Levi was smiling when he turned his attention back to the box, but when Jackie made her pun, he couldn't help it- Levi laughed. His chin tipped with the sound, and then he looked back up at her. Levi had walked right into that one, hadn't he? “You did,” Levi said. He couldn't contest that. But when his expression faded, it felt almost bittersweet.
It was almost amazing how easy it could be to forget the last five years, especially after Levi had been through so many. This could have been an ordinary day. Jackie could have been meeting him at his office and they could be walking back to his hotel together. In the moments they were making dumb hardware puns, Levi felt that. But then Levi remembered where they were.
Levi hadn't expected it to be like this. He hadn't expected Jackie to come back into his life at all, especially when she wasn't a one-hundred and sixty year old woman, but he wouldn't have thought it would feel like this. Like he was on one of those broken conveyor belts in a jam factory and it was going back and forth in the mallet-pounding section. The spaces lulled you into a sense of safety, but then when you thought you were clear of the hit, it jerked back.
There was a part of him that wanted to yell at her. How could she just waltz back into his life after five years, ignore the way she'd ended things, and hand him a gift like this? What was he supposed to think?
Instead, Levi just kept looking at the coin after he'd opened it again. Like the feel of the ridges between his fingers would eventually tell him what to do.
Her answer didn't help at all. If she'd said that she'd happened to find it somehow, and she'd remembered that Levi wanted this coin, it might have helped. But Jackie's answer, even if she was trying to downplay it, emphasized effort. She'd gotten it into her head that she needed to get Levi this coin, and then she'd done what it took to make it happen.
That wasn't something that friends did casually. This was not the kind of gift you could get by stopping at a few places in Willow Creek or making a couple phone calls. It might not have been a big deal. But it was a huge gesture.
There was a part of Levi that hated her for putting him in this position.
But this was Jackie. He knew she didn't mean it. And he couldn't help but enjoy being with her anyway.
“No big deal,” Levi repeated. But the sly sidelong look in his eyes toward her belayed how much he actually believed that. “Thank you. This is very thoughtful.” Understatement.
Levi knew that Jackie had not taken her husband's name already. Even if they hadn't spoken in awhile, Willow Creek was a small town. But something about the way Jackie reminded him of that fact moments after she'd given him the coin struck him. Suddenly, Levi was a lot less sure of his previous answer.
“It's too bad you're so set on that,” Levi said. “From what I've heard, you're missing out on a lot of discounts.” For some reason when Levi tried to buy cheaper tickets for plays, they never believed him when he said he was over seventy. He looked back at her. “I'll have my realtors look into it. Grass is difficult to find in the Spring, but we'll see what they can do.”