Kissed (17 page)

“Move
along,” the guard said, and continued on his rounds.

“I
need—”

“To go.
Yeah. Call me when you get home.”

“It’ll
be late.”

“Beth,
do you think I care?”

Her
cheeks reddened further.
 
“No…”

He
hugged her, then let go.
 
“Go. Before I
drag you home.”

She
nodded and turned to the security line.
 
As long as she didn’t look back, she could do this.

Chapter Fourteen

Beth
slept on the plane, but not as much as she hoped.
 
Dad
and
Mom picked her up at Baggage Claim.
 
She
smiled for them.
 
Didn’t
know what else to do.
 

Mom
hugged her while Daddy looked for her suitcase.
 
“I’m sorry you cut your trip short, honey. This is all going to be very
routine.”

“I
hope so, Mom.”
 
She looked the same as when
Beth left, still beautiful.
 
That
comforted her, and she realized she’d feared her mother would be weak and
sickly already.
 
“It’s okay. I still saw
a lot.”

“I
want to hear
all
about it.”

“Geeze,
Elizabeth,
what’d you bring back?
Lead?”
 
It sounded like a complaint, but he was
teasing.

“Just
some books, Dad. It’s not
that
heavy.”

He
grunted, his usual reply, and started for the car.
 
They followed, sharing a look of
what can you do
.
 
The familiar was comforting.

At
home, Beth took her stuff into her room to unpack.
 
Dad was grilling dinner tonight and Mom knew
she liked to reestablish normal when she came home from a trip, so she was left
alone.
 

A
week ago, this room had been her sanctuary.
 
Now, as she put dirty clothes in the hamper and set aside souvenirs on
her bed, it seemed smaller, inadequate.
 
One week, and the room felt like a young girl’s, not a college
student’s.
 
She hadn’t redecorated since
sophomore year when she wanted to go back to school as a young woman and put
away all the stuffed toys except for one bear sitting on her dresser.
 
Everything that didn’t say “teenager” went
into a box in the garage.

Jacob
said he didn’t recognize the place.
 
She
took that as a compliment.

It
was the bed, she thought, that really made her notice.
 
White-painted metal,
twin-size, and girly.
 
Her father
put it together when she was ten.
 
He
thought girls should be all about pink and sweetness and frilly dresses.
 
It took bringing home a dissected frog from
seventh grade Biology to convince him that wasn’t her.

Checking
her watch first, she reached for the phone and called Jacob.

“Hey,
baby,” he said.
 
Made her feel good he
picked up on the second ring.

“Hope
you don’t always answer the phone like that.”

“I
was waiting for your call. What are you up to?”
 
The warmth in his voice loosened the knot in her stomach a bit.

“Unpacking, as far as my parents are concerned.
I finished
already.”
 
She stretched out on the bed.

“Where
are you?”

“On my bed.
This thing is really too small for me now.”

He
laughed.
 
“My mother spoiled you.”

“
You
spoiled me.”

He
sucked in a breath.
 
“Kitten…”

Hadn’t meant to go to the sexy place.
 
“I’m not a baby feline.”

“No,
but you
are
adorable and possess
sharp claws and teeth.”

She
smiled.
 
“Metaphorical,
maybe.”

“Sweetheart,
I’ve got a bite mark.”

Oh, god…where did I do that?
 
“Um…”
 

“Still there, love?”

“I’m
here.”
 
She cleared her throat.
 
“How was the gig?”

“Rowdy.
But we got paid. Had a pint with the boys,
then
came
home to wait for you.”

Awww
…
 
“Your friends are going to start to hate me.”

“Bah…work
is work, and what I do on my time is my soddin’ business.”

“Touchy subject?”

“Not
yet. So…how is it being home again?”

She
switched the phone to her other ear and sighed.
 
“Like there’s an elephant in the room. Mom barraged me with a ton of
questions about what I saw, and Dad pretty much didn’t talk at all. Not that
he’s wordy to begin with, but…”

“I’m
sure your mum will be fine, love. Could’ve just been a dirty scanner.”

“I
hope so.”
 
Thinking of the C-word was too
huge, too scary.
 
The what-ifs had been hard
to ignore since Dad told her the biopsy news.

“Beth?”

“Sorry…
I’m here.”

“You
okay?”

She
swallowed the lump of worry in her throat.
 
“I don’t know.”

“Oh,
baby… I wish I could hold you right now. Try not to think ahead of what you
know, alright? She’s still healthy and active, right?”

“Yeah.”
 
Presumably
.

“Then
that’s the truth until you know otherwise.”

It
was good advice.
 
“You’re occasionally
smart, Jacob Lindsey,” she teased.

“Oh,
you’ll pay for that one next time I see you.”

“Ooo,
I’m scared. You barely outweigh me.”
 
Probably not true, but guaranteed to rile him up.
 
Her boyfriend’s vanity was a sure thing.

“Hey,
there’s muscle on this frame!”

“Uh-huh.”

“I
miss you,” he said, his voice soft and affectionate.
 
The sudden turn surprised her.

“Miss
you, too.”
 
After last night, she
wouldn’t have left for anything but the most important circumstances.
 
She ached for him now.
 
“I’ll call you tomorrow as soon as I…know.”

“I
can—
”
 
He
yawned.
 
“I can stay on with you.”

So sweet.
 
“I’ve heard
the tired in your voice the whole time, Jacob. And I know you didn’t get to
sleep much.”

“Mmm,
best reason to stay up, though. Gonna dream about you, love. Sure you don’t
wanna chat? I don’t have to be anywhere in the mornin’.”
 
He yawned again, and apologized.

“
Go to bed
.”

“It’s
lacking a soft-skinned brunette.”

She
turned red at the seductive purr in his voice.
 
