by Jewel E. Ann
The laughter that erupted from Jillian brought tears to her eyes and an even bigger smile to Jackson’s face. “Oh my God! I was so embarrassed … I still am.”
“Well, put yourself in my shoes. Every time that song came on the radio I had the most awkward image of you and those poor pillows.”
“Sorry, I didn’t have a lock on my door like you. But don’t think I didn’t notice how many times mom asked you why there was always an odd number of dirty socks in your hamper when she gathered the laundry.”
“That didn’t last long. I eventually threw in an extra clean one to keep the number even.” Jackson tossed his can into the recycle bin by the sink.
Jillian sighed. “It’s crazy, but that was us when we were normal … innocent. I miss those kids.”
“We’re still pretty awesome.”
“Yeah…” she raised on to her toes and pulled him down to kiss his cheek with exaggerated smack “…at least to each other. Now …” she headed toward her bedroom “…give up a testicle and call the girl.”
*
Apologizing for whatever Jackson did wrong in the very complicated female brain required a grand gesture. There was no need to remove a testicle, even though they both retreated closer to his body reminiscent of a cold shower—just in case. It’s as if they anticipated what was about to happen the closer he got to her house.
The sexiest ass in tight cut-off jeans greeted him as he pulled into her drive way. On all fours pulling weeds by the porch, she looked over her shoulder and wiped her brow. He liked her in that position—a little too much.
“Focus,” he whispered to himself just before getting out of Woody.
Gunner charged him, halting Jackson’s movements until Ryn showed enough mercy to call him back to the porch. It was progress.
“Hi.” She stood and brushed the dirt from her legs then tugged off her gloves.
“Hi. I came to apologize.”
“For what?”
That wasn’t the response he expected. It was a test. It had to be a test. Women loved playing mind games. The probability of him passing it was not good.
“For last week.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“For what I said on your birthday.” His comfort zone retreated a good ten miles away.
“Which part?”
“The part about Maddie.”
“You didn’t mean it?” She stared at her fingernails, picking the dirt out from under them.
Of course he meant it. He wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it. His poor testicles.
“I shouldn’t have said it.” Seemed like a safe answer.
“So you meant it, you just regret saying it to my face?”
The slit-eyed look she gave him said there would be no bonus points for honesty. He wasn’t even in the same realm as his comfort zone anymore. Casual dating and random sex never required much thought or carefully plotted script. No wonder he’d been so good at it.
“I’m going to go with … yeahhh—no?
“Yeahhh—no?”
A single slow nod. It was best to just stop talking.
Tilting her head to the side, she twisted her lips, eyes still narrowed. She was good—Jillian good—at ball busting.
“How am I doing?” she asked.
Gunner mimicked her head tilt as Jackson’s eyes flitted between her and the dog.
“Uh …” On the ride there he convinced himself she was worth it. Testicle-sacrificing worth it. At that exact moment he wasn’t sure anyone was worth it.
“You have any balls left?” she grinned.
Jutting his head forward, his eyes widened for a second before narrowing into a scowl.
Her nose wrinkled. “Don’t hate me. I decided everything you said was right, even if it did hurt. I’m going to have a talk with Maddie. She’s just been too busy to make time. I tried calling you about twenty minutes ago. Jillian answered, you must have left your cell phone.”
Jackson patted his hands over his pockets, she was correct.
“I called to apologize, hoping that it wasn’t too late. You broke my heart a little when I cleaned your house and you weren’t there. I thought you were really mad at me and didn’t want to see me. But then Jillian explained the situation and…” she bit her lips together for a moment “…don’t hate me, but she said I should make you sweat a little.”
It was clear that Jillian craved the taste of her own blood. Jackson would happily oblige her as soon as he got home.
“Thanks for reminding me why I have meaningless, sex-only relationships.” Turning, he walked back to his car.
