Inside of You (Jessa & Paxton #2) (27 page)

Ever since that DVD and audio recording of our show hit, Polly has become something completely different. I had no idea that shitty radio station would change anything, but they did. People are actually buying the shit
- Gabriel included. He and Jessa watch the thing at least a couple times a week but it’s uncomfortable for me- hearing the pain in my voice, remembering how fucked up that entire week was. But the whole situation is great ‘cause I got money trickling in and I don’t have to do anything to earn it. But it’s bad too because, according to Billy, if we want to make anything serious happen now is the time. He’s got people interested in helping us. But there is no way I’m going back there. Not now that I know how much Jessa loves it here. Not now when I know how perfect life in Venice can be when she’s here with me. “We ain’t leaving here. I think this is where we belong.”

“I agree. This is already feeling like home.
So what’s the plan?”

I still have options as far as the band goes – two of them
at least. I can say fuck it all and leave that shit behind, or I can move the guys out here so we can keep playing. Which is something they are willing to do. If there is anywhere in the world you want to be to make shit happen in the music industry, it’s in L.A. Vi’s even on board. But it would mean commitment. It would mean recording and trying to find a label and eventually touring if everything went well. Or even if it didn’t - you still gotta hit the road if you are serious about making anything of yourself in this industry. “What do you think?” I ask her.

“I think it would be awesome to have
Vi and the guys here. I miss them and I think they would love it, but as far as the band goes – that’s your call. Do you want to play again? Do you miss it? Can you see yourself doing that for a while, here, with the guys?”

“It’s hard to picture any of that here. But then again, I would have never pictured this – you livin
g with Santos, the apple of my Pop’s eyes, grinding the bowls at the park, working the front desk for Emilio.”

“And yet, here I am. Feeling more like myself than I ever have.”

“You think Venice is the answer to everyone’s problems?”

“No. I think figuring out who you really are and what you really want is.”

“I know who I am and what I want but I still don’t know what I want to do with the band.”

Jessa’s silent as she lays on my chest. I’m quiet too. I don’t have an answer to anything right now. I don’t want to have to make decisions. I don’t want anyone besides Jessa counting on me. But I don’t w
ant to let them down either. Plus, I gotta make a living and if this is what I’m supposed to be doing then I don’t want to do it without the guys.

“Get on your board, babe. If that’s where you think best, then get on your board.” Jessa sits up from my chest
and smiles at me before nodding to the park behind her.

I want to do that so I look around for Santos. I don’t like leaving her alone at this place. The locals
that ride here are cool, but I don’t trust the punks that are here on some day trip trying to prove they’re the shit, looking at my girl like they want to impress her.

“Pax, I’m fine. You can’t spend every minute of the day babysitting me. If this is where we are going to start our life then you are going to have to get over your fear that something’s going to happen to me
here. I can handle myself.”

“Yea
h. Okay, kid,” I tell her, kissing her before standing and grabbing my board. But my eyes are still searching for Santos. I find him on the deck by the pool and send him over to Jessa before dropping in.

On a day like today whe
n it’s not overcrowded and I can get a line going from the pool to the snake to the bowl, I could ride until my legs give out. Which is what I feel like doing. I got no one to impress, no tricks I’m trying to nail. I just have a head to clear. So I ride. Popping in and out. Knowing each pocket and wall in this place like the back of my hand. The people around me become a blur. Everything except the sound of my wheels on the concrete and the feel of the air as I ride through it disappears. The weightlessness and freedom of flying through the air ensues. All I am is a body connected to a board.

I’m waiting for some insight on my
future, but all I’m seeing is the past. I see myself in the Dixon home. The little boy who was sad, but still had a mother willing to give him love. I see Jessa as a child, with her beautiful mother and her supportive father. I see myself having to say goodbye to Gabriel when the summer was over and Jessa after her father left her. I think about the years that I spent in Glencoe when Rachel was treating me like a ghost, not even acknowledging my presence in her home. And how hopeless I felt when I realized that Gabriel was going to lock up. And Jessa when she realized that her father wasn’t coming back and that the mother she knew was gone too.  I feel the ugliness of the life I was living in Chicago with Stella and I see Jessa in her short dresses playing her game with whatever guy she was playing it with. A game that Dan Benson had taught her how to play.

And then I remember the first time I saw her. The hope that came alive in me the first time I looked into her eyes and the dread I felt knowin
g that she would never be mine. I feel the relief as I walked into that art room at River Bluff high. I thought I’d never see the girl again. I thought she was headed to Chicago, but there she was, right in front of me. Guaranteed to be right in front of me every morning for at least one semester. Images of that year are flashing through my head. Her smile and her laughter, the friendship that developed between us. The peace that I felt in that town with her.

If I hadn’t been so focused on getting home to Venice and so preoccupied with the fact that she was moving to Chicago, I would have seen that year for what it was
- the year my life began. But I don’t know if that was the case for Jessa. I don’t think she was really allowed to start living until that night we crossed the border into Colorado.

Her life is just beginning.
It’s her time. Right now.

And what does she want right now? What does she need? Does she need to be sitting on the sidelines while I do my thing, pursue my
life? Does she need to be my sidekick while we travel around performing shows? Does she need to be PaxtonandJessa? No.
Fuck no
. She needs to be Jessa – the girl that is rediscovering her passions. The girl who is reliving her childhood aspirations.

