A/N: So Netflix just put up Season 7 and I cannot tell you how hard it was to watch that last part of the finale again. Writing these two characters, I sometimes forget what's going to happen to them (not just at the end, but through the whole series), so I like to think of this fic as my happy place where the worst thing that can happen is teenage angst. So, onward!
June 1995
Waiting, watching the clock, it's four o'clock, it's got to stop
Tell him, take no more, she practices her speech
As he opens the door, she rolls over
Pretends to sleep as he looks her over…
Four-thirty in the afternoon and the place was as dead as roadkill. Tara sighed and leaned her forearms against the counter. After five minutes of staring out at a room of empty booths and scattered tables, deserted except for a guy in the corner who'd been reading a newspaper for the past three hours without buying more than a fountain soda, she gave up and pulled a dog-eared paperback out of her pocket.
"…my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I'd often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off…"
Her eyes had trouble focusing on the lines of text, and she found herself glancing up at the windows, listening for the tell-tale sound, waiting for him to walk through the door. He had said he would come by at the end of her shift and pick her up, although she didn't really know what they would end up doing. Activities tended to be vaguely defined with Jax, which was how he seemed to like it, and which she'd come to realize was how she liked it, too. More often than not, they'd just drive around on his bike, stop if they got tired, grab something to eat when they got hungry, and head back to town before he got too low on gas. It was just so great to be out of her house, to be free from all that claustrophobic bullshit for just a few more hours each day. She still hadn't told her dad about him, and if he asked where she was going, she just told him she was working extra hours or had to cover someone else's shift.
As summer jobs went, though, this one was pretty good. The responsibilities were minimal, and while it could get crowded on weekend nights, the tips were good, and the owner, Ray, only charged them half-price on food. Not that she wanted to eat pizza all the time – after nearly four weeks she was getting a little tired of the way that the smell of it seemed to linger in her clothes despite repeated washes – but it wasn't half-bad, especially after a long shift on her feet. Thank God they didn't have table service, just a menu on the wall and a tip jar by the register, and the array of big-screen televisions showing A's and Giants games kept the customers in the seats and buying more beer.
She looked over at the clock above the phone. Four-forty five. Shit, he needed to show up soon and keep her from dying of boredom.
He had ended up calling her that night after their cancelled date, and because he was scheduled to work the next few days, they had made plans to go out to see the movie on Sunday. But when he had picked her up in front of the library – that was where she told her dad she was going for the afternoon – the first thing she had noticed was the bandage wrapped around his left arm, half-visible under the edge of his sleeve. At first, he had said that it was from an accident at the garage, but gave her a vague mumble when she asked him for details, and then just as quickly changed the subject. On the way to the movie theater, it had actually started bleeding a little, the gauze spotted with seeps of red. He had stalked off, keeping his back to her, even though she could see him untying and retying the gauze so that the bloodstain was no longer visible.
She couldn't really understand why he was acting so strange about it. Accidents probably happened all the time at the garage; there was nothing to get self-conscious about. And it wasn't as if they hadn't told each other all sorts of other things, much more personal shit. One night, leaning up against his bike, she had started telling him more about her mom, what she had been like when Tara was little and what had happened when she died. Jax had ended up talking about his dad, and what it was like living with his mom and step-father, how he never quite felt at home in their house. It was clear he loved his mom – a woman Tara had only glimpsed in passing in the grocery store, her shirt cut low and her hair sprayed up high – although she sounded like a real piece of work. But, shit, what did she know? She hadn't had to bury a husband and a son, and who knows what the hell that did to you.
Tara closed the book and stuffed it back in her pocket. She half-heartedly wondered what they would end up doing tonight. It was hard to be too excited: tonight was the Pearl Jam show in Sacramento and she had hadn't been able to get tickets despite her repeated efforts. It didn't help that they were hands down her favorite band, that she had bought the new album the day it came out last December and had listened to it nearly nonstop until it started to skip and she had to buy a new copy. It just would have been so fucking awesome to be there, to hear them play all the songs she knew by heart.
