by Kelly Rimmer
“Once upon a time . . .” Mitch says dramatically, and I groan and drop my head down onto my arms on the table.
“Jake, go back to California, a few weeks of fun with you is not worth Mitchell going all wise-storyteller on me.”
“. . . there was a little boy. A handsome little boy. Some may have said a brilliant little boy. His name was Mitchell C—no, I’ll call him Master Cole,” Mitch continues, undaunted, even when I half laugh, half groan. “He was a happy boy. He was a content boy.” His gaze narrows on my face. “And then his mommy and daddy got divorced and everything went to shit. Mommy cried into her low-carb ice cream.”
“I didn’t cry,” I mutter.
“We both know you did. And Daddy panic-moved to California.”
“I did not ‘panic-move.’ What does that even mean?” Jake mutters.
“It means you were sad and you panicked and you moved across the fucking country on a whim, Jake. And after that, poor little Master C had to split his time between them. He had to avoid Daddy’s incessant interrogations about how Mommy was.”
Jake glances at me, then tries to assure me, “I did not—”
“Master C had to lie to Mommy and tell her he was seeing a movie exec in LA when he actually went to visit Daddy in Palo Alto on his vacation.”
My gaze flies from Jake’s face to Mitch’s.
“You lied to me?”
“You left me no choice. Every time I said his name, you got this . . .” Mitchell waves his hand in my face “. . . this look on your face, like I was betraying you. And finally, one day Master C came out for a nice, innocent drink with his bestie and was shocked to discover Mommy and Daddy had been spending time together again, apparently forgetting the utter emotional wasteland of their past, and not considering poor Master C’s welfare at all.”
“We get it,” I sigh, glancing at Jake, who shrugs at me. “But we really are just hanging out while Jake is in town. No need for Master C to be such a drama queen.”
Mitch sighs and scrubs his hand over his face.
“I need a drink.”
“Well, good thing we’re at a bar, then,” I say brightly.
“Allow me,” Jake says, sliding out of the booth. “What can I get you, Jess?”
“An elderflower and pomegranate martini, please.”
Jake shudders, then glances at Mitch.
“Anything alcoholic that doesn’t feature obscure fruits or nontraditional pairing of perfectly innocent ingredients who deserved a better end than a hipster cocktail,” Mitch mutters. “Oh, and no foam. Foam isn’t a drink and it’s not a food. It’s what you have in bubble bath. It’s not meant to go in your mouth.”
“Get Grandpa here a deconstructed Long Island iced tea. Mitch loves mixing his own drinks in bars,” I tell Jake, laughing when Mitch glares at me.
“I’ll get you one of those weird-ass beers,” Jake mutters as he walks away.
“Why do I ever agree to meet you here?” Mitch asks me, shaking his head.
“Well, obviously it’s because I’m irresistible.”
Mitch nods at Jake’s retreating back, then says quietly, “Apparently you are. But have you really thought that through?”
“It was his idea to stay.” I shrug.
“Jess.”
“Seriously, it was. Just two weeks together, hard deadline at the end, no one gets hurt.”
“You know I love you.”
“You should. I’m amazing.”
“So I say this with love.”
“Whenever anyone says ‘I say this with love,’ what they actually mean is ‘I’m about to offend you.’”
“I am about to offend you,” Mitch sighs. “You aren’t good for each other, Jess. Not unless . . .” I glance at him. Mitch gives me a sad look. “Not unless you’re willing to think about something longer term than two weeks. Jake isn’t like you and me. He doesn’t do casual, and honestly? I’m not even convinced you can do casual when it comes to Jake.”
“Two weeks,” I repeat. “Hard deadline. No one gets hurt.”
“Keep saying it, Jessica,” Mitchell sighs. “Maybe then you’ll convince yourself it’s true.”
I can hear genuine anxiety in Mitch’s tone, and I bristle a little. This is that awful conversation with Abby all over again, and I hate to think that my friends think so little of me.
“I’m not a fucking monster, Mitchell. I won’t hurt him,” I say flatly, all playfulness gone now. Mitch gives me a sharp look.
“It’s not just him I’m worried about. You hurt each other last time and seeing you like that nearly killed me.”
Now I feel like shit. Of course Mitch wouldn’t judge me for the way I live my life—he lives his in exactly the same way. This is all just a bit sensitive for me right now. But I really didn’t mean to bring the tone of the evening down, so I try to turn things around.
“You do realize you’re a total buzzkill when you’re in wise-storyteller mode?” I say lightly.
“Just be careful, okay?”
“There’s just one thing I have to say, Mitchell.”
He sighs and gives me an expectant look. I nod toward the bar, where a blonde woman sits with her drink. She’s been watching him since he came in. He follows my gaze, then looks back to me.
“You’re distracting me with a gorgeous woman. That’s a low blow.”
“Or is it just me doing my job as your official wing-woman? Want an introduction?”
“Do you even know her?” he laughs softly, and I grin at him as I slide out from the booth.
“Networking is my superpower, Mitch. Give me ten minutes.”
