More Than This: Contemporary Christian Romance Novel (13 page)

Jake waited and waited, but there was no sound from down the hallway. He put the dishes in the dishwasher and cleaned the rest of the kitchen. Then he went out and straightened the living room. He hoped she was all right, but then he had told her to go to bed. Maybe she had. He considered what to do next, planting his hands on his hips as he did so.

The door presented a real problem. He didn’t have a key, and thus he had no way to lock the thing if he left. His gaze went to the hallway. He couldn’t just leave, but he couldn’t go down there and find her either. Nothing seemed quite right. Nothing except waiting.

He didn’t want to make himself at home so he went over to the little dining table where the school books were stacked. Fingering one, he let his gaze slide over the gold lettering.
Disendential Phenomics
. Or something like that. Annoyance with his stupid mind slithered over him. It was pointless to even try.

At that moment the door beyond cracked and then creaked open. His gaze went to it as his heart thudded to life. Caught, he had no good excuse for why he was standing here in the middle of her apartment. In the next second Becca the she-wolf came in, head down, fighting with her keys. She came in, turned to shut the door, and shrugged out of her coat.

Jake didn’t want to scare her, but he wanted to alert her to his presence just the same. Knowing nothing else to do, he cleared his throat, and she jumped a half mile, spinning around, entangled in the arms of her coat.

“Good grief! You about scared me to death!” Her eyes narrowed as she made short shrift of the coat, dropping it to the floor. “What are you doing here?”

He cleared his throat again, this time from nervousness. “I came to check on Liz.” His fingers traced across the cover of the book before he picked both hands up and wrapped them into his elbows. “Why didn’t you give her the cold medicine? She was practically down with pneumonia when I got here.”

Still not looking happy, Becca bent and swept the coat up and slammed it onto the coat rack. “Don’t look at me. I’ve been gone all day.”

“You left her here like that? All alone? Why didn’t you tell somebody?”

“Who was I supposed to tell? CPS?” She stomped past him into the kitchen.

He followed but just to the doorway where he leaned, anchoring his hands under his armpits. “She was really sick, you know? I mean really sick.”

“And I was really busy. What’s your point?”

It was all he could do to keep himself from yelling at her. In front of him, she slammed pans around loud enough to wake the dead. “Could you please keep it down a little? She’s trying to get some sleep.”

“And you’re here
why
?”

“Because someone had to make sure she was okay. That’s why. She was practically hacking up blood when I got here.”

“I gave her the orange juice.”

“Oh, yeah. That was real helpful.”

“Look. I’m her roommate not her mother. Okay?” This time when Becca turned to him, he saw the fatigue, and he felt bad for it.

“Yeah. Okay. I get that.” He unwound and sent one finger through his hair. “She just… She looked really bad when I got here tonight. It really flipped me out. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

Becca absorbed that for a moment. “I’m sorry too. You just… I wasn’t expecting to come home and find…”

“Me.”

“Yeah.”

She stirred her supper. “So she’s sleeping then?”

“I guess. I sent her to bed a little bit ago. She never came back out.”

Becca nodded.

He stood. “Listen, could you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“If you’re going to be up for a little while, I want to run down to the store and get her some stuff— more orange juice, that kind of thing. Do you mind?”

With a sigh, she shrugged. “I’ll be up. Me and a biology book have an all-nighter planned.”

“Great. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes tops.”

It took 20, but no one was counting anymore. When he knocked, it wasn’t long before the door opened. Becca let him in without even a greeting. He went straight into the kitchen to put the things away. Strange how it all felt so natural. Coming back out, he found Becca at the dining table under the halo of soft yellow light, hunched over two books and a notebook.

“Thank you,” he said softly, rolling the little plastic bag around his wrist.

“Thank you for taking care of her.”

Jake nodded. “Will you check on her in the morning for me?”

A moment and Becca shrugged and smiled. “I will.”

Becca had come in at some point during the night. Liz vaguely remembered that. The coughing hadn’t been nearly as bad as the night before, and she had slept, hard. When she awoke the next morning, she thought it was morning until she looked at the clock. It was, in fact, nearly noon.

She rolled from the bed and coughed twice on the way up. She felt better but only some. Cold medicine and something to eat. That would be a great start.

Driving the forklift had never felt so much like eternity. Back and forth. Up and down. Thinking of nothing but her the entire day. By the time five o’clock rolled around, Jake was practically coming out of his skin. He hurried from the docks and through the maze that was New York. He considered going straight to her place but reconsidered when he realized how awful he must smell. So with one quick detour through the shower and into relatively cleaner clothes, he made his way to her door, praying the whole way.

The realm of possibility had once again widened to include studying, and Liz was full into it when the knock sounded on the door. Her heart jumped. She had wondered if he would come. With the next knock, she knew he had. “Coming!”

At the door she realized she should have changed. For one second she even thought about doing so, but his third knock convinced her there wasn’t time, so she adjusted her lounge T-shirt and pajama bottoms and exhaled to calm her rushing nerves. With that, she wrenched the doorknob and smiled brightly. It would have worked had a rasping, horrific cough not chosen that exact moment to attack her. She choked and coughed, bending and twisting to get away from it.