The faint sound of a motorcycle engine brought her to full attention. She looked out to see him – no, make that them – pull into the empty parking spaces at the far end of the lot. Even with the helmet, she could tell the figure on the second bike was Opie, and she tried to think of any reason why he might have come along.
The two made their way inside, not even bothering with the pretense of ordering anything, and instead made themselves comfortable in a booth by the windows. No one was around – no one besides them had even driven into the lot in the last half-hour – so Tara abandoned her spot behind the counter and walked over to the booth, sliding in beside Jax.
"This place is packed," Opie said dryly. "Are you really being paid right now?"
"Yeah, for the next…" – she looked over at the clock again – "…five minutes." She glanced over at Jax. He seemed a little quiet, his face expressionless. "What have you all been up to?"
"Just finishing up at the garage," he replied. "Chibs had me do a last-minute oil change, or we woulda been here sooner."
"Well, I need to go punch out and grab my stuff, so give me a minute, okay?" she said.
She started to move out of the booth, but he nudged her before she got very far.
"Wait a sec…" he said. She sat back down and looked over at him. "I thought maybe we could talk about our plans tonight…."
"Did you have something in mind?" she asked. It felt weird to be doing this in front of Opie, like he wasn't there. She glanced across the table and realized that he wasn't even looking at them, but instead gazing at the open kitchen area in front of the oven. No one was over there, except that new girl, whose name she couldn't quite remember. Dana? Donna?
"Well…" Jax continued, and she looked back at him. "If you didn't have any ideas, I thought we might drive up north a bit, maybe find some way to use these…" He reached into his back pocket to grab something and then slid it over to her across the table. It was two tickets. Pearl Jam tickets. For tonight.
"Holy shit, Jax!" she exclaimed. "How did you get these? They were sold out after two minutes…"
He grinned sheepishly. "One of the brothers, he's got friends who work security at the Cal Expo."
Without taking her eyes off the tickets, she threw her arms around him, her chin resting against his shoulder. She couldn't believe it. Over the past couple of weeks, she had been complaining about the fact that she hadn't been able to get tickets, but she had no idea he'd actually been listening, that he'd actually try to get them for her. And he had clearly been hoping to surprise her.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"Yeah…." he said, half-mumbling against her hair. "Do you need to run home and grab anything?"
Home? Shit, she wanted to be on the road right now. Her legs bounced up and down a little bit, like she could barely even contain herself.
"I'm good. Let's just go…"
They both started to slide out of the booth, Jax's wallet chain knocking against the varnished wood, and noticed when Opie hadn't gotten up with them.
"What's up, Ope, you coming?" Jax asked.
"I'm kinda hungry, man," Opie replied, not quite looking up to meet their eyes. "I think I may stay, order some food."
Jax nodded, and unclasped his sunglasses from where he had hooked them into the collar of his t-shirt. "Catch you later, then," he said, and then looked over at Tara. "You need to punch out?"
"Yeah, yeah," she replied. "I'll be right back." As she walked away, Tara took one last look at Opie, wearing his cut and black toque, and then swiveled her gaze over towards the kitchen, towards the petite girl who was attempting – and failing – to throw pizza crusts without making any holes.
"You need to turn your wrist more," Tara said to the girl as she walked by. The girl looked up at her quickly, her eyes wide, a smudge of flour tracing across her right cheekbone.
She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Oh…
Jax watched in amusement as Tara tore into the greasy paper carton that had just been deposited on their table on a red plastic tray. It was just these little things about her that he liked learning. For one thing, the girl fucking loved tater tots. She'd eat them with ketchup, or mayo, but she really liked them with mustard. Before the drive-in server had brought over their food, she had assembled a row of tiny plastic cups full of mustard, just so she would have enough to dunk each of her tater tots. He smiled a little bit to himself as he reached for his double cheeseburger.
A small slice of pain shot through his outstretched arm, but he tried not to let it show on his face. He didn't look over at her as he unwrapped his food and started eating. Maybe she hadn't noticed.
The arm was annoying as hell, but eventually it would fully heal, and then he could just forget about the whole thing. He still felt pretty shitty for lying to her about how he had gotten hurt, but there wasn't really any other option. If he ever told her what had really happened, she would just freak out. Probably dump his ass.
