Mama led me to the table to sit. My legs were wooden. Jack's eyes were heavy and dark and his lips pouted sensuously . . . or stubbornly, I wasn’t sure which. He stared at his glass in front of him.
“I’m so glad you’re finally here. We kept dinner waiting for you, and I’m afraid we might have had a bit more mead than we should have.” Mama giggled and almost tripped over her feet. Maria jumped up to help her. “No, no. I’m fine. We’re having spanakopita. Your favorite.”
“Thanks, Mama,” I said. Jack refused to look at me.
Dad must have noticed something. Something between me and Jack. He jumped up. “I’m gonna go lay a fire in the yurt. It takes a while to warm up, so I need to light it now so it’s ready for bedtime.”
That got my attention. I tore my gaze from Jack. “I’m sorry. Yurt?”
Dad puffed up his chest proudly. “I was gonna tell you about it last time you came up, but you guys left so suddenly, I didn’t get to show it to you. I built a yurt. You’ll be the first to actually spend the night in it. So you guys will have to tell me how it sleeps.”
I cleared my throat. “Dad, we’re not—”
“Thanks.” Jack interrupted me. “I love sleeping in a yurt.”
“Oh.” Dad perked up. “You know yurts, do you?”
“Yes. I was on an expedition in Mongolia. A fascinating people, the Mongolians.”
“Mona. He’s been everywhere. Have you heard his stories?”
I got ready to say I’d heard enough of his stories. But Jack interrupted me. “I’ve invited her on my next trip.”
Dad leaned up against a kitchen chair, one he’d carved himself. “Oh, really, where will you be going?”
“We’re not—” I started. Jack interrupted again.
“Sri Lanka.”
“You didn’t invite me to Sri Lanka.”
“You didn’t give me the chance. That’s why I’m here now.”
“Oh, it is, is it?”
Dad eyed us warily. “I’m gonna go light the fire in the yurt now,” he said and then slipped out of the kitchen.
“You’re inviting me to Sri Lanka, are you?”
“I’m inviting you everywhere.”
“But I said no.”
“No, you didn’t.”
I felt my rage rising. My nostrils flared at him. How dare he? Then my mom turned back to us, plates of flaky spanakopita and a fresh salad with green goddess dressing slid in front of us. “Eat, kids, eat. Don’t wait for Dad. You’ve had a long trip. You too, Maria—you have to feed the baby soon.”
“Thank you, Mama,” Jack said, turning the charm on my mother. How dare he? “This looks delicious.” Mama already loved him. And something had happened before I got here to make her love him more, and I didn’t know what it was. How did he get here before me? How did he even know I was coming here?
Dinner was tense. For me at least. Jack seemed to be having a great time. He told my dad about the yurt in Mongolia along with his other travels. Mama laughed as dad leveled question after question at him. Finally, I could take it no longer.
“The yurt, you said?” Now it was my turn to interrupt. “You’re giving us the yurt for the night? I think I’d like to turn in.” I stood and looked down at Jack. “Come on, Jack. Let’s go.” It was not a request. It wasn’t anything but a demand and he knew it.
He grinned at my sharp tone. “Thank you for dinner. It was really lovely. But, apparently, Mona has something she’d like to say to me in private.”
Mama and Dad and even Maria, who barely knew us for goodness sake, laughed and teased.
“Oh, don’t be too hard on him for surprising you,” Mama said. “Remember what I told you about fate. It doesn’t always take the smoothest path, but it’s always for the best.”
I glared at her. Was she plotting against me with Jack? Her smile was brilliant and completely unapologetic. I decided she might be.
“I put your bags in your room . . . I mean, in the yurt,” Dad said. Also smiling brilliantly. He might be plotting against me, too. He liked Jack far too much for my liking. “It’ll be easy to find, Mony; it’s out by the swimming hole. But bring the flashlights by the back door because it’s not electrified.”
“Not electrified—” Ugh. I had no patience for my parents anymore. “Fine. That’s fine. We’ll rough it. I’m sure Jack has plenty of experience with low-tech living in his travels.”
“I do, as a matter-of-fact.” He rocked back on his heels, smugly, enjoying my upset. I glared at him, too. I glared at them all.
No more words for me. It was a conspiracy. I stormed out the door and picked up one of the heavy-duty flashlights that always stood there and didn’t wait for Jack to follow me. But he did.
I heard his footsteps behind me before he caught up to me and took the flashlight right out of my hand. “Hey! Get your own flashlight.”
“Nope,” he said, and angled the light off in the distance. “Is that it over there?”
It looked like it. But I didn’t want to help him out. I stopped. “You are such a jackass. Every time I believe you’re not, you reach even bigger levels of jackassery. You followed me!”
“I didn’t follow you. I got here first. You followed me in that ridiculously slow Prius. I’ve been here for hours.”
I gaped at him. “Did you speed the whole way?”
“Yes, as a matter-of-fact, I did. You want to explain why I had to?”
“You didn’t have to. Clearly, I wanted to be alone. You said you’d take it the way I wanted, and then, you stalked me all the way up to my parents’ house. How could you?”
“How could I?” His voice was cold and quiet and filled with something I hadn’t heard from him in so long. Rage. “You left me. You ran from me. You told me you loved me, and then, you ran away.”
And then, I did it again. I stomped off in the darkness towards the only vaguely seen yurt that would, apparently, be the place where I ripped him apart. Or he ripped me apart. Or we mutually destroyed each other. He kept the flashlight trained on me, but it was enough for me to see my way through the dark to the front steps of the yurt. Where I stopped.
Jack caught up with me. “Are you going to keep running away from me?”
I ignored him. “He made a yurt. My dad actually made a yurt. He can’t stand to have nothing to do so he made a building out of what? Twigs?”
“It’s impressive, actually. Your dad is cool. You, however, are infuriating.”
“Ugh.” I opened the door and left it ajar for Jack to follow me. He did.
We stood there for a minute, in the circular room, maybe fifteen feet in diameter, lit by lanterns and a cheerily blazing wood stove. The bed was cozy and draped in handmade quilts and two large vintage wing chairs stood in front of the fire. There wasn’t much else.
“This isn’t like the yurts in Mongolia. This is more like some sort of rustic honeymoon suite.” He laughed.
“Don’t get any funny ideas.”
“There’s only one bed,” he said with a leer.
I turned on him and pushed him. “Dammit, Jack. Stop making a joke out of everything. You followed me. I told you I didn’t want to be with you and you followed me.”