I
f she decides she wants to keep perusing her fashion design degree – she can do that here. If she decides she wants to do it in Chicago – hell, we can do that too. If she wants to go back to River Bluff and become a waitress – fine. But travailing around, city to city with a band is not where she needs to be. I know that. And I know that right now she wants to be here, and I think it’s where she belongs. In a place where she can see how real men treat women. In a place where she can feel the security of being surrounded by the love of a family.

In some people’s eyes this life that I’ve been living with Gabriel could seem fucked up
, and maybe it is. But if there is one thing I know it’s that I’m part of a family. A family that Rachel, or jail, or lack of resources couldn’t overtake. A family that is concrete and unbreakable and dependable. A family that Jessa and I need to surround us and support us. That we need to be close to.

And if that’s all we do for right now – hunker down in a place where she can feel safe and secure –
I think that’s okay. No, I won’t be heading a successful band, and yeah, her education will be on hold for a little while longer. But hell, maybe those aren’t the things we’re even supposed to be doing. How would we know what the fuck we are supposed to be doing? Neither of us ever really got a chance to even figure out what we want. Our life is just starting now. It’s time to live. Just live. And yeah, maybe we’ll be scrapping around for a couple of years – maybe she will work the front desk for Emilio and maybe I’ll have to pick up the iron and learn to ink properly. But right now ain’t about big life decisions. It’s not about a band. It’s about us. It’s about her. Right now is about building Jessa back up. About letting her find herself again and supporting her while she does that. It’s about her.

And maybe it’s about me too. Maybe it’s time that I
settle down and let myself live in some form of security. Because when I came back here the last time, I had my family but I didn’t feel complete. And when I went to Chicago I felt complete with Jessa but there was still a part of me that was missing. Right now is about sinking into this life. And, hell, maybe we’ll spend a few years regaining the childhood that was taken from both of us - fucking around and doing nothing productive but only things that make us happy. But I think that’s okay. I think we deserve it.

This is her time. This is our time. Everything is clear.

I make my way out of the snake run and into the mini bowl, popping out at the deck where Jessa is staring at me with a look of sheer awe and Santos is rolling his eyes because he thinks the way I dominated the skate park was to impress my girl.

“Just clearing
my head, asshole,” I tell him as I drop my board and hoist Jessa up onto my hips. She’s smiling down at me and I realize that her smiles have been bigger and brighter ever since we showed up at Gabriel’s front door.

“Did it work?” she
asks me.

“
Yeah, beso. It did.”

“So…?”

“It’s so obvious, I don’t know why I was even thinking about it.”

“What was so obvious?” she asks and I can see the fear in her eyes.

“You and me… we’re just a couple of rat scrounger kids. You know? Who needs a fucking job, right? I mean… you do-you’re gonna have to work for Emilio and I might have to too, but that’s not what we’re living for. We just gotta keep doing what we’re doing – living in this city, hanging out in the sun, living day by day. Being the kids we never got to be. Because this time we have each other and we’re gonna do our adolescence right. And we have my family – a bunch of guys that will have your back and protect you. All we gotta do is get up every day and live for nothing but each other.”

Her legs clamp down around my hips and her fingers grasp a hold of my head. And then her face
breaks out into the most amazing smile that touches her lips and her eyes and I know right then that things are perfect. That in the entire universes nothing at this moment is as perfect as us.

Her mo
uth opens like she wants to speak, but all she does is squeal before pushing her lips into mine. I pull her into me and I kiss her like we are just a couple of kids making out, falling in love, living under the guise of a happily ever after. And then I realize that’s not what we are. We are two grown ass adults who have lived through the shit and can appreciate what this moment in our lives means. We are not two stupid kids taking shit for granted, but hell if we aren’t going to start living that life for a little while.

“You cool with that plan?
” I ask her when she pulls out of my mouth.

She shakes her head at me like this is all unbelievable.

“If this is what you wanted, beso, why didn’t you just say so?”

“I just want you to have what you need, Pax. I mean, you deserve everything you want. It’s time for you to finally start living
the life you want and if that means devoting yourself to your music and the band, then I want you to have that.”

“
That’s exactly the shit that was running through my head… about you. I want you to have everything you need. And if what you need right now is a little more time to breath, time to figure out what you really want out of life, then, shit beso, that’s perfect cause right now all I want to worry about is you. I don’t want to have to think about anything but you.”

A tear falls from her eye then:
something I haven’t seen since that night in the hotel room after she told me about Coach Benson. I wipe it away and feel my eyebrows pinching together.

“Don’t look at me like that
. I’m not sad – obviously. You’re just... making everything better. Perfect. You just keep giving me all kinds of things I never even knew I wanted.”

“I think that’s just gonna be the way shit goes now, beso. Every day we’
re just gonna keep discovering beautiful things that we never even knew existed, that we never even knew we wanted.”

“
All we gotta worry about is us,” she whispers, shaking her head like she can’t quite wrap her brain about it.

“Us and
Natalie’s wedding,” I remind her.

“Yeah. Us, then the wedding fo
r a few days. Then back to us.”

“Right. This is our home, but we can go back to
Minnesota whenever we need to. Because that’s where we found each other, and that’s where all kinds of people live who love you. And I can almost guarantee you we won’t even have to go visit Chicago because I’m pretty sure Vi already has hers and all the guy’s bags packed. And if they find themselves here, we can have jam sessions in Gabriel’s back yard with him and his vatos. But right now, at least for a while, our life is not about a band. Our life is about us.”

“It’s just beginning,” s
he says, grabbing a hold of my face, the smile of elation back on hers.