To Hiss or to Kiss (14 page)

After his third trip back into the house, he astutely suggests we take the rest of the night off, which is very good since I’m about to lose the paper-thin control over my anger. No sense taking it out on Jorge, and I was very close to a rage-induced rant at anything in my presence
.
Hopefully Jorge’s pillow isn’t permanently dented.

“You aren’t failing.” Jorge wraps an arm around me as he sits on the couch. He pulls me close and kisses the top of my head, and I’m really glad I manage not to lose it on him. Although obviously he reads me pretty well for how long we’ve known each other.

And that makes me wonder how tight a lid I do keep on my thoughts, but I’m too cowardly to ask just then, so I just let him hold me. Which is pretty damn brave of me, if I do say so myself.

“Do you have any vacation time you could take?”

“Yeah, why? Going to whisk me away to Scotland?”

I can feel his grin rustle my hair. “Later,” he promises. “I think we should keep practicing your skills, and work is a distraction.”

“Like more practice is going to help.”

“Of course it will. Some people dedicate their whole lives to learning how to meditate and develop intuition.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have a lifetime. I’ve got weeks, maybe days, before something happens to those dogs.”

“I know.” His hand rubs down my arm. “That’s why it is good for you to focus.” He pauses, as if waiting for my retort, but the rational part of my brain is starting to take over and I take a deep breath to calm myself. He’s right. It’s a good idea. “And I believe in you.”

That pretty much seals the deal for me, even if I wasn’t already thawing. I really need to get a handle on my mood swings around this guy. Good thing I’m learning to calm my mind.

I turn in his arms to face him, looking him in his beautiful emerald eyes. “Thank you.”

He nods in acknowledgment, and I settle back into his arms. The love and safety they provide both comforts and disconcerts me. It feels good, but I’ve never experienced this with someone before, and the newness scares me. I don’t know if I can go back to being alone, and I’ve only just met this man. How does someone change your life so quickly?

I think of how my dad changed after my mom left. It took some time, but he became a shell of his former self. He was no longer my funny, carefree dad. He was just a man going through the motions. Would I become like that if I lost Jorge? Has he already gone so deep into me that to tear him out would cause irreparable damage?

I’m not sure he has—yet. And I’m not sure I can let him get that far in. The walls I surround myself with get a little bit more fortified as we sit on the couch.

Jorge must notice because he stiffens, but he doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t let me go. He told me he wasn’t going to give me up, but people always seem to eventually.

I try to shake off my gloomy mood, but it doesn’t work. Eventually Jorge suggests I read a book on meditation. I agree, looking for anything to distract me from the awkwardness that has again arisen between us. This time, I know it’s entirely my fault. So I fall back on my modus operandi of ignoring the issue and moving on to something else. I devour the book in silence. Jorge sits next to me and reads as well.

It’s well into the night by the time we go to bed. I lie awake a long time, listening to Jorge’s breathing slow until he is softly snoring. I can’t seem to stop thinking of my parents’ relationship. I don’t really know why my mom left. One day we were a happy family and then she was just gone.

At first my dad said she’d be coming back, that she just needed to take care of some things. I asked what things, but he wouldn’t tell me. He just said something with her family out East. By age ten I’d already learned not to ask about my mother’s family. It was strictly taboo. So my questioning ended, but inside I still question my mother’s actions.

I remember the day I knew my dad had resigned himself to the fact that my mother wasn’t coming back. It was about two years after she left. There was an open house at my school to kick off the new year. I had a teacher who was new to the district, and she was introducing herself to all the parents. When she got to my dad, she asked if she’d also be meeting my mother. My father paled but managed to answer with a shaky no.

The teacher tried to cover her gaff, but being forced to say out loud that my mother wasn’t in our lives was a turning point for my dad. After that, he became a ghost. He always took care of my physical needs. I was never hungry or denied rides to extracurricular activities. He came to all my tennis matches. But he was never really there.

When I finally fall asleep, I dream my mother is trying to smother me with a pillow. My dad watches, eyes forlorn.

