Dropping Gloves

by Catherine Gayle

  A few more moments passed in silence. Then he put his seat belt on again and started the car. “I’m sorry,” Jamie said, driving out of the parking lot. “I wanted to make things better for you, and what I had in mind would have only made it worse. You’re right. I didn’t think it through.” He pulled up at a stoplight and held out his hand between us, open to take mine.

  I hesitated, but then I put my hand in his. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I’ve done things to make you think I’m a slut. But I’m not, Jamie. I’m really not. I know how things seem, but that’s just what they wanted the world to see. For some reason, it’s easy to believe the worst of people and hard to believe the best, but no one is either as good or as bad as the media paints them. No one.”

  Jamie dragged his other hand through his hair, mussing his faux hawk so some of it was standing on end. “I don’t think you’re a slut.”

  “No?” I still sounded pouty and petulant. “Well, you’re one of very few, then. Even Dad fell for everything the media tried to sell about me.” And thanks to how well Derek cast me in that role, it hadn’t even been a hard sell.

  A couple of minutes later, Jamie parked the car. He closed the garage door behind us.

  I grabbed my purse and the drugstore bag, ready to go home. To my house. Alone, because I wasn’t really in the mood to fool around with him after the argument we’d just had. I wasn’t used to disagreeing with Jamie, and I didn’t like it. There was a hollow ache in my stomach that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with conflict. I really fucking hated conflict.

  “Come on,” Jamie said as we got out of his car. He waited by the door leading into his kitchen, holding out a hand for me. “Blackbeard’ll be frantic for company by now.”

  “You sure you want me to come in?” I hedged. “I could go home if you’d prefer that. Since…” I wasn’t sure how to put into words that maybe he wasn’t in the mood right now after we’d been arguing and talking about what a slut the world thinks I am. And honestly, even though he said he didn’t think of me that way, the only thing he had to go on to the contrary was my word. Maybe he needed more time to think about all of this.

  He gave me an overblown suspicious look and pointed to the bag in my hands. “You sure about that? Because it seems wasteful not to put those to use.”

  “You think you can use them all, huh?” I laughed. “They do have expiration dates, but I think they’ll last a while. We don’t have to rush into anything.”

  His whole face dropped. “I’m not going to rush you, Katie. Not ever.”

  That much was painfully evident, since I was the one making almost every move. I smiled and crossed over to take his hand, kissing him on the side of his jaw. “I meant I wouldn’t rush you.”

  A frisson of hope flitted between us, and I couldn’t tell where it started and where it ended. It just was. Tangible. Nearly physical.

  He threaded his fingers through mine. “So you’ll come in?”

  I stepped ahead of him and opened the door. Blackbeard raced through it, making a flying leap straight for Jamie and landing halfway up his thigh. Within seconds, he clawed his way up and made himself at home on Jamie’s shoulder, amid a stream of curses.

  I tried to stifle my laugh. “Just be glad he only weighs about a pound right now. Wait until he’s a full-grown cat and still doing that.”

  Jamie sent a half-hearted glare in the kitten’s direction. “We’ll see if he makes it that long.”

  Blackbeard nipped Jamie’s nose in response before licking all over his face.

  I went inside and tossed my purse and bag on the kitchen counter. A moment later, the door closed, and I felt the heat of Jamie’s body behind me. He touched my upper arm, his strong fingers gently circling my skin. I leaned back, allowing myself to sink into him.

  “You’re not rushing me,” he said. “And I meant what I said. I believe you. I don’t think you could possibly be all that they would have the public believe. But there are things I need to know first. I need to know where that line falls between what’s true and what’s not. I need to know if any of them…if they hurt you. I need to know that you believe what’s going to happen between us will be…untainted, I guess I mean. Not dirtied by things that someone else has done to you or by all the things you’re afraid I believe.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself the courage to tell him everything he was asking for. “I know. It’s only fair for you to know exactly what you’re getting into with me before…well, before.” I allowed myself to revel in the shelter of his embrace. He would still want me once he knew, wouldn’t he? I had to believe it or I would never be able to tell him. I hadn’t told anyone the worst of it, not even Dani or Mom. There was too much shame, because like Jamie had said—there was a line between the truth and the fabrication. The media hadn’t made things up out of thin air. They’d taken what I’d given them and run with it to make up their wild stories, to cast me in a light that wasn’t true but wasn’t wholly a lie.

