Bloom Where You're Planted
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Darby Baham
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24
Chapter One
“God, you’re beautiful.”
Nick’s words came out as a whisper but rang in my ears like the sweetest piano note. In the middle of fumbling with his keys to unlock his apartment door, he stopped abruptly, turned in my direction and stared at me with the slightest smile on his face. Looking like he wanted to tear my clothes off right in his hallway.
“What was that?” I asked, wanting to hear him say it again. I curled my lower lip under my front teeth and gave him a knowing giggle.
“You, Jenn Pritchett, are sooo beautiful to meeee.” He sang the words almost as smoothly as Joe Cocker himself, and I about melted as he stepped closer to me and nuzzled his head in my neck.
With all the willpower I could muster, I stood firm, taking in the scent of his Tom Ford beard oil while desperately wanting to kiss those lips that had been mine to do with as I pleased for the past three years.
The only problem was that we’d just spent the past five hours on a brewery tour in DC, and I hated beer. The last thing I wanted to do was taste the remnants of it on his lips.
“You are so silly,” I said, attempting to defuse the moment. “We should get inside before one of your neighbors catches you trying to seduce me.”
“I don’t care about them.”
“I know you don’t...right now.”
The truth was that Nick didn’t much care about anything in this moment, since he’d been drinking for me and him for the past few hours. I’d tried to be a good sport and taste as many beers as I could stomach, but inevitably I ended up pouring my remaining portion into his cup to finish at each stop on the tour. That left my dear, normally very composed boyfriend a lot tipsier than he’d probably planned on being. And me thankful that I always carried Tic Tacs in my purse so I could couch the aftertaste of hops in my mouth.
“Mmm, okay,” he groaned in agreement and then raised his head up so that he could resume unlocking the door. I watched Nick as he finally completed his task and leaped his five-foot-ten-inch body over the threshold as his door swung open. We slipped off our shoes as we walked in—mine, a pair of nude-colored pointed-toe Vivienne flats that showed just a peek of my toe cleavage, his a pair of black leather oxford shoes with rubber soles and a tan trim from Bevana—giggling as we stumbled in the dark before turning on the foyer light.
Within seconds, he made a beeline for the bathroom, practically knocking over his charcoal-gray side table lamp on the way. For my part, I knew which room was most important if I was going to enjoy the rest of the evening: the kitchen, to get him some water. Stepping onto his tile floor with my bare feet, I braced myself for the cold but was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as jarring as I expected. Maybe the little bit of beer I’d consumed had warmed me up more than I realized, or the slight breeze of early September in DC hadn’t quite cooled down his apartment floors. I worked my way effortlessly through his space, knowing every nook and cranny as if it were my own.
From the cabinet above his island, I grabbed two drinking glasses and then slid over to the refrigerator to get his water pitcher. Just as I’d taken it out, Nick came bouncing toward me.
“Aht, aht,” I said with one hand in front of me, stopping him in his tracks. “Before you come over here with those lips ready to kiss me, you need water.”
“I also gargled some mouthwash while I was in the bathroom. Because I’m a loving boyfriend.”
“Oh, yes, very loving,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “So loving that you’re also going to drink this full glass of water. Not just for my tastes, but also to make sure you’re not throwing up later and yours truly doesn’t have to play Mom all night.”
“That’s fair.”
Nick stood with his lip poked out, pouting like a little kid waiting for a treat that he’d been promised. It was almost comical watching him follow me as I took every meticulous step—rinsing each glass with water from the faucet, slowly pouring water from the pitcher into one and then the other, and walking back to the freezer to get ice with my long, wide-legged tan linen trousers causing it to almost look as if I was gliding across his floor. By the time I handed him his glass, his bottom lip was starting to quiver with anticipation.
“Is it considered cruel and unusual punishment if your girlfriend slowly tortures you when you’re in need?”
“Why, whatever do you mean?” I asked with a teasing eyebrow raise.
“You know what I mean.” Nick paused to take in a few desperate sips. “If you could have taken twenty minutes to pour that water, you would have.”
“Maybe,” I chuckled. “But I have to get you back for today somehow.”