I awake with a start. My first thought is that I wish Jorge would have come crashing into my dream to save me. I glance over at his sleeping form. His T-shirt is twisted, revealing the shadows of his rippling abs in the moonlight.

With tentative hands, I reach out and lightly stroke his bare skin. He shudders at my touch, and I start to recoil.

His hand moves lightening quick to stop me, and I look up into his penetrating green eyes.

“You OK?” He is surprisingly alert for just having woken. Then again, cats do wake up pretty fast if they think something’s wrong.

“Yeah. Just had a weird dream.”

“Come here.” He is on his side now and opens his arms with a motion for me to settle in.

I snuggle up with my back to his chest, letting him envelop me in his strong arms. Just like when we were on the couch earlier, the battle between comfort and fear wages within me.

His body heat warms me up, and slowly I relax until eventually I drift off to sleep.

Chapter Ten

Turns out my boss is willing to give me time off. In fact, she said she was glad because it had been way too long since I’d taken a vacation. It made me grateful I have a decent boss.

So I finish out the day of work then head home and pack up a big suitcase, as well as Enoki and Sashi, and off we all go to Jorge’s house for the next two weeks or however long I have to save those dogs. I think about telling Naomi, but she’d want to know what the hell I was doing basically moving in with a guy I barely knew, and I can’t really explain that. Other than to say it feels like I’ve known Jorge forever. My own cheesiness makes me a gag a little, but whatever this is won’t let me walk—or run—away.

I pull into Jorge’s driveway behind his car. He’d driven me to work this morning and hung out at my house until I got home. I tried all day not to think about what he might be doing there, but I felt guilty not letting him stay at my place for the day when he’s basically letting me move in.

After work, he helped me pack and load up my car. Now parked in his driveway in front of me, he gets out of his car and starts walking toward my stopped car to help me unload and move into his house. I’m not going to overanalyze this. Or panic.

Yeah, right.

I grab Enoki’s carrier, and Jorge gets Sashi’s. I’d explained the plan to them on the way over, so they both are relatively calm. And when I set them free in the house while Jorge goes to get the rest of my stuff, they both come out and immediately start checking out their environs. No surprise that Sashi acts this way, but I am proud of Enoki for finding his courage.

Jorge brings in my giant suitcase and an extra bag I threw in, and veers toward the bedroom. I follow.

“You can put your stuff wherever you’d like. There’s room in the closet to hang things. I cleared you out a top drawer.” He heaves my suitcase onto the bed.

I feel weird about unpacking like I’m really moving in, and I don’t know if I want it to be true that I’m moving in or just visiting. I would’ve just lived out of my suitcase, but since he went to the trouble to make space for me, unpacking of the suitcase must commence.

“OK. I guess I’ll get at least some stuff put away now.”

“Or you can do it later.” His voice lowers. “I rather like the idea of you moving in.” He walks to me, runs a hand down my arm, and I can’t help but shiver.

But I feel a little too out of sorts and I’ve already jumped into having sex a
little
quickly. Not that I regret it.

I don’t. Mostly. And there is a part that wants nothing more than to lose myself in passion right now, but I haven’t checked in with the dogs for several days and the need to get better at communicating trumps my libido.

I pull away from his touch. “I need to focus. I don’t know what’s going on with the dogs and I’m blind until I take a trip down that way again or some miracle happens and I suddenly can communicate over longer distances.”

The longer I talk, the more stressed I sound, so I snap my mouth shut. But that doesn’t stop my brain from spinning and trying to think up a way to cool things down a bit. I should’ve packed more than my cover-all-my-skin pajamas. I should’ve brought some nasty overnight face mask and those sponge rollers you wear overnight while your hair dries. I haven’t had curls since before my mom left. What are the chances my dad still has those old rollers?

“You know, maybe I should just sleep on the couch.”

Jorge’s face changes from lust to disappointment to resignation and ultimately empathy. Does he really understand how freaked out I am beyond just trying to help the dogs? And if he does, then how stupid am I for pushing him away like this?
Dammit.

