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Chapter 20

Before she went to bed that night, Claire decided to make a phone call. Sitting cross-legged in the center of her bed, she scrolled through the list of contacts on her cell phone, stopping near the center of the list when she came to his name. She punched the button to call him and put the phone to her ear, waiting while it rang. Just when she was afraid she was going to get his voicemail, he answered with a deep, “Hey… Claire?”

She smiled. It was good to hear his voice. “Hey, Jamie,” she said.

“What’s up?”

“Not much… getting ready to go to bed here. I spent the weekend in Gainesville visiting my parents. How about you?”

“Same. Just catching the sports highlights before I head to bed.”

“Cool.” She paused. “Cubs win today?”

He groaned. “No. They got their asses kicked.”

Shaking her head, she had to smile to herself. Having grown up in the Midwest, before moving to Tampa at the beginning of high school, Jamie had always been a die-hard fan of the Chicago Cubs. She remembered how frustrated he used to get by the lack of Cubs baseball games that were broadcast in Florida – the only games he got to see his team play in were the ones against the Florida Marlins or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, which he and she would watch together, each rooting for the opposite team.

She missed those days, having him live close by. But his parents had moved back to Iowa five years after his father had been transferred to Tampa, and after college, he’d moved back too. She saw him maybe once or twice a year now, but tried to keep in touch. He was one of the only high school friends she did still keep in touch with – him and Dianna, of course. She didn’t want to lose that.

“Oh. Darn,” she said of the Cubs’ loss, attempting to make herself sound at least slightly sympathetic. Then, deciding she had better get to the point before she inadvertently spent all night on the phone with him, talking about nothing, she went on, “So, James, the reason I’m calling is to address a certain rumor I heard yesterday…”

“Which is…?”

“According to my brother, your brother said you’re coming down here next weekend. True story?”

He chuckled. “Possibly…. Damn him, it was supposed to be a secret! I was hoping I could surprise ya.”

She grinned. “That’s what Kyle said!” she exclaimed happily, then quickly added, “But I don’t think Brad told him that part. Just a guess to explain why you hadn’t mentioned it to me yet.”

“Aw, what, did you think I would fly down there and not meet up with you?”

“Well, I would certainly hope not!” she replied with exaggerated outrage at the mere idea of it. Her voice softening, she added, “So, when are you coming? I can still act surprised…”

He laughed. “My plane gets in Friday night. I’ve got a week of vacation from work, so I thought I’d head down and hang out for a few days. It’ll be nice to get away…”

She heard a trace of melancholy in his voice and frowned. “How are things up there?” she asked. “How’s your mom doing?” She knew he’d been having a tough time ever since the death of his father the previous December. His mother, who had been uptight and slightly neurotic to begin with, was apparently not handling her husband’s death well. From what Jamie told Claire, his mom was falling apart, and as he was the only of her two sons who lived close by, it was up to him to hold her together. Claire felt bad for him and figured he was right – hopefully a few days hanging out with old friends in Florida would do him some good.

He sighed on the other end of the line. “She’s… you know… struggling. But she’s hangin’ in there.” That was all he said, and it was clear he didn’t really want to talk about it. She didn’t blame him, although she wished he’d open up to her more. Jamie was a lot like Nick in that respect… he was the type to hold everything in, bottle up his emotions until they burst, and that was never a pleasant scene to witness.

“Aw…” Claire sighed softly, wishing she had something better to say. “Tell her… tell her I said hi.”

“I will,” Jamie promised, though he would probably forget to. She supposed it didn’t really matter.

She could tell the conversation was close to dying, so she said, “Well, I better let you go so you can finish watching your sports. I’m gonna go to bed… gotta get up for work tomorrow.”

“Yep,” he said. “Me too.”

“How’s the job these days?”

“Fine. Little boring. I’m thinking about maybe looking for a job somewhere else.”

“You mean doing the same thing somewhere else, or are you talking career change?” she asked. Jamie was an actuary… which, basically, was a “risk management” person, someone who evaluated the likelihood of future events, everything from natural disasters to financial ones. She didn’t know much more than that, just that it required a lot of math, which he’d always been good at (she’d appreciated having him as a boyfriend when she’d struggled her way through a calculus class her senior year of high school). He’d gotten a job right out of college at a corporation based in Des Moines, and he’d been there for a few years, but from what she gathered, he was getting sick of it. He spent his days sitting in a cubicle, doing office work, and she knew he wanted a little more excitement than that, a job that wasn’t the same from day to day.

“No, same career, just different job,” he replied. “There’s lots of other options...”

“You should look into them,” she said encouragingly. “Find a job you love.”

