Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

What he feels is awe.

Genuine, ice-cold awe.

“It’s deep,” he says. “It’s real deep. But I think… OK, I’m just going to try something…”

He places his hands flat on the ground, lowers his head. Around them, the loose rocks in the topsoil begin to shake.

A lot of lawyers don’t know how to dress down. Nic Delacourt isn’t one of them.

He’s wearing a crisp, grey V-neck T-shirt over dark jeans. It’s been threatening rain all day, and it looks like it just started: a few drops glisten on his bald head. Yes, we do occasionally get rain in LA.

Nic coughs from the smoke. “Bad time?”

“Perfect, actually. Come on in.”

He waves a hand in front of his face. “Think I’ll stay outside. Where there’s air.”

“Shut up.” I pull him into a hug, making sure to keep it quick and friendly. His shoulders are tight under his shirt – he’s toned, rather than ripped, but he spends a lot of his spare time outdoors. Nic’s a surfer, and snowboarder, and rock climber, with a knack for finding the best spots to do those things in.

But listen, you think you’ve had awkward break-ups? Try this. Girl has psychokinetic abilities. She works for the government doing bad-ass secret-agent shit, and they refuse to let her reveal those abilities to anyone. That means she doesn’t dare have a boyfriend because said abilities go haywire during sex. (Oh, your teenage years were awkward? Imagine tearing your room apart every time you masturbate).

Then, a really cool guy she’s friends with asks her out, and she has to be a dick and say no. Then she’s framed for murder, and has to go on the run. She ends up asking the cool guy for help, and in the process, reveals her powers to him.

Cue major freak-out, I’m-living-in-an-Avengers-movie , holy-shit-superheroes-are-real , blah blah. It didn’t help that right after, we got ambushed by a group of special forces commandos, and I ended up wrecking Nic’s apartment in the escape. That was before we all got chased down Wilshire Boulevard by one of the commandos, a psychopath named Burr who had a real hard-on for taking me out.

Anyway, he got over it – Nic, I mean, not Burr; Burr is a flaming ass-clown who will never get over himself, let alone me. The day was saved. Well, saved might be a little strong. I made it out, but lost another friend in the process. Our wheelman slash grease-monkey, Carlos Morales. Also known as Chuy. Also known as the asshole who fucked us over, framed me for murder and nearly got us all killed. Also known as my former best friend in the entire world.

The less I think about him, the better.

Bad guys dead, injuries healing, back to normal. Psychokinetic girl asks cool guy out. Even kisses him. And cool guy turns her down.

Sad trombone.

Don’t get me wrong: Nic doesn’t owe me anything. He’s got every right to think things through, and make his own decisions. It just… sucked.

Shock horror, I don’t define my self-worth by what someone else thinks of me – definitely not what a man thinks. Never have, never will. And after Nic decided he didn’t want to be with me, I went through a period of real anger. It was a self-righteous, high-horse kind of anger. I didn’t need Nic, I didn’t need anybody.

It didn’t last long. Mostly because I missed him.

I missed hanging out with him. I hated not being able to call him up after I got a tip on a new food truck, or to zip over to the other side of LA to try out a new pho place.

And sometimes, two people can’t stay apart. Ask anybody who hooked up with an ex, even though they knew it was a bad idea. We started texting. Then we started meeting up for coffee. I was careful. He knew how I felt about him, and I didn’t want to scare him off. Tonight is the first time he’s been back to my place since we kissed.

I still want to date him. But I also know it’s going to take a while to convince him that we’d be good together, especially given what I do for a living. The old me might not have been so careful, but let’s just say that the past few months have taught me a little bit about being careful.

“Hope you like paella,” I say, stepping aside to let him in.

He wrinkles his nose. “I like it when it’s not on fire.”

“Shut up. I’ll deal with the food, you open a window. I’ve got awnings, the rain shouldn’t get in.”

“Can you turn the music down a little?”

“What? Oh. Sure.” I have two massive, ancient speakers in my lounge, currently playing some very loud rap. Jay Rock – the Follow Me Home album. I reach out with PK and turn the volume down.

“I brought beer.” He drops a damp cardboard box on the counter and heads over to the window.

“Is it that hoppy shit you like?”

“Different kind. Not as strong.”

“So I’ll be tasting hops for days then, not weeks.”

He gives an awkward laugh. For a few seconds, neither of us say anything.

“Here.” I toss him a beer from his six-pack, desperate to break the moment, and crack one for myself. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” He takes a sip that is just a little too deep. The kind you take when you’re waiting for the other person to say something.

We crash on the ratty couch. Like everything else in here, it’s seen better days, and like everything else, I can’t bear to get rid of it. At least I managed to tidy the place. Sort of. I didn’t really have shelf space for all my cookbooks, so they’re currently in a stack taller than I am, over by my bedroom door. My plastic spatula is probably underneath them.

I draw my legs up. “How’s the caseload?” Nic’s a special assistant in the District Attorney’s office.

He rolls his eyes. “I see briefs when I go to sleep at night.”

“Fun.”

“Anyway, it’s the usual boring shit. What about you? How’s work?”

He tries so hard to make it sound like a casual question that it ends up sounding really awkward. Not exactly surprising. For most people, work is sitting in an office or drilling stuff on a construction site or waiting tables. For me, it’s using my PK to break into places and put tracking devices on briefcases and lift important objects out of moving cars.

“Work’s good. We’re prepping for a mission in a couple days.”

A flicker of a smile. “Paul still making you guys do moving jobs?”

“Ugh. Yeah.” The little outfit we work for has a cover: a removals company called China Shop Movers. Our logistics guy, Paul Marino, is the Daniel Day-Lewis of secret agents. He loves getting into character.

“He still dating…?” Nic frowns.

“Annie.”

“Right, Annie. I can’t believe that – they seem really different.”

“They are.” Annie Cruz is the point person on our ops, which is a fancy way of saying she’s my babysitter. She has a sense of humour so small you’d need an electron microscope to detect it.

“How do they actually make that work?”

“I hear he’s really good in bed.”

He forces another laugh, even more awkward than the first. Of course I had to make a joke about sex. Why do I even bother trying to stop myself?

“Hungry?” I say, desperate to change the subject.

“Kind of. I don’t mind waiting if…”

“No, it’s cool, I don’t want it to get cold.”

Bowls. Paella. I give the rice a big squeeze of lemon, which should take care of any carbonised aftertaste. I dish up, giving Nic a few extra shrimp, then bring the bowls back to the couch.

Our relationship doesn’t hinge on whether I can make paella or not. All the same, I just want him to like it. All the good things in life happen over food – or at least, they begin there.