Chapter Eleven
I woke up with the sun beating down on my face. I rolled over, hiding my face in the pillow. I breathed in, the smell of laundry soap and cologne filled my nostrils. My eyes shot open and I took in my surroundings.
“Holy shit!” I yelled, leaping from the bed and standing in the middle of Jonah’s room. Jonah lifted his head from the pillow and turned to look at me with a lazy smile.
“Good morning.” He yawned, stretching his arms. I assessed myself. My clothes were intact. I looked at Jonah, who was shirtless on the bed with his body covered from his waist down.
“Please tell me you have pants on.” I yelped.
He grinned smugly and yanked the blankets off of himself. I screamed.
He sat up and walked to me, taking my hands in his and placing them on his hips. I sighed with relief when my fingers brushed coarse fabric.
“Not even funny.” I glare.
“Not even a little?” he asked, his hair was mussed up. I smoothed it down only for it to spring back up.
“Finally! I get to see you when you’re not one hundred percent ready for the day!”
He stuck his tongue out and stalked out of the room without a shirt on.
“Don’t you think you should put a shirt on?” I asked after him.
He popped his head back in the door, looking up as if he were searching in his brain. Then he shrugged. “Nope.” He smiled and walked down the stairs.
I sat down on his bed, thinking about the last few days. I had shown up just a few days before. Five at the most? Maybe? I wasn’t sure, time and days were blending together now. I tried to remember what day I had arrived, what day everything had changed from being friendly to being more. Jonah kissed me whenever he got the chance. I pictured his lips against mine, thinking about when it would actually happen. So many times we had almost kissed, so many times had been perfect.
We were together, regardless of how official it was. I didn’t know if we were rushing things, which frightened me. We had gone through all the motions of a seven month relationship in the matter of a few days. But when I thought about it more… we’d been going through the motions for years. We’d known our feelings were intense since the moment we met. But both of us had to make mistakes before we knew where we were really supposed to be, with each other.
I thought back to the first day that I had showed up at Laynie’s, the drive way full of cars. I thought about how Jonah stood there, his smile so sincere that I could have wept there in front of him. I remember the way he shrugged off the subject of Hannah and insisted on being close to me even with her in close proximity.
I thought about our race to The Chum Buggy to see who would ride in front of Laynie. I thought about his hands in mine, his lips on my cheek.
I shuddered when I thought about how willing he was to lay himself down on the line in order to keep me out of harm’s way.
And then I thought about last night, we had fallen asleep together, completely satisfied with just being close to one another.
This wasn’t going to be another summer fling. This wasn’t going to be some controlled, nasty, jealous relationship either. What was that old phrase… it was going to be friendship on fire. With mighty white wings and threatening talons that could bring us to our knees.
I don’t feel like this is going to weigh me down like it had before. I felt weightless, like every problem we have we’ll face together, head on. I could talk to Jonah, when I wasn’t swooning or tongue tied. And Jonah could talk to me, we could communicate in a way that, a year ago, I couldn’t even fathom.
I closed my eyes, picturing his lips again. His lips were soft, paper thin, and when he smiled I felt the sun radiating in my stomach, like every beam of light was threatening to burst through me.
I kept my eyes closed, even as I felt the weight of Jonah press down on me, making me lay back. He pressed kisses on my cheeks and forehead.
“What are you thinking about up here all alone?” he asked.
I smiled. “You.”
“What about me?” he asked, brushing his nose against mine.
I shrugged, tried to pull my shirt down where it had risen up. I felt Jonah’s skin against mine, my stomach flipped. “Nothing in particular.” I smiled.
“Aw, come on. Just tell me one thing you were thinking about.” He whined teasingly.
I thought about which thing would make me seem like less of a love drunk teenager. “I was thinking about racing to the car at the grocery store and fighting for shot gun.” I said, regretting the choice I had made.
“I totally should have won that one.” Jonah said, kissing his teeth.
I laughed, I pictured the sound radiating up to the ceiling and bursting against the textured walls.
Jonah grew quiet. “Tell me ten things about yourself, that no one else knows.” He said quietly, a touch even lower than the quietest of whispers. For a second I thought I was just imagining that he had even spoke.
“Only if you tell me ten things too.” I teased, brushing my fingers against his temple.
“Deal.” He said softly, his eyes closing. He rested his head on my shoulder, still lying down on top of me, his arms spread out on either side of him.
“This is going to be hard.” I whispered. “I can’t think of anything I haven’t told you.”
“I’m waiting.” He teased.
“Okay.” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “One. When I was in first grade, my teacher had all of us draw pictures of what we wanted to be when we were older. The boys in my class drew cowboys or football players. And the girls in my class drew vets and princesses and hair stylists, models and actresses with big ugly glasses.”
“And what did you draw Mrs. Evans?” Jonah asked into my shoulder, a smile playing on his lips.
“I drew a picture of a boxer.” I laughed at the memory.
