Page 27 of Wild Fixation
A smile trips along Jacob’s mouth, wavering as he attempts to restrain it. I turn away to call out my address to the driver through the privacy window separating us from him. He acknowledges the change of plans and sets off, pulling away from the mob at the curb.
Jacob sits there smiling at me the entire way from his place to mine. I hold my face rigidly neutral and sit apart from him. This is merely practical, I assure myself. Jacob was distressed about the mob scene outside his apartment. He needed somewhere to go. I’m simply taking care of him like I’m supposed to.
Even I can hear the lie in my own reassurances.
My stomach flutters. Nerves prickle my palms. I text Mason to warn him, but he says he’s out for the night.
Damn shame, though, he says.I want to meet your hot, famous client!
It’s work, Mason. It’s not a social visit.
He doesn’t respond to that, and I’m not sure if I wrote it more for him or for myself. It doesn’t matter either way. What happened at Jacob’s apartment can’t happen again. I’m doing this because it’s my job, that’s all.
I’m a sparking livewire of anxiety by the time the car pulls up outside my house. I force myself to exit, and Jacob lets himself out before I can go around the car to get him. I watch the vehicle pull away like I’m stranded on a deserted island watching the last life raft drift off into the ocean.
It’s just me and Jacob now. No Mason. No band. Not even the disinterested driver.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s not very big, but it should be clean at least.”
I lead the way up the path. The grass is getting long. The wooden steps leading to the door are old, the paint chipped and wood warped. The floorboards creak under our feet when we step into the hall, the vanilla and wood scent of an old home wrapping around us. I’ve always liked that smell, but maybe Jacob hates it now that he lives somewhere so beautiful and modern and clean.
He toes off his shoes and steps past me. Stairs stand to one side, and a closet lies at the end of the hall. Jacob takes the first broad exit out of the hall, padding into the living room. I follow in his wake, watching as he takes it in. The couches don’t match. The bookshelf overflows with a mixture of books, mail and miscellaneous knickknacks. The coffee table is even harder to unearth under assorted junk. But when Jacob turns to me, his smile splits his face.
My heart jolts. The exhausted, pale ghost slouching in the car is gone. This is the Jacob I remember, the Jacob the world recently fell in love with, the Jacob they’re so eager to get their hands on. He’s here in my house, inexplicably smiling atmeof all people.
“This place is so amazing,” he says, as though he doesn’t literally live in a brand new penthouse in the heart of Seattle.
“I’m sorry for the mess.”
Jacob shakes his head. “I love it. Look at all these books.”
He flits to the bookshelf, scanning the volumes, fiddling with the knickknacks. He pulls one volume free. “Oh wow, I love this book. My mother gave it to me when I was a kid. Is this yours?”
He holds up a paperback that’s barely clinging to its yellowed pages. It takes me a second to discern the beaten up image on the cover, but when I do, warmth washes into my cheeks.
“Yeah, it’s mine,” I admit.
Jacob hugs my destroyed volume of “The Hobbit” to his chest. “You’ve read it?”
About a million times, but I don’t confess that. I simply nod. Everyone in the military thought it was weird that I kept re-reading that one book over and over, but I didn’t care. It was the one thing I had with me from home, my favorite book since I was a kid. I could read about dragon-slaying adventures endlessly back then. It was probably the only thing that kept me sane.
“Can I see your room?” Jacob says.
That feels dangerous, but I agree, if only to avoid anymore embarrassing bookshelf discoveries. We creak up the stairs, where there are two bedrooms and the bathroom Mason and I share. Thankfully, I keep my room neat, so when I open the squeaky door Jacob finds my bed made and only a couple small items on my nightstand. The room is an irregular shape, like the builders added it at the last second, but the large window beside the bed lets in lots of natural light. A dresser is the only other thing I bothered cramming into the space.
Jacob takes it all in with wonder in those bright hazel eyes of his.
“It’s so warm in here,” he says.
“Warm?”
I follow him in, even though I know I shouldn’t. The room isn’t that big. We’re standing too close. When Jacob faces me, his smile is so close that my thumb tingles with the urge to trace the shape of it.
“Warm,” he says. Is he speaking more quietly? “It’s neat and sparse, but I can see you here. It’s … what is it called? Lived-in. It feels lived-in. I like it.”
Lived-in. Unlike that cold cavern of an apartment where he lives. Even the tiny mess on my nightstand is more sign of life than I found in Jacob’s apartment.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Jacob says. “Again.”
