Page 9 of A Kickin' Karate Christmas
That was a dangerous path to travel. I steered my thoughts back to where they needed to be: the silent auction and the party.
“Like it? I think it’s amazing, and we should go with it.”
He pulled his computer closer to him and began rapidly typing questions. He was muttering under his breath as he typed, but I couldn’t make out the words he was saying. I fought the urge to ask him what he was typing, what he was saying, but held my tongue.
When he finally finished, he angled his computer toward me.
The questions were all simple. The first ones questioned when and where the event would be held. I only had the answer forwhere. I thought it was obvious that the event would be held at the dojo. He had other questions too, ones that required more discussion.
We started at the beginning and worked our way through the list of questions. I noticed that the more we talked, the closer we inched together. By the time we reached the end of the list, I was barely able to focus on anything but the light pressure of his knee against my leg. My mouth was getting dry, and I knew it had nothing to do with all the talking we’d done. It was all about his knee pressed against mine.
It was all about the smell of his body wash on the air.
Avoiding the physical attraction between us becoming impossible, which meant hanging out with him was going to become impossible.
Too bad we had an entire event to plan.
Chapter five
Jake
“You’rebeingquiet.”
I looked over at Becca, Emerson’s mom. She was there to pick up Emerson for the weekend, and as always, our daughter was taking her sweet time getting her stuff together. Today, she couldn’t find her favorite stuffed animal, and she insisted she couldn’t go to her mom’s house without it. Sometimes, I wondered if she did it to make me and her mother spend time together. Other times, I knew that my daughter was just that way. She was always losing things and insisting they were needs, only to barely touch the thing she needed so badly the entire time she was gone.
Usually, Becca and I made small talk while we waited for our daughter. She caught me up on her relationship with her boyfriend and her job. I updated her on things going on with our daughter and with my work, and I always ended up rolling my eyes at least three times when she’d ask ifIhad met anyone yet. There was always the underlying implication that my life wassomehow less full because I didn’t share it with anyone. It wasn’t as if I had a lot of time to dedicate to a relationship between working full time and raising Emerson.
It was another reason I shouldn’t be thinking about Mateo as often as I had been since he’d come over. I didn’t have anything to offer him. I put it on the mental list of reasons why nothing could ever happen between the two of us, right under the very obvious one of him being Emerson’s teacher.
“Jake?” Becca’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I shook my head, like my thoughts were written on an Etch-A-Sketch, and I could focus better by clearing them that way. “Sorry, I’ve just been thinking about some stuff.”
“That’s vague,” Becca muttered. I glowered at her, and she let out a melodic laugh. “What kind of things?”
I looked toward the door of the living room, checking that Emerson wasn’t lurking, before turning my attention back to my daughter’s mother. “Emerson’s dojo is having some problems,” I told her quietly. “I’ve been helping Mat figure out ways to save it, and it’s been taking a lot of my mental resources.”
It was a partial truth. The project did take up a lot of my head space but not nearly as much as the man himself did. Ever since that night at my house, the way his leg felt pressed against mine, he’d been lurking in the back of my thoughts almost constantly. It had gotten to the point where he’d infiltrated my dreams, but those weren’t anything I planned on talking to Becca about. She knew that I was bisexual, but there were some lines I did not feel comfortable crossing with her. One of those being that we didn’t talk about our physical relationships or attractions unless they would affect Emerson.
And since I wasn’t allowing myself to travel down that road with Mateo, it wasn’t going to affect Emerson.
Becca didn’t read beneath the surface. I was grateful that she took what I said at face value. She didn’t question why I caredso much about this particular project aside from its significance to our daughter. It meant I could continue living in denial, continue trying to convince myself that the only reason I cared so much was because Emerson would be devastated if her dojo closed.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“We’re going to hold an event. There’s going to be a silent auction, so if you want to donate anything?”
“When is it?” Becca whipped out her cell phone. I knew that she was pulling up her calendar app. She lived and breathed by that thing. We even had a shared calendar for all of Emerson’s events, and she was always getting on me about not programming in things that Emerson had going on. Her organizational style and mine had clashed in our short marriage, and time and a child hadn’t changed that.
“Date to be determined,” I answered. “Mat’s gotta check with the rest of his staff.”
“Any other information? What kinds of things are you wanting donated? Is there anything I can give out at work? Maybe I can get more people involved.” Becca’s eyes were alight with the glow of a woman on a mission. That had been one of the things we’d both shared when we’d been together. We were problem solvers, and there was nothing that got either of us going like a goal to work toward.
I felt a surge of affection toward my ex-wife as she began asking questions about the event. Before long, my computer was open between us, and she was sharing her thoughts. When Emerson finally came downstairs with her backpack and stuffed animal, it took her at least five minutes to finally get her mom out the door. When they left, I pulled out my phone and texted Mat. Becca had given me a lot of great ideas, and I needed to meet up with him again to share them.
Mat wasn’t able to meet over the weekend. He was out of town for a tournament, but he was able to call me so we could discuss the things Becca had suggested. The third pair of eyes had really helped get the ball moving. Mat was also able to get me a date. Two weeks before Christmas. It would give parents enough advance notice, and it would give us a full month to plan it. It also meant that some of the auction lots could be Christmas presents for the children.
I spent the weekend texting Mat, grinning wildly when he sent me a selfie with a first prize medal around his neck. I caught myself looking at it too much, studying the little flyaways from his ponytail and the way his skin glistened with sweat. I memorized the pride in his eyes as he held the medal toward the camera. I was enamored with the dimple in his cheek that showed up in that picture, a dimple I’d not noticed any other time he smiled. But then, I wasn’t sure that I’d ever seen him smile that big in the dojo.