“I think I’m going to,” he agreed. “But listen, I don’t want to keep you up. I’ll talk to you later in the week, and we can plan a time to get together on Saturday or something, okay?”

“Sounds good,” she replied. “Goodnight, Jamie.”

“’Night, Clairie.”

Smiling at the name he used to call her (who else would think ‘Clairie’ sounded good?), she ended the call and set her phone down on the nightstand beside her bed, plugging it in to charge for the night. Then she pulled back the bedcovers and slid into bed, reaching out to turn off the lamp beside her before she lay down and closed her eyes.

***

Nick adjusted the collar on his Armani shirt and smoothed the thighs of his designer jeans before stepping back to scrutinize himself in the full-length mirror. He scowled at his reflection for a few seconds before reaching up to half-heartedly twist a spiky piece of his gelled blonde hair back into place. Then he reached into the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a pair of amber-tinted sunglasses. He slipped them on and looked back at his reflection. Sunglasses on or off? He certainly didn’t need them; the sun had already gone down. Off. He let them slide down the bridge of his nose and peered at himself over the tops of the rims. Then again, they did make him look cool. On. He pushed them back into place, nodded once at his mirror image, and then removed the glasses again with one quick swipe, tucking them securely back into his front pocket.

He heard his cell phone ringing in the bedroom and quickly ducked out of the bathroom, flipping off the light on the way out. He grabbed his phone off his bed and glanced at the caller ID before answering. It was Claire.

He quickly tapped the button to answer the call and put the phone to his ear. “Hey, baby,” he said in his sexiest voice.

“Hey baby yourself,” she replied. He smiled, knowing she was doing the same on the other line. He could tell by her voice. “Are you on your way over?” she asked. “I don’t want to make Jamie wait.”

Nick rolled his eyes, but answered, “Yeah, I’ll be at your place in a few.” Only if I drive like a bat out of hell, he added inwardly, glancing at the clock. So much for one last check in the mirror; this was going to have to do. Shoving his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans and grabbing his keys, he walked out into his sprawling garage, still talking to Claire.

“Well, I’ll let you drive,” she was saying. “See you in a few.”

“Alright,” he said, as he looked over his selection of cars, wondering which one to take that night. “Bye, baby.” Ending the call and sliding his miniature silver phone into another jeans pocket, he settled on his black BMW, one of his most expensive vehicles. Claire preferred the silver Jag, but he didn’t care – tonight, he felt like showing off.

Tonight, he’d be meeting the infamous Jamie.

Jamie had apparently flown in that evening, and Claire had wasted no time in making plans to meet up with him and Dianna for drinks later that night. Nick supposed he should be glad Claire had invited him along too, but he was not looking forward to it at all. He knew Claire and Jamie were just old friends now, but he couldn’t quite let go of the fact that they’d also dated. He was not just meeting another one of her old high school friends; he was meeting her ex. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much, but it did, and he couldn’t help but have a bad feeling about the whole thing.

Still, he knew he couldn’t refuse to go, so he’d grudgingly agreed, and now here he was, dressed to impress and sliding into the driver’s seat of his best ride to go pick up Claire.

He tried to drive fast, but “a few” still ended up taking longer than… well, a few. When Claire hopped into the passenger’s seat, though, she was all smiles. She planted a kiss on his cheek and then directed him to the bar she’d told Jamie to meet them at, leaning slightly forward in anticipation the entire way there.

“Have you been here before?” Nick asked, parking the car in the lot of Invidia, a new bar that had opened recently.

“Just once. Di and I came here on a Friday night, like the week after it opened,” said Claire. “Probably kind of a mistake, cause the place was packed, but hopefully it’s calmed down a little since then.”

When they got into the building, Nick was relieved to see that it had apparently ‘calmed down.’ It was busy, but not too crowded.

“Are they here yet?” Nick asked, raising his voice above the loud music and the clinking of glasses. Claire craned her neck, looking around for Dianna or Jamie. Nick took a half-assed glance around the room as well, but didn’t see anyone that resembled Dianna. He realized he’d never seen a picture of Jamie, so he didn’t even know who he was looking for there.

“Oh!” said Claire suddenly. “Over there! C’mon.” She grabbed his hand and led the way over to a booth along one wall, where a dark-haired guy was sitting by himself. He looked up when they got within a few feet of him and smiled slightly, holding up his hand in a short little wave.

“Hey!” Claire said brightly, stopping at the table. “You beat us here.”

He nodded. “I did.” Breaking into a grin, he slid out of the booth and stood up to hug her, inadvertently (or maybe on purpose?) breaking her handhold with Nick in the process. Nick hung back, watching as the two of them hugged each other tightly. He was relieved to see that they hugged about the same as he did with the other guys – just as friends, buddies, nothing more.