“You really didn’t like it?”
Nick finished his glass, clanked it down onto the counter and moved closer to me, pulling my waist into him with one hand and using his other to run his fingers through my pixie-cut hair.
“I liked spending time with you, of course.”
Instinctively, I melted into his body. It was something about the way he touched me, about the hold he’d had on me from day one. Whenever he directed my limbs to do something—lean into him, walk a few steps with his hand gently pressed on the small of my back, bend over so that my butt was in perfect position for him to slide into me—I sank right into him without warning. It was like my body had a mind of its own, and Nick controlled it. Tonight was no different. Even after purposely dragging out how long I took to fix him some water, as soon as he pulled my waist toward him, I completely liquefied in his presence.
“But—” I hesitated, not wanting the rest of my words to sound like a rant, but also needing to be honest with him. “The thing is, you know I hate beer. I mean, there are a million tours we could have tried. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the thought. I’m just saying it didn’t seem like plans you’d make for a girlfriend who would much rather a tequila soda.”
“I hear you. You’re right. I just thought I’d try something different. I don’t know, man.”
Nick took a step back from me, and suddenly it felt as if a football field of space was smashed between us. That was definitely not what I wanted. Just that fast, my limbs had lost their support beam, and me and my body felt the lonely side effects of honesty.
“You know what? How about we figure out something to eat?” I asked, anxious to fill the awkward silence and to get us back to the flirty, sexy place we were just in moments ago. “I could go for Mexican. You?”
“Oh, yes.” Nick’s eyes lit back up at the suggestion and the change of conversation. If there was one thing I knew about my boyfriend, it was that he hated conflict, so I was sure that he was all too happy to move on from my statements as well. “Let’s get delivery from Alero, babe. Those nachos. Yum.”
Even for him, this was sort of whiplash, but I’d take it.
“Okay, perfect. I was also thinking about their seafood soup.”
“Ooh, and their carne al paso.” Nick threw his head back with excitement.
“Yesss, that, too.”
“Do you mind placing the order, though, babe?” Nick asked, his demeanor completely now switched back to where it was before—so much so that he started bouncing around again. I could always tell how good a mood he was in by how many babes poured from his lips. Two in a row surely meant we were back in business. “Just use the app on my phone,” he said, twitching some more. “I—I think I need to go to the bathroom again.”
Ohhh. Well, that would also explain the bouncing.
“Ha, sure, leaky. No problem.”
With fresh springs in his legs, Nick leaned toward me and placed the softest kiss on my lips. Right at the same time, he grabbed one of my butt cheeks for emphasis and then went racing back out of the kitchen before I could say another word. His physical affection was one of the things I adored about the man, but the beer I tasted on my tongue was not.
“And maybe rub some of that mouthwash on your lips, too?” I called out to him.
“Okay, Mom!”
It wasn’t long before Nick joined me in his living room and plopped down on the sofa in between my slender legs. With his head falling somewhere in between my chest and stomach, I could feel the rhythm of his breathing as he inhaled and exhaled and a slight tickle on my skin from his goatee.
“Did they say how long it would be?”
“Yeah, probably thirty to forty minutes.” With the fingertips of my right hand, I stroked the top of his head softly, alternating between figure eights and straight lines in his short hair.
“Mmm. Okay. Sounds good.” His voice lowered to a whisper, and I knew he’d be asleep way before that time was up.
“You have a preference on what we watch tonight?” I asked.
“Nahhh,” he said, dragging out the word and closing his eyes in the middle of his response. “You can definitely pick.” By the time the last word came out of his mouth, it was barely audible through the yawn that accompanied it.
Once his breaths turned into light snores, I knew I was on my own until the food came. At least his arms were wrapped tightly around me, his broad shoulders contracting while the rest of him was calm. That, somehow, helped to reassure me that he might have gotten today completely wrong, but even his sleeping body knew that he needed me. The real question was whether I was happy with us as we were now.
