Chapter 5
1995 Words
Jessica
I was on my way to dinner with Jason in his McLaren.
In the end, Jason waited for me inside Ricardo’s office.
I was thankful he was inside there, otherwise; I couldn’t concentrate on my job.
“I hope you don’t mind if we have steak for dinner,” Jason asked.
“No, I don’t mind.” It’d been a long time since I ate one. I missed the fillet mignon and I would have that later.
While on our way there, I recalled how we interacted back in the meeting room.
Jason looked…kind of different there. Almost like he was hesitating and in pain. I wonder why? I never saw him that way. He always looked cheerful, playful, nice, easygoing, and at that time there was something offbeat about him. We had been talking for almost a year now but our relationship never moved forward, well, thanks to my stubbornness and Jason seemed didn’t mind about it. Or maybe he did?
Maybe he did but he never showed it openly to me. But as he said before, although we were texting, I always refused his invitation for a date. People might call me crazy because I rejected a mouth-drooling man like him who could get any woman he wanted easily like the flip of a coin. My reason was mostly because of work. Petty, I knew. I was trying to avoid him. An attractive specimen like him was a red flag to me. I never saw him with someone else, or maybe he was doing it behind my back. Maybe he had a few back in London. London women with their posh and sexy accent. He didn’t tell me because they were far away.
Men couldn’t be trusted and I didn’t trust myself to love again.
I realized I had been fooling myself. The sign was there but I chose to ignore it. Heart over head. Stupid move.
“Jess?” Jason’s voice snapped my mind as I turned to him, finding him looking at me. “Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.
I blinked my eyes. “Why?”
“We’ve arrived.”
“Huh?” I turned my eyes to what was in front of me.
The Steak House.
I never heard of this place before.
“You looked far away like you’re not even here,” Jason added. Okay, Jess. Stop doing this. I must not show this side of me to him. I didn’t want to show my weakness in front of him, in front of a man. “You need to eat,” he declared and detached himself from his McLaren and ran toward my door, opened it, and presented his hand to me. I looked at it first and switched to his eyes. He still had his smile attached to his face.
Sometimes I was wondering, why Jason always smiled. It was not like he had a bad smile, on the contrary, his smile was gorgeous and those dimples looked so cute on him. But had he ever had a bad day in his life? Was his life that perfect? Unlike mine? Yet the more I looked into his eyes, sometimes I almost saw something but Jason would avoid it immediately like he didn’t want me to see deep inside his soul.
“Jess?” he called out as I blinked my eyes a few times before I accepted his hand and he pulled me out gently and closed the door. He kept holding my hand while walking toward the restaurant.
“Um, you can let me go now,” I said.
“No.” Excuse me? “Not until I have you inside and sit down.” I rolled my eyes as we entered and headed to our table near the window where I could see his flashing orange McLaren. People were practically looking at his car first before walking away. Well, it was not every day you saw a three-hundred-thousand-dollars car rambling around New York.
He kept his promise and let me go as we sat across each other. The blonde hair waitress approached us, handing the menu book to me. “The lady will have the fillet while I want the rib eye,” Jason immediately told her the order without bothering to look at the menu first. I eyed him suspiciously and the waitress walked away from us. His blue eyes set on me and said, “It’s your favorite.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “You chose the fillet back at my sister’s wedding.” Oh, right. I did.
And now we lost communication. I thought hard about what I should talk about with him. If we kept quiet until we finished our meal, that would be so awkward. What should I ask about? On how he knew immediately fillet was my favorite? But that was so lame, wasn’t it?
“How’s the job back in London?” I started.
“Doing good. I’m on a vacation now.”
“You are?”
“Yes. My father asked me to take a break once in a while. Working hard is not really good sometimes.” Well, I had to agree with him about that. “But you have the bad habit of doing overtime,” he added.
I smiled nervously. “Did Ricardo tell you?”
“He did. He likes you. He said you are the best secretary he ever had.”
“Thank you. I love working with him, too. Even though at first, I was scared of him.”
“Why is that?”
“Before I got accepted, I heard the news about him.”
“Ah, I see. I know what you mean. He dated different women.”
“Well, not exactly dating because he only took them for one date and he changed his prey the next day.” Jason laughed at my statement.
“It was a funny story because he couldn’t get rid of my sister out of his mind.”
