Chapter 152
The dream
she had been having recurred again the night, crying babies, Nick, and all, and
when she awoke, Claire thought she was still dreaming. She had to be, for why else would she be
lying in Nick’s arms?
But there
she had found herself, curled up in a ball against him, using his stomach for a
pillow, her arm draped around him as if he were simply a large teddy bear,
perfect for squeezing as she slept.
Only, as she blinked around at her surroundings in surprise, she
realized she was very much awake.
Nick, on
the other hand, was still very much asleep.
She craned her neck to look at him, unable to move much because his arm,
too, was around her, and like a dead weight on her back, it had her almost
pinned against him. He was sleeping flat
on his back, like he usually did, one arm around her and the other at his side,
still fully dressed (as was she) and wearing his prosthesis as he lay on top of
the covers.
They must
have both drifted off to sleep, she realized, as the events of the night
returned to her. She remembered his warm
hug and their long talk and how much better she had felt afterwards. The feeling lingered; for the first time in
days, she had not woken up with a gnawing mix of worry, guilt, and despair in
the pit of her stomach.
Wondering
if it was already morning, she looked around what she could see of the hotel
room, searching for some indicator of what time it might be, but she was faced
away from the window and couldn’t see the bedside clock. At the same time she realized this, she decided
she didn’t care. So what if it was
morning? So what if she’d spent the
whole night with Nick? So what if Jamie
was worried? It wasn’t like she hadn’t
waited up and worried about him before.
He deserved to worry, if he even cared enough to be concerned about her.
Smiling to
herself, she let her head sink back down onto Nick’s stomach, relaxing against
him again. She didn’t want to untangle
herself from his hold and risk waking up him, so she stayed put for the time
being. It was actually quite comfortable
and oddly soothing. She could hear his
breathing magnified in her ear, and her head rose and fell with every breath.
She closed
her eyes, struck with the déjà vu of the intimate moment, waking up with
Nick. It was something she had not done
in a long, long time, not since they were living together. She was used to waking up next to Jamie
instead, yet even with her eyes closed, there was no denying it was Nick she
was with. He felt different than Jamie…
he smelled different… even his breathing sounded different. And yet, it was the same as it had always
been, the feel of his body, the clean scent of his skin and clothes, the gentle
whooshing sounds of his breath.
Lying
there, listening to him breathe, she felt a wave of nostalgia for what they had
once had, for all the lazy mornings they had spent together in his bedroom with
the ocean view, at home in Tampa. Only
once she had arrived in Iowa, where there was no view to speak of and no ocean
breeze to ease the stifling September humidity, with a husband who had turned
on her the moment their “perfect” married life had been interrupted, had Claire
realized how much she truly missed the life she had had with Nick in Florida.
It felt
sinful and even adulterous to think such things, but she couldn’t keep the
thoughts from coming. No matter how much
she wished she could block them, in the back of her mind, she was starting to
wonder if she had made a terrible mistake by marrying Jamie when she could have
stayed with Nick. But then, she had left
Nick even before Jamie really re-entered her life.
Maybe that
had been her first mistake.
How
different might her situation have been if she had married Nick instead of
Jamie? She wouldn’t be living in Iowa;
that was for sure. She would be back in
Florida now, or maybe Los Angeles – in any case, she would probably be near the
coast. Maybe she wouldn’t be pregnant…
but maybe she would. Maybe Nick would have
come to accept the idea of Jamie being her sperm donor, and they would have
decided to finish out the in vitro anyway.
If so, she probably still would have ended up in the same predicament,
forced to make a decision between her own life and that of her unborn third
child. It would have undoubtedly still
been stressful and painful, but surely, Nick would have been more supportive
than Jamie, and his reassuring presence would have made things easier for the
both of them.
A sigh slipped from her throat as she subconsciously brought her arm a little
tighter around Nick’s torso. He was
here… he was right here, soft and warm beneath her, so close she could touch
him and hold him, and yet… there was a distance between them, an invisible line
she could not cross, a boundary which made him, in many ways, untouchable. Physically, he could not have been closer to
her, and emotionally, he still filled a large piece of her heart, but legally
and spiritually, she was bound to someone else.