  “And there’s something I need to tell you, too,” Jamie said.

  I really didn’t want to hear about the girls he’d dated while I was in Hollywood, but I supposed it was only fair since he was about to hear a whole lot he likely didn’t want to know. I just hoped he didn’t feel the need to give me too much detail. “All right,” I said. “Whatever you need to tell me, I can take it. I’m ready.” It couldn’t be any worse than what I had to tell him.

  He backed away and went around the kitchen island, heading for the living room with Blackbeard enjoying the ride. “Come on. Sit with me.”

  I followed, sitting beside him on the sofa but with a bit of space between us. He might want that distance once I started talking about what life with Beau had been like.

  “You first,” I said once we were both settled.

  Jamie reached up and petted the kitten’s back, looking thoroughly nauseated. Maybe it was worse than I’d imagined? But he was still Jamie, so it couldn’t be that bad.

  Finally, he took a breath and blurted out, “I’m a virgin.”

  I felt like I might puke after admitting that to Katie, but she didn’t laugh or do anything to make me feel like I was a sad, pathetic excuse for a man. Not that I believed that about myself over something as stupid as still being a virgin, but still. People could be weird about a man having never proved his virility by doing the deed. That was why I tended to keep it a secret. It was a total double standard, too. Me being a virgin? Pitiful. Katie not being a virgin? Somehow that made her a slut, according to everyone with a social media presence and an axe to grind. Pissed me off, but I didn’t know what I could do about it.

  But Katie didn’t react. She didn’t crack a joke. She didn’t get up and run out. She didn’t do anything at all, actually, but sit there and stare at me, one brow slightly raised in question.

  I didn’t know what she was asking me, so I followed her example. I sat there exactly how I was and waited for her to respond.

  “That’s it?” she said after one of the most pregnant pauses I’d ever lived through. “That’s what you needed to tell me? That you’ve never had sex?”

  “Well, you don’t need to sound so underwhelmed.”

  She blinked a couple of times. “I don’t— I just thought you were about to tell me all your deep, dark secrets about all the girls you’ve slept with over the last few years. That’s all.” She pushed some hair back from her face, but it immediately fell forward again. “I was expecting you to air your dirty laundry like I’m about to do, and you hit me with the fact that you’re even more impossibly perfect than I already thought you were.”

  “I’m not perfect,” I grumbled. “And that’s exactly what I did tell you. I let you in on every single girl I’ve fucked, all zero of them. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the opportunity, either. I just—” I nearly bit my own tongue forcing myself to shut up before I revealed more than I was ready for.

  “You just what?” Katie asked.

  “Nothing.
”

  “It’s not nothing. I’m about to fill you in on all the sordid details you want about my sex life. You owe me the same if we’re going to move forward with this.”

  “You’ve already got all the details. There are no details. It’s just me, my hand, and my imagination. That’s it. That’s all I was going to say.”

  She frowned, in a way that made me think of her mother—the sort of I’m-not-buying-for-a-second-that-you’re-telling-me-the-whole-story frown that all moms must learn to do the moment their first child comes out of the womb. Or maybe sooner than that, since Katie could already do it. The way she was scowling left me squirming in my seat. I shifted, and I dislodged Blackbeard enough that he woke up and circled before settling down again.

  “Fine,” I said. “All right. I just couldn’t take any of them up on what they were offering because they weren’t you. Which is stupid because you were gone, and you clearly weren’t waiting around for me, so I might as well move on with my life, right? Take what I could get when I could get it. But I couldn’t.”

