Wish Upon A Star

by Jasinda Wilder

  But then, who’s measuring? Not me. It feels right. I feel safe with him. I know he cares about me, genuinely. Is this crazy? Maybe. But I’m going with it. All the way, as far as it goes.

  Cozy on his lap, warm, his hands on my shoulder and hip, the is pain finally distant enough to let me really fall asleep.

  Get Back to the Good

  Wes

  She’s asleep, finally.

  I wriggle as gradually and carefully as I can out from underneath her, dig cash out of my wallet, and write a note for the delivery person, instructing him or her to call my phone when they’re here, instead of knocking, and I leave the note on the floor outside the door.

  A few minutes later, my phone buzzes, and instead of answering it, I go to the door with a hundred-dollar bill. The delivery person is a teenage girl, just barely old enough to have a license, probably. She recognizes me immediately, eyes flying open wide, jaw dropping open.

  “I…you—it’s you. Hi, um, you.” She hands me the whole heat bag. “Pizza?”

  I laugh. “Take a deep breath. It’s all good.” I push the heat bag back to her. “I don’t think your boss would be very happy if you gave away the heat bag.”

  She blinks. “Oh. Um. Right.” She doesn’t move to take the pizza out of the bag, though. “I can’t believe it’s you. What—what in the world are you doing here?”

  “Road trip.” I open the flap and remove the pizza, hold up a finger. “Hold on.”

  I set the pizza on the table inside and go back out to the hallway, where the girl is still standing in stunned immobility.

  “Got your phone?” I ask.

  She holds it up. “It’s a Samsung.”

  I laugh. “Nice.” I turn and stand beside her, put my arm around her shoulders. “You want a selfie?”

  She nods. “Selfie.” She blinks as if coming awake, finally. “Wait, for real?”

  I grin. “Yup. For real.”

  She opens her camera and snaps half a dozen in quick succession. Then, she digs a pen out of her back pocket. She holds it out to me. “Can I have your autograph, too?”

  I hesitate. “What should I sign?”

  She looks baffled for a moment. “Um.” Then, glancing down, she realizes she’s wearing a company logo-emblazoned polo with all of three buttons open, and tugs the top down, exposing the upper portion of her breasts. “These?”

  The receipt is inside the heat bag, I notice, which is on the hallway floor, opening facing up. I reach in and grab the receipt, flatten it against the wall, and glance at her. “How about this instead? What’s your name?”

  “Katie?” It comes out like a question.

  I sign it with her name and a smiley face:

  To Katie, this autograph won’t vanish next time you wash. —Westley Britton

  I hand it to her, and she stares at it with wonder. “There you go.”

  She then stares at me. “You’re so beautiful.”

  I grin. “Thanks. You are too, Katie.”

  “You remembered my name.”

  I snort. “I mean, you just told me ten seconds ago.”

  “Oh, right.” A shake of her head. “Sorry, I’m not usually this stupid. You’re just really hot and I can’t believe I’m meeting you.”

  I smirk. “Hey, I once had someone ask me for an autograph, and then she couldn’t remember her own name. It happens.”

  She blushes. “I had to think about it. Like, ‘what’s my name again. Oh yeah, Katie.’”

  “Well, Katie. It was great to meet you, and thank you for bringing me pizza.” I hand her the hundred. “Keep the change.”

  She boggles at me. “It was less than twenty dollars, Mister Westley, sir.”

  “Just call me Wes—and I know. It’s cool. Drive safe and have a nice night.”

  “Eighty bucks! That’s more than I’ve made all week.” She turns away, then pauses and looks back at me. “Hey, um. Can I tell people I met you?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, that’s the point of the selfie, right? Just don’t tell them where to find me.” I realize the blunder in my plan, then—she has my actual, personal phone number. She recognizes this at the same moment, judging by the sudden widening of her eyes, and the surreptitious glance at her phone, still in her hand. “Yeah, um, could you…delete that call? Please?”

  She grins at me. “Awww. I was gonna text you obsessively until you have to change your number.”

  “I wish that was funnier than it actually is, but some people would.”

  She goes into her calls and deletes it. “Party pooper.”

  “I know, right? Privacy. Such a bizarre concept!”

