Steel & Ice (18 page)

I showered, had on my favorite sweats and
was curled up with my kindle and Deuce when I got a text from
J.

J: Hey baby

I squealed. Yes, I squealed again. J was
turning me into a damn squealer. Apparently we were on the pet name
basis and I couldn’t lie, I secretly loved it.

ME: sup dear

J: what r u doing

ME: reading. u?

J: thinking about u

I was unsure how to respond. Usually I would
be annoyed with that text because I wouldn’t want the sender to be
thinking of me. With J, it was the opposite. It didn’t feel like he
was pressuring me or caging me in and I didn’t know quite how to
handle those feelings. They were foreign to me.

J: r u ok? freaking out?

ME: no! not sure how to respond. never had
someone say that and be happy about it. i should b freaking out n
i’m not.

J: well don’t freak out on this one

ME: k...

J: i have to leave tomorrow night. won’t b
back til after xmas next week. pack a bag n come stay the nite w me
again?

J: NOW r u freaking out?

ME: text me ur address. can’t remember how
to get there :)

I didn’t squeal out loud but I was doing all
kinds of squealing inside as I packed a bag. Since I had to work in
the morning and J’s place was closer to the restaurant, I would get
a few extra minutes of sleep in the morning. Or a few extra minutes
of something else! I didn’t need to look good to cook, so packing
only took me a few minutes. Work clothes and shoes, toothbrush,
hair tie, socks and undies. That was about it. I was pretty sure
there was no need to pack pajamas. I did a mental fist pump.

I pulled up behind J’s Suburban and did a
ten second mental check. Bag, purse, sanity. Check. Check. Check. J
had the door open before I could knock, and my clothes on the floor
before I said hello.

“
What was that all about?” I
was out of breath, and draped across J’s body in bed.

“
You’ve got my head all a
mess,” he responded.

“
A mess?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead he
grazed his fingers slow and soft up and down my spine for a beat or
two. I was just about to give up on him answering when his fingers
stopped and he spoke up. “You’re all I can think about. All day. I
could smell you on my clothes. I found stray hairs of yours in my
truck. You’ve invaded every space in my head. Your presence in this
relationship scares you, but it’s the thought of your absence that
scares me.”

Wow. I tilted my head up and rested my chin
on his chest. “I referred to you as my boyfriend in my head today.
I’ve never done that. I’ve never been in a relationship. In fact, I
have successfully avoided words like boyfriend and relationship all
together for twenty-two, soon to be twenty-three years now.” I
paused, letting that sink in before I bared it all to him. “I’m in
just as deep as you.”

“
I won’t break you, baby.”
He smiled down at me.

I swatted his chest and laughed. “You better
not.”

He grabbed my hand mid swat. “So you thought
about me today.”

“
Yeah. Even Deuce couldn’t
get my mind off you.”

J abruptly turned on his side and grabbed my
hand. “Who is Deuce?” He looked like he was ready to murder
someone.

“
Dude. He’s a book
character. I was reading a motorcycle club romance when you texted
and he’s the president. Chill,” I told him, pulling his hand to cup
my face and kissing the palm.

“
Oh. You like
MCs?”

“
I like to read about them.”
I thought he would laugh about the fact that he was jealous of a
book character, but he still seemed tense. I pulled myself against
his chest and wrapped my legs around him. “Your heart is
pounding.”

“
You do that to me,” he
said, looking down at me with a serious face. We were all smiles
just a minute ago. What happened to that? I wanted smiley time
back.

“
What does J stand for? And
what is your last name? I feel a little slutty shacking up with
someone I only know as a letter.” I’d been thinking about these
questions and many others all day.

“
No laughing?”

“
Of course not.”

“
My mother was Puerto Rican,
and I told you my grandpa was full Lakota. So was my dad. Gramps
never really liked my mom, or so the story goes. He insisted I be
named my spirit animal’s name. My mom wasn’t havin’ it. They
compromised. My name is Bear Jesus Odell.”

“
So you really are God,
huh?” I leaned forward and touched my lips to his smiling
ones.

