Fall for Me

by Jc Emery

  I don’t know how much more he expects me to put up with before I give up. A smarter woman would probably have recognized this bullshit for exactly what it is—bullshit—months ago and would have moved on.

  “Hey, babe,” Hennessey says from behind me.

  My heart nearly bursts out of my chest, and I work to calm myself down from the fright. Reluctantly, I turn away from Jameson and focus on the youngest Hayes brother. This is something new he’s been doing—calling me babe—and I’m really on the fence about it. On one hand, it seems super casual. But on the other, it feels like there’s something to it.

  “Glad you’re back in that chair,” he says with a nod and leans against the half wall that keeps my desk safely tucked on the raised surface.

  “It’s good to be back.” I wait for him to say something, anything, about why he came up here after storming away from Jameson, but he doesn’t offer anything up. From what Royal and Janet have said, they haven’t been getting along well since around Christmas. God, I missed everything during my last semester. I was always either in class, studying for class, or making arrangements for graduation.

  “Gonna toss this out there for you, see what you think. You and me, dinner tonight?”

  “You want to grab a pizza and finish off the first season of Orange Is the New Black?” Last time Hennessey and I had dinner, that’s what we did. It was chill and easy and such a relief to have something not be hard for once.

  “Uh, we could, but what about eating at an actual restaurant?”

  “Why would we do that?” I tilt my head to the side. He blows out a heavy breath and seems to mentally clear his thoughts.

  “Christ,” he says like it’s a curse. “A date, babe. Let’s go out on a fucking date.”

  I’m perfectly still for about ten seconds before my eyes widen and I realize how epically well I’m living up to the dumb blonde stereotype. Jeez, I’m not normally this slow. I knew, somewhere in my heart, that this is the direction this was moving. Hennessey has given me all the signs. He held my hand the last two times we’d hung out and were walking to get fro-yo at night. I laughed about it, but he’d told me that crime was up and he felt better if I held his hand. It sounded fishy then, but I was so caught up in Jameson I barely even noticed how hard Hennessey’s been working.

  “I don’t know.” Words are failing me, and I can’t tell him what I really want to say. I want to tell him that he’s hot and funny and awesome in a hundred ways and while I love hanging out with him and I’ll be totally bummed to have to lose my Netflix buddy if he ditches me, that I’m totally obsessed with his brother in one of those steady and firm ways that’s unchangeable and there’s nothing here for him but friendship and maybe, if he gets me drunk, a little humping.

  I can’t go down that road, though. You don’t hook up with a guy’s brother. You just don’t. If I were to take Hennessey up on his offer, it would be completely closing the book on Jameson and me, and I’m not ready for that yet, and if I’m being honest, I know I won’t ever be ready for that.

  “Look, I get there was a thing between you and Jay, but if he really wanted, you he’d be with you and not sampling the badge bunnies at Port of Call.”

  I flinch at his words and fail miserably at trying to hide the pain they cause. This is why I normally like Hennessey. He’s direct and believes the best way to care for someone is to be honest with them. He’s not a man who’s into handling anyone or anything with care. I respect his forthrightness but can’t really handle it right now.

  “You’d be dating a girl whose heart belongs to someone else.” My confession sends a mix of emotions rushing through me, not a single one of which are pleasant or warm. Anger, sorrow, wanting, betrayal, madness, frustration . . . but it’s the constant emptiness that gets to me. It’s crippling how painful Hennessey’s words are.

  If he really wanted you, he’d be with you.

  As I unwillingly absorb the truth of Hennessey’s words, Jameson’s from the end of last summer play on repeat in my brain.

  Don’t give up on us.

  “Babe, I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking you to share a meal with me and maybe kiss me, and if I get you really drunk, maybe you’ll be cool with me feeling up your tits.”

  “You need to go back to work,” I say in a panicked voice. My face is bright red—I can feel the telltale blush on my hot cheeks. “I’ll text you.”

  “You’re going to say yes,” he says as he goes.

