How Times Change

Chapter 5

Morning fell into Jade’s house slowly, creeping in around the tipped slats of her blinds like it was trying not to disturb. Jades eyelids lifted, closed, lifted again, squinting at the warm glow. Sitting up, she took the sheets with her, pulling them along as her feet hit the floor, enjoying the cool of the cream colored satin against her naked skin.

The night was still just pulling its tendrils out of her mind. She’d done it- ridden it out- Kristen would be proud- At that thought she found herself smiling. That and the thought of what was waiting just beyond the bathroom entryway kept the smile on her face as she rounded the corner.

Water splashed and steam rolled out across the granite tiles as she left the sheet at the door and stepped bare into the warm cloud. Lucas was in standing back to, humming something incomprehensible as she pulled the oriental patterned curtain aside and stepped in behind him.

Then she reached out a hand towards his back.

Lucas shouted, sounding something like a drowning horse, and spun “Oh my God, JJ, your hand is so col…”

Her lips cut him off, pulling him down to hers. Jade could taste morning and soap on this skin and her body prickled with last night’s memories.

The lips go here…the hand goes here…the…

“Whoa, whoa JJ- easy! I can’t, I’ll be late…”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she vaguely remembered him saying he had a meeting to get to, early. She didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around his neck, relishing the water falling down off his tan chest and over her skin. “Then be late.”

She swallowed his next protest with a kiss.

A half hour later, Jade was sitting at her island, softly stroking Tiger as she watched Lucas struggle with his tie. It was the same outfit he’d come over with, but none the worse for the wear, since it had been off of him and living on her bedroom – And kitchen. And hallway- floor for the night. No jacket though- Tiger had taken up residence and it was covered with fur.

She put down her OJ and slipped off the stool, crossing the room on a mission to make sure that crooked tie didn’t make it out the door. “Hold still.” She straightened the knot as Lucas pantomimed a hanging.

Typical Lucas. She chuckled and smiled, shaking her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

A lecherous, and still somehow goofball, grin sprang up. “Well…we didn’t try that one thing- Ouch!”

She laughed, the first light and real laugh she’d had in a long while, and laid her head on his chest, pushing the soft warmth of her terry robe up against him.

It was insane. It was more than insane, but every moment of the entire time, the evening, the morning and the tip toe embrace right here in her kitchen before she’d even gone near her makeup, all felt right. There was no more Gnat- just this Lucas-

“Jade, I have to go- I got Stefan to have them push the meeting back.” He spoke by her ear, softly. “–No thanks to you, but I have to be there soon.”

“I know.” She held on for just a moment longer than let him go, leaning back and tilting her head up towards him. “I better let you go.” With a sigh, she dropped her hands. Lucas stepped a touch closer.

“Jade, last night, this morning- I never would have thought…”

“I know.” Again, she gave him the only answer that was right to her mind. She never would have thought either, not this, not in a million years. She shook her head. “Now go- before I change my mind.”

Instead of moving for the door, he leaned forward, laying his head on hers and pulling her in one more time. Neither said anything for a moment, and then Lucas started speaking. “You’re right, I do have to go..”

His cell had began to ring, coughing out Hendrix from its ring tone bank. Lucas gave her his best ‘I’m sorry’ eyes, and stepped back a touch, breaking their contact. “Lucas here.”

Jade watched as Lucas’s eyes went wide, and then a frown buried deep like secret scar ran across his brow. He said nothing for the longest moment, listening intently to his phone. When he did speak all the light was gone from his voice.

“Jade, I have to go.”

“Lucas? What is it?” A million thoughts on a million things flashed through her mind.

He said nothing, his face gray as he spun, heading for the door, phone pressed to his ear. The screen cracked shut, shocking the lazy morning.

*****

Kristen was out- headed to a ‘must attend’ in Seattle so Jade had the office to herself. Normally that meant a little freedom for Kristen’s latest weekend surfer boy stories and a chance to get work done, but today nothing was happening in the right order. She had been paging back to the same screen so many times now, none of the data made sense. Her normally line-item mind was off the rails. She could have used a little of Kristen, obnoxious laugh and all right now.

Lucas. Everything was centered on Lucas. Turn a page- Lucas. Look up a chemical sequence- Lucas. It was the kind of preoccupation that made a day turn to soup when it came to focus. That and Jade was worried. She nibbled on the end of a pen, a bad habit picked up from her father, and leaned in towards her screen, hoping to find some clarity in the final  run of the data.

No luck. She still had that uneasy feeling. Blowing out a blast of frustration, she pushed her seat back, grabbed her phone and headed out towards the cafeteria, where the smell of sushi and cob salad was drifting out the wide double doors. She half smiled, half nodded at a few of the folks that waved on her way past. Ahead of her, wide double glass doors opened out onto a sun patio just for the researchers and staff at Genexco, one more piece of organic architecture in a place full of them. Jade came here to eat because of the way the stone and concrete blended with the tall fir trees, like a lost temple.

If only. No prayers or quiet thoughts at the moment. She crossed the far corner, a giant old Douglas leaning over the bench, offering shade and cool. Sitting, she punched in Lucas’s number. Again. Jade had been out here twice already, trying not to be ‘that’ girl, but unable to help herself. The phone buzzed, buzzed…and went to voicemail. Lucas’s smooth voice came back to her, so different than the laughing goof who she’d been with the night before.  She let the voice speak, hating how it didn’t make her feel any better. No message to leave because the other two she’d left said it all. She was worried.

Lord, what did we do? The night was a cinnamon blur, full of arms and legs in her mind. Thinking on it brought a heat to her cheeks that she instantly knew anyone who came up would see. She didn’t care. There was a part of her that was hungry for what Lucas had brought to her home. Not the bedroom- well, yes, that– but the wholeness of him. The way that when he was in a room he filled it up. Nothing about it made sense, but in day and a night he’d done what Aaron and any of the others- not that there had been many- couldn’t do. He had been real.