Finally fighting it back, she squeezed her eyes closed and willed it to leave. Two more hacks and finally it did. She came up, dragging a contrite smile to her face. “Hi.” A small cough and then another harder one, and her attempt at acting normal collapsed completely.

“Well, it’s good to see you’re still alive,” he said with no humor in the words. His face fell into a scowl. “Shall we go to the emergency room now, or would you like to change first?”

“Ha. Ha.” She fought the coughs back and shook her head. “I’m better. Really. I’m off the couch, aren’t I?” Holding the door open for him, she stepped out of the way.

“I can see that,” he said, perusing her as he came in. “Still coughing though, I hear.”

“Only sometimes.” She fought another one, wondering where they had come from all of a sudden. Quietly she closed the door as he turned and watched her walk past him and over to the table. The feeling of being under a microscope drove through her.

Still at the door he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the rack before following her to the dining room. There he stopped and put his hands on his hips and surveyed her with a hard, concerned look. “Have you eaten yet?”

“I ate a tuna sandwich at noon. Does that count?” Sitting down, she grabbed up her highlighter and went back to work, utterly aware of his presence in the room but having no clue what to do about that.

He let out a long sigh. “How does chicken and rice sound?”

“Great, but we don’t have any rice.”

“I got some last night.”

With that he went into the kitchen, and her gaze trailed up and over to the door he had gone through. She considered asking about the night before but decided she probably didn’t want to know how he had accomplished that. A cough jumped from her, and when it left, she shook her head. If she wasn’t careful, he really would take her to the ER.

“You want peas and carrots with it?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Jake figured she was busy so he cooked without making much noise or talking. When the rice was fried and the chicken ready, he filled two glasses with water and ice and then breached the threshold once again. “You at a stopping place?”

Looking up, Liz sighed. “I guess. You need some help?” She slid her books together and stacked them at the edge of the table.

“No. Just stay there. I’ve got it.” He went back into the kitchen, got the plates and silverware. In two trips he had dinner on the table. However, he didn’t sit down. “Do you need anything else? Salt? Pepper?”

“Uh, no. This looks great.” Looking over the layout, she rubbed her hands together.

“You sure? Because I’m up. I could get it.”

“No, really. This looks great.”

Still not sure he wasn’t missing something, Jake reluctantly took his seat. He reached for the serving spoon in the fried rice and pushed it to her. “Dig in.”

However, she didn’t immediately reach for it. Instead, her gaze came over to his, questioning without saying a word.

“What?” he asked with no small amount of trepidation. “Did I forget something?”

Her head shook before she answered. The weight of her hesitation pulled her gaze down to her lap. “I just… um…”  She dragged her gaze up to his. “I usually say grace before I eat.”

“Oh.” The syllable was short, like a mini-explosion, but he recovered quickly. “Okay. That’s cool. I guess.” Unfortunately, however, he didn’t know what to do next. He waited until she bowed her head, and he followed, feeling a little silly but trying to squelch that.

“Dear Jesus, thank You for this day.”

Jake snuck a peek up at her. He could only see the crest of her head, the rest of her face seemed buried in her chest. Still, his heart lifted at the sight.

“Thank You for helping me to get well and for sending a guardian angel to make sure of it. Bless this food and this company. Amen.”

“Amen,” Jake breathed. He’d heard the word before, but had never quite gotten up enough interest to wonder what it meant until that moment.

The spell of the prayer broke when she lifted her head and reached for her fork. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

Food. Glorious. Wonderful. Marvelous food. It had never tasted quite so good as it did that night at that table. Liz wasn’t sure if it was because she was so famished from not having eaten or from the strength of his cooking skills. Whatever it was, it was delicious.

“Mmmm.” She closed her eyes savoring the twining of the flavors.

“Good?”

“M-hm. Wonderful.” Forking some more into her mouth, she fought to remain lady-like and polite. That wasn’t easy because what she really wanted to do was shovel it in.

Jake had taken some also, and his fork clinked on the plate. “So.”

“So,” she said and took a quick drink of water in case this discussion got deeper than one syllable.

He lifted a mound of rice with his fork but just held it there, hovering between the plate and his mouth. “Do you always pray before you eat?”

This bite nearly slid down the wrong pipe, and Liz ducked her head so he wouldn’t see how impolite she was being. She nodded in answer to his question before she took another drink. Food successfully down, she nodded again. “Most of the time it’s not that formal. I just say a few words of thanks.” She shrugged. “Not really that big of a deal.”

Jake nodded and ate another bite. A moment and he glanced over at her again. “So what’s that whole Amen thing anyway? Is that like signing off or something?”

“Signing off?”

“Yeah, like. ‘Okay, God. I’m through. You can go on with Your life now.’”

Liz laughed in spite of herself. “No. Not exactly. Amen means ‘I believe’ as in, ‘I believe that God has heard and will answer.’”