  Katie blinked again, but this time she was blinking back tears, making me wish I’d had the decency to talk to her without all my frustration coming through in my words. “You’ve never had sex because you were waiting for me?” she said, awed.

  “Maybe. Kind of.” I reached up to shove my hand through my hair again but stopped myself just in time. That wouldn’t do anything but prove how nervous I was, talking to her about this. About sex. About all the things I’d been lying in bed at night thinking about for years but had never gotten a chance to do anything about. But now here she was. With condoms. Wanting me. And I was so fucking worked up about telling her this shit that I might blow my chance. “I just thought it should mean something, you know? I didn’t want to go to bed with some girl I didn’t love just for the sake of having sex. I wanted to know there was a future there. I wanted to be in love and have it matter. It should be a big deal, right? It should be important. And none of them mattered because they weren’t you.”

  Her lips twitched a couple of times, and then the smile I’d loved since the first time I’d ever seen her crossed her face. It was a shy smile, one that lit up her eyes and turned her cheeks as pink as mine, but she ducked her face down as though that would hide any of her beauty from me.

  “You were saving yourself for me,” she said when her eyes fluttered up to meet mine again.

  “Well, not necessarily for you. Just for someone I could love like I loved you. Like I still love you.”

  She pursed her lips together and shook her head. “Stop while you’re ahead. Tell me you were saving yourself for me.”

  I laughed hard enough that Blackbeard dug in his claws and grumbled. “Fine. I was saving myself for you.”

  The kitten was sleepy enough that he let me bring him down from his roost. I set him on the sofa, right beside my hip, and he let out a sound that was half sigh, half snore. He must have been running himself ragged all over the house while we were gone to be this tuckered out.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this,” Katie said, drawing my attention back to her instead of the kitten. “But that just reinforces the idea in my head that I don’t deserve you. You say I’m perfect for you, but you’re perfect, Jamie. You don’t have any flaws. None.”

  “Not even close to true. I can’t figure out how to lead my team even though they made me captain. I’m scared to use the stove, much less the oven, because I’m bound to start a fire. I think too much and act too little. My hair’s a damn mess all the time, which Burnzie is all too happy to remind me of, I blush at the drop of a fucking hat, and I can’t grow out of these dimples that make me look twelve—”

  “The dimples and the blushing are assets, not flaws,” she cut in. “And I think you’ll recall how I feel about your hair.”

  I did remember that. Back when she’d had cancer the first time, when the chemo had caused her hair to start falling out, Webs had shaved his off in support. I was about to do the same when she’d flipped out and begged me to keep it. So I had. I’d do just about anything she asked of me—then and now—if it would make her happy.

  Still, I rolled my eyes. I’d heard that part about my fucking dimples and blushing way too many damn times, since I was a kid. The only thing that made it slightly easier to deal with was the fact that my brothers—all six of them—suffered from the same affliction. I wasn’t totally alone in it. “The point is, nobody’s perfect. But that doesn’t mean you’re not perfect for me. And maybe I can be perfect for you, too.”

  “I don’t think you need the maybe in that statement,” she said with a smile that would have knocked my feet out from under me if I’d been standing.

  Her hair had dipped in front of her eyes again, and I reached over to slip it behind her ear. Briefly, she turned her head in toward my touch, kind of how Blackbeard would do when he wanted affection, only without the same determined feline insistence. Her skin was as smooth as satin as I let my fingertips glide along her cheek. Pinpricks of electricity shot between us, jolting my pulse and leaving it stuttering to catch up.

  “Why don’t you think you deserve me?” I asked, dropping my hand down to her shoulder. I couldn’t seem to make myself stop touching her in some way.

  She inched closer. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear it all?”

  No. I wasn’t even close to certain, but I said, “Yes.”

