Wish Come True (The Blogger Diaries Trilogy Book 3) (16 page)

He drove me home, just like he had the night we went out dancing, and ended the night with sweet kisses and words of love. It’s so different than the way nights used to end with him, with awkward smoke breaks, him not wanting to show me any affection or get too close. Looking back, I understand it now. Sharing these special moments at the end of the day makes me fall more and more in love with him, and him distancing himself back then was his way of staving off these feelings. It makes me appreciate them even more now.
 

He pulled up a calendar on my last day with him, and we picked out the dates he’ll be coming to see me. He’s bound and determined to drive, instead of just flying, but he’s going to stay for four days instead of just a weekend, so I’m making no complaints.
 

Now it’s back to my normal routine, working during the day, schoolwork at night. Hopefully the next seven weeks will pass by quickly before I get to see Jason again. Until then, I have lots of new books to read from my used bookstore to get through. Watch out for those reviews!

March 6, 2008

I haven’t slept in two days. I’m so excited to see Jason. He’s supposed to get in sometime tonight, and I’ll be meeting him in the morning after he gets some sleep. He’s been calling me throughout the day, letting me know when he reaches each state line on his drive from Texas. He slept all day yesterday and left at 8:00 p.m. so he could arrive tonight and go straight to bed.
 

I’ve tried to pass the time today with my mom. It’s her birthday, and Josalyn and I took her gallivanting. We went to the mall and bought her some new super soft pajamas at Victoria’s Secret, and of course I picked myself out a little somethin’-somethin’ to wear for Jason.
 

We went to lunch at K&W Cafeteria, one of the restaurants I missed terribly during the semester I lived in Texas. I could pretty much live off their turkey and dressing smothered in gravy. I always buy way too many side dishes, because I can never choose between all the country-style vegetables. Mashed potatoes and gravy, turnip greens, cabbage, collards, sweet potato casserole, mac-and-cheese… and don’t get me started on their desserts. I always get a slice of their sweet potato pie and their chocolate cream pie, take a couple bites from each, and then take the rest home.
 

Mom got her New England dinner—don’t ask me what’s in it—the orange Jell-O with the fine slivers of carrots she loves, and a slice of coconut cream pie as her ‘birthday cake’. Little Tooty had bites of everything off our plates. Turns out my little southern girl loves the greens just as much as I do.
 

I can’t believe she already turns one next month. We stopped breastfeeding a few weeks ago. She all of a sudden lost interest, preferring her bottle instead, since the milk comes out a lot faster, I assume. Sooner than I planned to stop, but the bright side is I won’t have to worry about soaking Jason again. Also, she’s sleeping through the night now too, not even waking for a bottle in the middle of the night anymore.

These several weeks went by a lot faster than I thought they would. I’ve stayed busy with work and school, and have talked to Jason on our lunch breaks and every night on the phone. My boss wasn’t too happy about me taking tomorrow and Monday off from work so I could have the four-day weekend with Jason. He’s been a real douchebag to Jenna and me lately anyway, griping about stupid shit we have no control over. We’ve been training his niece this week. I’ve seriously thought about quitting once she gets the hang of it.
 

I have a lot of guilt spending so much time away from Josalyn. I know it’s a normal thing for both parents to work nowadays, but I grew up with my mom raising me, and looking back, I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world. Maybe we didn’t have as much spending money as we would if she had a nine-to-five job, but there wasn’t anything more I could have wanted than that time with my mom. Even those years she had a secretary job at Granny’s church, she was able to take me with her. I can remember bringing pillows and blankets to prop up in her office and read and color. And I was even allowed to walk around to all the Sunday school classrooms and draw on their chalkboards as long as I cleaned them after I was done. Sometimes, the church’s organ player would be there to practice, and she’d let me sit on the bench next to her while she played. I always thought it was so cool when she’d let me play the foot pedals.
 

My dad didn’t really care for all the pageants and extracurriculars I was in, having raised three boys before me, so it was up to my mom and me to pay for them. Mom had her little part-time jobs, like the one at the church, and then merchandising once I got into school, and then I raised money for things like pageant dresses and training by selling candy. We would go to the fundraiser place and buy a box of chocolate bars for fifty cents apiece, and then sell them each for a dollar. I would go into car dealerships around town in my little tap shoes, impressing them with a dance, and most of the time they’d buy a whole box to turn back around and sell for themselves. I got a lot of sponsorships that way too. I wonder if the Ford dealership still has my autographed picture with my crown on my head still up on their bulletin board. Probably not—that was a decade ago.
 

As lucky as I am to have my mom and Granny to watch Josalyn, I wish I was home with her all day. Thinking about it, I get enough financial aid from school and child support that I could survive easily without the job. I’ve got a ton saved up right now, set aside for visiting Jason. And I would be able to finish up school a lot faster if I could take more than two classes per semester. It’s just a hard decision, because I’ve never had a job with such great paychecks before. It’s a rush every two weeks to open up that check and see forty hours a week at ten dollars an hour, when my biggest checks before were around two hundred bucks bi-weekly, since I was only part-time at GNC, splitting shifts up between five different employees. It’s nice seeing my savings grow and grow, but at the same time, that’s not the only thing growing. My little girl is, and I feel like I’m missing it.

But that’s a decision for another day. Right now, the only thing I’m thinking about is the text message I just received from Jason saying he had just gotten to the hotel. I told him specifically
not
to get one off Bragg Boulevard, but apparently my badass big-city boy was willing to risk safety for the much cheaper price, because lo and behold, the address was on that strand of strip clubs, pawn, tattoo, and gun shops, and questionable businesses. I only go over that way to run into Edward McKay’s, my used bookstore, and the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts shop.
 

