“Are you okay with that, Laura?” he asked gently. “I mean, if you want to go to the cops and try to press charges on him for what he did, I’ll stand beside you.”
She was shaking her head violently. “No cops!” she said firmly. “I may be naïve, but I know how something like this would be handled. They’d make me out to be some slutty little whore who was trying to pull some scam. No way. I’m not going down that road. That’s why I didn’t call them in the first place.”
“That’s kind of my take on the situation as well,” he said. “The decision, however, is yours to make.”
“No cops,” she said again. “I’m just ... just amazed that you did what you did. I mean, it’s crazy, Jake. This only happened six hours ago and here you are, telling me you handled it. And I believe you!” Another shake of the head. “Wow. Just wow. No one has ever done anything like this for me before. I mean, no one has ever tried to rape me before, obviously, but I thought I was just going to have to just suck this up and live with it—another example of the screwed up world we live in. You actually went and talked to him, Jake!”
“I actually went and talked to him,” he said. “The problem has been handled.”
She put her arms around him again and pulled him close. He held her, feeling her warmth, her softness, against him.
“Are you okay, hon?” he whispered to her.
“I’m trying to be,” she said. “This is probably going to screw with my head a little for a bit, but I’m really glad you didn’t get hurt, or in jail or anything like that.”
“Wasn’t going to happen,” Jake said. “I know his type and I know what buttons to push with that type.”
“You never fail to surprise me,” she said, speaking into his neck again. She hesitated for a moment and then, softly, “Do you ... you ... still love me?”
He pushed gently on her shoulders, breaking their embrace so they were looking into each other’s eyes again. “Of course I still love you,” he said. “Why would you ask that?”
“Well ... while I was waiting for you here, my mind was thinking all kinds of horrible things. One of those things was that ... well ... you would see me differently because he’d ... he’d put his hands on me like that. Like ... you know ... you wouldn’t want me anymore.”
Jake felt a strong surge of emotions running through him at these words. He had to choke back on a tear. “Laura, hon,” he told her. “I love you. Nothing has changed about that. Love doesn’t turn on and off like a light switch, you know. Nothing he could have done was going to change my feelings for you.”
“I ... uh ... just wasn’t sure,” she said. “This is my first time being in love, remember. I don’t know all the rules.”
He smiled. “There really aren’t any rules, but be assured, the love is still there.”
“Is it?”
“It is.”
She walked over to the edge of the bed and began unbuttoning her shirt. “Then show me,” she challenged.
He rose to the challenge quite easily.
Chapter 9: The Masters
Santa Monica, California
May 16, 1992
Jake’s plane touched down gently on Runway 21 of Santa Monica Airport after the three and a half hour flight from Coos Bay. It slowed to taxi speed and then turned off onto the taxiway and made its way to the row of hangars just south of the main airport buildings, where it came to a halt in front of hangar number 37, one of the bigger ones on the grounds, a precious space that Jake paid six hundred and fifty dollars a month for. The engines shut down, the lights were turned off, and then the door opened and Jake himself stepped out onto the concrete. He stretched out a little, limbering up his legs and his lower back, which were a bit stiff from the flight. He was feeling a mix of emotions—melancholy, excitement, a little fear, and a great deal of anticipation. The project of the two albums was finally done, the tunes for both put down on masters in their final formats and mixes. He was home for good this time—or at least in what passed for home.
Jake was the only one in the plane. Celia and the Nerdlys had flown home two days before, leaving Jake behind to take care of the final details of their stay there. He’d sold the van they had used while in Coos Bay, taking an eight hundred dollar loss from the purchase price. He’d arranged to have the rental house thoroughly cleaned before it was returned to the vacation rental company. And he’d arranged to have his BMW driven back to LA. One of the studio techs they’d worked with was performing that task for him for the price of six hundred dollars and an air ticket back to Coos Bay. The car would be back in his garage by Monday, if all went as planned.
He looked at his watch—it was just after two o’clock in the afternoon of a beautiful southern California spring afternoon—and then back down the tarmac between the rows of hangar complexes. That was when he saw the car approaching. It was the old Toyota Corolla that belonged to Laura. Since it was not a school day, she had volunteered to come pick him up when he arrived. He smiled, anxious to finally see her. They had not laid eyes on each other in two and a half months, since the morning after the Dr. Dave incident.
She parked her car where Jake pointed—just next to the hangar door of number 36, well out of the way of any other aircraft that might come through. The engine had barely died when she was out of the car and rushing toward him. She was looking particularly adorable to his eyes, dressed in a green and white pullover sundress that showed off her legs and accented her breasts, her hair loose and flowing freely over her shoulders, a large anticipatory smile on her own face. They came together in an embrace and Jake relished the feel of her body against him, the whisper of her breath against his neck, the touch of her lips against his.
“Welcome home,” she breathed when their kiss finally broke and they pulled back a little to look at each other.
“That was a good welcome,” he told her, his fingers playing with a lock of her hair. “You look beautiful, hon. The best thing I’ve seen in months.”
“Thank you,” she said, flushing a bit. “I can’t wait to get home and get naked. It’s all I can do to keep from jumping you right here.”
“I know the feeling,” he said, letting his hand trail downward, sliding it slowly across her bare shoulder, over her breast, and then down the curve of her abdomen to her hip. Soon he was touching the soft skin of her thigh, just below the hem of her dress. The hungry look appeared in her eyes and he was about to slide his hands up under the skirt for a quick feel, but then another car, a Toyota pickup, suddenly turned into the row and started driving toward them.
“Hmmph,” she grunted as they took their hands off of each other and stepped apart. “Let’s gets this plane in there and go home.”
“Right,” he said, smiling at the thought that she considered his house to be home.
Jake opened the cargo compartment at the nose of the plane and unloaded his two suitcases. He carried them over and stowed them in Laura’s trunk. All of the rest of his belongings—including the four guitars he had taken to Oregon—were being brought back in his car. He grabbed the aircraft caddy out of the hangar and attached it to the nose wheel of the plane. It was electric powered and fully charged from sitting plugged in for the last six months. He used it to first pull the aircraft out in front of the door and then to push it backwards into the hangar itself. A veteran of the process, he managed to perfectly park the plane on the first try.
“Nice work,” Laura said appreciably as he leaned over to remove the caddy from the wheel. She could not resist running her hand over his ass. “Did I ever tell you how nice your butt is?”
“No,” he said, enjoying her touch on him quite a lot. “Please do.”
“It’s like ... mmmm, really nice,” she said, continuing to stroke it.
“You keep that up and we’re not going to wait until we get home,” he warned.