  Katie took a breath, scanning my eyes. “Okay. I’m not sure where to start, though.”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  “The beginning.” Her lips twisted up in a grimace that I wanted to kiss away. “Right. So Derek sent me on a few auditions when I first arrived in Hollywood. The general consensus from casting directors was that I was adorable and sweet and way too pure for the roles they were casting, but they’d keep me in mind if a part I was suited for came along. He wasn’t thrilled by their reactions. Then he arranged for me to read for The Cool Kids. The part he sent me to audition for was the one Zanna ended up playing—a little edgier storyline than mine—but they ended up offering me the role of Courtney. I was perfect for Courtney, they said. Sweet, adorable, and pure, exactly like all the other casting directors had described me and what they used as the reason I wouldn’t fit their parts. I accepted, and Derek was thrilled for the exposure I would get from this role, but he was worried that I was going to be typecast by taking on a part so similar to who I was in person. He didn’t think I’d be offered anything with more grit, more edge, unless we did something about my public image.”

  “So he suggested you date Jesse Carmichael?” I filled in.

  “Yeah. He’d been trying to get me to hang out with a group of some of his other clients who were often in the news, but I didn’t really know them, and I wasn’t comfortable. Jesse was in the cast, and he’d been flirting with me on set. When Derek saw that, he decided that was the course I needed to take. At first, it wasn’t anything serious. I just went to red carpet events with him, things like that to keep Derek happy. But then Jesse wanted it to be more than just for show. I wasn’t so sure about it. I was still hung up on you, and I had already caught on to the fact that he was into some things I didn’t really want to get messed up with. But they both pressured me, and I gave in. I gave in on a lot of things.”

  She wrapped her arms around her stomach and backed away from me, tucking her feet up under her. It felt like she didn’t want to be too close to me. Like she was ashamed of herself and didn’t want it to rub off on me. The urge to go to LA, find Derek Hatch, and bash his face in was as strong as my desire to draw Katie into my arms and convince her there was nothing she could do, then or now, to make me stop loving her. But I stayed put. There was a lot more story she needed to tell, and I was determined to let her get through all of it.

  “Jesse and I were good together, even if I didn’t love him. The physical attraction between us was off the charts, and we had great chemistry in”—she stopped and gave me an apologetic look—“in bed.
But he got high a lot. Pot just about all the time, acid at least a few times a week… He liked cocaine, too, though. When I was with him, I felt pressured into using the same things he did. I never used much, and I hated the way I felt when I did.”

  My stomach churned, thinking about all the things that could have happened to her when she was high. Bashing Derek Hatch’s face in was too good for him, and there were no words for the anger I felt for Jesse Carmichael.

  “Drugs and I didn’t get along,” Katie said. “Not at all. People who get high don’t like being around people who don’t, though, so I caved. It was only when he got busted one time and I was with him—and of course, TMZ was all over it—that I decided I couldn’t do that anymore. I had never used enough that I’d developed an addiction, and I decided to quit using altogether. But then Jesse decided that he didn’t want to be with me anymore. Said I wasn’t fun, that I wasn’t willing to have a good time with him, so we broke things off. I stopped hanging out with him and his crowd.”

  “He never— He didn’t hurt you?” I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by that, but leaving it open-ended was probably for the best. She could answer that however she saw fit.

  Katie shook her head. “No, I hurt myself by going along with him, but he never did anything to hurt me. I cared about him as a friend but never anything more than that. Still do. I worry about him. I was surprisingly okay about it after we’d ended things, but Derek wasn’t so happy. He kept trying to get me to go out with other guys like Jesse, other men who ran with that same crowd. I didn’t have any desire to do that, even if he thought it was best. Zanna and I hit it off, though. She had a lot more edge in the public eye than I did, so he was happy about that. She introduced me to a couple of guys who I used to satisfy Derek’s desire to have me seen in public with the edgier crowd, but there was never anything to it. We were friends, and we went to red carpet events and whatnot together, and we made nice for the camera. But since I never really dated them, we weren’t in the news as often as Derek wanted. He wanted me to constantly show up in magazines and on all the entertainment shows, and the profile I was keeping was too low for him. That was when he introduced me to Beau.”