The afternoon he had cancelled on her, he had dropped her off and hightailed it straight to the club. The brothers were still meeting, so no one noticed that he had showed up a little late, but it was clear from the number of bikes in the lot and the quiet, hushed tones of the other prospects that something serious was going on. Once the brothers had started pouring out of the chapel, Clay had caught Jax's eye and pulled him aside. It turned out that SAMCRO had finally gotten a chance to make a major sale with this gang from Oakland, the One-Niners, and the exchange had been set up for Saturday night. Clay had wanted his help with getting everything packed up – a couple crates of M16s and some MAC-10s thrown in for good measure – and ready to go in time for the hand-off.
On Saturday, he had gone in the van with Chibs and Piney, Bobby riding alongside, Tig and Clay on point. Sitting in the back, with no windows, all Jax could do was stare at the crates, and think about all the various ways that this could get fucked up. Clay's Glock had bitten into his lower back where it was tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
It had been nearly sunset by the time they reached the meeting point, some place off the 880 in West Oakland. He had put on his best don't-fuck-with-me face as he jumped out of the back and then watched as a couple of guys from the Niners' crew had unloaded the crates from the van and put them in the back of a U-Haul. Clay had gone up to talk to a huge guy sporting a diamond earring and a Tommy Hilfiger jersey. An overstuffed envelope was being passed between the two men when he heard the first shot, and then it had seemed like they were coming from everywhere.
Time had passed so slow, and so fast. He had ducked beside the van, and there was yelling and more shots and then it was quiet. Jax had been dazed for a minute, the whiff of metallic smoke burning in his nostrils, until Chibs grabbed him by the arm and he realized that it hurt like hell. It was just a graze, not very deep, but Clay had been fucking pissed and all the Tommy Hilfiger guy could say was that it had to have been a rival gang, trying to stop the sale and take off with the merchandise. Eventually, he had handed Clay an extra five grand.
No, she definitely did not need to know what had happened.
"You done?" he asked. "You want anything else?"
She shook her head and grinned a little as she surveyed the crumpled-up paper wrapper and napkins in front of her. The carton of tater tots was empty. "I'm good," she replied. "Thanks, though."
He could feel her foot shaking against the table leg, and her eyes were lit up, darting around like a bird. God, she looked so excited. And it was partly because of him.
It hadn't been that hard to get the tickets, and he had known he was going to try to get them the minute she had mentioned the concert. He had kind of been hoping to scrounge up some backstage passes, but he hadn't been that lucky.
She glanced over towards him, catching him looking at her, the tiny smile still playing on her lips.
"What?" she asked, all innocence.
"Nothin'," he replied, the edge of his mouth curling unconsciously upwards. His eyes momentarily glanced down towards her bag lying next to her on the seat. It was half-open, the creased edges of a book just barely peeking out. That was interesting, too; she always seemed to be carrying something to read, as if anticipating some moment of quiet and solitude wherever she went. "What're you reading?" he asked, jutting his chin towards her bag.
She looked over at it quickly. "Oh…" she said. "Uh, it's Kerouac."
He nodded as if he knew who that was. "Any good?"
"I'm only on the first chapter... But I can write you up a book report later," she replied playfully.
"By Tara Knowles, Age 16…" he intoned, in a sing-song. He liked teasing her. Mostly because she knew how to deal with it, and, even better, how to dish it back. With other girls, he could tell that it just scared them, that they couldn't tell if he was being serious or not, probably another reason why they hadn't done a lot of talking.
"And it'll get a gold star, and I can tape it up on my fridge…" She grinned at him.
It hit him straight in the gut. Damn, she was so different. And until she had come along, he hadn't known that difference, hadn't realized what he had been missing.
He still didn't really understand it. But he hadn't been with any other girls since he met her – and it wasn't like there hadn't been offers. All of them, even the girls he had happily spent hours with, doing all sorts of things, they just seemed so boring. Looking back at it now, at all the stuff he had done before her, it was kind of sad. And it wasn't like Tara had asked him not to mess around – fuck, they hadn't even talked about what was going on between them – but he realized that he didn't really want to do anything with anyone else. Because he loved it, loved riding around with her in the dark, kissing and touching her under the night sky, sitting across from her in crappy drive-in restaurants and talking to her and watching her inhale fried food.