*
Something went horribly wrong. Ryn watched in shock as he returned to his car. The only part of a man more sensitive than the aforementioned testicles was the male ego—like a Georgia peach.
“Well … wait! Oh my god! You’re really mad. It was a joke. I’m sorry.” She chased after him.
When she grabbed his arm, he turned, wearing the biggest shit-eating grin ever. He looked like a joker.
“You! Not. Funny.” Pointing her finger at him, she gave him a cold glare. There were two possibilities: kill him or attack him. A week and a half earlier, after Jackson took her home on her birthday, she swore things couldn’t get worse. They did. She started her period.
Hello ovulation.
Ryn thought about sex all the time. Not normal fleeting thoughts of sex. Forty-year-old-whacked-out-hormones type thinking about sex. Woman-who-hadn’t-had-sex-in-a-very-long-time type of thoughts. When images of having sex with Humpty Dumpty—the mailman with a combover—in his white box on wheels crossed the conscious part of the brain, it was time for therapy.
“I’m extremely funny. What are you talking about?”
“I…” she shook her head with a soft chuckle “…I don’t know how to navigate this. Maddie came along before I had a chance to experience my young, vibrant, and wild years. The longest relationship I’ve had, outside of my debacle of a marriage, lasted two months and that was five years ago.”
“So?”
“So…” she shrugged “…what is this with us? If not random sex, what’s in it for you?”
Drawing in a long breath, he wet his lips. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”
“Because you don’t know?”
With a slow head shake, he bit the corner of his lip. “No. I know. I’m just unsure if you want the truth or if you want me to say what you want to hear … which might not be the truth.”
In all honesty, she didn’t know either. Maybe it was too soon to even worry about defining their relationship or think very far into the future. Time wouldn’t make the conversation easier, so she chose to hear the truth.
“I want the truth.”
There wasn’t a second of hesitation before he answered with steadfast resolution.
“I want a wife. I want kids. I want home to mean something so much greater than an address. I want sex, lots of sex, with the same person for the rest of my life.”
Once again, that decade between them spanned the distance of eternity.
He shrugged as she gave him a blank look. “You wanted the truth.”
“I did.” Ryn nodded slowly.
“So … it’s your turn. What do you want?” He leaned back against his car, hands shoved into his front pockets.
“Wow,” she breathed. “I haven’t given it much thought. My mind is always in the past, reliving that whole nightmare. I guess I’m just so grateful to be alive and out of that situation that I’ve never allowed myself to think very far into the future.”
“Except for our wedding. You did agree to marry me.”
“Except for that.” She winked, giving him a big smile. Talking about their imaginary wedding shot to the top of her favorite pastime list.
“Today. If you could do absolutely anything right now, what would it be?”
Keeping her gaze locked to his, she stared and then stared some more. The smile on her face grew with each passing s
econd.
“Truth?” she asked.
“Always.”
“I want to see your tattoos … all of them.”
*
Truth or dare turned into a bad idea, times ten. Sex. Would it have really been so hard to just ask Jackson for sex? Instead, they were engaged in the most awkward game of show and tell ever. Times ten.
“I was kidding.” She wasn’t.
Ryn chewed her lip like rawhide as she sat on her bed—nerves of a virgin or sacrificial lamb. The exact second after her wish tumbled from her lips, Jackson grabbed her hand, dragging her inside the house and straight to her bedroom.
He shrugged off his shirt. She gulped.
“Uh … the blinds are open.”
He unbuttoned his jeans. She gulped again.
“Maybe … um, maybe that’s enough. My God, you look like a human canvas. It’s uh … a lot to take in all at once. We should maybe do this in phases.”
He smirked. Confidence bled from every inch of him. Where to begin? The man was born to be inked. A few bold black words interspersed with intense colors: roses, hearts, branches, a dragon, numbers aligned in dates, musical notes.
“Are you hungry?” Ryn squeaked. “It’s getting late. You know what they say about eating after eight at night. It … it all goes to your ass.”
