Categories > Original > Romance > Our Story
October
That first week in October, Jason returned to me. I came home from work and went straight to his apartment. He pulled me in for a tight hug and a deep kiss, making it clear just how much he had missed me in the last week.
When we finally untangled ourselves, I reached in my pocket for his key and held it out to him.
“Keep it,” he smiled. “I was thinking about giving you one anyway.”
I smiled back at him, thankful that I didn’t need to give it back. I didn’t think I could bear having to take a step back- any step back- from where we were in our relationship.
November
“Are you ready?” Jason asked me, grinning as I came up from the plant.
“Why? Are we leaving now?” I glanced at my watch. It was one thirty in the morning and I was just getting off watch as the Shutdown Roving Watch in two plant. Jason just got relieved as the Reactor Mechanical Operator in one plant.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because we’re on duty and it’s not allowed… What if we get caught?” I smiled.
“Eh, what if? Come on… we’ll get better rest at my place for our road trip.”
“Yeah, ok…” I grinned in complete disbelief.
He shrugged and we started walking towards the brow. We made it all the way to his apartment without anyone catching us. I laid down on the couch, still in my Utilities, and he sat on the floor beside me, starting a movie. I woke up an hour or three later, drooling into my plastic foul weather coat. Disgusting, I know… I was just glad to see that Jason was completely knocked out next to me, lying on the floor instead of sitting, holding the hand that I had left draped over the edge of the couch.
I smiled, sat up, and took my boots off. “Honey,” I said softly, trying to wake him up. “Hey, let’s go to bed.”
Jason muttered in his sleep. Finally, he woke up just enough to take his uniform off and stumble into his bed.
The next morning, Thursday, was Thanksgiving. We started off with breakfast at IHOP, then jumped into my new Dodge truck. It was our first road trip and we were off to Charleston to retrieve my things from storage. I had lived in my apartment for three months with only what was in my car trunk. Of course, Jason gave me plenty of reasons to use his furniture when I wanted to. In fact, it was less about the furniture and more about the books that I had boxed up.
We were about halfway into North Carolina when I realized that I didn’t have the key to my storage unit.
“Oh no…”
“What?” Jason asked, looking at me from the passenger seat. His fingers tightened where he had his hand resting on my thigh.
“I left the key in my apartment.”
Jason rolled his eyes at me. “Of course…”
“So, do we waste… five hours going back to get it, or try to break in when we get there?” I asked.
“Uhhh… what kind of lock is it?” he asked, thinking about the logistics of the problem.
“It’s one of the round ones… they told me that they had someone on site who could cut locks though. Apparently they had a rash of people forgetting or losing their keys.”
“Imagine that… let’s just keep going.” He flashed his crooked smile at me and chuckled under his breath.
Just then my phone rang. I pulled it from the cup holder and glanced at the caller ID. My mother. Great. “Hi, Mom,” I said, answering it.
“Hey honey, Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Happy Thanksgiving to you too,” I said, winking at Jason.
“So what are you doing today? Have any dinner plans?”
“Actually, I’m going down to Charleston to pick up my stuff. I’m somewhere in North Carolina right now.”
“What? You’re driving that far? You didn’t tell me you were going anywhere.”
“Ummm… Mom… you know I live on the other side of the country now, right? It’s not like I need your permission to go or anything. I’m a big girl now.”
“I know, but it would have been nice to know… in case anything went wrong or something.”
“Why? Are you going to catch a plane to help me fix a flat tire or something?”
“Is anyone with you?” I glanced at Jason, wishing my mother wasn’t as good at guessing exactly the subjects that I didn’t want to talk to her about.
“Yeah, actually I’m with Jason so that if I get that flat tire, I don’t have to fix it on the side of the road by myself,” I grinned.
“Who is Jason?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head slightly. “He’s my boyfriend, Mom. The one I told you about three months ago.”
“You’re still dating him? Wow… is that some kind of record?” she asked.