He cleared his throat. "So, uh… should we go?"
"Yeah." She started piling up all their trash on the tray, but then turned her gaze over towards him. "You're not going to get paged, right? They wouldn't page you tonight…" He noticed that her foot had stopped shaking, that she was completely still.
"Nah, not likely. Clay's not even in town, so…" He shrugged his shoulders a little.
"Where'd he go?" she asked.
"Took my mom up to Tahoe for the weekend. It's his birthday." Jax knew the trip wasn't all for fun, though. Clay had mentioned that he planned to drop in on Indian Hills, see if Uncle Jury had a line on any possible SAMCRO recruits.
"Oh..." she said. "And they left you by yourself?" He almost laughed. Jax had been left to take care of himself since he was ten. It had gotten even worse after Tommy died.
He tucked a piece of hair back behind his ear. "Guess they figured I probably wouldn't burn the house down."
"Well…" she said, smiling a little. "The night's not over yet." Her eyes were bright in the harsh outdoor florescents, and he could feel all the blood rushing quickly away from his head.
Talking to herself, there's no one else who needs to know
She tells herself, oh
Memories back when she was bold and strong
And waiting for the world to come along
Swears she knew it, now she swears he's gone…
The whole thing was amazing, so much better than she could possibly have imagined.
The crowd was huge and as they had started playing, everyone had swayed back and forth in the early evening air. Night began to fall, and as the songs had changed, the tempo and the volume rising, people had jumped up and down, hurling themselves upwards into strangers' hands as they crowd-surfed. They were playing everything: songs from the first and second albums, new songs, even a Pink Floyd cover that sounded even cooler than the original. Tara had jumped and swayed and threw her hands up and sung along with everyone else, screaming out every time a song ended. She couldn't believe she was actually there, watching them play, experiencing this with thousands of other people.
And he was right there, with her.
At some point, she realized that he was standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, his head against hers.
There had been a song she had been waiting for them to play, off the new album, but they had done so many songs already, and she her heart sank a little to think that they might not ever get to it. And then, after they had finished a song, the band left the stage and all the lights had gone out, leaving everyone in pitch darkness. The crowd kept cheering, though, collectively trying to summon the band back from wherever they had gone, and after a few minutes of standing in the dark, Tara had cheered, too. Finally, the band had walked back on, to cries and raucous approval, and then from the unlit stage, she could hear the opening chord of her song.
The stage slowly began to light up as they moved into the chorus, and she was smiling, and everything was so perfect. Her lips were forming the words of the song, and she softly closed her eyes, listening to the music, to the thousands of people around her, feeling him against her, encircling her, and she wanted to remember this moment forever. When she was old and wrinkled and looking back at her whole life, she wanted to be able to remember what it was like to be right here, to be this happy.
She turned a little in his arms, angling her face back towards him. The stage lights were stark against the planes of his face, his eyes cast in shadow. She wanted him to know, to understand what she felt, but she didn't know how to say it, not with words. So she gently pressed her lips to his, searching and finding him again and again, as his arms tightened around her, quick with his reply.
She could feel her own heart beating, and then she felt his, too.
As the song ended, she tucked her head against him, finding that hollow where his neck and shoulder met. Her arms wrapped around him and he pulled her in close. She didn't want to think about the fact that eventually she would have to let go, that soon enough the band would stop playing and all the lights would come on and they would have to leave and she would have to go back home and be by herself in her tiny room.
The final song – slow, heavy with guitar – played and the whole crowd was rocking back and forth, tiny flames from lighters punctuating the darkness, and then it was all over.
He let her stay there in his arms for a little while, as people around them made their way towards the exits. But then he gave her a little squeeze and tilted his head as he looked down at her.
"You ready?" he asked.
She nodded as she released her arms. "Yeah." Once he let go, she took a step back from him, but he found her again as they started to move towards the exit, catching her hand and lacing his fingers through hers.
"That was so awesome," she said, glancing over at him. "Thank you… again."