  I don’t know that I am. It sounds so, so freaking appealing to have a guy pay attention to me. I just want Jameson to be the one to say this stuff and for him to be the one to make me blush. But he’s not. He’s out sampling badge bunnies at the bar. And I’ve been, apparently, leading Hennessey on to think there could be something more between us. All those times he’d do something flirty and cute, I just passed off as being how Hennessey relates to women. And I can’t lie and say that he’s not hot and that I haven’t considered that he’d be a good lay. Because I’m a woman with a decent libido and eyeballs and, despite how hung up I am on Jameson, I can see what Hennessey looks like. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that maybe it’s time to move on.

  Maybe I just need to fake it until I make it.

  That’s how people get over things, right? You show up and fake it, and maybe one day you’ll feel it in your soul that you’re not faking it anymore, and you actually do feel something aside from the longing and pain and intense, crippling desperation of wanting someone you can’t have and have no idea why.

  I turn back around in my chair to find that Jameson hasn’t budged an inch. The only change is in his expression. He looks how I feel—like total crap. How can he possibly look at me like this, like it physically hurts to be this far away from me, and yet do absolutely nothing about it? How can he ask me to wait for him, to not give up on him, and then just shut down and push me away?

  Tears prick my eyes, but I refuse to cry over this. If I broke down and cried every time I got caught up in the stupidity of all of this, I’d never stop. I need to do something. My legs bounce restlessly, and I tap my foot against the floor. Jameson is still watching me, unmoving, and it’s just too much. Before I can think better of it, I fly out of my chair and rush down the stairs to the hallway and enter into the garage bay via the unlocked side door. By the time I see him again, he’s unfolded his arms from his chest and shoves his hands in his pockets. With a bravery I didn’t know I was capable of, I stride up to him and only stop when I’m close enough to feel the heat emanating from his body.

  “Why did you cancel?”

  “Couldn’t make it.” He doesn’t miss a beat. It’s like he’s been rehearsing this conversation ever since he ditched me.

  “That’s not good enough,” I say and fight back the unease in my voice.

  “It’s all I got.” He’s quiet even though his words are firm and no-nonsense. It’s like he’s trying to put on a show, like he doesn’t care. I know he cares, though. He has to. I refuse to accept the idea that he’s moved on. I don’t care who he’s fucking—okay that’s a lie—but I do know the difference between fucking and making love. I don’t know that I’ve ever really made love before. I just have to believe in my heart that it’s different, or that it would be with him.

  “You know, it’s striking me that all you ever have is never enough. First it’s the girlfriend. Now it’s something else that I don’t understand and you won’t share. I must be some fool. I’ve been chasing after a man who’s consistently unavailable while ignoring a man who is always just here.” As usual, I’m saying more than I want to, even if I need to. I function much better when I get things off my chest. It’s the buildup of everything I never say that chips away at my sanity.

  “Really? Last I heard you weren’t ignoring Hennessey.”

  “So then you know?” Of course he knows, Mel. He’s been watching me since I got back to the city. He’s seen me hang out with Hennessey. He’s a man and isn’t as blinde
d by stupidity. He must have seen something I failed to notice. Nobody can keep a secret in that family anyway, so even if he hadn’t been watching me, someone would have told him. Even if it’s not really a secret but just something you don’t really blab about, it ends up being front page in the Hayes household.

  He’s silent and still doing the staring thing. His breathing is regulated, and his muscles, though tense, aren’t heaving under his fitted ladder company tee. Only Jameson’s eyes look like they care much about this conversation. All the bullshit and the confusion sends me to a place I don’t like very much but have little control to stop right now.

  “You’re okay with your brother asking me out?”

  No.

  You’re mine, Lulu.

  Please.

  “Are you asking for permission to date my brother?” Jameson leans in and lifts the wishbone from my flesh with his rough fingers. He quietly studies the small piece of gold and rubs it slowly. He dips his face down to the side of mine. He must have shaved this morning, but his face is already a little prickly as he presses his cheek into mine. His hot breath warms my ear. “You don’t need my permission, Lulu.”