“Huh. Never thought about it like that.” He took another bite.

Emotional ropes pulled her back as her spirit strained to figure out just how much he wanted to hear on this subject. “I think it’s also kind of to let everyone else know you’re done.” She scooped up some rice. “Like sometimes in church, the pastor gets all, ‘And another thing… and another thing…’ and you’re like, ‘Ugh. This could go on forever.’  And then he says, ‘Amen,’ and you know we’re through.”

Jake nodded as if he was absorbing information.

She ate a couple of bites and took a drink. “So, you don’t go to church much?”

“Church?” His eyebrows arched for the ceiling. “Uh, no. I don’t go to church.”

She lifted another forkful. “Ever?”

He shrugged. “I went for my grandpa’s funeral one time, but I think that was just a chapel, not a real church. Does that count?”

Liz wasn’t sure it counted, nor did she know if she should be the judge of him on whether or not it did, which she suddenly felt. The whole unequally yoked thing went skittering through her mind, but she beat it back with the reminder they were friends and hardly that. “Your parents didn’t go to church?”

“Uh, no. Not that I ever knew anyway. Dad worked extra hours on Sundays and Mom graded papers.” He stretched his legs out and leaned back just slightly before shrugging. “I pretty much hung out and tried not to get into too much trouble.”

“Oh, yeah? How’d that work?”

“Better some times than others.”

She laughed softly, really liking his way with words.

Two more bites and Jake leaned back again. “Not that there’s anything wrong with church. I mean I believe in God as far as that goes and everything. I pray sometimes… kind of, and I figure if I feel like praying, then that probably means there’s somebody somewhere who’s willing to listen.”

“So do you have a name for this somebody somewhere?”

He leaned forward, dipping his fork tines down into the small mound of rice left. “I don’t know. Never really thought about it, I guess.” He chewed and shrugged. “It’s just nice to think I’m not all alone, you know?”

Something about how he said it snagged her attention. The food became secondary to the conversation. “Did you spend a lot of time alone growing up?”

He sighed, never really looking up at her. “Yeah, it was just me. No brothers or sisters. No big family. ‘Course I hung out with my friends, you know from school… for a while anyway…”

When she looked up, she noticed that he was more stirring his food than eating it. That bothered her though she couldn’t quite explain why. She continued to eat, very slowly, managing her words, measuring them so she wouldn’t offend him or scare him again. “So, what happened with that? Your friends, I mean?”

For a very long moment he said nothing, and her heart slid to a stop. Maybe she had pushed too hard, gone too far. Then he shrugged. “Oh, you know how it is, you grow up and you go in different directions. It is what it is.”

She wanted to ask more, but before she got the chance, his gaze hit her plate.

“Wow. You must’ve been hungry.” He pulled forward with his elbows on the table. “Do you want some more?”

Decorum said she should say no, but her grateful stomach wouldn’t let her. She lifted her plate to his offer. “Sure.”

Jake gave her some more wondering if she was just being nice. He liked to cook, but mostly his style of cooking was throwing things that sounded good into a pan and seeing how it turned out. He’d made more than one disaster doing that in his time in the kitchen, and he was glad tonight wasn’t one of those times. When he sat back, he didn’t bother to refill his plate. He was more intent on making sure she had enough.

“So,” he said, lifting his chin toward her stack of books, “what are you studying tonight?”

She coughed twice, as hard as she had when he’d first gotten there, and he scratched the whiskers on his chin, waiting for the answer and trying not to let himself worry about her improving but not yet fully recovered health.

“I was supposed to have a test in Ed Psych yesterday, so I guess I’m going to have to beg, plead, and grovel to get to take a make-up when I go back tomorrow. I surely don’t want to bomb the thing at this point.” Another small cough kept her from her rice for a moment, and Jake noticed her wince.

“That rib still bothering you?”

Her expression was one of quiet surprise. “A little. It’s better though.”

He wished that made him feel better about the situation. “So do you have a lot to study tonight?”

“Enough. I was going to put in a few hours the other night, but we both know how well that worked out.” She ate another bite. “I did get quite a bit done today on it though, so it shouldn’t be too bad.”

“Hm.” He grabbed his water and leaned back with it. “So what’s it about? What you’re studying, I mean.”

“This part we’ve been going over is about learning disabilities. ADD, ADHD, autism. That kind of thing.”

“Fun.”

“Tell me about it. But there’s this whole section on dyslexia. It’s been really kind of interesting.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s so interesting about it?” It was strange, he really didn’t care what she was talking about, he could sit and listen to her forever. He took another drink, really liking the chance to just sit with her, no customers, no Mia, no anything. Just the two of them talking and getting the chance to know one another.

“I don’t know. At first I thought, ‘Big deal, so they can’t read all that great’ but the more I’ve learned, the more interested I get. Like, when I first started, I thought it was all about flipping letters and stuff. Or just not being able to read, not being very good at reading, that kind of thing, but the more we talked about it, the more I realize there’s so much more to it than that.”