“
Yeah I guess so,” he
replied with a wink. “Once my mom left, my dad was in bad shape. He
drank a lot and would be gone for days or weeks at a time. Gramps
always called me Bear. So did my dad when he was around. In school
I tried to get the teachers to use my middle name, but they kept
pronouncing it the English way instead of the Spanish way. Somehow
I just landed on J.”

I hugged him tighter. It meant a lot that he
was willing to share this information with me. I never got to this
point with a guy where we talked about our pasts. I guess I never
wanted to talk about mine and I wasn’t really interested in any
guy’s.

“
So your grandpa raised
you?” I asked.

“
Sorta. He did until I was
sixteen. I had a lot of anger in me. My mom had abandoned us before
I even had time to make memories with her. And my dad was always
off on benders. I loved Gramps, but at sixteen I didn’t want to
hear any more about bears being a symbol of wisdom, protection, and
finding one’s true nature. I didn’t get what he was telling me and
I was tired of trying. I ran off to St. Louis. I didn’t come back
here until Gramps was dying.”

I was silent. “You still awake down there?”
J asked, lifting my chin up with his finger.

“
Yeah. I’m just
thinking.”

“
Care to share?”

“
Bear. I like that. I was
named after Eleanor Roosevelt. Not as cool as Bear,” I told him,
totally deflecting from what was really in my head: for the first
time, I was laying with a man that I wanted to know everything
about and I wanted him to know everything about me. And I was
terrified.

“
I have something for
you.”

“
You do?” I asked, sitting
up.

“
Yeah, since I’ll be gone
for Christmas.”

“
J, you shouldn’t have. I
didn’t get you anything. Well, not really.”

“
I didn’t get it. I made
it.” I sat on pins and needles as J leaned over and grabbed
something from his night stand. A place only condoms had come out
of!

“
Close your
eyes.”

“
OK, but you do anything
weird and I’m outta here.” I said it jokingly, but I was totally
serious. He was really stretching my comfort zone and making me
feel vulnerable with my eyes closed, but I trusted him…
right?

I felt him tie something on my wrist.

“
You can open them.” I
opened my eyes and blinked a few times before I looked down at my
wrist. It was covered in a leather bracelet. It was thick in the
middle, and tapered off to thin strings on each side that were
skillfully braided together. There was a metal clasp at one end
that could be looped though any part of the braided leather on the
other side. It was beautiful, and I was speechless, but it wasn’t
really the bracelet itself that had me speechless. It was what was
burned into the thick piece of leather that had my mouth hanging
open.

L & J

“
I don’t know what to say,”
I murmured

“
Fuck. Is it too much?
Please don’t freak out. I don’t want you to—“ I cut him off,
crashing my lips on to his.

“
So you like it?” he asked,
a confused lilt in his voice.

“
I love it, and it terrifies
me, and it takes my breath away, all at the same time. Thank you.”
I felt the liquid pooling in my eyes. “This is the most meaningful
thing anyone has ever done for me,” I whispered, barely keeping the
tears at bay.

“
Hey. No tears and no
fears.”

“
You’re a poet and you
didn’t know it,” I joked, wiping the rogue teardrop falling down my
cheek. “I brought something to show you. Not really a gift. And it
sorta seems lame now.” I rolled away from J and reached into my
purse that was next to the bed. I handed J a piece of paper. “It’s
from a couple months ago, and there hasn’t been anyone but you
since then.”

J stared at my test results for a moment.
Fuck, did he think I was crazy? He reached into his night stand
drawer again. Was he getting condoms because he didn’t believe I
was STD free?

“
I picked up a copy of this
today. It’s from a couple months ago, but same thing. No one but
you since then.” I stared at the piece of paper in my
hands.

“
Is this weird?” I’d never
exchanged STD test results, and wasn’t sure what the appropriate
response was. “It feels weird.”

J pulled me into his arms. “Merry Christmas,
baby,” he purred against my lips.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and
pushed my body against his so as much skin as possible was
touching. “Merry Christmas.” And it was a Merry Christmas, as J
proceeded to celebrate, sans-condom style.