He turned his back to her and slowly slid down his pants and briefs at the same time. She no longer could swallow. Her mouth fell open. Drooling came next.
“Oh … okay, I see that’s not an issue for you.”
He stepped out of his jeans, completely naked before her. “Do I meet your expectations?”
The room felt smaller, too much light, not enough air.
“Exceeded,” she whispered with a breathy voice.
Jackson turned around. He deserved a medal or at least a high five or fist bump. Touching him, however, was not a good idea.
“Take your time. My eyes will wait for yours.”
Ryn nodded once. Yes, she stared at his junk which was far from junky looking. Everything was grand and perfectly structured. It all hung quite well. It was definitely more of a package. A very impressive package. UPS had nothing on him.
What seemed like a week later, she blinked and met his patiently waiting eyes. “Kudos to your parents. Really just…” she popped her lips “…yup.”
“Do you have any tattoos to show me?”
“No … nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch.” Long after zilch she continued to shake her head. Of course her eyes had slipped a bit south again. “Stretch marks. I have a few ‘pregnancy tattoos.’ And I have a nice C-section scar.”
The giggles came out of nowhere. Ryn covered her face and laughed. “What are we doing? Put your clothes back on … this is too weird.”
A minute or so later, she felt his hands wrap around her wrists, uncovering her face. Taking a tiny peek with one eye first she opened her eyes. The details of his body could never be erased. Panning her gaze around the room, she looked at everything but him. The moss green walls adorned with pewter-framed photos of Maddie served as a nice distraction, so did the sheer white curtains dancing in the breeze of the open window. Shifting her eyes to the floor around her, she frowned at the dull, scratched wood that needed to be refinished. Finally, she elevated her eyes to meet Jackson’s, which were level with hers as he waited on his knees before her.
“Hi.” He smiled, fully clothed again.
“Hi.” It was impossible to not smile back.
“Were you laughing at me?”
“No.” She laughed again, but not at him. “It’s just … it felt like we were two young kids sneaking into the bedroom to show each other our private parts. When I was seven, I remember my mom walking in on me and my cousin. It wasn’t sexual or anything like that. It was just a show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine moment of sheer curiosity.”
“What did your mom do?”
Ryn shrugged. “Well, you know, she’s a nurse so she asked us if we’d had enough time to check everything out. Then she asked us if we had any questions. We honestly didn’t know if what we’d done was wrong. Remember, we were seven. We both shook our heads. Then she whispered that once you’re seven, little girls are not allowed to see naked boys and little boys are not allowed to see naked girls. Then she said she’d let it slide since we’d both recently turned seven, as long as we promised to never do it again.”
Jackson chuckled. “Your mom was pretty cool.”
“Yes, she still is.”
“There’s only one minor flaw in your story.”
Ryn narrowed her eyes. “What’s that?”
“Today … I showed you mine, but you didn’t show me yours.” Strong hands gripped her legs as long fingers slid higher, stopping just under the frayed edge of her very short cutoffs.
A nervous chuckle rattled in her chest. “Yeah, about that …”
Jackson dropped his head in defeat.
“I fear you have these expectations, given your past and all, so …”
Two perfectly-arched brows looked up at her. “Expectations?”
“Yes, like um…” she rolled her eyes to the ceiling “…say you lived by the ocean and then someone showed you their pond. You wouldn’t be impressed.”
He shrugged a single shoulder. “I might be.”
Ryn shook her head in defiance. “No. There’s just no way you could be.”
“The ocean is big, but it’s also very dangerous—sharks, jellyfish, tsunamis, pirates. Maybe I don’t want the massive crashing waves and the fear of being pulled under by the tide, feeling lost at sea. Maybe I want the serenity of a pond and the way it reflects the beauty of everything around it.”
“Maybe you’re crazy.” Pressing her palms to his cheeks, she grinned.