“I drew me, with really long hair, because I had hair down to the back of my knees when I was a kid, and I was in a red robe with big old gloves on my hands and head gear and everything. I was the best artist in the class.” I said smugly. “But anyway, afterwards, we all hung up our drawings and told the class what we had drawn. And when it was my turn to tell everyone what I drew, all the girls were looking at me like I’d just betrayed them because all of the boys were freaking about how awesome I was. I was the first pick for the kickball team for a whole week.”
“I can totally see that happening.” Jonah chuckled. “Tide One Two Punch Evans!” Jonah said in his announcer voice.
I rolled my eyes. “Do you want to hear number two or not?” I laughed.
Jonah quieted, stifling the rest of his laughs so I could continue.
“Number two. Also when I was little, there was this really pretty apartment building right next to my house between a bunch of trees. It was a big brick building with ivy growing all over it. I swear one day I’ll have a house that looks just like it. But anyway, in the front of the apartment they had this little garden that had a bird bath right in the middle of it and this big stone bench that circled around the bird bath. And every once in a while, I’d go up to the bird bath and dump all of the water out and go get water from the kitchen sink and refill it with clean water after I scrubbed out all the algae and grime with my hands.”
“Such an adventurer.” Jonah teased. He sniffed the air, his eyes widening. “I forgot the pancakes!” He darted downstairs, me following close behind him.
Jonah slid the burnt pancake into the trash and waited for the pan to cool down a little before he poured more batter.
“Okay, sorry about that. You can continue now.” He smiled.
“What number were we on?” I asked.
“That was number two.”
“Are you sure that last one wasn’t number three?” I suggested.
Jonah looked at me blankly, his voice low. “It was number two.”
“Fine. Fine.” I held my hands up in surrender. “Number three, I’ll never admit it if you ask me about it in front of people, but my favorite smell on the entire planet is horse fur.”
Jonah looked at me, his head quirked to the side. “Why horse fur?”
“Because I used to live in a farm?” I told him, wondering if I had told him about that or not. “Does that count as two?”
“No. It doesn’t. But explain yourself more. You can’t just say ‘because I used to live on a farm’, and act like that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. I need details. Details!” Jonah flipped the pancake he was working on. I could hear the batter sizzling.
“Okay. I was freakishly obsessed with horses until I was about… okay, I’m still freakishly obsessed with horses. But when I was little, my dad taught me how to ride. We had all of these little paint ponies. I had named one of them Flower, and she was mine. Whenever my cousins would come out the farm I’d yell at them if they asked any of the adults to ride her. She was almost all white. But she had a big black circle on her hind quarters, right around her tail. And then she had a big circle on the side of her belly, with three little black stripes through her main.”
I pictured Flower, I was so little back then that I couldn’t even reach over her back, my fingers would barely brush against the top of her neck. My dad stood over her easily, Flower’s back only made it up to his hip.
“But my dad was at work one day and I’m not sure where my mom was, and I wanted to take Flower out and ride her. So I rigged up this contraption that I used to catch her. It was this long feed trough that I thought was going to kill me to move and then the salt feeder. I moved the feed trough up against the barn with a little bit of space in between, and then I’d lure her up into the pocket between the two. I’d set out a bucket of oats and then crawl around her and shove the salt feeder up behind her so she couldn’t back out. Then, I’d put a harness on her with a lead rope and tie her up to the gate.”
Jonah listened intently now. I could see in his eyes that he was taking in every little thing that I was saying, every miniscule detail.
“After I got her all pretty and got out all the cockleburs, I grabbed a five gallon bucket and flipped it upside down.”
I saw everything, thought about how my dad hadn’t been at work after all, though that was what I remembered he had told me. He’d been somewhere else entirely, with someone else and her kids. I flinched at the memory and instead focused on the memory that I wanted to keep pure and perfect.
“I climbed up onto the bucket, but I still wasn’t tall enough to reach over her. I tried to pull myself up, but every time I slid down with my face in her fur.” I laughed out loud a little, my eyes welling up a little. “I got pissed so I ran inside to get my grandpa. He was sitting in his chair reading the newspaper. I told him ‘that damn pony is too darn tall and I don’t have big enough boots to get up on her!’” I laughed.
Jonah’s eyes widened. “You said that to your grandpa?” he yelped.
“Yes I did.” I said matter of factly.
“What did he say?”
I smiled even wider. “He said ‘we can’t have that now can we? Those damn boots.’ and then he took me back outside and got out the saddle and everything and led me around the paddock.” I clapped my hands against my legs, showing Jonah that I was done with the story telling for the time being.
My tears were spilling over now and I wiped them away as quickly as I could.
“I’m hungry.” I said, laughing through the tears.
Jonah kissed my forehead and turned back to the stovetop to pour more batter into the sizzling pan.
). You might consider having them exchange stories at random intervals. like if she's upset, he could tell her one, and she could retaliate (which i know isnt the best word, but it's the only one that comes to mind.)
Otherwise - L O V E T H I S S T O R Y S O M U C H !