When Claire pulled back from the hug, she reached for Nick’s hand again and said, “Nick, meet Jamie Turner. Jamie – Nick.”

With his free right hand, Nick reached out and shook the other man’s hand, sizing him up the entire time. He was pleased to see that he had a few inches and a good thirty pounds or so on Jamie, but he had to admit, by a woman’s standards, Jamie would probably be considered ‘attractive.’ His dark brown hair was thick and wavy, grown just long enough to form loose curls, and his chin was lined in a layer of dark stubble. His eyes were large and very blue. Nick wondered if they were really that blue, or if he was wearing contacts.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Jamie said with a polite nod.

“You too, man,” echoed Nick automatically.

They sat down, Jamie returning to his side of the booth, and Nick immediately sitting down on the other side. Claire slid in next to him and propped her elbows up on the table. “So how was your flight down here?” she asked Jamie, leaning across the tabletop to talk to him.

“It was fine,” replied Jamie and then smirked, one side of his mouth turning up as he added, “No snow delays this time.” He glanced briefly at Nick before turning his eyes back to Claire.

She laughed. “Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if there had been – you and your crazy weather up North!”

He snickered. “Right. Snow in May. Even for Iowa, that’s a stretch.”

“You would love it though,” Claire teased. Looking over at Nick, she tipped her head in Jamie’s direction and said, “He loves cold weather. He’s insane.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you guys don’t miss seeing snow, living in Florida,” said Jamie. “I know I missed it, when I was living down here.”

“Can’t miss it if you’ve always been without it,” Claire countered with a shrug and a smile. “Nick and I… we’re both Florida kids, born and bred. We love the heat.”

“Technically I was born in New York,” offered Nick, “but yeah, we love the heat.”

Claire looked over at him. “I didn’t know you were born in New York,” she said. “I though you’d lived around this area your whole life.”

“Most of it,” smiled Nick. “But no, I was born in Jamestown, New York.”

“Ya learn something new every day, huh Claire?” spoke up Jamie, his eyes twinkling with amusement as they shifted from Nick to her.

“Guess so,” shrugged Claire and looked down at the small silver watch on her wrist. “Looks like Dianna’s ‘fashionably late,’ as usual.”

Jamie chuckled. “Some things never change, huh?”

Claire smiled and rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “That’s for sure.”

***

It was very late by the time Nick and Claire returned to the black BMW, which Nick had parked in the very back of the lot. He was regretting that now, after stumbling across what had seemed like a mile of blacktop just to get to it.

“I’ll park closer next time,” he laughed, the black sports car swimming before his eyes as he pointed his key ring at it with an unsteady hand, his thumb missing the button to unlock the car doors.

“Give me that,” Claire said in exasperation when he missed the button a second time, instead pushing one that made the horn honk and the lights start flashing. She took the keys from him and pushed the correct button, unlocking the doors with an audible click. “You take shotgun; I’m driving,” she said firmly.

Nick did not argue. He knew he was in no condition to drive. Even though they had gone out for drinks, he had planned to go light on the alcohol, knowing he’d be responsible for driving Claire (and himself) home later. Instead, it was Claire, Jamie, and Dianna (who had finally arrived – ‘fashionably late,’ as Claire put it) who had gone light on the drinks, while Nick had ended up more than a little tipsy. It was hard not to keep ordering drinks when that was really all he had to do – he certainly hadn’t contributed much to the other three’s conversations, for even Claire’s attempts at including him hadn’t changed the fact that he felt totally out of place with her and her old high school friends. The three of them had been friends since long before Claire had met Nick, and he simply was not a part of the history they shared and never would be. So he had listened rather than talked, and drank while the others swapped stories and old memories that were meaningless to him.

He climbed awkwardly into the front passenger’s seat while Claire got behind the wheel, leaning over to find the ignition. She stuck his key in and turned on the engine, letting out a little giggle of glee when the car sprang to life. “I should take you out and get you drunk more often; this is fun!” she joked, happily shifting the BMW into drive.

Nick laughed. “Glad you’re having fun, baby.”

“How about you?” Claire asked, pulling forward out of the parking space. “Did you have an okay time? I hope you didn’t feel left out…”

“Nah, ‘s cool,” said Nick, his feelings of not belonging long gone by now. “I had a good time.”

“Good,” she said, glancing over at him just long enough to give him a quick smile before she pulled out onto the highway. He fiddled with the radio while she drove, singing along to any song he knew. Every now and then, she would join in, and he would laugh – even drunk, his voice was a thousand times more in tune than hers would ever be.