“No, mother, but thank you for that great show of support,” I replied sarcastically. Just that morning, my grandmother had made a comment about me changing boys as often as I changed my socks, and that just wasn’t true. Just because I hadn’t had any luck since I joined the Navy doesn’t mean that I hadn’t had long relationships in high school.
“So are you going to be back home by tonight?”
“No, it takes too long to drive that far. We’ll get my stuff in the morning and depending on how long it takes to pack up everything, we’ll drive back tomorrow or Saturday. We have duty Sunday, so we have to be back by then.”
“So you’re staying in a hotel then?”
“Yeah,” I said, dragging out the single syllable as I saw where she was going.
“Are you getting separate hotel rooms?” she asked innocently.
Well, it’s cheaper to get one room, I thought. “No,” I said, again dragging out the single syllable.
“Are you getting separate beds?” she asked.
Say yes, say yes, I thought to myself desperately. “No,” I heard my traitorous mouth reply. I heard Jason chuckle at my expression of pure anguish.
“Are you having sex?” she asked me. I started laughing. I starting barking out this horrible fake laugh, pulled the phone from my ear, and mouthed the words ‘oh my God’ to Jason as I put the phone back up to my ear. “Hang on a second, young lady,” I heard.
“What is it?” Jason asked me.
I put my thumb over the microphone and told him, “She just asked if we were having sex.”
“You should have said ‘not right now, I’m driving!’” He started laughing at his own joke and I couldn’t help but let a corner of my mouth twitch up.
I heard strange noises from the phone, so I focused on figuring them out. I heard conversations get louder then softer as my mother moved through the house. Then came a screeching noise and rustling followed by a door shutting. “Mom?”
“I’m in the closet, Chloe.”
“Why are you in the closet, Mom?” The corners of my mouth turned up at the mental image.
“You know I don’t want a bunch of little Chloe’s running around right now, right?”
“Mom! Are you serious? Are you really going to give me the sex talk from 2000 miles away over the phone? Seriously…. Haven’t we done this before?”
“Wait one minute. I’m going to go get your father.”
I let my head fall back against the headrest and growled. Jason simply chuckled.
“You be quiet,” I muttered to him.
I heard the conversations again and then the door shutting. “Chloe?”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Umm… Why am I in the closet?”
I smiled. “Because I’m driving to Charleston.”
“Oh. Who’s with you?”
“Jason.” I cringed at what would come next.
“Good.”
“What?”
“Well, I don’t want you driving all over the country by yourself. What if you got into an accident or something?”
“I love you, Daddy. I’ve gotta go.”
“Love you too, sweetie. Bye.”
I shut the phone and tried, unsuccessfully, not to scream. Jason went ahead and started laughing.
“Oh, and you think it’s funny, do you?” I asked him, smacking his arm.
“Well… I think that there are few shades of red quite as appealing on you as that blush…”
We finally made it to Charleston, and realized that no restaurant was going to be open on Thanksgiving night. We settled for Waffle House. We rented a hotel room and fell asleep watching a James Bond movie. So much for the sex talk.
The next day, Friday
Well, the next day was the first day that I got to go off-road in my new truck. You see, the storage company wasn’t working that day. We figured that being Friday, they’d have the locksmith on site. What we didn’t think about was that every locksmith in the area would be home with their families or on a three hour waiting list because it was Thanksgiving weekend. We decided to go to the mall and wondered why there was no parking. I had to park in the grass (off-road!). I almost gave up and decided to come back later when we had the key, but then U-Haul said they had to charge us for the full SC to VA fee even though we’d only had the truck for two hours. We wound up buying a grinder wheel set from ACE Hardware and cutting it off ourselves. I drove my truck and Jason drove the U-Haul through the driving rain back to my apartment.
“We can unload tomorrow,” I told him as we finally got out of the trucks late at night.
“So do you want to stay here tonight, or do you want to come with me?” Jason asked, pulling me to him and leaning against my truck.
I contemplated the question for a minute… obviously I was too tired to realize the glaring right answer there. He just chuckled and led me to his car. Like I said, I wasn’t so much going for the furniture, but the stuff I had left behind. By this time, I was already only using my apartment as a $700 a month laundry hamper.