He smiled and nodded, mumbling something she couldn't quite hear, not with the post-concert music playing over the loudspeakers and the conversations of random passers-by all around her.
They were quiet as they walked back to his bike, which Tara didn't mind at all. She was still caught up in the lingering memories of the music and the darkness and the feeling of being weightless but still safe and surrounded by him. He had parked kind of far away, so by the time they got there, she had already made her mind up.
He passed her his helmet – for a moment she wondered what had ever happened to that ticket he had gotten, whether he had ended up paying it – and she held it in her hands, running her fingers against the curved edge. There was a scratch on one side and she couldn't remember having noticed it before.
"So, um, I was thinking…" She could hear him turn towards her, but she didn't look up at him. "Maybe you don't drop me off at home…"
"What'd you want to do?" he asked.
"Maybe we could go hang out at your house…?" She didn't mean for it to sound so tentative, but she knew that her face was growing warm, that she could barely get the words out anyway. Because she knew they weren't just words. Everyone knew that words like that meant something more.
It wasn't as if they hadn't been alone together. Nearly all the time they had spent together had been by themselves. They had been alone on dirt paths in the middle of nowhere, on the bleachers of the deserted high school football field, in her room on a quiet afternoon, the sunlight blazing against the bare skin of his chest. She had laid against him, knowing, feeling, how much he wanted her. And she had kissed him, his hands tracing over her, and she had struggled to put a name to the sensations he was causing in her, before she finally let herself drown in it. But she knew that in all that time, he was somehow waiting for her, incredibly patiently, but waiting still the same. And in a way, it was as if she was waiting for herself, too. She wanted to trust him, to feel like he wouldn't turn on her after it was over, but it was hard, knowing his reputation, knowing her own fears and insecurities. When he smiled at her, it was like getting a prize that she would eventually have to give back, after someone told her it was all a big mistake.
But she had never really felt this close to another person, not since her mom. Sometimes they didn't even have to talk at all; they just sat in the quiet and breathed the same air and everything was so calm and easy. Was that enough? Enough to tell herself that she could trust him?
She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man
She lies and says she still loves him, can't find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Yeah…
The hour-long drive back to his house was pure torture. When he took a turn, her knees squeezed tighter around his hips, and her warm hands migrated from his waist to the middle of his torso as she held on, each jolt of the bike causing a momentary short-circuit of his brain. A couple inches lower and… fuck. He just tried to breathe and prayed to God she didn't actually move her hands any lower, not if they didn't want to end up crashing on the side of the highway.
He hadn't told her about his house being empty on purpose – it had been just an off-hand comment – but it actually was pretty clever, when he thought about it. She could have chosen to ignore what he had said, pretend like it was nothing. It was like he was just showing her an open door, and it was up to her whether she wanted to walk through it. But if she had just wanted him to take her home tonight, it wouldn't have bothered him that much; she had clearly had a great time at the concert, and that had been more than enough. When she had kissed him, in the middle of the encore, she had just looked so fucking happy, happier than he'd ever seen her. And it made him happy, too, to know that he had given her that. There would be other nights, other days when they didn't have to work and her dad wasn't home. California summers were long, and they had time.
But she hadn't ignored it. She had decided she wanted to walk through the door, whatever that might mean to her. He was a little surprised, but like hell he was going to tell her no.
They pulled into his driveway and he cut the engine, darkness flooding over them. He felt her body roughly brush against his as she stepped off the bike, and it took all he had not to back her up against the garage door.
Instead, he raked his fingers through his hair and walked with her up to the front door, unlocking it and throwing on the lights as he went inside. Her eyes blinked a couple of times as she adjusted to the brightness and he watched as she took everything in. There wasn't that much to see, just a big living room with black leather couches and a TV in the corner, and a dining room off to the right with the long table from his old house that his mom had insisted they keep, just so she could have her big dinners with all the brothers and their families.
"So, uh… this is Clay's house."
She nodded, but didn't say anything, so he took her back towards the kitchen. She leaned against the counter and he went to the fridge and opened it up, peering inside, not because he wanted anything but because he didn't know what the fuck else to do.