At least he couldn’t see it this time.
 
“Nothing I can do about that,” she said.
 
“But I’m sure you’ll pass right out.”

“Yeah, yeah.
Tomorrow, love.”

“Count
on it. Bye…”
 
She pressed “end” on the
keypad.

Beth
loved that he wanted her there still, but emphasizing it only made it more
difficult to bear.
 
Her heart wanted to
be in two places at once.

A
knock on the door, then, “Elizabeth…”

“Yes, Mom?”

She
opened the door and stuck her head around it.
 
“Dinner, honey.”

“Okay.”
 
She put the phone on the stand and followed
her out.

Beth
grabbed her glass off the table and went to the refrigerator.
 
Dad walked in from outside with a plate of
chicken.
 
She heard the “
thunk
” of the plate hitting the table, then his chair
sliding on the floor when he sat.
 
The
grilled veggies were already on the table.
 
Her glass full of Snapple Iced Tea, she took her place.

It
was the most quiet, awkward dinner she could remember them having.
 
Dad complimented Mom on the marinade, she
complimented him on the chicken, and Beth kept her mouth full to keep from
asking questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answers to.
 
Mom tried asking more about her trip, but
with Daddy sitting there like a lump, she didn’t want to talk about it.
 
He cleared his plate,
then
excused himself to his study for “work”.

“Well,
that was fun,” she muttered.

“Elizabeth.”

“Sorry, Mom.”
 
She
took her plate into the kitchen and got a bowl for ice cream.

She
sighed.
 
“No, you’re right… I considered
not telling your father until I knew something conclusive, knowing how he’d be,
how he’d worry.”

“Are
you worried?”

She
handed Beth the chocolate ice cream.
 
“Nervous. But, it isn’t the first time in my life there has been a lump
in my breast, so I’m expecting it to be another cyst.”

“A
cyst would be good?”
 
Beth scooped three
scoops into her bowl,
then
offered her mother the
carton.

She
shook her head, put the lid back on the ice cream, and put it in the
freezer.
 
“They’re usually benign, and
they drained the last one and it was done. Or, it might just be a calcium
deposit. I really wish your father hadn’t interrupted your vacation, honey.”

 
Me, too, under different circumstances
.
 
“It’s okay. I want to be here. So, how does
this go tomorrow?”

“The
procedure won’t take long. My doctor is going to take a look with an
ultrasound, then get a sample of the lump.”

“Cut
you open?”

“Probably not.
Don’t worry, Elizabeth, I’m not going to come home looking
like Swiss cheese.”

She
stuffed ice cream in her mouth and muttered, “Glad you can joke about it.”
 
Mom didn’t look up from washing the dishes,
so she either didn’t hear her or chose not to comment.

Beth
wished she could be as non-ruffled as her mother was right now, but she guessed
she was more like Dad—too many thoughts to be glib.
 
Back in her room, she set the bowl on her
desk and looked in the drawers for a notepad, needing to write down the
questions she had.

A
biopsy was taking a small sample piece for testing, but what if they look at
the thing and want to get rid of all of it?
 
Mom hadn’t told her how big it was.
 
That mattered, right, for how long it’d been in the body…how bad it
could be?
 
And were there good kinds of
breast cancer vs. bad ones, like the grades of skin cancer?

As
they rode to the doctor’s office the next morning, she wondered if her brother
knew.
 
If Mom was sick, Beth knew he’d
come, but could he and Dad put aside their differences for her sake?
 
The stress wouldn’t be good for her and Beth
would be stuck as referee.

They
were ten minutes early and they took Mom right in after she filled out the
paperwork.
 
She explained on the way that
the doctor would be sticking a needle into the lump and pulling out a bit of
tissue—no cutting today.
 
Dad read a golf
magazine, or pretended to.
 
Beth watched
the clock.

“When
will we know?” she asked when Mom and the doc came back to the waiting room.

“Twenty-four
to forty-eight hours,” the doctor said.
 
“It depends on how busy the lab is. I’ll be in touch, Sarah,” she told
Mom.

“Thanks,”
Mom said.
 
She looked the same, except
for not carrying her purse on her shoulder.

“Did
it hurt?” Beth asked her.

“She
gave me a local,” she said.
 
“It just
felt a little odd. Now, who wants brunch?”

Dad
opened the door for her, took her hand to walk back to the car, and that was
it.
 
They were ignoring the
elephant.
 

Beth
didn’t
flippin
’ care about
brunch
.
 
“Mom, is that all
you’re going to say?”

“Elizabeth, I don’t know
anything more
to
say. We have to
wait.”

“How
can you be so calm?”

“Elizabeth, that’s enough,”
Dad said.
 
He glared at her.
 
She glared back.

He
dropped her at home with a line about “fixing her attitude”.
 
It was his clumsy way of protecting Mom.
 
Alone in the house, she went for the phone
and called Jacob.

“’
Ello
.”

“I’m
glad you’re home,” she said.

“Beth?
It’s good to hear your voice, love. How’d it go?”

“We
have to wait another day or two for results. My parents are trying to pretend
everything’s normal and I hate it.”

“I’m
sorry, baby. Wish I could say somethin’ to make it better.”

“Listening
helps. They don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even know if they’ve told my
brother.”
 
She sighed.
 
“What did you do today?”

“Slept
late, thought about you in the shower—”

“Oh
my god…”

“You
asked,” he said, and chuckled.

“You
are so dirty.”

“And
you like it.”
 
His voice dropped to that
tone that made her knees weak.
 

Hello, wet panties
.
 
“When it’s…appropriate,” she said.
 

He
laughed again.
 
“Got you to smile, didn’t
I?”

“Yeah…
Did you do anything out of the house today?”

“Nope,
except for picking up takeout.
Been writing.”