“No. I’m not letting you sleep on the couch.”

“Oh, are you volunteering?” Why I still want to prevail in this argument isn’t quite clear to me, but my brain is evidently stuck in a rut
.
Is it possible to both kick yourself for being stupid and root yourself toward victory?

“No.” He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at me.

I stare back, trying to win this competition, but ultimately I look away and go back to unpacking.

He sits on the edge of the bed with a sigh, but clearly he decides to change the subject and argue about sleeping arrangements later. “We can begin to practice now. What do you know about energy work or Reiki?”

“Ray what?” I sigh in relief at the subject change, and this is, after all, why I’m really taking two weeks off from work. It certainly isn’t to just spend time with Jorge. I don’t miss the irony that I’m thinking this as I begin to move my intimates into the empty drawer in Jorge’s dresser.

“Reiki.
R-E-I-K-I
. It’s a Japanese word for a type of energy work. And I’m going to guess the answer to my question is not much to absolutely nothing.”

“Good bet.”

“Well, I think it can help you develop your skills. I practice it myself and can attune you when you finish unpacking.”

“Attune me? Is this some sort of weird tribal voodoo?”

“It’s not even close to voodoo and has no potential for evil uses. The attunement just helps speed your connection to universal life force energy, spirit, divine, whatever you want to call it.”

“Uh-huh. So you’re gonna be my Yoda?” I move on to hanging up some of my more wrinkle-prone clothes. “And what makes you so sure this is the ticket?”

“Experience.”

I like how he just ignores my first question, but I can see it pissed him off, and I feel a bit guilty. But this is the kind of stuff I’ve avoided by
not
trying to figure out where my gift comes from. It’s easier that way. But I can’t just walk away now. Damn getting invested and having a soft spot for animals in need. “You gonna elaborate?”

“I have practiced it my entire adult life and members of my family have since its move out of Japan in the 1940s. Prior to that my family has had millennia of working with energy.”

“So Reiki’s a new thing?” My curiosity gets the better of my skepticism.

The question brightens Jorge’s mood, which sends a little thrill through my stomach
.

“Relatively. I could launch into the history, but I’m guessing you’re not that interested.”

Is he being coy? Is this reverse psychology? Because it might be working.

“You got a book or Web site or pamphlet or something?” I seem unable to contain my inner snark. I really don’t intend to annoy the shit out of people. Or hurt them. So I try to make it better. “And what did your family do before?”

He laughs dryly. “Well isn’t that a story. How familiar are you with ancient civilizations in Central and South America?”

“Like Aztecs, Mayans, Incas?”

“Exactly.”

“Movies, TV. So, not much.”

“Well, jaguars were an integral part of their worship. And those jaguars were my ancestors. Most of the lore didn’t recognize that the shamans were actual shape-shifters. There is only some mention in surviving Olmec texts, but we were there.”

“Wait, weren’t all those cultures bloodthirsty, human-sacrifice kind of stuff?
Apocalypto
was just plain disgusting in parts.”

“Yes, it was a very bloody society. Thing is, my ancestors made it that way. That was the original way they worked with energy—taking the life force from human sacrifices. It gave them power and extended life.”

“Please tell me you don’t do that anymore.”

He shoots me a look of reproof. I can’t blame him.

“It bit them in the ass, though. Eventually those in political power began to hunt jaguars as symbols of their prowess and power. Many they killed were not shape-shifters, but some were. Both varieties were overhunted.”

“Karma’s a bitch.”

A faint smile crosses his face. “Exactly. The societies got out of control, the Europeans came and my ancestors faded into the background, spiritually speaking. They did plenty to keep themselves married into the powers that be, but that’s another story. Along the way, some started to seek other methods of working with energy that didn’t involve blood sacrifice. So there was the hallucinogenic drug phase, the Christianity phase, and then moving through various Eastern religious practices. Ultimately, my family decided that Reiki was the most simple and effective, although my uncle still dabbles in shamanic practices.”

“So you still have power and an extended lifespan?”