With three years behind us, I knew in my heart that Nick was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We’d met, as many young adults do in DC, at a networking happy hour for up and coming Black professionals. It wasn’t even something I’d wanted to attend—not much need for teachers to network with finance bros, as far as I was concerned—but I’d let my friends drag me out that night, and thankfully so. I’d just stuffed my face with a forkful of macaroni and cheese and chicken when this very fine brother walked up to me smoothly and introduced himself. I don’t even think I ever took a second bite.
From then on, we were practically inseparable, talking on the phone for hours like we were kids in high school. I wasn’t really the girl in our crew who dated a lot, but by the time Nick and I went on our first date two days later, then our second the next day and our third by the end of the week, even I knew we had something special. For the past few months, however, as much as I knew our love was strong, our connection felt off. The spark was gone. I’d feel a flitter of desire between us, and then poof, just as it came, it would be over. My body would be searching yet again for its lighthouse, but by then, Nick would check out and just want to sleep. And we’d find ourselves back on the couch, just like tonight, with me watching TV and him asleep between my legs. Were we just past that exhilarating and passionate point in our relationship now? Was this what long-term relationships looked like? I wondered.
It’s not like I had a lot of examples to look to in times like these. I’d grown up surrounded by Black married couples in Sacramento, California, but I could tell most of them had stopped liking each other eons ago—you just didn’t get divorced in my family; that was a definite no-no. My parents were a little better—still married after forty-five years and now retired, they spent the bulk of their time traveling around the world and laughing with each other. That was certainly something I wanted, but I hadn’t seen my dad look at my mom with lust in his eyes maybe ever. And I wanted the desire in my relationship, too. Just thinking through those questions sent a wave of sadness over me. Maybe it was just inevitable to feel like Nick and I were stuck in a rut three years in?
It’s certainly possible that it was me, too. It wasn’t like I exuded passion and desire lately, either. Once the energy starter of my friend group, I’d also seemingly lost my mojo just as my closest friends were doing things like dating a prince, suddenly quitting her job and getting promoted to run her office’s IT department. Even my boyfriend, who grew up as the middle child of five boys in a lower-middle-class Black and Filipino home in the Bay Area, was now second in charge in his accounting department. And me? I was turning thirty in a few months and still just a third-grade teacher, erasing crayon from the school walls before heading to happy hour to meet my best friends every week. Talk about being the boring friend/girlfriend of the bunch.
Before I could go further down my rabbit hole of self-pity, I heard Nick’s doorbell ringing.
“Baby, food’s here.” I shook him slightly to jolt him awake.
“Mmm.” He continued lying there without moving an inch.
“Great acknowledgment, Nick. But I need you to move off me so that I can answer the door or get up so that you can answer the door.”
“Right, right. Okay,” he said with a sigh and slowly raised his body off mine. Wiping his eyes open, he walked to the door, dragging his once springy but now sluggish legs along the way. When he reached the door, he grabbed the food and gave the delivery guy a fist pound as thanks. He was back next to me on the couch within a blink, all with his eyes still barely open.
“I’m so excited for this food, but that nap... I could have slept all night right there.”
“Ha-ha, yeah, you were definitely knocked out.”
“Did you get to rest any?” Nick asked as he began tearing open the brown paper bag on the coffee table and pulling out the various to-go containers.
“Uh-uh, no. I didn’t.”
“Too much on your mind?” He spread out our full dining order on the table: steak nachos, shrimp quesadilla, seafood soup and the carne al paso meal that came with sirloin steak, El Paso garlic sauce, rice, fried yucca and salad.
“Yeah, I think so.”
I wasn’t sure how to tell him that he was one of the things.
“You want to talk to me about it?”
Nick looked up at me, his gentle eyes staring into my soul as he awaited my answer. Maybe the smell of the food had finally woken him up.
“Maybe. I don’t know.” I hung my head in shame. “I don’t want to sound like I’m always complaining.”
“And I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone.”
Nick finished spreading everything on the table and turned to me, kneeling on the floor so that his arms were wrapped around my legs as he looked up to me. He stroked my thighs in comfort for emphasis. God, I love this man. This was why, even without the passion and desire that I craved so much lately, I couldn’t see my life without him.
