Page 12 of Jump

Love looks good on the olive-skinned beauty, and the sparkle in her eyes is something I missed for a long time. But the thought of him hurting her again makes my soul ache. And the idea that she might officially move out of our place soon and live with him leaves me with sorrow settled deep in my stomach.

Not because of the rent money I’ll have to pluck from thin air. But because not living with her would be devastating. To not have her in our living room each night would suck. To make my coffee alone each morning, without her silly commentary and bubbling personality, would be the worst.

Very few people find someone they can live with comfortably. Even lovers, husbands and wives, find things to dislike about each other before long. Socks left on the floor, or crumbs scattered on the counter. Minor annoyances that turn into massive fights because Person A and Person B cannot communicate. None of that has been an issue in all the years Hannah and I have cohabitated.

But she’s already leaving her toothbrush in Axel’s new home. Her hair straightener long ago vanished from our bathroom. Her favorite slippers, gone.

It’s already happening, and my desire for her to be happy with the man we both know is the love of her life wages a war with my need to keep her all for me.

It’s a selfish yearning I have no trouble confessing to.

But dammit, I know the time is coming soon when, instead of visiting Axel and living with me, she’ll be living with him, and visiting me.

“Every married man who wants to bang someone else says he’s not married,” she scoffs, still entirely too obsessed with my sex life from months ago.

And by sex life, I mean that one night I got to be with a stranger I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of since he walked me home.

He’s like a fantasy for me now. The perfectly crude gentleman who both slapped my ass and stared like I hung the moon and stars. The giant who ogled my breasts without shame, but not once while he was doing it did it feel like a violation of my personal space or privacy.

No. His stare felt like a gentle touch. A perfect caress.

The time we spent together felt almost fairytale-like, if Hans Christian Andersen also wrote about his princes’ tongues in sensitive places. Hands, touching a woman’s body. If he wrote of what happened after the kiss, while the lights were out and the moon sat high in the sky.

Matt was no storybook prince, but the memories he gifted me kinda feel that way. And, just like promised, there was no next day. No awkwardness. No shyness. No humiliation, walking home with my shoes in my hands and cars honking as they passed. There was no reason for me to feel cheap or used, because he revered me in ways no man ever has.

And, because there was no morning after, there was no ruining what we did in the dark.

So our single night lives on in perfection. Unsullied by harsh daylight. For that reason alone, I remain tightlipped on the man who brought me to ecstasy time and time again. I hardly speak of him, even when Hannah nags. And I never go looking for him, because maybe he settled right here in town, or maybe he went away and has never crossed the train tracks again.

Either way, I don’t wish to know.

And the fact I own and operate the Friendly Paws dog shelter just outside town means I get to stay hidden too. I come here. I go home. I order my groceries for delivery, and I spend my time with Hannah.

My life is entirely insulated, and my memories are perfectly intact.

“You still haven’t even told me who.” Hannah presses her hand to my chest and stops me from walking away. Lifting a single, dangerous brow, she pins me with a glare. “Vivian Doyalson, I’m begging you to tell me who he is. Is he an axe murderer? Mahatma Gandhi’s secret love child? The local pastor?”

I laugh and circle away to continue working. I have too many dogs who need my attention, and not enough hours in the day. “I don’t think he’s a murderer. Though, if he is, he seemed nice. I don’t know Gandhi’s children, secret or otherwise. And the local pastor is married.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” She spins on her heels as I push through the heavy wooden door, and follows me outside. “Married men want to get laid too, Viv. And they’re the kind who prefer anonymity and darkness and all that jazz. You said it’s ‘complicated’, so… hello? Red flags.”

“It’s complicated because he was with someone else before me. He clearly still thinks about her, which kinda says they’re not over yet. So I was a seat-filler, but I’m not bitter.”

I flip a massive Rubbermaid-type tub on the lawn to clear the remnants of yesterday’s drinking water, then I kick it back in place, grab the end of the hose, and set it inside. Sidestepping my friend, I turn the tap on and make my way back to hold the hose before it snakes out of control and soaks us both.

“It was a good night, Han. He was good to me. It felt…” I glance across. “Magical. Now it’s done, and if you don’t mind, I’d really like to not tarnish the memory of what we had.”

“But, Viiiiiv,” she whines. “I wanna know.”

“That night was a gift to me,” I tell her. “A time capsule kind of thing. A singular event that has now been locked in a bottle and left for posterity. Why do you insist on ruining it?”

“I’m not trying to ruin it,” she grumbles. “I just wanna know.”

Winter is here now, which means no more wandering the night in only a gown, or swimming in the lake in the dark. Instead, it means gumboots all the way up to my knees, and sweatpants tucked into those to keep me warm. It means a hoodie, and a hat to cover my ears.

I look like a shapeless Gumby. Not at all like the perfect Hannah Sullivan, in her body-hugging jeans and lace-up boots. Her long, brown hair, tied in cute plaits, and her plump lips lined with color and looking so very kissable—not that I want to make out with my best friend.

Where Hannah is always effortlessly runway ready, I often look a little homeless.

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