To Jamie. And though she felt
hurt and betrayed by her husband, she could not cross that line with Nick and
be unfaithful to him.
Unfaithful.
The word rang out like a gong in her mind. She knew that was what Jamie would think she
was being now if he could see her, lying on a hotel bed in such an intimate
position with Nick. But it didn’t bother
her much. She knew otherwise. She knew that she and Nick had lain this way
long before they were “together,” long before there had been a mutual
attraction between the two of them. The
intimacy they shared now was the intimacy between two close friends, who had
come together to share in the pain she had borne alone. But she would never expect Jamie to
understand something like that. It was
too personal, too deep and intangible, to be fully understood by anyone other
than Nick and her. It was a kind of bond
she shared only with him.
The thought
made her realize again what a special kind of relationship she’d had with
Nick. Had she made a tragic error in
letting go of that? She had thought that
her relationship with Jamie was special too; of course she had, or she would
never have married him. But a lot of
people married their high school sweethearts.
Not a lot of people – at least, not the people she knew – experienced
the kind of relationship she had with Nick, that sort of emotional closeness,
kindled by the empathy of shared tragedy.
Just thinking about it made her throat grow tight, and her ears suddenly felt
clogged. She could hear her own heart
beating deep inside them, its constant thumping interrupting the tranquil sound
of Nick’s breathing. She lifted her head
from his stomach, and with the movement, his arm slid limply off of her. He soon began to stir, and, swallowing hard,
she sat up and eased away from him, just as his eyes opened into slits of blue.
“Mm,” he
groaned, blinking a few times and taking a moment to rub the sleep from his
eyes before he squinted up at her in confusion.
“Is it morning?” he croaked.
Finally
able to sit up, Claire leaned over to check the clock. “Yeah.
8:30,” she read the time.
“Wow. We slept a long time.” He put his hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn
and surveyed her over the tips of his fingers.
“Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah… I
slept great, actually,” she replied, still surprised that she had.
“Good.” He smiled faintly, then frowned as he slowly
sat up. “Ugh, I’m stiff. Damn,” he said as he reached out and touched
the socket of his prosthesis. She
watched as he swung both legs over the side of the bed and started to take off
the artificial one. As he tended to the
leg, she climbed off the other side of the bed and found her purse, pulling her
cell phone out of its pocket.
10 missed calls, the notification glared up at her
from the phone’s small screen. A wry
smile crossed her lips; she was willing to bet they were all from Jamie. Or at least she hoped they were. It would have been a bad sign if he hadn’t
called.
She checked
her voicemail, and sure enough, there were several messages, all from
Jamie. The first sounded concerned,
reminding her that it was late, wondering where she was and if she would be
coming home. The second sounded
annoyed. (Where are you?? Call me.”) The worried tone returned in the third (“Claire? If you’re getting these, will you please call
me back? I just want to make sure you’re
okay.” ), and by the fourth message, he was angry again. (“Damn it,
Claire, answer your fucking phone.”)
After that,
he’d apparently stopped leaving voicemail.
She deleted
the messages and glanced over at Nick; he was plugging the titanium leg back
into is charger. She quickly punched in
the speed dial for Jamie’s cell phone and listened as it rang in her ear. It only buzzed twice before he answered with
an abrupt, “Where are you??”
His tone of
voice put her immediately on the defensive, and, indignantly, she replied, “That’s
none of your concern. I’m just calling
to let you know I’m okay, since you sounded upset on my voicemail.”
“Well,
yeah, no shit. I come home, and my
wife’s gone, with no indication of where she went. Of course I was upset!”
“I left a
note. It said I’m with a friend, and I
am.”
“What
friend?? Where are you?”
“I’m in Des
Moines. That’s all you need to know,”
Claire replied coolly.
“Who are
you with?” he demanded, and she could hear him getting angry.
“Why does
it matter?” she shot back. “You don’t
tell me where you’re going or who you’re going to be with. You went out last weekend and didn’t tell me
a thing. You didn’t come home, and you
didn’t even call, so why should I be expected to do those things? This little game works both ways, Jamie; I
can play it just as well as you can.”