That first week in October, Jason returned to me. I came home from work and went straight to his apartment. He pulled me in for a tight hug and a deep kiss, making it clear just how much he had missed me in the last week.
When we finally untangled ourselves, I reached in my pocket for his key and held it out to him.
“Keep it,” he smiled. “I was thinking about giving you one anyway.”
I smiled back at him, thankful that I didn’t need to give it back. I didn’t think I could bear having to take a step back- any step back- from where we were in our relationship.
November
“Are you ready?” Jason asked me, grinning as I came up from the plant.
“Why? Are we leaving now?” I glanced at my watch. It was one thirty in the morning and I was just getting off watch as the Shutdown Roving Watch in two plant. Jason just got relieved as the Reactor Mechanical Operator in one plant.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because we’re on duty and it’s not allowed… What if we get caught?” I smiled.
“Eh, what if? Come on… we’ll get better rest at my place for our road trip.”
“Yeah, ok…” I grinned in complete disbelief.
He shrugged and we started walking towards the brow. We made it all the way to his apartment without anyone catching us. I laid down on the couch, still in my Utilities, and he sat on the floor beside me, starting a movie. I woke up an hour or three later, drooling into my plastic foul weather coat. Disgusting, I know… I was just glad to see that Jason was completely knocked out next to me, lying on the floor instead of sitting, holding the hand that I had left draped over the edge of the couch.
I smiled, sat up, and took my boots off. “Honey,” I said softly, trying to wake him up. “Hey, let’s go to bed.”
Jason muttered in his sleep. Finally, he woke up just enough to take his uniform off and stumble into his bed.
The next morning, Thursday, was Thanksgiving. We started off with breakfast at IHOP, then jumped into my new Dodge truck. It was our first road trip and we were off to Charleston to retrieve my things from storage. I had lived in my apartment for three months with only what was in my car trunk. Of course, Jason gave me plenty of reasons to use his furniture when I wanted to. In fact, it was less about the furniture and more about the books that I had boxed up.
We were about halfway into North Carolina when I realized that I didn’t have the key to my storage unit.
“Oh no…”
“What?” Jason asked, looking at me from the passenger seat. His fingers tightened where he had his hand resting on my thigh.
“I left the key in my apartment.”
Jason rolled his eyes at me. “Of course…”
“So, do we waste… five hours going back to get it, or try to break in when we get there?” I asked.
“Uhhh… what kind of lock is it?” he asked, thinking about the logistics of the problem.
“It’s one of the round ones… they told me that they had someone on site who could cut locks though. Apparently they had a rash of people forgetting or losing their keys.”
“Imagine that… let’s just keep going.” He flashed his crooked smile at me and chuckled under his breath.
Just then my phone rang. I pulled it from the cup holder and glanced at the caller ID. My mother. Great. “Hi, Mom,” I said, answering it.
“Hey honey, Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Happy Thanksgiving to you too,” I said, winking at Jason.
“So what are you doing today? Have any dinner plans?”
“Actually, I’m going down to Charleston to pick up my stuff. I’m somewhere in North Carolina right now.”
“What? You’re driving that far? You didn’t tell me you were going anywhere.”
“Ummm… Mom… you know I live on the other side of the country now, right? It’s not like I need your permission to go or anything. I’m a big girl now.”
“I know, but it would have been nice to know… in case anything went wrong or something.”
“Why? Are you going to catch a plane to help me fix a flat tire or something?”
“Is anyone with you?” I glanced at Jason, wishing my mother wasn’t as good at guessing exactly the subjects that I didn’t want to talk to her about.
“Yeah, actually I’m with Jason so that if I get that flat tire, I don’t have to fix it on the side of the road by myself,” I grinned.
“Who is Jason?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head slightly. “He’s my boyfriend, Mom. The one I told you about three months ago.”
“You’re still dating him? Wow… is that some kind of record?” she asked.
“No, mother, but thank you for that great show of support,” I replied sarcastically. Just that morning, my grandmother had made a comment about me changing boys as often as I changed my socks, and that just wasn’t true. Just because I hadn’t had any luck since I joined the Navy doesn’t mean that I hadn’t had long relationships in high school.