"You hungry?" he asked, hoping to give some reason for why he was standing there. "You want something to eat?"
"No, I'm good," she replied. She was glancing all around, looking at his mom's collection of cookbooks on the counter, at the Teller-Morrow calendar stuck up on the wall with a push-pin, a picture of a 1995 Triumph Daytona 900 gracing the month of June.
"We could watch TV or something…" he offered, shutting the door to the fridge.
And then she looked right at him, with the same level of curiosity she had given the contents of the kitchen, only with a little more intent written into her face.
"Why don't you show me your room?"
If he was surprised by her directness, he tried not to show it. "Uh, sure…" he said, turning towards the doorway, watching as she pressed slightly back against the counter and then made her way over to where he was. The back hallway was unlit and pretty narrow, so they had to squeeze together to walk side-by-side, and Jax could smell the faint trace of cigarette smoke in her hair, which she must have picked up at the concert. He didn't mind; smoke itself never bothered him much and it seemed to give her a vaguely rebellious, unfamiliar quality.
As he reached his doorway, he pulled his keys out of his pocket and moved to unlock the door. Once it was open, he threw his hand inside and switched the lights on, only to look back and see her staring at the key in his hand.
"You lock your bedroom?" she asked.
"What, you think that's weird?" Maybe it was. All he knew was that there were things in his life he wanted to stay his, and his single demand when they moved into this house was a room with a lock on the door.
"No, I just can't believe I never thought of it," she said, half-smiling.
She walked into the room, looking around, and Jax would have sworn that her movements seemed a little more hesitant than before. She peered at his bookshelf, which didn't actually hold any books, just some Little League trophies and a weathered baseball mitt and on a lower shelf, a boom box and a few scattered CDs. She dropped her bag on the floor and then leaned down so she could thumb over the CDs.
"Wouldn't have pegged you as a Weezer fan," she said, picking up the case.
He shrugged. "I liked that sweater song." And then he smiled at her, even though she was still looking at the CD. "But don't tell Opie. He thinks I'm just into Metallica and all that shit."
She put the case back and wandered over to the other side of the room, tracing her hand against the back of the desk chair, glancing up at the old picture of Jax and his dad that was tacked to the wall. He barely caught the tiny dart of her head as she snuck a glimpse of his bed and then looked away. Something was off, he knew, but he was wary about approaching her for fear of making it worse. Her arms crossed up over her chest and then she just seemed to stand there for a minute, staring absently out his window, her only movement a slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed a little more deeply. And then she looked down, her attention catching on something on his desk.
She quickly turned back towards him, looking at him for the first time since she had set foot in his room, her eyes blinking like she had just woken up. Her crossed arms fell to her sides as she stepped towards him, and with no warning, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth against his. It was so unexpected, but he didn't want to stop her, so he grasped the top of her upper arms and held her tight against him, until her lips grew so insistent that he couldn't keep ahold of himself, and his hands slipped down to her waist and pulled her hips up against his. Fuck, if they kept this up, he wouldn't make it to the bed.
She loved him, yeah, she don't want to leave this way
She feeds him, yeah, that's why she'll be back again
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man
It was just all happening so fast. They had been standing there, kissing, and then somehow they ended up on his bed – she wasn't quite sure which of them had made that happen – and blood was roaring in her ears and his warm mouth was against her neck and then his cut and his t-shirt were laying on the floor next to hers.
She had been so nervous going into his room, her earlier confidence from the kitchen dissipating the moment she saw his bed. It wasn't as if she didn't know, obviously, that his bedroom would have a bed, but seeing it there, so very real, threw into stark relief the earlier decision she had made. So she had looked away, and instead busied herself with all the things in his room, allowing her to indulge her curiosity about him, and, perhaps more importantly, serving as a distraction from the low-grade panic that was coursing through her. She could tell that he was watching her and she didn't know if this was reassuring or if it was just making her more nervous. But, honestly, she just didn't know what to do. She had asked to see his room and now she was there, but he wasn't doing anything and she wasn't able to bring herself to do anything either.