  “I’m asking you to give me a reason not to,” I whisper and have to concentrate on not crying. Just, come on. Give me a reason—any fucking reason. Just one.

  “You got it all figured out, so why don’t you give me an example.”

  Like you’re in love with me.

  Please.

  But he doesn’t say it. It’s just one more moment in the long list of moments that tell me I should give up on him. But I don’t because there’s something going on here that I’m missing. I’ve been missing a lot lately courtesy of denial, but I feel like if I just hang in there, it’ll get better and Jameson and I can work through this stuff.

  Or maybe we can’t. Because maybe, just maybe, the problem is that he’s over me. Maybe it was fleeting for him. Maybe now that he’s free of Lydia, the temptation is gone and I’m not all that appealing after all?

  Maybe.

  “Why is this so hard?” I ask. “Why does it seem like we just can’t get it right? When do we say that this is just too difficult and it’s not working?”

  My words are muted by the house siren that goes off. In an instant, the garage bay is crowded. I step back and give them all a wide berth as they burst into action and hop on the truck. Once Jameson’s suited up, he climbs into the driver’s side and starts her up, turns on the sirens and lights, and pulls her out onto the street.

  Maybe this is my sign that this isn’t working out. Maybe I should take Hennessey up on his offer—a nice clean way to force a separation between Jameson and me. Like a get-out-of-jail-free card that I can pull. If he won’t show me that I matter by being with me, then perhaps I need to move on and be with someone else to close this chapter in my life.

  Chapter 14

  Jameson

  When I walk into my parents’ house I’m immediately assaulted with the smell of a baking lasagna. My stomach grumbles in excitement. Once the lease was up on my and Lydia’s old apartment and I had that money freed up, I found a little place above a bodega that I like well enough. For the first few weeks, Mom was cooking me dinners and bringing them to the firehouse a few days a week, but that dried up a while ago, and now I only get home-cooked meals when I visit. I guess I got a little too used to being fed and waited on during my two months back here.

  At the end of the long, narrow hall stands my six-year-old niece, Hope. Her striking red hair falls down in a mass of waves around her shoulders. Her bright green eyes light up at the sight of me, and she takes off running. From the kitchen, I can hear Mom and Jack telling her not to run.

  I bend at the knees just in time to catch her and toss her over my shoulder. I’m rocked back slightly by the impact and reach for the baluster on the staircase to keep me steady. She’s not a baby anymore, that’s for sure. I land a hand firm on her butt that makes her shriek with excited giggles and bounce purposefully as I carry her back down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “Uncle Jay, I got into attention today,” she says and slaps at my back and kicks her feet. “It was fun.”

  “You got into attention? What’s that?” No clue what the public schools are teaching kids these days.

  “It’s where you sit at your desk and read after school,” she says happily. Something sounds off about that explanation. It’s not as fishy as the time Smokey had a tail full of Tinkerbell nail polish and she somehow had “no clue” how that happened. Hope’s a spirited kid, and I never know what to expect from her. I’m just glad I’m her uncle and can send her home when I’m tired.

  “Lose something?” I ask loudly. Looking around the crowded kitchen, I see I’m the last to arrive. Mom and Rae, Bailey’s girlfriend, are at the oven checking on dinner. Dad’s at the head of the table with a glass of whiskey in his hand. It’s the only thing he drinks, but he rotates the brands every few months. Bailey sits to Dad’s left, an empty chair on her other side. On the other side of the chair is Royal and then Hennessey, with Mom’s at the other end of the table. Another empty chair sits on Dad’s other side, for Hope, and next to that is Jack.

  I set Hope down in the empty spot between Dad and Jack and take the seat between Jack and where Mom will sit. The table is already set, with salad and garlic bread set out. Mom brings over the lasagna while Rae grabs a carton of milk and a carton of orange juice from the fridge, and they both take their seats.

