Jamie
Jo almost hesitantly asked if Jamie would lie down with her for a nap, so he ended up texting Mary-Beth back before eleven and promising he’d get her out of the house later. He left his phone in Jo’s living room, though, when he went in to lie down with her, so he wouldn’t be tempted to keep checking it. Jo looked exhausted, and he didn’t want to mess with her chances of rest.
It also meant that he had nothing to distract him from the fact that he got into Jo’s bed, adjusted the pillows, and all but forgot to breathe as she snuggled up to him. It wasn’t like last night, which was basically a side hug that would pass muster by the Duggars according to what he’d seen when Mom was watching. That was in public, which was part of what made it amazing, but it was a good thing this was in private. She had her head on his chest, her arm around him, one leg across him … she was just so trusting, and maybe it was because she was completely exhausted, or maybe it was because he made her feel so safe that she could finally relax. He couldn’t keep thinking about that because it made him choke up, and the last thing he needed was to grab one of her Kleenexes, but he closed his eyes and held very still and failed at cataloging all the places they were touching.
They were clothed, of course, even if she was in sweatpants, but this was still more than he’d ever thought he’d want. Or—hell, he had nothing but his thoughts—more than he expected anyone would want with him. It was one thing for Ricky to tell him he was flirting, but there didn’t seem to be anything, what, casual about what Ricky wanted? Except, thinking that, he couldn’t just write off kisses as casual. Maybe it was the feeling that Ricky wanted sex, but Jo sought intimacy. She’d certainly had sex before—God, she’d been married for years, and had Jamie Googled photos of Jake? Of course he had—so she knew what she’d be missing, but it wasn’t like Ricky was a virgin. It was just, what, that Ricky needed something else to feel satisfied?
This was not a conversation he’d have with Chase. The weird part was that he could see himself having a version of it with Ricky.
The thing was, he’d been to plenty of weddings. Mom hadn’t gone to Allan’s third, as a matter of principle, but he’d been to all of those, and Shane’s, too. It was weird how Allan always went into them with the same sort of wide-eyed optimism he used in every relationship, but Shane was insulting his bride-to-be during his bachelor party. Chase and Ricky were a whirlwind, but Dune and Talon were together for years before deciding to get a marriage license. Trevor and Mitch came back from Vegas with the license but without rings and basically downplayed it. There were other weddings, of course, and other friends, but really the only commonality was that, at the end of the day, two people were legally entwined.
It wouldn’t make sense for Jo to still have wedding photos on her Facebook page, but he’d checked anyway. He wanted to know what she looked like when she was even younger, and if she’d gone for some kind of princess gown or something slinky and beaded. Hell, he wanted to know everything: the flowers she’d picked for her bouquet. How she’d chosen the bridesmaid’s dresses. Whether Jake complained about having to wear a tux, and if it was good-natured or had that underlying bite of truth. Which song they picked for their first dance, and which one she’d chosen for the dance with her dad. And was it because this was all more than a decade ago, and she’d been jilted and divorced for a while, that it didn’t bother him to wonder these things? He didn’t want to ask her to relive it in case that meant actually asking whether she should already have known on the day that it wasn’t going to last, but the questions remained.
It wasn’t that he wanted to see Jo walking up the aisle toward him in a white gown, exactly. Mostly the idea was just so foreign he felt like he had to circle it warily first and try not to scare it off if he wanted a closer look. Jo’s marriage to Jake had happened, so he couldn’t shy away from it if he wanted to. It was a reality, even if all digital evidence had been deleted.
Wait, how had Jake asked her? In private, surely, because Jo wasn’t the kind of person to really like public moments. Sure, she’d done the drag show, but that wasn’t your average everyday Jo. Unless it had been, once upon a time, and she’d either grown up or Jake had changed her.
Jake’s mom had worked on her. Jamie knew that much, and it made him feel even more cautious about putting Mom and Jo together, because he didn’t want Mom to push Jo away.
Heaven help him, he’d even gone to Zillow and Apartments.com. Mom wasn’t nearly as frail as Shane especially seemed to think she was, and she hadn’t gone downhill fast the way many spouses did when they were widowed. Hell, she still volunteered and was out of the house multiple nights a week with her friends. If Shane really worried about her falling down the stairs and wouldn’t trust her with a Life Alert, then he could get his own divorced ass down from Houghton and take up the next shift.
Okay, but that was getting ahead of himself. Maybe Chase and Ricky moved that fast, but Jamie either knew himself too well or didn’t know himself well enough to jump right in. Jo was up for the summer and NMU’s classes didn’t start until August 25, so she had the apartment through the 20th. Maybe even that wouldn’t be enough time for him to make the decision and pull the plug—ugh, that was a terrible metaphor—on moving out of Mom’s, but there was a reason neither Shane nor Allan had volunteered.
Moving back in with your mom, no matter how old you were, made you a dependent kid again. It didn’t help that being here with Jo like this made him feel like an awkward teenager, oh so aware of the fact that most people his age had long since gotten past this part. He had his own car, sure, and spending money, but there were still all those unspoken rules, and a curfew, and he knew he hadn’t primed Mom to lose him to anyone. Forty-seven years without a single date, and who could blame her for thinking there’d never be one?
Mom didn’t know he was aroace. She thought it was weird that all his friends were queer, like he was the token straight guy. Some of her volunteer hours were, as she worded it, with the youths at the library, and she was exposed to discussions of identity and diversity and all the rest, but there was a huge chasm between being able to use language and actually meaning it.
If he kept trying to think about it, it was just so confusing, but if he just lay here with Jo … matching his breathing to hers … a lot of things simply made sense.
Chapter Twenty-Seven – coming October 27
