Chapter 9
Sloan
♪ A Beautiful Mess | Jason Mraz
There was a small wet spot on my kitchen tile. “I think I’ve got a leaky pipe,” I told Jason over the phone. I started pulling out all the cleaning products from under my sink and dabbed at the damp surface with my finger. “Ugh, it’s definitely wet under here.”
“I can have a look at it for you when I get back,” he offered, a hopeful edge to his voice.
Jason was coming home tomorrow. He was packing his hotel room up as we spoke and heading to catch a flight in just a few hours. My stomach flipped again. It had been roiling for days in anticipation of meeting him in person. I was a mess. My eyelid twitched mercilessly from the stress.
“No, you’re not coming over here,” I said again. “I’ll meet you like we planned.”
“Come on, at least let me meet you at a restaurant. What kind of date is Starbucks?”
“It’s not a date,” I reminded him, sliding a bowl under the slow drip.
“Oh, that’s right. It’s an appointment.”
We’d known each other for two weeks, and for the last week of that, we’d spoken daily, for hours a day. We texted nonstop when we weren’t talking. I liked him so much it was ridiculous. I think I knew him better in a week than I’d known Brandon in six months—Jason was a lot less shy. But I couldn’t bring myself to agree to a real date. Not until we met in person.
“I just don’t want things to be weird,” I said, turning and sliding down to the floor with my back against the dishwasher. I closed my eyes and put a finger on my spasming eyelid.
“Why would they be weird?”
Because you’ve never seen me before? Because we’ve talked constantly for the last week and you’ve never even been in the same room with me?
I didn’t answer.
The long sound of a zipper closing on luggage came through the line. “Put Tucker on the phone,” he said.
“What?”
“Tucker, put him on the phone.”
“Like, put the phone up to his ear?”
“Yes.”
I got up and found Tucker sleeping on the sofa. “Should I leave you two alone for this?”
“Yeah, this is just between us guys.”
“Okay, here goes.” I held the phone to Tucker’s ear. He immediately perked up at the sound of Jason’s voice. He cocked his head and listened and then bolted off the sofa and tore around the living room, barking.
I put the phone back to my ear, laughing. “What did you say to him?”
“I asked him to show you how excited I am to meet you. Actually, I told him there’s a squirrel outside, but I think he still illustrated my point.”
I smiled into the receiver. Then I moved the phone away from my mouth and swallowed. “I made you something.”
“You did? What is it?”
“Just something. I’m going to send it to you now. I hope you like it.”
I attached a link to a text and held my finger over the little arrow that would put it into the universe. I took a nervous breath and sent it through.
No getting it back now. It was done.
“I’m going to go to bed early,” I said. “Have a safe flight, okay? I guess I’ll see you tomorrow…”
Chapter 10
Jason
♪ Soul Meets Body | Death Cab for Cutie
Sloan sent me a link to a YouTube video. I sat on the edge of my bed and watched it, maximizing the screen.
Someone held up a piece of paper in front of the camera that read, My vacation with Sloan. Then it began to show clips of Tucker. Tucker on hikes, Tucker swimming in a swimming pool. Tucker at Starbucks licking whipped cream out of a paper cup, and him at PetSmart with a blue plush doll in his mouth. Then he was in a bathtub getting a bath with his hair spiked into a Mohawk. Tucker chasing a green tennis ball on the grass and playing with other dogs at a dog park.
If I hadn’t already liked Sloan, this would have done it. Tucker was my currency. It might as well have been me she was spoiling, it had the same effect.
I smiled down at my screen as I watched a clip of Tucker on his back, getting a belly rub. Then the frame changed, and he sat on a couch next to a woman. I bolted to attention and pulled the phone closer.
The woman smiled at him, and he licked her face. I could see the tattoos on her arm. She looked directly at the camera and reached up off-screen, and the video ended.
My heart thudded against my rib cage. This was Sloan. This was the woman I’d been talking to.
And she was fucking beautiful.
I played the video back. Then I played it back again. I paused it and took screenshots of her so I could look at them. I zoomed in and studied her. She had one of those broad smiles that radiated. Full lips, large brown doe eyes, long golden-blond hair. Jesus, she was gorgeous.
I was still watching the video when I got into my Uber. I called her.
Voicemail.
* * *
I texted Sloan last night, telling her how beautiful I thought she was, but all I got was a smiley face and didn’t know how to interpret that. I think the stress of our meeting each other was getting to her.
It was getting to me too.
Even before I’d seen what she looked like, I’d liked her more than anyone else I’d met in a very long time. I went to sleep and woke up thinking about her. I fucking dreamed about her. I hadn’t even looked at another woman sideways pretty much since the moment we started talking. And all that for a woman I hadn’t even laid eyes on yet.
Now I worried that I would somehow not measure up—which was crazy. She’d seen enough pictures of me to know what to expect, and I was not an unconfident person by any stretch of the imagination. It was just that meeting her felt too important.
My flight had been smooth, and I’d gotten as much sleep as I could so I’d be fresh for our “appointment.”
After I dropped off my luggage at home, I took a shower, threw on a T-shirt and jeans, and took longer than I care to admit trimming my beard and messing with my hair. Then I made my way to the Starbucks on Topanga Canyon.
I waited on the patio, bouncing my knee, opening and closing my hand the way I always did right before I played in front of a big crowd. I’d gotten there half an hour early and I sat there scanning the parking lot and sidewalks, completely nervous and laughing to myself because I never got like this—for anything or anyone.
I didn’t know what it meant that I felt like this already. All I knew was that I did.
She was eight minutes late when she called.
“Hey,” I said, picking up on the first ring. “You said Topanga Canyon, ri—”
“Jason, I can’t come, my kitchen is flooded!”
Chaos came through the line. Tucker barked in the background, and I could hear the sound of spraying water. “The pipe under your sink?”
“Yes! Oh my God, it’s a disaster!”
I was already running to my truck. “Give me your address.”
There was a pause.
“I…but…”
I had to laugh. Still? Even now? “Sloan, your kitchen.”