“Oh, my God, he’s here!” I blurt out from where I’m sprawled on the living room sofa next to my mom, who is sitting in her computer chair, but turned around facing the TV. Josalyn is upstairs asleep in her crib. I look at the time, seeing it’s almost 10:00 p.m.
 

“Wait for it…” Mom tells Granny, giving her a wink.

“What?” I ask, glancing between the two of them, and they share a secret smile, not answering.
 

I decide to ignore them, texting Jason back:

Glad you made it! Can’t wait to see you tomorrow.

He replies quickly.

That was a hell of a drive. I’m going to take a shower then go to bed. I didn’t even stop to get anything to eat.

I send him one last text so he can get to bed.

Well then, I’ll take you to get some awesome breakfast in the morning. I love you.

Jason:
Love you to baby.

I fight the urge to correct his message to ‘too’ and close out my texts, placing my phone on the armrest behind me. I drop my right foot down to the floor, my knee bouncing as I try to focus my attention back on the show we’re watching.
 

 
I look at the clock again. 10:02 p.m. God, I can’t wait to see him. This is a new form of torture, knowing he’s in my little hometown, breathing the same air. He’s here, only a short twenty-minute drive away. Not halfway across the country. Jason is not only on the east coast; he’s within my reach. And here I lay, having to wait one more night to see him. How the hell will I sleep tonight?

What seems like hours pass, and when I check the time on my phone, I groan, seeing it’s 10:14 p.m. My knee bounces rapidly, and I run both hands down my face, begging my body to settle down and feel tired enough so I can go to bed and wake up to go see him. You’d think since I haven’t slept well the last couple nights I’d be exhausted, but no. Knowing he’s near, it’s like my body is hyperaware of his closeness. My soul has woken from her nap, stretching and looking around for her other half, sensing his proximity.
 

“Three… two… one…” Mom counts down with a smirk, and at the exact moment she reaches zero, I spring from the couch, unable to take it anymore.

“I’ll surprise him!” I say, almost manically. “He said he didn’t eat, so I can pick him up something and take it to him. I could just come back home after he eats—”

Granny and Mom start laughing, cutting me off.
 

“I knew there was no way in hell you’d be able to stay put knowing that boy had arrived. I’ll keep an eye on Josalyn, KD. Go see your honey. Just be careful driving. We’ll see you tomorrow,” Mom tells me, and I look at her with happy exasperation and lunge toward her, wrapping her up in a tight hug, making her computer chair roll backward. I keep my toes planted on the floor, but follow the chair’s movement with the rest of my body, ending up lying in Mom’s lap as I squeeze her.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mommy!” I squeak, hop up, and bolt up the stairs two at a time. I run into the bathroom, put on a fresh layer of deodorant, spritz myself with my perfume, and brush my teeth. I brush out my hair then pull it up into a much smoother ponytail, deciding to go makeup-free so I don’t wake up with raccoon eyes next to my man in the morning. That thought makes me meet my own reflection in the mirror. Holy shit. I’ll be sleeping with and waking up next to Jason for the very first time. I mean, we stayed at that beach cabin in Galveston, but we didn’t do much sleeping. We stayed up drinking, just the two of us, making love all night and into the next day. But this will be my first time actually falling asleep with him as his girlfriend. After my heart gives a tremendous thump, I spring back into action.
 

I slip into my room and look down into Josalyn’s crib, seeing she’s sleeping on her front, her knees up under her, her chubby cheek smooshed against the mattress, making her perfect little lips form an O as she snores away. I kiss my fingertips then run them through her ash-blonde hair before grabbing my hoodie off the foot of my bed and my purse from where it hangs on my doorknob. The baby monitor is downstairs, so they’ll still be able to hear Josalyn if she wakes up.
 

I control myself enough not to use the handrail to slide down the stairs, even though I’m about gleeful enough to do just that. I run over to Mom, smacking a kiss on her forehead before doing the same to Granny, and then I’m out the door. It’s pitch-black outside, but for once, I’m not petrified walking over to the wooded side of our yard to my car.
 

Normally, even at twenty-three years old, I have my mom stand in the doorway and talk to me while shining a flashlight in my direction if I come home when it’s grown dark, after calling her and letting her know I’ve arrived. I think it’s some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, after my evil-ass big brother hid in the woods one night, when he knew I was due back home from my first job at the car dealership when I was eighteen. That asshole had put on his
Friday the Thirteenth
hockey mask—he thought it was funny since his name is Jason too—and when I got out of my car, he started making the infamous
Ch-ch-ch
sound, then burst out from the tall oaks and pines, waving my dad’s chainsaw around like a nutcase as he ran toward me.
 

My throat hurt for three days I'd screamed so loud, and to make things worse, when he caught up to me—I’m not a runner, and if you ever see me running, you better run too, because that means something is after me—he set the chainsaw down and tackled me to the ground, tickling my sides until I peed. Yep, eighteen years old, and my stupid big brother held me down ‘til I pissed myself. Fucker.

I back out of my parking spot and swoop onto the main road stunt car driver style, zipping through my neighborhood and out into Hope Mills in record time. This late, there aren’t many cars on the road to mess with my vision. I make it to Bragg Boulevard five minutes faster than I ever have before, hoping it’s just because I’ve been lucky with hitting all green lights instead of unconsciously speeding like a maniac. I stop by the McDonald’s closest to his hotel and grab him a quarter-pounder with cheese, plain and dry, and myself a chicken nuggets meal with sweet-and-sour sauce.
 

I pull into a parking spot, my stomach giving a colossal swoosh when I see his green Altima. I check my texts again to see what room he’s in, and then grab my purse and the bag of food, plus the large sweet tea out of my cup holder.