BY 10:00 P.M., MITCH is all but sucking face with the blonde woman in another corner of the bar, and Jake and I are still in the booth, now several drinks down and following up our heated debate about the correct way to eat popcorn—Jake, who is wrong, has decided he likes to mix M&M’s into his in the years since we last hung out—with an equally heated debate about the correct way to eat Oreos. Jake is now suggesting they are best separated first.
“Then you can scrape the cream off and eat that on its own, and you get two delicious cookies to chase it down with.”
“Or, you could not be a monster, and eat them whole the way nature intended.”
“I don’t think nature has anything to do with Oreos. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Oreos are 100 percent non-natural.”
This ridiculous debate reminds me of the four months I spent with Jake, and how once we finally got naked together and diffused that angry tension, every single minute was full of something delicious. If we weren’t having lighthearted, hilarious debates like this one, we were talking about shit that mattered—like the job I love, or the job he loves, or our friends or politics or even, from time to time, ethics. We weren’t the kind of couple who had to agree, because we do both love to argue, and I’m pretty sure that some of those heated discussions were actually intense foreplay.
Speaking of . . .
“You want to get out of here and come back to my place?” I ask quietly. There’s a flash of something across Jake’s face, but he finishes his drink and nods.
Thank fuck.
We’re silent in the back of the car, and I feel the anticipation rising with every minute. By the time we reach my apartment, my excitement has reached a fever pitch, and maybe that’s why, as soon as Jake closes the door behind him, I pounce on him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jake
I’M NOT AN IDIOT; I did know this was going to happen tonight. I’m not even sad about it—how could I be? The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known is up on her tippy-toes, arms around my neck, her gorgeous lips against mine, her extremely talented tongue making all kinds of delicious promises right into my mouth.
I still wasn’t sure what I’d do when this moment came. Even today, I told myself I’d figure it all out when the moment of inevitability actually arrived. But here we are—at the crossroads where Jess is clearly very keen to get naked, and we sti
ll haven’t had anything like a discussion about the future.
The path of least resistance would be to let her have her wicked way with me. I mean she obviously wants this, and I want it too. This kiss is everything I remembered—scorching hot and urgent. Jess is so bold and so determined. No wonder that even when I thought I hated her, I still wanted her.
Just once, to see if it’s as good as I remembered, my dick begs me, and just a second later, Jess has her hands on the zipper of my jeans and I am this close to just going with it. But I can’t kid myself—there’s no way once would be enough. Nor would twice, or even several dozen times. If . . . Hopefully when we are together again, we have to be on the same page about the future.
I groan and catch her shoulders gently in my hands. “Jess,” I say, tearing my mouth away from hers. “Enough talking,” she says, immediately reaching up for me again, but this time, I hold her back with a little more determination. Her eyebrows knit. “What?”
“This isn’t . . .” I can’t say this isn’t what I want, because her hand is literally on my groin now and she’s got very convincing evidence right beneath her fingers that it is. She’s worked the zipper down now and her hand slides inside. She’s running her palm right over the length of me through my briefs, and the pressure is so perfect that my knees just about buckle. I close my eyes and pray for strength. “I . . . Jess . . . uh . . . we need. Talk.”
“Talk later. Sex now,” she suggests huskily, because apparently Jess too has been reduced to caveman-speak. I open my eyes and stare down at her. Her gaze is hazy. Her cheeks are flushed. I want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her into the bedroom and see if we can beat our record for how many orgasms I can give her in the one night. For the record, it was four, and I was keen to keep going but she fell asleep immediately after the last one.
“Jess,” I whisper, and I see a little of the haze clear from her eyes at the serious tone of my voice. She’s starting to look . . . irritated. She drops down from her tippy-toes—regrettably away from my mouth—and crosses her arms over her chest. At this point, I realize she’d already undone her shirt—and I’m not at all sure how she managed to get that done without me noticing, but I have to admit, I’m impressed both with the view and her skill.
“What the fuck is going on?” she asks me flatly.
“I . . .” I run my hand through my hair, then motion toward the sofa. When Jess doesn’t move an inch, I zip myself up and lead the way, taking my seat on the Lego-sized mini-sofa, assuming she’ll take the wing chair. After a minute, she sighs and joins me on the sofa. Is this because she wants to be near me, just as much as I want to be near her? I hope so, and a desire for closeness feels like a good sign, like an expression of her fondness for me. Unless she’s just biding her time so she can leap on me again after we get this conversation out of the way . . .
Actually, that’s probably it. I better just get this over and done with.
“I can’t sleep with you,” I say.
“Uh . . .” She seems bewildered. My penis completely understands her confusion. “Why? Is . . .” She hesitates, then motions toward my groin. “Is everything okay down there? I mean . . . Everything seemed fine five minutes ago . . .”
I wince.
“No, that’s not . . . Physically I’m more than capable of getting the job done,” I clarify hastily. Jess’s gaze narrows.
“Explain.”
I turn toward her, then take her hand in mine. She’s gazing at me with obvious suspicion.
“I just want to take it slow, Jess. See where this leads us.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” she says, blinking at me. “Where this leads us? Where this leads us isn’t a mystery. It leads us to a few nights of fun, and then it leads you back to California next weekend. That’s the only place this can lead us.”
