Page 56 of The Love Thief

CHAPTER THIRTY - NINE A New Rating System

Not even twenty-hour hours after our Indian lunch, Jackson texted me.

Unlike my first walk with Barry, at another beach entirely, this location was a Barry-free zone. He would never hang with the multi-ethnic crowd around Belmont Park. The La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club was more to his liking, and the likelihood of my ever going there again was slim to none.

“Sounds like fun. See you then,” I texted back in a flash, then quickly added: “Do you like peanut M&M’s?”

It felt like an eternity before he responded.

“How did you know?” He included a smiley emoji, which made my heart leap.

A certain pleasant dizziness took over my brain.

My heart began pounding intensely, like the drum solo from Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight,” as I immediately started trying to figure out what oh-so-casual-yet-cute outfit to wear.

Hat or no hat? Certainly, I needed one in the midsummer heat.

Not to mention a cool pair of sunglasses.

My mouth felt dry, and my mind was spinning with possibility.

By 4 P.M. the next day, I was a nervous wreck as I got ready for my meetup with Jackson. I decided to wear my most comfortable and favorite fuchsia hoodie and black yoga pants. I was hoping the choir in my head would stop torturing me once I got to the beach.

Holly, the last thing you need is another tragic heartbreak , said my wounded inner child.

Maybe the best thing in the world for you is a new romance with a man who has taken an oath to serve and protect , said my optimistic side. Don’t believe every thought you have , said Mom’s voice in my head, quoting her beloved Wayne Dyer.

Well, at least you will get in a nice long walk , said my practical Virgo side.

Go have fun and trust the process , said my future self. And there it was!

My newfound confidence propped me up, improving my posture as I stuffed my phone and lipstick into the pocket of my hoodie. I grabbed the jar of M&M’s I had recently gotten at Costco and headed out on my newest adventure in my trusty blue Prius.

Traffic was lighter than expected, and I arrived ten minutes early to a near-empty parking lot.

With my heart racing and palms sweating, I decided to sit in my car and use the time to do the mindfulness breathing Ritaji had taught me, hoping it would instantly transform me into the essence of cool, calm, and collected.

I rolled down the windows and, following my own directions, I began inhaling through my nose for four seconds, holding for four, exhaling through my mouth for four, dropping my shoulders, sinking into my seat, and keeping my attention on my breath.

The plan was to complete ten cycles of breathing.

In the middle of the eighth round, I nearly had a heart attack as I heard a rapid tapping on the roof of the car.

Leaning in and looking at me with a giant grin was Jackson.

“Fuck! You scared me to death!” I exclaimed without thinking and then instantly blushed at dropping an f-bomb.

“Sorry, but I must say you are fucking adorable,” he said with a wink.

My shoulders straightened as he opened the door for me.

“You’ve got the package, right?” he said with a straight face and a serious tone.

I looked around, pretending to be cautious and nervous.

“Yes, it’s all here,” I whispered, reaching over to the passenger seat and handing him the big jar of peanut M&M’s.

“Thank you. Let’s go put this in my car, okay?”

I playfully punched him in the arm and made him promise that he would never sneak up on me again.

“My bad. I shouldn’t disrupt a beautiful woman when she is meditating,” he said as an apology.

Now I was blushing again. He is totally flirting with me. OMG.

“Oh, I don’t really meditate. I was doing a mindfulness breathing exercise I learned in India. I suck at meditation. My brain seems to go into high gear, and the chatter is intolerable when I try to meditate,” I explained while trying not to appear as unsettled as I felt.

We talked nonstop on our leisurely stroll on the boardwalk. It was fun, effortless, and felt as if we were two people who had known each other forever.

“You know, you have a big advantage over me,” I said teasingly.

“Really? Why is that?”

“Well, for starters, you know the intimate details of the worst time in my life, and I only know that you like Indian food and peanut M&M’s,” I said.

“Holly, you have permission to ask me anything,” he said with a sincere smile.

“Okay, so, why did you become an FBI agent?”

He looked out at the ocean and was silent for several seconds as if deciding which version of his story to share with me. An airplane with an advertisement banner sped across the sky. Just when I thought he would never answer my question, he turned to me with a smile.