“Some
game,” Jamie snorted derisively. “Hope
it was fun for you, cause it sure as hell wasn’t for me. I was up most of the night; I’m going on,
like, an hour of sleep here, and I’ve gotta be at work in half an hour. I was just about to call in because I thought
something had happened to you.”
“I told
you, I’m fine. Go to work; you can’t
miss a day already.”
“Yeah, thanks,”
he said sarcastically. “It’s because of
you that I was going to miss it. You
could have at least answered your damn phone.”
“Sorry,”
she replied without much sincerity. “I
fell asleep, and I didn’t hear it. But
like I said, I did leave a note. You had
no reason to worry.”
“Well,
excuse me for caring, Claire. Christ,”
he muttered.
“Oh, so now
you care?” She couldn’t help herself.
“I’ve
always cared,” he snapped. “I love you,
Claire.”
“You have a
funny way of showing it.”
Jamie’s
only response to that was a long sigh.
She held the phone away from her ear and shook her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see
Nick watching her.
“I gotta
go,” Jamie said curtly a moment later.
“Wherever you are, you better be resting, like the doctor said.”
“I have
been. I was perfectly relaxed until I
called you and got the Grand Inquisition.”
“Yeah,
well, some good that did. You still
won’t tell me who you’re with. But so
help me god, Claire, if you’re with that fucking Backstreet Boy-“
“What? You’ll what?” she challenged him, feeling her
face getting hot as she gripped the phone tighter.
Jamie
didn’t answer. Instead, she was met with
dead silence, and when she pulled the phone away from her ear a few seconds
later, she saw that the call had been ended.
He’d hung
up on her.
She clicked
off the phone in a rage and jammed it back into her purse, slinging the whole
thing across the floor. God damn
him. He knew just what buttons to push
to get her riled up, and even more infuriating, he’d figured out exactly what
“friend” she was with. She supposed it
wasn’t hard to figure out – she’d told him she was still in Des Moines, and
what other friend had the means to get to Iowa so quickly? And in a way, maybe she had wanted him to
find out, to know that there was another man in her life who could show her the
support and compassion Jamie seemed incapable of.
“Hubby’s
not happy?”
The
dryly-voiced question made Claire look up and over at Nick, still red-faced,
her blood boiling. She forced a
tight-lipped smile. “Gee, was it that
obvious?”
He returned
the grim smile. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m
fine. He just… argh! He pisses me off. He’s got all these double standards, and
he-” She stopped herself and shook her
head, forcing the angry words out of her mind.
She didn’t want to spend her time with Nick just ranting about Jamie.
Nick didn’t
reply, just simply nodded. She didn’t
blame him; what could he possibly say back to that? She knew what he must be thinking, that it
was all her fault for marrying the guy in the first place. But, to her gratitude, he didn’t tell her so.
Instead, he
just patted the spot on the bed next to where he was sitting, his back to the
headboard again, massaging his uncovered stump.
She climbed back on and sat beside him, sighing as she leaned her head
back against the pillows. “Thanks for
putting up with me,” she offered. “I
doubt many guys in your position would have much sympathy left for me, after
what I’ve put you through.”
Nick
shrugged and didn’t look at her. “That’s
got nothing to do with this,” he said.
“You told me when we broke up that you still wanted to be friends. Well, I’m just being your friend.”
“Well, in
case I didn’t tell you last night, you’re an amazing friend,” she replied,
putting her hand on his shoulder.
He didn’t
say anything back to that, but she could see the smile flicker across his face.
Now that
Jamie knew she was at least safe, Claire couldn’t think of any good reason to
go home, and so she didn’t. She spent
the rest of the morning in the hotel room with Nick, doing a lot of nothing,
except for just talking and flipping through the crappy selection of TV
channels, but enjoying herself just the same.
She took a shower and freshened up in his bathroom, and he called for
room service and ordered a big breakfast for the two of them. For the first time in well over a week,
Claire actually felt hungry and made sure that the food Nick had ordered did
not go to waste. After all, she was
still eating for three.