“Is it?” I ask her, gently challenging. “We both regret the way things ended between us. Let’s see if we can rewrite the script this time.”
“Jake,” Jess says, then she draws in a deep breath. She has a strange expression on her face—she’s not quite angry, but she’s also visibly displeased with this turn of events. “Okay, let’s pause for a minute and rewind just a bit. Let’s go back in time two and a half years. Pretend for a second that we didn’t break up. Where are we now, if things went exactly the way you’d hoped they would have gone?”
I frown at her, because I don’t at all understand her accusing tone.
“We’d still be together, obviously.”
“Be more specific. What would that look like?”
“Well, we’d probably be—”
She makes a sudden, loud, very harsh buzzer sound and shakes her head.
“Game over. I’m never getting married and I know you’ve heard me say that. It’s not negotiable at all and never has been and the fact that you even thought I’d marry you shows you think you know better than I do what I want for my own life.”
“Wait a minute.” I frown, and it’s my turn for my gaze to narrow on her face. “You knew what I was going to say.”
“Of course I did,” she snaps. “You’re not that hard to read.”
But something has slipped into place in my mind. The timing of our breakup always seemed a bit odd. We’d been speaking on the phone every day while I was away, and even the night before I came back, she still seemed warm toward me.
It was quite the shock to get back to my apartment to find that she’d completely made up her mind to end things. Maybe the timing wasn’t so random after all.
“You realized I was going to propose?” I surmise grimly.
“I . . . well, I just figured . . .”
I peer at her incredulously. “Are you blushing?”
She clears her throat, then looks away.
“I found the ring.”
“The ring—” My eyes widen, and I gape at her. “But how?” I try to think back to where I stored it. Surely I wasn’t foolish enough to leave it out in the open somewhere?
Jess covers her face with her hands for a moment, then sits up straight, having apparently pressed right through the momentary embarrassment.
“I was staying at your place after I moved out of my old apartment. While I was waiting for this place to be painted. Remember?”
“Of course.” It’s pretty hard to forget when your girlfriend asks to stay with you for a few weeks, then immediately tells all of your mutual friends she’s in a hotel. I was already increasingly frustrated with the secrecy, but that moment just about broke me. It was probably the point where I should have put my foot down and said no more lies, but I was so into her, it was hard to figure out where the line was.
“You were in California doing whatever-the-fuck you did at the college before you got this job.”
“I was helping design a clinical trial but go on.”
“Well, I was in your bed, and I was horny and unsatisfied,” she says easily, then she gives me a pointed look. “Much like I am tonight, for the record.”
“I picked up on that.”
“I had one of my toys in my suitcase—remember that purple vibrator we liked to play around with?” I groan at the memory, a rush of blood immediately diverting south again, and Jess shrugs as if I deserve to suffer right now. Maybe I actually do. “But I’d run out of lube. I went to help myself to some of yours, which I remembered was in your nightstand. You can guess what happened next.”
She’s right: I can guess. I’m imagining she reached into that drawer, pulled out the engagement ring, flipped out and then abruptly broke up with me the day I got back.
“When you ended things, you said you’d just been doing some thinking,” I say slowly.
“I did do some thinking. I thought holy shit, Jake has an engagement ring in his drawer but we said we’d keep things casual and he’s clearly got other ideas so I better end things right now,” she snaps.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I was embarrassed! I thought you’d assu
me I’d been snooping!”
I groan and exhale. That sounds about right. Jess would be happy to speak openly about masturbating in my bed but mortified that I might think she’d been riffling through my things. She crosses her arms over her chest again and glares at me.
“I had heard you say you never intended to marry. But the night of Paul and Izzy’s first wedding, I also heard you say we’d just have one night together,” I remind her.
“Right.”
“And one night became one weekend. Then one weekend became a week. And four months later, we were pretty much living together.” We still had our own places, sure, but we used only one of them at a time. From memory, right from the night of Paul’s wedding, we didn’t have a night apart unless one of us was away for work.
“We weren’t living—” She starts to scoff, but I give her a pointed look, and she sighs. “Okay. Yes, things got out of hand.”
“Things changed,” I counter. “You were every bit as into me as I was into you. We agreed it would just be one night, but when that went out the window, I assumed that meant the rules had changed too. You wouldn’t sleep over at my apartment at first, and by the time I left for that work trip, you’d helped yourself to half of my closet.”
She opens her mouth, then closes it again, and scowls at me.
“Jake, I made mistakes two years ago. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression. I did get caught up in how good things were between us and—” A shadow crosses her face, and she widens her eyes. “Wait a fucking second. You were hoping that would happen again, weren’t you? This whole ‘let’s just hang out casually for a few weeks’ proposal was actually a ploy to trick me into agreeing to something more permanent!”
“Of course not!” I exclaim, frustration lacing my voice. “I wanted to show you that there’s still something special between us. We missed each other. I thought if we spent some time together—”
“You thought you could mansplain to me what I want for my own life,” she finishes incredulously. “You think that just because you want some fucking white picket fence Stepford wife that all you had to do was wave your penis around in front of me and I’d change my mind.”