“I was small for my age as a kid and, in the fifth grade, I was bullied a lot by three punks in my class. It was really awful because I was the smartest kid in the room and they were the dumbest. But, of course, they were bigger and meaner. At the time, I was a big fan of Bruce Lee movies and had fantasies of becoming a ninja.” He laughed.

“I begged my parents to let me learn karate, but instead, my mother enrolled me in an Aikido dojo, a martial arts gym. She wanted me to have the skills of a warrior and the heart of a poet . Aikido is known as the art of not fighting.”

“Hmm . . . well, how do you defend yourself if you aren’t fighting,” I asked dubiously.

“Want me to show you?”

I nodded. He placed his hands on my waist and picked me up like I was as light as a feather, and set me over the low containment wall and onto the sand.

He then walked about ten feet away and said, “Okay, Holly, come at me with everything you’ve got. Like you are going to hit me as hard as you can.”

What the heck , I thought. He wants me to attack him? At that moment, I thought of a few other physical things I wanted to try out with him. But this?

“Come on,” he encouraged. “I promise I won’t hurt you. It will be fun.”

“Okay, you asked for it,” I declared and ran toward him with my right hand in the air, ready to punch him.

The next thing I knew, I was lying in the sand. He had grabbed my arm, spun me around as if we were dancing, and gently laid me on the ground.

“That was Aikido 101,” he said with a self-satisfied grin.

“I simply moved you in the direction you were going without causing either of us any pain.”

Lying in the cool sand, I became acutely aware of how blue the sky was overhead as I saw Jackson’s face peering down at me, his arm outstretched with an offer to pull me up.

It was like a freeze-frame moment, my senses firing all at once.

I could taste and smell the salty breeze while I heard the squawking of the seagulls flying by and a small inner voice whispering to me.

This is how it happens , the voice said softly.

Remember this moment . I squeezed my eyes as tightly as I could.

As if the pressure on my eyelids might freeze the memory forever in my brain.

Once I was standing up, we were nose-to-nose for a second. I wanted to kiss him and run away all at the same time. Fortunately, he turned me around and brushed the sand off my back.

“So, learning Aikido gave me what I needed to handle bullies. And it became an important part of my life, teaching me how to be physically, mentally, and spiritually strong,” Jackson continued.

“How is this spiritual?”

“My sensei , which means ‘teacher’ in martial arts, taught me to meditate for several purposes. One is to achieve the witness state, which is a state of total freedom, along with the silent state of awareness that underlies all sound, feelings, and thought. The object of another meditation is for letting go, for the elimination of limiting mental and emotional programs. It is the attainment of an unconditional mind and, ultimately, a transcendence of the mind itself, thereby leading to higher states of consciousness such as love and peace,” he explained reverently.

“Wow! Deepak and Ritaji would love this explanation of meditation,” I said.

“Who are they?”

“Deepak is my friend and sort of guru in Rishikesh. I call him my Love Walla. And Ritaji was my sweet yoga teacher in Delhi,” I explained.

“Sounds like you’ve been in good company. I’d like to know more about them,” he said, sounding genuinely curious.

“Okay, but you haven’t finished telling me how you came to join the FBI.”

After walking and talking for over an hour, we stopped at a rooftop café for fish tacos and wine. We watched a beautiful sunset, and for the first time ever I saw a green flash, which Jackson said was a sign that good things were about to happen.

He told me that his experience of being bullied led him to choose law enforcement as a career and that he loved being able to solve real-life mysteries. To him, it was like fitting puzzle pieces together, which eventually led to putting the bad guys away.

I told him about my love of food and the creativity that cooking allowed.

In the end, I revealed to him my plans to care for Dada and Nani through my culinary skills until I figured out what was next for me.

It was almost nine o’clock when I got home.

Mom was asleep on the couch in front of the TV, so I tiptoed to my room.

I felt happy in a way I hadn’t felt in forever.

Not exactly in a santosha sort of content way, but more like a joyful sukha way.

I was both happy and content and grateful to be a complete zero on the misery level.

I wondered if it was time to invent a new happiness rating system for myself.