“Honestly, it’s more of the same. Worried that I’m not really using my psychology and English degrees, tired of working in the classroom but unsure of what else I want to do, and just generally feeling like everyone’s leaving me behind.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “And then I think, Jenn, you’re falling into the trap of being the sensitive one again. You’re overthinking everything. And my worry bounces back and forth between those two.”
Nick listened intently and then stood up in front of me, pulling me into a standing position, too, and enveloping his body around me. Then he bent his head slightly and kissed my forehead, letting his lips linger on my temple just a moment longer than he needed to in order to finish the kiss, but the perfect amount of time I needed to feel his presence.
“I love that you’re the sensitive one. Yes, you are the kind of person who wears her heart and everyone else’s on her sleeves. And maybe that’s a heavy burden sometimes, but it’s also what makes you loving and compassionate. It’s why the kids at your school love you. It’s like...” Cutting himself off, Nick moved to face the food spread on the table.
“It’s like this seafood soup,” he continued. “It’s not as famous as steak nachos, and it doesn’t get all the glory of the entrée, but this. Seafood. Soup. Right. Here?!” Nick pointed to the soup after every word to emphasize his point. “Once you have this soup, you can’t get food from Alero again without it. It’s just that good. And it makes you feel all warm inside and...”
“Okay, okay,” I stopped him before the analogy could really get out of hand. “I get your point.”
“Do you?” He stared deep in my eyes.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay, good, because now I’m extra hungry, and I feel like the soup is getting cold even as I talk about it.”
“You’re right. It’s definitely time to eat.”
Nick ran back to the kitchen to get bowls, plates and silverware for us to eat with as I settled back into the couch, happyish for now. By the time he returned, I’d already started picking up pieces of nachos and stuffing my face.
“Really, Jenn?” he asked, catching me midstuff.
“My bad,” I mumbled out of my very full mouth.
“Guess that just means I get more soup!”
Nick sat back down next to me and lifted my right thigh onto his. We each grabbed our portions and began spooning them into our bowls and onto our plates. Nick’s plate filled up quickly as he piled meal after meal on top of each other. I didn’t really like my food to mix on my plate, so I had about a spoonful of each item as a first serving.
“Do you remember the first time we went here?” I asked.
“How could I forget? It was our third date, right?”
“Yeah, third or fourth. I was so nervous, because at that point I realized that I really liked you, but I couldn’t figure out if you felt the same.”
“You mean besides the fact that we were on our third date?” he questioned, taking a huge bite of steak at the same time.
“Well, yeah, besides that,” I said, chuckling. “But you could have still been feeling me out. I knew by then. And then we got there, sat down, and the first thing you did was drop all the silverware on your side of the table onto the floor.”
“I was extra nervous. I somehow managed to meet a super smart woman who was from California, like me, in DC of all places. I wasn’t trying to mess that up.”
“Well, I thought it was so cute. Here was this extra confident, very handsome guy sitting across from me...and he’s just as nervous as I am? You went up three more notches in my book.”
“How many notches am I up now?” he asked with a wink.
“I stopped counting when I reached a hundred in the first couple months.”
“Dammmmn. See, I knew I was a good boyfriend. But that’s Hall of Fame–type stuff right there.”
“Okay, don’t get beside yourself.” I playfully pushed him away from me.
“Nah, nah, just admit you’ve got a good one right here.”
“I’ve certainly got a hungry one, that’s for sure,” I said, pointing to his empty plate that had been filled and devoured once already.
“I’m a grown man, Jennifer. I like to eat.” He raised an eyebrow at me, signaling he wasn’t just talking about the food on his plate.
“Yes, I do seem to recall eating being a favorite pastime of yours,” I replied, biting my lower lip and raising my eyes up at him.
With my right hand, I dragged my fingertips across the back of his neck, which prompted Nick to swiftly put his plate down and pull me fully onto him. Facing him with my legs straddled around his waist, I leaned my whole body into him and took his lips into mine. Nick took the cue and wrapped his arms around me while we hungrily took turns intertwining our lips and tongues. With fire in his eyes, Nick grabbed my hair and pulled my head back so that he could bury his face in my neck, alternating between bites and licks as he made his way down my jawline to the top of my white tank top, where my breasts poked out ever so slightly. Maybe the spark wasn’t dead after all.