And then she had looked down. Sitting on top of what looked like some half-filled-out class registration forms was a small pink paperback. It still looked pretty new – not that different from what it had looked like when she bought it for him so many weeks ago – but it was there on his desk, in his room, like it mattered. Like she mattered.
She had turned and looked at him, catching his blue eyes with hers, and, suddenly, she hadn't been able to get to him fast enough.
Now they were entwined in his bed, his hands caught up in her hair as their mouths met, and it felt amazing – he felt amazing – and she ran her hands up against the smoothness of his back, sensing the muscle underneath. She closed her eyes and tried to let go, to just let herself feel what was happening to her, but then he moved his hand down towards her ribs, nonchalantly skimming his fingers up towards the clasp of her bra, and there was something about it that just felt so practiced, as if this was a move he had used a hundred times before. God, he probably had used it a hundred times, she thought. She wanted to turn off her brain, make it stop second-guessing every single fucking thing, but it wouldn't let go of her, reminding her that the two of them had never talked about being exclusive, that he could be making out with other girls – shit, even sleeping with other girls – and she would have no idea. And wasn't she just doing this on a whim, anyway? All it took was some concert tickets and a good song and she was ready to give it up? Is that what he thought of her? Was that what she was?
She opened her eyes and looked at him, realizing that he was still holding her, but that his hands weren't moving. She tried to take a full and steady breath.
"You okay?" he asked, his voice rough.
"Yeah," she answered, nodding a little. "I just don't know that I can…" She couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud. "Not tonight."
"Is that what you're worried about?" His arms tightened slightly around her.
"It's just… I'm sorry. I know you probably thought…" She felt so stupid. Even though she hadn't said it outright, he had known what she was saying when she asked to come over. She couldn't imagine how frustrated he must be, how mad.
"I didn't think anything," he said, looking straight into her eyes.
"And we had never talked about it…" she continued, not being able to fully meet his gaze, or even to acknowledge what he had just said. "And I didn't know if there was anyone else, and I guess I would want to know… if there was."
He was silent for a moment, and she could feel a ripping sensation forming in her chest.
"There's no one else, Tara. There's only you." He said it softly, clearly, and she realized that she believed him.
"Oh." She didn't know what else to say.
"Is there anyone else for you?" he asked, in apparent seriousness, although she wanted to laugh. And then she could sense that he was waiting for her to answer.
"No," she replied, in the most solemn tone she could muster.
"Good," he said. He didn't say anything else, so they just lay there for a while, still draped across each other, and she didn't really know what to do. It would be weird to just go to sleep, and after all the drama she had given him, it didn't seem right to try to kiss him again. She contemplated going to retrieve her shirt from the floor, but then it might be strange if she was fully dressed and he wasn't, and he might even think she wanted to go home.
"You just started that book, the Kerouac?" he asked, his voice startling her from her thoughts.
"Yeah," she said, a little confused. But she was impressed he remembered the name.
"Why don't you read some of it to me?"
"You want me to read it to you?" She didn't get it. Why would he want that? What could possibly be the appeal of having her here, in his bed, listening to her read from a forty-year-old book?
"Yeah," he said, as he untangled himself from her and went over to where her bag lay on the floor. He dug through it, finally pulling out the book, and then came back and handed it to her.
"Uh, okay." She opened the book to the beginning and looked over at him. He had gotten back in bed and was laying on his pillow, half-turned towards her, his fingers tracing patterns on the bedspread.
"'I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up,'" she read. "'I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I'd often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off.' You want me to keep going?" she stopped to ask.
"Yeah, it sounds cool," he said.
"Okay." She took a breath and kept reading, trying her best to pronounce all the unfamiliar words correctly and looking over at him from time to time to make sure he didn't seem too bored. "'…This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is today, when he was a young jailkid shrouded in mystery. Then news came that Dean was out of reform school and was coming to New York for the first time; also there was talk that he had just married a girl called Marylou.'"
And she glanced down at him and realized he was asleep, half-moons of blond lashes resting against his bottom eyelids. She gently reached over him and pulled up the edge of the bedspread, draping it over his half-dressed body. And then she found the other side and pulled it across herself, settling herself down onto the bed, his relaxed face the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes.