“So are you going to be back home by tonight?”
“No, it takes too long to drive that far. We’ll get my stuff in the morning and depending on how long it takes to pack up everything, we’ll drive back tomorrow or Saturday. We have duty Sunday, so we have to be back by then.”
“So you’re staying in a hotel then?”
“Yeah,” I said, dragging out the single syllable as I saw where she was going.
“Are you getting separate hotel rooms?” she asked innocently.
Well, it’s cheaper to get one room, I thought. “No,” I said, again dragging out the single syllable.
“Are you getting separate beds?” she asked.
Say yes, say yes, I thought to myself desperately. “No,” I heard my traitorous mouth reply. I heard Jason chuckle at my expression of pure anguish.
“Are you having sex?” she asked me. I started laughing. I starting barking out this horrible fake laugh, pulled the phone from my ear, and mouthed the words ‘oh my God’ to Jason as I put the phone back up to my ear. “Hang on a second, young lady,” I heard.
“What is it?” Jason asked me.
I put my thumb over the microphone and told him, “She just asked if we were having sex.”
“You should have said ‘not right now, I’m driving!’” He started laughing at his own joke and I couldn’t help but let a corner of my mouth twitch up.
I heard strange noises from the phone, so I focused on figuring them out. I heard conversations get louder then softer as my mother moved through the house. Then came a screeching noise and rustling followed by a door shutting. “Mom?”
“I’m in the closet, Chloe.”
“Why are you in the closet, Mom?” The corners of my mouth turned up at the mental image.
“You know I don’t want a bunch of little Chloe’s running around right now, right?”
“Mom! Are you serious? Are you really going to give me the sex talk from 2000 miles away over the phone? Seriously…. Haven’t we done this before?”
“Wait one minute. I’m going to go get your father.”
I let my head fall back against the headrest and growled. Jason simply chuckled.
“You be quiet,” I muttered to him.
I heard the conversations again and then the door shutting. “Chloe?”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Umm… Why am I in the closet?”
I smiled. “Because I’m driving to Charleston.”
“Oh. Who’s with you?”
“Jason.” I cringed at what would come next.
“Good.”
“What?”
“Well, I don’t want you driving all over the country by yourself. What if you got into an accident or something?”
“I love you, Daddy. I’ve gotta go.”
“Love you too, sweetie. Bye.”
I shut the phone and tried, unsuccessfully, not to scream. Jason went ahead and started laughing.
“Oh, and you think it’s funny, do you?” I asked him, smacking his arm.
“Well… I think that there are few shades of red quite as appealing on you as that blush…”
We finally made it to Charleston, and realized that no restaurant was going to be open on Thanksgiving night. We settled for Waffle House. We rented a hotel room and fell asleep watching a James Bond movie. So much for the sex talk.
The next day, Friday
Well, the next day was the first day that I got to go off-road in my new truck. You see, the storage company wasn’t working that day. We figured that being Friday, they’d have the locksmith on site. What we didn’t think about was that every locksmith in the area would be home with their families or on a three hour waiting list because it was Thanksgiving weekend. We decided to go to the mall and wondered why there was no parking. I had to park in the grass (off-road!). I almost gave up and decided to come back later when we had the key, but then U-Haul said they had to charge us for the full SC to VA fee even though we’d only had the truck for two hours. We wound up buying a grinder wheel set from ACE Hardware and cutting it off ourselves. I drove my truck and Jason drove the U-Haul through the driving rain back to my apartment.
“We can unload tomorrow,” I told him as we finally got out of the trucks late at night.
“So do you want to stay here tonight, or do you want to come with me?” Jason asked, pulling me to him and leaning against my truck.
I contemplated the question for a minute… obviously I was too tired to realize the glaring right answer there. He just chuckled and led me to his car. Like I said, I wasn’t so much going for the furniture, but the stuff I had left behind. By this time, I was already only using my apartment as a $700 a month laundry hamper.
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