Just as my breathing became heavier with excitement, Nick yawned. Loud and long. Full on into my chest. Well, so much for that.
“Still tired, huh?” I asked, desperately hoping he would say no and keep kissing me.
“Yeah, I guess so.” He sighed and picked his head up to look me in my eyes. “Can we table this until I’ve gotten a little more sleep? I think it’ll be better for both of us.”
“Of course. I’m not going anywhere.” This time, I kissed him on the lips to reassure him.
“Thanks, babe. I think I’m actually going to head to bed now. The exhaustion is really hitting me.”
I peeled my body off his and watched as he stood up from the couch and began walking toward the stairs to his loft bedroom.
“You coming?” he asked, looking back across his left shoulder.
“I’ll be up there shortly. Just want to put the food away first. Maybe finish watching this old episode of Being Mary Jane.”
“Okay, cool,” he said with another pout. “Just don’t take too long. You know I can’t sleep well without my Jenn blanket.”
“Ha-ha, I know, Nick. I won’t.”
I watched him as he disappeared up the steps, climbing two at a time until he was no longer there. Then, I took a deep breath, steadied myself from the tinglings in my body I’d just been feeling not more than five minutes ago, and began picking up the dishes and containers from the coffee table.
Back in his kitchen, I washed our dishes and placed them in the drying rack next to the sink, stacked the leftover containers in the refrigerator and made sure to close the trash bag tightly after I threw away the bag everything came in. The last thing we’d want was to wake up to the smell of old seafood when we got up tomorrow morning. Using a dry towel, I wiped down the sink when I was done, making sure not to leave a trace of water. It was something my grandmother taught me growing up and was embedded in my brain now: your kitchen wasn’t truly clean if your sink was still wet.
Lastly, I turned off the kitchen light and walked back to the living room. I grabbed the remote control and unpaused the TV as I sat down. My memory of the episode came back to me instantly. “Oh, yes,” I said aloud. “This is the one where Mary Jane tells the guest on her show that they may have ideological differences, but they are both women fighting to be heard and seen. Hmm, well, I can definitely relate to that.”
Two episodes later, I finally clicked the TV off and made my way upstairs to Nick’s bedroom. He was in a deep sleep on his side of the bed—the right side—and facing the door, so I could see the expression of peace on his face. Undoing the fabric belt around my waist, I walked to the dresser that held my night scarf, all while slipping my pants off my body. I tied the satin scarf around my head, careful to keep my edges inside, and then grabbed one of Nick’s T-shirts to replace the tank top I had on. I carefully unbuckled my bra and slid his shirt on, then folded up my clothes and placed them on his side chair in the corner of the room.
Tiptoeing so as not to wake him up, I walked to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth before bed. Nick’s his and hers double counter made it easy for me to leave some of my bathroom essentials at his place: face wash, toner, moisturizer, even my electric face-cleansing brush. But I was convinced he was also using some of my stuff when I wasn’t there, because it seemed to go down much faster at his place than at my apartment.
Once I was done with my nightly routine, I walked back into his room and climbed into bed, draping the covers over my body as I did. As if by instinct, Nick’s arm sprang out and pulled me to him so that we were in a tight spoon position.
“I love you, Jenny,” he whispered into my ear.
“I love you, too, Nick.”
“And I’m sorry about today. I hate knowing it was that awful for you.” He was half-asleep and obviously still thinking about what I’d said in the kitchen. This was why I rarely said anything negative to him. I never wanted him to think I didn’t love and appreciate him. Full stop.
“It’s okay, Nick. Honestly. I’m just... I don’t know. It wasn’t awful. It just wasn’t what I expected.” I sighed.
“Okay.” His arms tightened around me, and he wrapped his legs around mine and nuzzled his head on the back of my neck. “We’ll try again next weekend, okay?”
“Okay, babe.” I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent again, allowing my body to once again be enveloped fully by his. This was it, where I loved being.
But a pesky lonely tear inched down my face as I felt myself start to fall asleep.