“Is there
anywhere you wanna go? Anything you
wanna do?” Nick asked, as the noon hour approached. “What is there to see in Des Moines? I’ve been in this area on tour, but I’ve
never actually done much else in the city.”
“Honestly,”
Claire laughed, “I have no idea. I was
only here a day before all of this stuff started up, so I haven’t had a chance
to see anything. This is Jamie’s
terrain, not mine.”
Nick
nodded, offering a sympathetic smile.
“Are you
bored?” she asked. “Cause, really, I’m
perfectly content right here. But if
you’re bored, we can find somewhere else to go.”
“Nah,
that’s okay. I’m up for whatever you
feel like doing,” said Nick with a shrug.
And so,
they did nothing. But doing nothing with
Nick was a lot better than doing nothing while she was cooped up at home by
herself, worrying and grieving. Nick
listened to her when she felt like talking about everything that had happened,
and helped take her mind off of it when she didn’t. He was truly wonderful.
Still,
Claire knew the escape he was providing her could only be a temporary one. Sooner or later, he would have to go back to
LA, and she would have to go back “home” and try to rectify things with
Jamie. Despite the way he had been
treating her, she wasn’t ready to give up on her husband yet. She had to try to make things work, for the
sake of their unborn children. She only
hoped he was willing to do the same.
The
afternoon hours ticked by, and when it came to be close to the time when she
knew Jamie would be getting off work, Claire finally turned to Nick and said,
“I should probably head home soon… see if I can catch Jamie before he
disappears again. We really need to
talk.”
Nick
nodded, his expression blank. “I’ll walk
you downstairs whenever you’re ready, and we can get you another cab.”
“You don’t
have to walk me down,” she started to assert, but Nick just smiled patiently.
“I
know. But maybe I want to,” he said, and
she smiled back, conceding. She got her
purse and, still wearing the loose clothes she’d arrived in, went with Nick
down the hall to the elevators and rode to the main level. He escorted her through the lobby and out to
the main entrance, where a row of taxis were parked nearby. He walked her to the front car and handed the
driver a wad of bills before she had a chance to protest, leaning through the
open window to add, “Keep the change.”
“Thanks
very much,” replied the slightly surprised-looking cabbie. “You got any bags you need help with, Miss?”
he addressed Claire.
“No,
thanks,” said Claire, who only had her purse with her. She turned to Nick on the sidewalk. “Will I see you again? When are you heading back?” she asked.
“I haven’t
decided yet. I mean, it depends on what
you want me to do. I was gonna just stay
the weekend, but if you need me to be here longer-”
“No, no,”
she said quickly, “I know you need to get back to LA. But the weekend would be great, if you want
to stay.” She smiled at him. Today was only Friday.
He nodded,
returning the smile. “Alright. So then you will see me again… won’t you?”
“Absolutely. Let me see how it goes with Jamie tonight,
and I’ll call you, okay? I promise we’ll
do something… later tonight, tomorrow, whatever works. Does that sound okay?”
“Sounds
great. Whatever’s good with you,” Nick
agreed.
There on
the curb, Claire came forward and impulsively pulled Nick in for a tight
hug. “Thank you so much, for
everything,” she said quietly in his ear as he leaned down to embrace her. “I feel so much better than I did yesterday.”
“Good. I hope things go good with Jamie. Call me, and I’ll come kick his ass if they
don’t. Solid titanium, baby,” he added,
patting his artificial leg as he let go of her.
She
grinned. “Yeah, well, maybe having your
titanium foot shoved up his ass would do the trick. I’ll let ya know.”
“I’ll be
here,” he winked.
Claire had
a hard time forcing herself to climb into the cab; she dreaded the thought of
leaving Nick, who had been so good to her, and going home to face Jamie, who
had been so cold. But she knew she had
to, the sooner, the better. And so, she
forced herself to tell Nick goodbye, repeating her address to the cab driver as
she climbed into the back and pulled the seatbelt loosely across her front.
The cab
soon pulled away, leaving Nick standing on the curb in front of the hotel. Claire glanced back once, but as the car
rounded a corner, he was quickly lost from her view.
What she
did not see and would never know was that as soon as her taxi had driven off,
Nick walked up to the second cab in line and climbed inside.
***