"We could transform this place into a lounge for the evening," I suggested, and Chloe responded with a high-five.
"That's a great idea. I'll take care of the food."
"I'll take care of the music," I said, looking at Blake.
I'd unintentionally put him on the spot.
"I'll uh... I'll make sure she gets here on time," he said.
I smiled.
10
Blake
I stood outside Chloe's cafe for a few minutes, waiting for Jaz to meet me here. I didn't expect her to reach out to me after what happened between us in that hotel room.
Sure, it intensified things and gave a whole new meaning to the heat between us, but when I didn't hear from her for an entire day, I thought that was it between us.
She'd made her decision after thinking hard about what I had told her I wanted.
I even regretted telling her anything, because the disappointment that came with knowing that she didn't want to do this the right way with me was painful.
But then I received her text.
I had no idea what it was that she wanted to talk about, but there I was, obsessively checking my watch.
She was twenty minutes late. It seemed to be her thing. A total lack of time management skills was one thing that she had in common with her older sister.
I greeted her with a smile when she got out of her car in the parking lot.
Meeting at this place was a smart idea. We used to come here a lot with Freya and it wouldn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.
Jaz was wearing a pair of shorts. She would usually keep her legs covered like she was self-conscious about showing off her body, but not so much lately.
I'd never given it much thought until recently. That being said, however, I was starting to realize that I had always been attracted to her on some level.
That long hair and those lips that I enjoyed kissing so much were hard to ignore.
It was getting increasingly hard to imagine what I was doing before I met her.
Oh right, I was doing her sister.
That thought alone had made me uncomfortable over and over again, but not when she was actually with me.
"Hey," she beamed, rocking back and forth. It was her nervous tick. That wide smile and the restlessness.
"Time to get some peanut butter, huh?" I smirked.
The last time I was here with her alone, was when we were planning my second year dating anniversary with Freya. In all honestly, I thought the whole thing was lame.
What was the point in celebrating something that I knew would come to an end in the future?
It never felt like forever with Freya, and I hoped that she, too, felt the same way because that would mean less heartache when the inevitable happened.
"Well, this feels weird," she said, looking at whoever was putting the new batch of cookies on display.
"Not seeing Chloe here is always going to feel weird to me," she said, referring to Freya's best friend and the owner of the cafe. The couple had moved to Chicago almost a year ago when they opened a new branch in the city.
From what I'd heard, they were doing quite amazing, way better than they would in a small town where they only had a fraction of hungry customers to feed.
"I just wish everyone didn't have to run off to Chicago."
"You haven't," I shrugged. "Do you ever plan to?"
She swallowed and looked away, then dodged the question completely.
"Remember that?" She chuckled, pointing to a small photo on the wall that we took that evening. It was us - the former couple, with the Ashman parents, some of Freya's close friends, and Jasmine.
Her smile disappeared almost immediately after she put her arm down.
I wished I could read her mind. I wanted to know what exactly she was contemplating and feeling.
I knew what I was feeling after seeing that photo. It was a much simpler time back then. Freya and I were perfect on paper, but in reality... not so much.
Jaz and I on the other hand? That was a completely different story.
Not a minute passed by during my day when I didn't think about her.
I was obsessed, that was for sure, and I would have killed to know if she was, too.
"So why did you ask me to come here?"
"This conversation sounds so familiar," she shook her head. "The last time..."
"Yeah, the last time we had this conversation in this exact place was one week before that photo was taken," I snapped, without the intention of sounding rude, but the words were just rolling out of me. "I'm sure you don't want to sit here and reminisce over the past. I get it. It sucks."
I lowered my voice and glanced at the other tables before continuing.
"But I still don't regret any of it."
She lowered her gaze and blushed. I felt her hand on my knee from under the table, and I quickly grabbed it with mine.
"That's why I wanted to see you. I don't regret it, either."
She seemed hesitant, but I took whatever it was that I was getting from her.
I couldn't complain. At least she had shown up.
"Do you mean that?"
She nodded. "I want to get to know you more. I know there's something here and I'm not just imagining it."
I smiled at the glimmer of hope that I was seeing in her eyes.
"You aren't imagining it."
Then I squeezed her hand, rubbing the back of it with my thumb.
"Oh," she chuckled, pulling it away when she received a text and then my phone buzzed almost exactly at the same moment.
"That's weird," I said, unlocking it and watching the color drain from Jaz's face.
"Shit," she whispered. "Shit. Shit. Shit. It's Freya. She's sitting at home."
Jasmine stood with a jolt, like her world was coming to an end.
Watching her run her hand across her face multiple times, I wondered if I should even tell her that Freya had texted me as well.
Apparently, she'd realized that leaving so many days early hadn't been the smart thing to do, after all.
But I didn't think I had much of a choice in the matter. I couldn’t really spare her the tension because Freya wanted to see us both at her house.
