Page 38 of Remembering You
10
The next morning, I rolled over in my bed, and stretched my arm out expecting my hand to fall upon a wall of hard muscle. Instead, I found Jim's half of the bed empty, the sheets and covers where he had been rumbled. I curled my arm around his pillow, and dragged it close to my nose, inhaling deeply. His woodsy, masculine scent surrounded me like an embrace.
With one final deep breath, I released my hold on his pillow and climbed out of bed. I wrapped my black, silk robe around my body and slid my feet into the large fuzzy slippers at the foot of my bed, stopping in the bathroom to brush my teeth. I cringed at my reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t the sexiest look—big, fuzzy slippers with an otherwise slinky robe. Pair that combo with my hair piled into a messy ponytail and the little bit of eye makeup I had on last night was now beneath my eyes like a drunk raccoon. Yeah, I wasn’t necessarily looking my best.
Scrunching my nose, I wiped under my eyes, tugged my hair free from the messy ponytail, and quickly pulled a brush through my strands to smooth out some of the tangles. Once I finished, I dabbed a bit of lip gloss on and a quick coat of mascara, nodding at my reflection. That was much better.
I limped my way down the short hallway that spilled into the rustic kitchen, smiling at Jim, shirtless, bent over the counter. A mug of freshly brewed coffee was waiting for me on the table with cream and sugar beside it. I smiled, biting my lip as I crossed the short distance to the table and touched my fingers to the mug. One week and he knew just how I liked my coffee.
As much as I wanted a sip of the hot brew, I wanted Jim more. I wanted to feel his soft skin, broad muscles and lips against mine more than I wanted that caffeine hit. And that was saying something.
I crossed to him, sliding my hands along his back and wrapping my arms around his torso. “Good morning,” I said, my voice raspier than I was ready for. And this time I wasn’t even trying to sound that way.
His muscles jerked from beneath my touch, knotting beneath my palms. If he’d been a dog, his hackles would have been up. I pulled back from hugging him, examining the shift in his demeanor. “Jim?” My heart fell to the pit of my empty gut. Something was wrong. Really wrong. I’d only ever seen him look this way once before and it was the moment he had found Sheila in the closet with her boss.
He spun to face me, sliding the paperwork I had filled out last night before our date. “My W2?” I asked, more than a little confused.
He pressed his lips together. “This can’t be correct. You’re not really nineteen, right?”
I blinked. His tone was like a hot knife slicing into me. This anger was about my age? I must not be interpreting that right. Jim is kind… understanding. He’s not the guy who jumps to conclusions.But you’ve only known him a week, a voice rang in my head. “Is that a problem?” I asked carefully.
His eyes closed briefly. “Is that a problem,” he whispered, repeating my question. “So, it’s true? You’re a teenager?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way… but I guess he was right. “Technically… I suppose.”
“And you didn’t think it was necessary to tell me that before we…” he gestured to the bedroom, then pulled his hand back to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Shit.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I’m an adult—”
“Just because you’re legal doesn’t mean you’re an adult, Marty. Jesus. If you were truly an adult, I wouldn’t have to tell you that.”
The fear from earlier shifted into something headier. Anger. I was angry. “Don’t you dare lecture me. Iaman adult. Legally and in practice, Jim. I don’t need my parents to lecture me anymore and I sure as hell don’t need you to lecture me either.” I grabbed the W2 form and smacked it into his chest. “I wasn’t hiding anything from you. Clearly you were going to know my age since I filled this form out. I assumed you knew I was young and it wasn’t until dinner last night when you went to order wine that I got an inkling that you might not know I wasn’t twenty-one.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He held up both hands and shook his head. “So you admit that you knew I might be upset by this?”
“What? No… I’m just saying that last night was the first moment that it even crossed my mind that my age might be a problem.”
He glared at me and the Jim I had gotten to know yesterday seemed to all but disappear. “And yet, even with this ‘inkling,’ you didn’t think you should tell me before we… before we came back here and spent the night together?”
“I told you I was a virgin. What? You thought I was a twenty-three-year old virgin?”
He swiped the hand down his face. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
The anger I saw in his face before seemed to melt into something else. Guilt maybe. Sadness? I swallowed and took a step closer to him, trying a different tactic. Resting my hand on his bare waist, I leaned into him, looking up into those bright blue eyes. “So what? You’re a couple years older than me.”
His jaw ticked and his gaze drifted down. For a moment, it was just him and me once more. His thumb brushed my cheekbone and I leaned into his touch. “Ten,” he whispered.
“Hm?”
He swallowed and dropped his gaze to the floor. “I’m ten years older than you, Marty. And that’s a hell of a lot more than a couple.”
I went numb. He wasn’t wrong… that was a lot more of an age gap than I had expected. “Y-you’re twenty-nine?” I opened my mouth to say something and yet no words came out. “I-I knew you were older than me… I just thought you were like, twenty-three.” If I was being honest, I thought at the oldest, he was twenty-four. I had no idea he was almost thirty.
He nodded and stepped back from me. “See? It’s not so easy to get past, is it?”
Numbness spread down my limbs as I slowly brought my gaze back to his. “Yeah, but I’m not mad at you for it.”
He sighed and nodded. “I know… my anger was just… displaced probably. It was easier to get mad at you and assume you were intentionally keeping it from me than to deal with my real feelings.”