Chapter
9

It sucked having J, gone but he texted every
couple days. I didn’t ask where he was or what he was doing. We
shared so much the night before he left that I was pretty full of
information for now. I could only handle it in pieces, because I
could only give it back in pieces. I had told him that night about
my mom, and being less than thrilled to spend Christmas with her
and my dad. Although our relationship was better than when I left
their house, it still wasn’t exactly painless. My sister wasn’t
coming home this year. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t come home if
I lived a plane flight away and could get away with it.

I’d go to my parent’s house on Christmas
Day, we’d exchange gifts, and have a meal. It was four hours I
could manage with the help of dad’s “special” eggnog. I’m not sure
what kind of alcohol was in it, but he started making it a couple
years ago and it was the best Christmas gift he ever gave me.

I went to the center again on Wednesday.
Penny mentioned the Christmas Party on Saturday again. “It’ll be
fun. You’ll get to meet the some of the teens’ parents.” That
really eased my nerves. Parents!

In the end it was Genesis who convinced me
to go. “Please Elle. It’s the first time Fernie is meeting my
parents. If you sit with us it won’t be so bad cuz they will be
interested in the guerrita at the table and not Fernie.”

“
So you’re using the white
girl as a diversionary tactic?” I smiled at Genesis. Again, I could
be offended, but I found her plan humorous and agreed to go. “Just
promise to translate anything I can’t understand and try to avoid
your parents asking me lots of questions.”

The party was at a hall downtown that the
center had rented. There was a dinner and a dance. I had no idea
what to expect. Not knowing what to wear, I went with black pants
and a sweater. It seemed… proper? Why did I need to look proper? I
was so in over my head here. Luckily Genesis was waiting at the
door for me. She texted me three times while I was on my way
telling me to hurry up.

“
Come one,” she said,
ushering me inside. “Fernie just got here and my parents are
already asking him a million questions.” She was pulling me by the
arm through the lobby and into the main hall.

“
Great. So now they can ask
me questions?”

“
It’ll be fine. Just smile
and nod.”

“
Thanks Genesis. Great
advice.” It actually turned out to be great advice. I understood a
little of what her parents said. They talked really slow for me
which was nice because I could understand them better, and
embarrassing because I felt like I was five years old. I got to
practice my Spanish answering their questions about how long I had
been working at the center and my studies at the university. It got
a little weird though when they asked Fernie what he wanted to
study in college. I had a feeling Fernie wasn’t really planning his
future past tomorrow.

“
Didn’t you say you were
good with computers?” I asked, saving him. “There are lots of jobs
out there for people with IT degrees.” Genesis translated for her
parents and they seemed pleased.

“
Thank you,” Genesis mouthed
to me. I tapped my right fist over my heart twice and held it there
with two fingers out. Genesis laughed, and Fernie put his fist out
for me to bump. I don’t think Genesis’s parents noticed our
nonverbal exchange, and if they did, I doubt they got it. It didn’t
matter though. Genesis knew I had her back, and Fernie was
grateful.

After dinner, the music began and people
started dancing. This was definitely not the bumpin’ n grindin’
type of dancing I did at Eight Oh Eight. I went to tell Penny good
bye and get out before I embarrassed myself.

“
I’m so glad you could come.
Sure you can’t stay and dance?” she asked.

“
Um, maybe another time,
after you give me some lessons.” She smiled, and told me she would
make sure I could Cumbia by next year’s Christmas party. As I
walked through the lobby, I exhaled a sigh of relief. Although the
evening wasn’t exactly in my comfort zone, it felt good to do
something out of the box. I’d had fun with Genesis, and I’m pretty
sure her parents were entertained with my broken Spanish. Most of
the teens were surprised to see me and had come over at some point
in the night to say hello. As odd as it may have seemed, there was
something cool about being the only white person in the room. Was
it awkward at times? Yes. But was it also fascinating? Absolutely.
It sure as hell was nothing like any party I’d been to, family or
on the streets. I could honestly say I was never bored. Still, I
was ready to sink back into my safe place.