Jaz and I decided to not leave the cafe together.
"You go first," she said, tapping her foot on the ground and looking at my car. "I'll leave here in about half an hour or go for a drive or whatever. We can't look like we're coming from the same place."
I wanted to tell her that there was no way that Freya would guess that we'd arrived from the same place, but I didn't want to argue with her.
At that point, I just wanted to calm her down, to make her feel like it was not the end of the world that her sister was unexpectedly back in town for a little while.
I would imagine that this was going to happen frequently. Hinsdale wasn't all that far from Chicago. It was only a couple of hours away, so Freya was still going to spend plenty of weekends at their house.
Besides, Jaz had just told me that she wanted to explore this... relationship.
How were we going to do that if we had to sneak around all the time and watch our backs so Freya would never know?
It wasn't going to work that way, but I wasn't about to bring all of that up... yet.
"Sure," I said, approaching my car. "I'll see you at your place."
She balled her fingers into fists and groaned, then marched over to her car.
So adorable, I thought.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous. I wasn't the best liar in the world and my face usually gave away my secrets.
But I still thought Jaz was overreacting because Freya didn't have a reason to suspect anything. She wouldn't just come up with this idea that her sister and I wanted to be together out of thin air.
No one would.
Because it was ridiculous.
Anyone who knew Jaz was aware that each step she took was so calculated and thought out that there was no way she woul
d do something wild like fall into bed with her sister's ex-boyfriend.
In a way, I felt privileged that I was the one she'd chosen to break those rules for.
Better yet, she now wanted to actually have something to do with me out of the bedroom.
She didn't just want me to take her virginity, although my body ached and begged for me to give in every single time she was close.
I wanted to give her what she wanted, but I didn't want her to regret it.
Freya opened the door within seconds after I rang the bell.
She greeted me with a hug and a tired face.
"It's so nice to see you," she squealed, her arms wrapped around my neck. Then she stepped back, realizing that her hug was way longer than it probably should have been.
"A few years too early, huh?" I teased.
She rolled her eyes at me.
"It's so funny, you know. I felt exactly the same way when I left home to go to university. I thought I hated being in this stupid small town. It used to drive me insane, so claustrophobic. But when I left, I missed it. And I mean, I might have been really annoyed at my parents the night before I packed up my bag and left, but I have to say... I missed them, too."
"Well," I smiled. "It's uh... nice to have you back, if only for a little while."
"Oh, you don't have to be nice. Who wants their troublesome ex-girlfriend around them... like ever?"
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Troublesome, huh? I wish you'd realized that you were troublesome back when it actually mattered."
She grinned, then became serious all of a sudden.
"It's barely been two weeks," she began. "Since we broke up, yet it feels like..."
"Yeah," I nodded. "Like it's been a while."
"Anyway," she sighed, filling three glasses with orange juice.
"Are we expecting company?" I asked, but of course I knew who she was expecting to be home soon.
"Jaz," she replied. "I don't know where she is. She should have been here by now. Eva's house is like seven minutes away from here."
"Oh, is she at Eva's?"
Freya shrugged, setting her glass of juice on the kitchen counter.
"Where else would she be? The girl literally has no life. I've told her so many times to...," she paused. "You know what actually, I think something might be up."
Her eyes were wide and that mischievous smile on her face was worrying me a little.
"Something... like what?"
"I think she might be like, seeing someone or something."
My eyebrows shot up and I leaned forward.
"Really? You think so? But you always tell me how she avoids boys like the plague."
I did the quote unquote gesture with my two fingers because those used to be her exact words.
"I thought so too, but then -"
Freya flicked her gaze away from me when she heard the doorknob twist.
She winked at me and displayed her front teeth, indicating that I needed to keep my mouth shut about whatever she'd just told me.
"My little sister is here!" She yelled, pouncing on a pale-faced Jaz.
"Hey," she managed to smile back, then looked at me and waved with pursed lips. "I didn't know you were... going to be here."
"Who me?" Freya curled her four fingers toward herself. "Or him?"
"Um," Jaz cleared her throat. "Can I say both?"
Freya grinned and threw her arms around her again.
"You can say whatever you want," she sang, kissing her sister's cheek. "And like I was telling Blake... It's only been a few days since I left but it seems like we've got a lot of catching up to do."
11
Jasmine
There was this thing that I would always do when I wasn't in my element.
I would avoid looking directly into anyone's eyes.
My sister knew that all too well. She'd always crack jokes about how I would start searching for something on her forehead when I was nervous.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what was happening now.
First, I almost choked on my own saliva when she said we've got a lot of catching up to do. I didn't think that it would have anything to do with my love life.
But it did.
"Is this some kind of an intervention?" I joked, or at least tried to.
"Not if you don’t want it to be," Freya winked, handing me my glass filled with juice. "I could spike that if you need… loosening up. You know, so you don't have to keep staring at my forehead."