“What, did she dump him before?”
“There was a misunderstanding between them and made Ricardo stupidly sleep with women.”
“Oh. That’s…reckless.”
“Or stupid. But it’s in the past already and I’m glad they overcame it and are now happily married.” Yeah, I was glad, too. I wish I was, too. “Oh, s**t. I’m so sorry, Jess.”
I blinked my eyes at him. “Oh, not. That’s okay. I have to get used to it now,” I convinced him. To myself as well and I drank my water nervously.
“Listen, maybe I’ve said it before but you are worth more than you think. I won’t force you to be in a relationship quickly. Like I said before, we should start by being a friend first. And please stop telling me that we are not friends because honestly, I was quite sad about it.” Really? Now I felt bad.
“So, you can feel sad too?” I joked.
“Hey!” he yelled jokingly and we both laughed. Well, Jason was human, too. Of course, there would be a time when he felt sad. “You should laugh more often. I like hearing it. There’s always hope in every obstacle, Jessica. Remember that.” I dropped the smile and he was looking outside.
There’s always hope in every obstacle.
Hope.
Maybe I needed that.
Hoping for what I deserved.
Hoping for what I was supposed to deserve.
Our steaks finally came and we began eating. That smelled nice. I cut a piece and pushed the juicy meat inside my mouth. Oh, my God. This was so delicious. I should add this place to my go-to list.
“Eva introduced this place to me before,” he informed. Eva? James’ fiancé?
“She has good taste.”
“She has. How’s the steak?”
“Awesome.”
“Great.” And he began chewing his rib-eye when this question popped into my mind.
“When you faced something bad in your life, what did you do?”
“Consider it as a lesson and move on.” Again, his words punched my stomach hard. “Moving on is not easy. It never is. Forgetting the past requires a lot of effort and will. Sometimes we thought we had forgotten but fate is twisted as it is and keeps reminding us all over again. To what we have lost. To what we have faced. It’s easy to build up the will but the challenge is to strengthen it.” He stared back at me. “Don’t consider my life is perfect, Jess. Because it’s not. I’m also a human being with a lot of false and weaknesses. And if you want brutal honesty; I always ended up being dumped by women before.”
My jaw dropped. What did he just say?
The side of his lips twitched up. “You must be not expecting that.”
“Well, honestly, no. How come?”
“The best answer I can give you now is because they refused to dig deeper about me. They only saw what I could give to them not what I wanted to receive.” I didn’t know why I was thinking like this but I think…Jason was hiding something. Somehow, the advice he threw at me, he was telling himself, too.
Maybe he was like me.
There was an invincible wall around him. He wouldn’t put them down until I did the same.
“I thought because I was too kind and James told me I was an idiot.” I laughed at his statement.
“Being kind is not a weakness,” I told him.
“Maybe it is to me.”
Our eyes found each other. Looking at something. Again, Jason was showing something to me.
Desperation.
What he was so desperate about?
Why he was looking at me like that?
Hope. But what he was hoping for from me? What did he want from a girl who had lost her way and didn’t know where her heart had gone to?
Until he blinked his gems away and that was it, he stored the feeling deep inside of him. “I’ve promised you dinner. I will feel bad if I took you home still feeling hungry,” he reminded, immediately ending the conversation.
We ate in silence, in the end, until we finished. Jason took me home without any talking between us. I was thankful he turned on the music until we reached my apartment building.
I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Thank you for the lovely dinner and for taking me home.”
Jason turned to me. “It’s a pleasure. I hope I can take you out again. I’ll be around for a couple of months.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Please do.”
I smiled a bit and got out of the car. Slightly bending before I closed the door. “It was a lovely night.”
“It was lovely to me, too.” I closed the door and headed to my building without looking back but I knew he was still looking at me.
Until my phone chimed and I pulled it out of my bag and saw Jason’s name on the screen. Wait, he was still behind me. But I still received it and put the phone to my ear. “I forgot to say good night to you. So, good night, Jess.” Oh, that was so sweet of him.
“Good night, Jason.”
“And Jessica?”
“Yes?”
There was a short silence before he finally continued, “You are the only one.” He ended the call. I was paralyzed and then I heard his car leaving, snapping me immediately. I looked at his departing McLaren as his words kept vibrating in my mind.
You are the only one.
- Writer