“She packed my bags last night, pre-flight… zero hour, nine a.m.… and I’m gonna be hiiiiigh as a kite by then,” he warbled at the top of his lungs.

“Since when are you into Lite Rock?” Claire asked, laughing at the station he’d stopped on.

“Elton John’s not lite rock; he’s legend,” Nick stopped singing long enough to say. “And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time till touch down brings me round again to find, I’m not the man they think I am at home, oh no no no… I’m a rocket man… rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone…”

Impulsively, he reached out and swatted the tuner again, landing on a station that played 80’s pop songs. A Michael Jackson song that he remembered from his childhood was playing, and he tentatively joined in, singing forgotten lyrics about a beat behind Michael. “I like the feelin’ you’re givin’ me… just hold me baby and I’m in ecstasy… oh I’ll be workin’ from nine to five… to buy you things to keep you by my side…”

Claire giggled. “You do Jacko very well,” she put in.

He grinned and did a quick high-pitched “Aaow!”, grabbing his crotch with one hand while he thrust the other straight up, accidentally smacking it against the roof of the car. “Ow,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his hand before shrugging and jumping back in for the chorus of the song. “Cause you’re the one for me, the way you make me feel (the way you make me feel), you really turn me on (you really turn me on), you knock me off of my feet now baby – hee! My lonely days are gone (my lonely days are gone)…

“Go on girl!” he echoed as Michael did it in the song. “Hee-hee!”

Claire burst out laughing. “Oh man, this is classic…. I stand by what I said before – you’re fun when you’re drunk!”

“Aaow!”

When they made it back to Claire’s apartment, Claire swung Nick’s car into the empty spot next to hers and put it in park. Turning down the radio, she looked over at him and said, “I don’t want you to drive home. You wanna just crash here?”

He shrugged and then nodded agreeably. “Okay.” Sleep alone at home or with Claire here? It wasn’t a hard choice to make, especially in the state he was in.

“Great,” Claire said, looking relieved as she unbuckled her seatbelt. She shut off the engine and took his keys out of the ignition, keeping them in her hand as she got out of the car and came around to his side, just in time to see him tripping out of his seat. Whoops. Holding onto the car, Nick got his balance on the ground and then shut his door. “Ready?” Claire asked, a hint of a smirk tugging on her lips in amusement at his lack of coordination.

“Ready,” he said, weaving behind her as she walked up to the front door of her apartment building. He groaned at the sight of the stairs that greeted him forebodingly inside.

Apparently hearing his groan, Claire let out a little chuckle. “Well now, this could be tricky, huh?” she commented, looking up the staircase and then over at him. “Come on, we’ll go slow.” Slinging an arm around him, she walked him up the stairs, steadying him as he swayed drunkenly.

“What would I do without ya, Ren?” he muttered in sing-song fashion as they reached the top and started down the hall to her apartment.

“Probably break your good leg falling down my stairs, Stumpy,” she replied with an impish grin.

He laughed. “That would suck!”

“For sure,” she agreed, unlocking the door to her apartment and swinging it open. She let him in first and followed after, turning on lights behind him as he made his way into her living room and plopped himself down on her couch, the worn springs groaning under him. She sat down and scooted close to him, making herself comfortable in the slight dip in the center of the sunken couch. “So, Rocket Man, what shall we do now?” she asked, looking over at him. She had this sexy little smile on her face, and right then he knew exactly what he wanted to do. She was irresistible.

“Rocket Man thinks we should do a little ‘moonwalkin’,” he replied, waggling his eyebrows.

She looked at him for a moment and shook her head, snickering. “I think that line would have sounded a lot better to me if I was plastered too. But hey, it was a nice tie-in with the songs on the radio, so I’ll give it to ya.”

“Hey, whatever works,” he said with a grin, eagerly pulling her in for a kiss. She kissed back with a hunger that surprised him and left him craving more. “Aaow!” he exclaimed in his high-pitched Michael impression when they broke the kiss, expecting to get a laugh.

She did laugh… and then she said, “Okay seriously... no more of that. I do not want to imagine I’m making out with Michael Jackson here.”

He shuddered. “Ew…”

“Exactly. No more Jacko noises.”

He nodded solemnly. “No more.”

“Good boy.” She patted him on the head and then slid her arms around his neck, bringing her lips back to his.

***


Lyrics: “Rocket Man” by Elton John, “The Way You Make Me Feel” by Michael Jackson

[AN: totally random song choices – “Rocket Man” was what was in my head at the time, and any MJ song with a lot of “hee-hee”s in it amuses me… so don’t look for any hidden meanings in that part (except I did use the line that included the words “by my side,” just for the heck of it) ;-D ]