  She waves at me and walks away, only turning to look back at me once, as I head back into the room.

  Jo is still sound asleep…probably a good thing.

  I’ve never understood the signing boobs thing, personally. Even a Sharpie will wash off, eventually. And, sure, you may like me or have a crush on me, but….do you really want me just randomly groping you while I write my name on you? Really? It’s not like I’m inviting you back to my hotel for lecherous debauchery. I just don’t get it. A hat, a shirt, a hoodie—I’ve signed phones and phone cases, glasses cases, backpacks, money, receipts, envelopes, anything and everything. After the first time a woman—a beautiful and remarkably well-endowed one—whipped her breast out in public, handed me a marker, and asked me to sign her, I understood how bizarre and awkward it is. For one thing, skin doesn’t sign very well. At all. I had just done my first and only global tour, I was eighteen, and she was gorgeous…so yeah, I signed her. But I’ve had the sense, after that, to never repeat it. It’s just inviting trouble, if nothing else. But yet still, I get that request all the time. And it’s weird every time.

  I guess in this moment, I’m just glad I don’t have to explain it to Jo.

  Thinking about boobs and Jolene in the same breath leads me to thinking about last night.

  That’s something I’ll never forget. She’s intensely sensitive, responsive to every least touch. Eager, and bold—I wasn’t expecting that.

  She really is beautiful. The more time I spend with her, the less I see the evidence of illness and the more I see just her. The beauty of her soul shines out through her eyes, through her very pores. I get why she’s self-conscious, but I hope as we spend more time together, she’ll learn to see herself how I see her—remarkably beautiful.

  I have to clamp down on the line of thinking, though, because the truth is, I do want her. I want more of her. Lust burns in me for her.

  There’s a war, though. Because today reminds me that she is sick. Should I be careful? She’d hate it, I think, if I was to try and slow things down or stop her because I’m worried about her. She wants to live, to enjoy her life and everything in it, while she can. And that means enjoying her body, something she’s rarely been able to do. And I can provide that. So I will.

  Gladly.

  I also have to fight to hold back, to go slow, to give her time to process and understand how she feels, what she wants. I have to allow her the space to develop free agency over her body and her sexuality. And it has to be in her time, whether that’s fast or slow; I can’t rush her, no matter what I want, and I also can’t hold her back.

  It’s a privilege to be the one here with her, to do these incredible, pleasurable things with such a remarkable person.

  I watch her sleep while I eat. Wonder at my fortune: to know such a talented, remarkable, beautiful, tough person, a woman who’s been through hell her whole life, who can still laugh and smile and tell jokes and see beauty in the world and explore herself and take chances and take risks and still seek to find herself, despite being face-to-face with her own mortality.

  Today was hard.

  Helplessness is brutally difficult.

  The next two days are more of the same. I extend our stay in the room day by day, and we watch TV constantly: daytime talk shows, soap operas, reruns of old shows and movies. She rests. Sleeps fitfully an hour or two here and
there, sometimes a little more. She’s utterly stoic. Uncomplaining.

  She barely eats. Too nauseated, she says, and if she did eat, she’d just bring it back up. Trust her, she says. She’s an old pro at this game.

  At one point I’m certain she’s running a fever, but she waves off my concern—

  “I’ll let you know if there’s something out of the ordinary,” she tells me. “So far, this is all standard operating procedure. Nothing to worry about…other than, you know…the fact that it means I’m dying.” She wiggles a few fingers at me, a weak attempt at a dismissive wave. “Not right now, so don’t panic. You’ll know when.” A frown. “I think.”

  I don’t quite laugh—a part of me recognizes the observable fact of the humor, that it is, in a dark, cynical, morbid way, actually pretty funny. I sniff, roll my eyes, shake my head. I can’t manage a real laugh or a real smile for this, though. It’s too hard.

  Morning of the third day in the hotel, she’s able to sit up on her own again, and looks a bit less pale, wan, and drawn.

  “Okay, I’m ready to eat something,” she says. “What do we got?”

  This is an exit ramp chain hotel, and not even a suite. No mini-fridge, much less a kitchenette. “Um, options are limited. I have day-old pizza leftovers that have been sitting out. Some beef sticks. Some sparkling water cans. Some protein bars.”