His eyes homed in on her lips, sending her heart into a frenzy, waking all the butterflies in her tummy. She felt so alive.
“Ryn,” he whispered a second before his lips brushed hers. “Let me swim in your pond.”
She laughed. It didn’t matter that his thumbs were half an inch from her wet panties. It didn’t matter that his lips were sealed to hers. It didn’t even matter that his tongue teased the tip of hers. She laughed.
Jackson sighed while sitting back on his heels, head bowed again.
With a quick hand she covered her mouth, hiding her smile and stifling her giggles. “I’m so sorry.” The sound of her laughter abated though it still shook her whole body. “But you did not just ask to ‘swim in my pond.’ Did you?”
Scrubbing his hands over his face, he grumbled something indecipherable. Standing with one swift motion, he walked toward her door.
“Don’t leave! I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. Give me another chance.” Once again she chased after him.
His long legs made quick strides to his car.
“Where are you going?” she called, throwing open the screen door.
“I’m going to figure out a way to be with you and keep my testicles.”
Chapter Fifteen
A chilly burst of air breezed past Jackson when he opened the back door to their townhouse. The smell of burnt popcorn hung like fog as he pulled his T-shirt up to cover his nose. Every window in the place was open to its max. It felt like an arctic gust whipping through their house.
Jillian sat perched on the counter, legs criss-crossed, with a heavy red hoodie shielding her from the temperature that read fifty-five degrees on the thermostat. She poked around her bowl of popcorn, tossing five black kernels in the sink for every one brown piece she deemed edible.
He needed some guy friends. Stat. The women in his life were hell-bent on testing his last bit of patience.
“Want some?” Jillian looked up from the bowl.
“What do you think?”
She shrugged. “Damn bag got away from me. I set it to five minutes, but I go by the time between pops and—”
“I don’t care.” He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator.
Sliding her fingernail between
her teeth to free a hull, she watched him guzzle the contents all at once. After tossing it in the recycle bin, he fetched another one.
“Someone’s grumpy. I am too, but you go first.”
Catching his breath after the marathon beer chug, he glared at her. “New rule. If I leave my phone behind you don’t answer it. And if you ever discuss my testicles with someone again, I will make your life a living hell. Got it?”
Wrinkling her nose, she lifted her shoulders. “Sorry. I was just trying to help. I take it, it didn’t go so well?”
Finishing his second bottle, he tossed it then rested his hands on his hips. “Let’s see … after I called her bluff on the devious little ruse you plotted, things went good … really good. Then they went not so good, then really good again … then bad … really, really bad.”
Dumping the remaining charred pieces of popcorn into the trash, she brushed off her hands. “Lucky for you, I have the patience to deal with your code talk. The first good?”
“She asked to see my tattoos. All of them.”
“Sex?” Jillian perked up.
“Not even close.”
“You completely stripped for her and it didn’t end in sex?” Jillian’s jaw dropped. “Has that ever happened to you before?”
“Never.”
“ED?”
“Fuck you.”
She chuckled. “The not so good?”
“She laughed. Apparently it brought back some childhood memory for her.”
“That’s odd. So what was the really good again?”
He smirked. “She got all insecure on me, comparing other women I’ve been with to the ocean and herself to a pond. I told her I prefer ponds. There was some kissing that felt like it was going somewhere then …”
“Then?”
“Then she laughed again, really hard.”
“Why?”
“Because of something I said. God!” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and shook his head. “I know better than to chat it up, but she’s different, so I thought I needed to say something. Something romantic. Something profound.”
“Aaand?”
With a grimace, he looked at Jillian. “I asked her to … let me swim in her pond.”
Sister dearest bit back her laughter and just nodded, but tears welled in her eyes. “Well … I’m not sure how romantic or profound it was.” She snorted a little laugh that had to escape. “But, you could have said worse things. You could have asked to dock your vessel in her canal. That is … if you wanted to stay with the nautical theme of the evening.”