I smirked, hoping that she wasn't noticing the way my limbs were shaking.
Maybe they weren't. I couldn't be sure because I felt numb.
"Eh, whatever," she waved her arm. "I'll just tell you. The front desk receptionist at M.K. Residency is a friend of mine. She told me that she saw you at the hotel. Why would you go there if not to hook up?"
My mind was racing. I was wondering if the receptionist who was supposedly Freya's friend had attended Blake's check-in. I assumed she hadn't because she would have told Freya.
What have I gotten myself into, I cursed myself.
"So now you've got spies around me?" I teased.
"Who, Stephanie?" She chuckled, referring to the receptionist. "She's hardly a spy. We just have a long running history with her."
Freya said that last part with a smirk that was directed at Blake. That kind of made my stomach spiral out of control.
Did she mean they'd both had a threesome with this Stephanie woman?
"We uh...," Freya smiled, looking at Blake. "We used to get a room at M.K. every now and then. You know, after his parents started living with him and… with you living here, we struggled to find our special time."
I nodded, my jaw clenching.
Turns out, Blake had the same kind of problem that I did. His eyes were unable to meet mine, but I wasn't nervous anymore.
I was furious.
"Really?" I said, relaxing and feeling the rage fill me at the same time. "I didn't know you two sneaked into hotel rooms."
"Yeah," Freya stood and made way for the washroom. "I'm so much better than you at keeping secrets. For one, you lay them all out there in your diary."
"Stay away from my diary!" I yelled and she turned around to stick her tongue out at me.
Now it was just him and I.
Oh, and also the silence between us.
"Jaz," he said, leaning forward.
He said my name again when I didn't respond.
"Jaz, it's not what you think."
"How would you know what I'm thinking?" I shook my head.
"Okay... just let me explain, okay?"
I glanced at him for a second and then looked away.
"Let's not do this right now. Please. Not here."
He settled back in to his seat. The next minute or so while we waited for Freya to return was brutal, at least for me.
"You guys want to get dinner or something?" She asked, rubbing her hands together and hoping for a favorable response.
But instead, she got a scrunched up nose from me and an excuse from Blake.
"I'm really tired today," I said.
"I bet you are," she said sarcastically. "Because you're the one who drove all the way back to Hinsdale to spend time with me, right?"
I rolled my eyes. Here we go with the guilt-tripping.
"Oh come on, you guys," she whined. "Wasn't this the plan? We were supposed to have fun this week before I left and now that I'm back to do just that, you're bailing on me."
"Amy is leaving soon too, actually," Blake said, hoping that Freya would let him off the hook.
"So bring her along! I love Amy!"
I pressed my palm against my eyes. Freya was definitely not fond of Amy and it was amusing to hear her lie about it so blatantly.
She always thought that Blake's sister stuck her nose into their relationship way too much.
"Uh, sure. I'll ask her."
I mentally smacked Blake in the head. He couldn't be serious.
"Great!" She clasped
her hands together with a smile. "Violet Hour at eight."
I expected Blake to tell Freya that his sister wasn't into this plan and so he couldn't make it. Instead, I found myself zipping my sister into the tiniest black dress that I'd ever seen.
"Don't you think this is too much?" I asked warily. "For Violet Hour. It's not really a fancy place."
I wasn't nearly as much into fashion as she was but even I knew that black sequin was a bit too much for any bar in Hinsdale.
The nearest fancy nightclub was at least forty-five minutes away from us.
"When you have an ex-boyfriend that you want to get back with, you'll want to break some Hinsdale rules, too."
She turned her head around with a slight wink, then leaned into the mirror to do whatever it was that she was doing to her cheekbone.
"What did you say?" I asked, baffled.
"I said I want to wear this dress."
"No, after that. Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about."
She set her bronzer on the dresser and turned to me with a frown.
"I screwed up, Jaz. Big time."
It was all coming to me. She didn't look devastated anymore, the way she did when she'd freshly broken up with Blake.
Freya was really hoping to get back with him.
"When did you realize that you'd screwed up? And... why?"
She twisted her lips at me.
"Aren't you in a negative mood today? Relax, I won't bother you with my relationship stories if it does work out. But to answer your question, I think it was the moment I smiled at him before getting into the car that morning. I felt like I was leaving something behind. I mean, I was. This house, you guys, the guy I've been in love with for so long."
Her saying that in the present tense had my heart beating outside of my body.
"You're still in love with him?"
She pursed her lips and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. I miss him. I miss him a lot."
I realized that I was asking her a lot of questions, and I might not have worried so much about it if I didn't have all that guilt hidden inside my dark heart.
I resisted the urge to ask her if she was staying back indefinitely.
Forbidden Neighbor: A Contemporary Romance Boxset (Forbidden Saga Book 2) Page 7
