Chapter 7
He kissed her on the lips as they lay in bed, late into the morning. They had yet to consummate anything, and probably wouldn't still for months to come. But he was strangely ok with all of that. She no longer stiffened when he hugged her. She didn't reflexively recoil at every touch. He had stopped telegraphing his kisses, and she was reacting more naturally to unexpected pecks on the cheek.
He was liking all of this. He was enjoying the simple pleasures of spending time with someone.
It was nice to have conversations during the commercials instead of mindlessly getting something out of the fridge. Without her, even in Hawaii, the week off would have been more boring than his job.
He didn't even mind when Nathan dropped by the rented room from time to time, and it felt perfectly natural to let him have a key or crash whenever he liked. Nathan wasn't likely to find them doing anything sneaky or inappropriate. And after many, many lessons and stings from jellyfish, Jason was finally able to stand on a board without immediately falling off. He still couldn't surf, though. But just standing was a major accomplishment.
His problems now involved not having a 'feel' for the wave. Get up too soon or too late and the wave would slip from his grip and he would only ride a few feet, unlike Gina who could almost ride the wave all the way to shore.
The room was a primo location for surfing, it turned out.
He looked at her face, yet to fully wake. He wasn't that interested in surfing anyway; the only reason he went out was because of her. He liked watching her ride them. He liked seeing that smile.
He hadn't even seen her naked yet, just shorts and a T-shirt. She was the longest relationship he had ever been in, and by far the longest he had ever gone without having sex. The two had to be related.
He hadn't even felt her up yet. He kissed her as she smiled.
He was looking forward to a lot of firsts with her.
But for right now, he would settle for breakfast.
The hotel's free breakfast bar was still open, but just for the next twenty minutes. Reluctantly, he kissed her out of bed. This was the first time that he could remember when she went out into public in shorts.
He sat outside the motel room, alone at the café, and pondered the week that was nearly at an end.
Gina worked as a waitress, one of the few jobs that didn't interfere with classes. She was studying to be a bartender, but had yet to complete her training, which should never be confused with 'classes'. She studied computer programming, creative writing, business, economics, and shared a gene with her brother with an interest in mechanical engineering. She read monthly, and understood, Science and Technology review from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, as well as a dozen other publications freely available on the web. She could probably excel in that field better than he could; she understood the textbooks with far fewer problems, except she felt out of place in the classroom. Something that didn't intimidate her online.
Half of her classes were online anyway, for practical reasons.
She could never afford the 'caliber' of colleges that came with name recognition; she struggled to afford the few community college classes as it was. So, the logic went, if she couldn't afford prestigious anything anyway, she might as well get as many classes and as much knowledge as she could for what little money she did have. Quantity verses quality, breadth verses depth. If you can't afford a Mercedes, get a Ford. The Ford still has a five-year warranty, gets her where she wants to go, and is infinitely better than riding the bus; it's just not a Mercedes.
Plus, online classes worked around her schedule. She even had enough money leftover to afford a personal online tutor, from India, who went by Jimmy. And she could take her laptop/classroom anywhere and truly enjoyed the broadband at his motel. She was taking classes right now, and he was 'distracting'.
It was his room, yet he found himself outside at the café, watching the action on the beach. He didn't even complain about it, if memory served. He was overwhelmed with a weird compulsion to talk to her when the room was filled with so much silence. Every time he did, she would answer, but only after a pause. He would notice he was distracting her, apologize, and say, 'sorry' or 'never mind', but the interruption had already occurred. After the tenth of eleventh time, he apologized and left her alone the only way he could, by leaving the room.
He caught himself getting up to go back and ask her a question six times already, but always stopped himself before getting to the room. She would come down when she was done. They had agreed.
Why would it be so, he thought? He wasn't flooded with this kind of compulsion on the behemoth. He never flooded her with emails or phone calls. It must have something to do with proximity.
He ordered another ice water with a lemon wedge and changed seats for one with more shade.
He watched her drain a can of chickpeas at the mini sink in the room, then emptied it and some canola oil into a wok and stir it over their tiny burner. The oil started to sizzle.
"Ten minutes until the movie," he said.
"It's alright. It'll be done by then, promise." She sprinkled in the popcorn kernels, a few shakes of Creole seasoning, a pinch of salt, and put a lid on it. Giving it an occasional shake of the handle to keep it from burning.
"Eight minutes," he teased.
"Patience," she teased back.
Pop. . . pop pop. . . pop!
As she opened the lid a crack, a puff of steam emerged. Quickly returning the lid, she resumed the shaking, sloshing motion across the burner. "Just a few minutes more. It'll be worth it. Promise. It's like nothing you've ever had before." Then she hesitated with its delay. "I've never tried it with one of these before. I wonder if there's any difference between burner—"
The wok exploded in pops for a full two minutes or more, then trailed off.
She turned the heat off, poured it all into their biggest bowl, then drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil across the top before returning to the bed to watch their last movie before tomorrow's checkout.
He reached in, more than a little dubious of what chickpeas had to offer to popcorn. The Creole seasoning gave the popcorn a little spicy kick of heat while drastically dropping the sodium count. He gathered his courage and sampled a chickpea. It was still warm in his fingers, a little hard like the flaky crust of a deep-fried fish, but it melted in his mouth like a cheesy puff. "Wow!" he said, skipping the popcorn and fishing for more chickpeas. "Oh my God! Why don't they serve these at theaters?"
"Shhhh!!!" she said, "The movie's on."
He turned out the light as they snuggled closer and prepared for their last night together. Chickpeas. . . who would have known how perfect they could be?