cleaner to help, she turned and gave me a smile. “It’s looking good, Mikey.”
“Your anal retentive ways are rubbing off on me.”
They were. At work, I’d asked the office manager to implement new policies and procedures to prevent the problems we’d been having—to explain our billing up front so clients wouldn’t be surprised. To implement cancellation procedures so if clients didn’t show up, we wouldn’t be up shit creek. Cleaning up my act at the office resulted in revenues increasing, stress decreasing, and a lot more fun.
I gave the wacky taxidermied animals a place of honor in a case up front.
Maybe I didn’t like to live in chaos. Maybe my little neat freak was rubbing off on me the right way.
When we went upstairs, we paused and looked at each other before we went in our separate rooms. I knew she knew I’d just end up with her.
But I didn’t know how much longer I could do that before I burst.