  She frowns. “What have you been eating while I’ve been sick, Wes?”

  I smile at her. “Don’t worry about me. I think there’s a sit-down place nearby. It’s just past open, so it should be pretty empty. With a hat, hood, and sunglasses, I should be okay.”

  “Won’t the celebrity disguise just attract more attention?”

  I grin. “To a degree, yes. But it makes it harder to say for sure that it’s really, actually me, instead of someone who maybe just looks like me. Plus, I’ve got this scruff going on, which works in my favor.”

  I haven’t shaved in almost a week, which translates to near-beard scruff, whereas I’m usually clean-shaven for public appearances.

  She reaches out and touches my jawline. “I like it.” She examines me, searching my face. “You haven’t eaten almost at all, have you?”

  I see no point in lying to her. “The pizza, day before yesterday. Some beef sticks. But I’m good, I swear I am.”

  She doesn’t look happy. “Wes, we talked about this. I need you to take care of yourself. Starving yourself just because I can’t eat makes no sense, and doesn’t help me or you.”

  I cup her cheeks in my hands, as gently as I can. “I know my body and my limitations, Jo. I promise you, I won’t put myself at risk. I’m not starving myself. The last thing you need to worry about is me. Okay?”

  She shakes her head, but it’s with a small smile. “But what if I want to worry about you?”

  “Well, as long as you understand that I really do mean it when I say I know what I can tolerate—and that you don’t need to worry.”

  She nods. “Okay. I believe you.” She ponders something a moment, then claps her hands on her thighs, over the blanket. “Okay, so. Here’s my plan—I need a shower, and then we pack up and check out, go eat, and then hit the road. I dunno about you, but I’m sick to death of this freaking room.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I say. “You, um…are you good to shower on your own?”

  She wiggles her eyebrows. “Why—are you volunteering your assistance, Mr. Britton?” It comes across equal parts silly yet suggestive.

  “I am indeed, Ms. Park.” I touch my hand to the back of hers. “I mean that in a just-help-you sense, too, Jolene.”

  She tangles her fingers with mine. “I know.” She kicks the blankets aside, wrinkling her nose at the smell released—stale, musty human, and sickness; sickness has its own particular scent. “Sorry about the smell—that’s why I need a shower.”

  “No worries.”

  “There goes the mystique, right?” She shifts to the edge of the bed and plants her feet on the floor, testing her body as she works slowly and carefully to her feet. “Not too bad. A little achy, but not bad.”

  She walks normally, if a bit slowly. She’s noticeably thinner, having gone most of three days without eating on an already thin frame.

  She stops at the doorway of the bathroom, hand on the frame, looking at me over her shoulder. “Something you should understand about me, Wes: the transitions from bad day to good day and back can be pretty abrupt. It hits me like that, just…all at once, like a freight train. But when it starts to fade, like right now, I like to try to just…go right back to acting normal. Even if I may not feel a hundred percent, once I can get up and move on my own, I’m not gonna sit around and wallow in my own stink. So, I guess I’m saying it might be kind of jarring. And I just hope you can keep up. Because now that I’m feeling better, Cancer Girl is gone, and I’m just Jolene again.” Her eyes rake me, search me. “And by that I mean, the Jolene who was in that bed with you before I started feeling crappy. If you know what I mean.”

  Don’t walk on eggshells, she means. Once she indicates she’s back with the program, forget the bad day ever happened. She wants the fun back. The sensuality, the exploration. Put the bad day behind us and get back to the good.

  I cross the room, stand facing her, gazing down at her. “So what you’re saying is, you don’t need help in the shower, but I should still help out. You know. Just in case.”

  Her grin is heated. “Exactly. It’s been a rough few days for you, too, I know. And also, we really should conserve water, right? Shower together?”

  I touch her cheekbone, trace down to her jaw. “You know, I’ve only ever showered alone.”

  “Me too. But that’s a duh. I’ve never done anything.”

  I bend, touch my lips to hers. “The real question here is how hot do you like your showers?”

  She smirks. “Somewhere between scalding and ‘I might be on fire.’”