  “You’re late,” Hennessey says with a flat stare. His brown hair is pushed up into a gelled fauxhawk, and he’s wearing a dark red button-up. Royal leans over and elbows him with a shake of her head. She, too, is dressed up more than normal for Sunday dinner with her hair down and straightened, and she’s got on makeup and some kind of sexy top that my baby sister should definitely not be wearing.

  “Am I keeping you from something?” I try to keep my tone in check, but it’s fucking hard. Every time I look at him, I see Mel asking me to give her a reason not to go out with him. The conversation was interrupted, or I would have given her a million fucking reasons not to date him. But I had to go, and by the time we got back to the house that night, she was already off duty. The next day I tried to talk to her, but every time I’d start on a topic that wasn’t work-related, she’d cut me off by either changing the subject or straight-up walking away.

  “They’re going dancing,” Hope says loudly with exasperation in her tone. “And I can’t go because I have a bed time. Daddy’s mean like that.”

  “Buzz kill,” Rae says and grins at Hope, then shoots Jack a wink. He just laughs it off.

  “What is horizontal dancing?” Hope asks. The table gets silent for a moment before Royal and Bailey start laughing and gasping for breath. “What’s funny? Uncle H is going horizontal dancing, and I want to go, too.”

  “You’re too young for that kind of dancing,” Bailey says through her laughter. Mom and Jack give H a dirty look, who pretends he didn’t do anything to deserve it. Dad just shakes his head.

  “Oh really, and who is Uncle H going horizontal dancing with?” I ask. Not even the amazing-smelling lasagna could salvage this dinner. If Hennessey thinks he’s going to be horizontal dancing with Mel, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.

  “Auntie Royal, duh,” Hope says and rolls her eyes.

  “This chick Joy,” Royal says and levels me with the least-amused glare I’ve ever seen. “I get all dressed up because this jerk tells me he wants to hang out and go dancing, have a few drinks and some brother-sister bonding time, and the next thing I know he’s telling me Joy’s going to meet us at the club.”

  “That’s interesting,” I say through gritted teeth. I warned him not to fuck Mel over. I fucking told him she’s not a girl he can just toss aside because a new hot blonde comes along.

  “Something bothering you, brother?” Hennessey asks. He’s got his elbows on the edge of the table with his arms crossed, and he’s leaning toward me with an indignant
expression.

  “Not a thing, brother. Why would I be bothered?”

  “What the hell is going on here?” Dad demands in his most parental tone. When we were kids, he made it clear that when he asked a question, he expected an answer. Silence wasn’t permissible unless it was an order he doled out.

  “Just a little game Jay and I were playing. He’s just upset he lost.”

  Of course Hennessey sees this as a game. Why wouldn’t he? I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. I’m so blind sometimes that it’s embarrassing. Growing up, H and I were always really close. We’re barely sixteen months apart, which means we’ve shared just about everything since he was born. We shared the same room up until we moved out together when I was twenty-two and he was twenty-one. We lived in that apartment for a little over a year before I met Lydia—and it worked for us. But it worked for us. We understood each other’s schedule and didn’t have a problem sharing the tiny space. When we were kids, he’d get a toy at Christmas and I’d steal it and play with it for the rest of the afternoon. I’d get a new bike for my birthday and he’d take it around the block before I had a chance to. Sharing is just one of those things you deal with when you have a brother as close in age as H and I are. Mel’s not a stupid toy or a fucking bike, though. I thought I could be cool with this. I told myself H could be better for her than I could have been at the time.

  “This a game to you? You think this is funny?” I ask.

  Hennessey raises an eyebrow and smirks with the self-assurance that he’s pissing me off. I don’t want to let him get to me because then he wins. We’ve always been close enough to know exactly how hard to land a blow that’s devastating. That’s the thing about siblings. They could be the worst person alive, but you know their heart, and that makes it difficult to hate them. It’s just that I can barely stand the sight of him right now.

  Rather than starting a fight at the dinner table and ruining everyone’s night, I excuse myself and head out the back door into the backyard. Outside on the porch, I take a deep breath and try to center myself. I’m an idiot, and I keep fucking everything up.