  “No cold showers for you?”

  She shudders. “God, no.” A dark expression crosses her face. “Bad experience with cold showers. I, um—part of this whole leukemia thing is being prone to infection. So, I’ve had some pretty bad fevers, of the variety that means I have to get dunked into a cold shower before my brain fries like an egg. So yeah. No cold showers for me.” A sigh. “Aaaaaaaand…mood killed.”

  I press against her, walking her backward into the bathroom. Kick the door closed. Her vivid, expressive green eyes seek mine, looking for something—I’m not sure what. Falseness? Pity? Hesitation?

  She won’t find it.

  I have to trust that she knows what she wants and what she’s capable of and ready for. If she wants to put the sickness behind us, then I’m on board. Compartmentalize—like it seems she does. Cancer Girl and Jolene are different people, in a sense. I can separate them. Trust her, follow her lead.

  The heat and the eagerness in her expression make it easy to fall into the right mentality, the right mood. Her desire for me—visible in her eyes, her expression, in every line of her body—ignites my own.

  I shake my head. “The mood is very much alive, as a matter of fact.”

  I reach past her and twist on the hot water. Peel my shirt off and toss it on the floor at our feet. Keep my eyes locked on hers. I know she’ll be nervous about getting totally naked with me for the first time, so if I get naked first, maybe that’ll put her more at ease. Moving slowly and with telegraphed deliberation, I unbutton and unzip my jeans and step out of them. Nudge them aside with my foot. Her hands lift to touch my chest, a hesitant graze of her fingertips against my skin, as if reminding herself that it really is okay to touch me.

  I’m a little nervous for this next step, myself. It’s been a while since I was naked with anyone.

  I hesitate. Lick my lips and swallow. Not trying to hide my own nerves; if she sees my nerves, her own won’t feel as out of place.

  Hook my thumbs in the waistband of my underwear at my hip bones. I’m nearly fully erect, by now. Her eyes widen, anticipati
ng. Flick down, then almost too quickly back up to mine. As if embarrassed to get caught looking at me.

  I slide the underwear down, past the rigid bar of my hard-on, and then straighten as they drop to the floor, and I toe them aside. Naked, now, I cover her hands with mine, still resting on my chest.

  “Jo, listen to me.” I sidle closer. An inch, maybe less, separates our bodies, my naked one and her partly clothed one. “You’re allowed to look, and you’re allowed to touch.” I release her hands and touch her cheeks, then her arms, then rest my hands on her hips. “And by allowed, I mean looking and touching are encouraged. That’s what this is about.”

  She swallows hard, and her eyes drop to my erection—her eyes fly open wide. “Wow,” she breathes. “Just…wow.”

  It’s difficult to not grin at a reaction like that. “That old thing? Had it for years,” I quip.

  She laughs, but her eyes don’t leave my arousal. “It’s…it’s huge.”

  I honestly have no idea how I…compare, or measure, or whatever. It sounds kind of douchey to say I’ve never had any complaints, especially since there are only two people who could complain, and one of them was a virgin. But if Jo says it’s huge, in an awed tone of voice, I’m not going to argue or complain. It does make a man feel good about himself to hear that.

  She looks up at my eyes, then, as steam begins to swirl and writhe between us. Her hand trails down my chest, to my stomach. Halts, hesitates a few inches above my member.

  “There’s no right or wrong, Jo,” I whisper. “Touch me if you want, or don’t, if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to,” she says in a rush. “I just…I guess I’m nervous, and it feels kind of silly to be nervous, but…”

  I shake my head, keep my hands on her hips. “It’s okay to be nervous.”

  “Can I…admit something else that might be kind of embarrassing?” She presses her fingertips into the indentations at my hips, daring nearer. “I, um…I know about sex, like, I’ve had sex education. The birds and the bees, or whatever. Obviously. I just…I don’t know…” A sigh, and she starts over. “I’m very sheltered, as you may have gathered. You gave me my first orgasm the other day. And I didn’t even know…” A shake of her head. “I knew about orgasms, like I’ve heard of them. But knowing the facts doesn’t prepare you for the reality. And that’s my own body. Touching you is…different.”