CHAPTER 1 #2
Jette laughed and playfully glared at Garrett before replying, “I guess it’s technically my birthday, but this party was all Garrett’s idea.”
Garrett lightly punched her in the arm before retorting, “I’ll take any excuse to throw a party.” He turned to Kiran and continued a conversation that Reese had clearly walked into the middle of. Kiran left his arm draped around her shoulder and took another sip before answering Garrett.
Reese took a breath and glanced around, worried she was now on her own for socialization.
The glass bottle in her hands felt heavy as she rotated it in the dim light to get a better look at the label.
She tried to keep her expression neutral, but Reese could feel her lips curl unpleasantly as she read the description of the self-proclaimed ‘Aggressively Hoppy’ IPA. She’d rather drink vinegar.
She glanced around the room, quietly nodding along to the music when she noticed Jette’s eyes trained on her.
Jette must’ve seen the look on her face and gestured towards the bottle in her hands.
She leaned forward to ask over the music, “Not a big beer drinker?” Reese hesitated before shaking her head sheepishly.
She didn’t want to seem like a snob. Jette smiled knowingly and scrunched her nose before agreeing, “Me either. What about wine?” She tilted her head, gesturing over her shoulder as she turned to move.
“Oh thank god, that would be perfect,” Reese exhaled and sent a relieved smile in her direction before snaking an arm around Kiran’s waist and playfully squeezing him.
He didn’t even seem to register the affection before Reese followed Jette through the crowd.
Jette gestured towards the hallway off to the right and Reese gratefully followed her through the throng of people until they reached a tiny room.
When her eyes had adjusted to the sudden bright lights, Reese was amazed by how much art was on the walls.
There had to be hundreds of black and white drawings taped up all over the place.
She felt her lips part slightly in amazement as she looked around.
“Is red okay?” Jette asked as she pulled a bottle off the counter.
Reese nodded, feeling her cheeks flush embarrassingly.
She noticed the tension coiled in her shoulders and neck, a physical reminder of the almost painful anxiety that came from being at a party filled with strangers.
On the other hand, Jette merely nodded and moved around the room with a nonchalant confidence.
Reese glanced around the room again. “Is this your um…office?” she asked hesitantly, unsure of the right word. Jette chuckled and began pouring wine into two solo cups as Reese tried again, “Station? Work-uh…space?”
Jette’s long hair hung in loose waves draped over her shoulder, so dark it almost blended in with her leather jacket.
Reese could see a few tattoos creeping up her neck, just barely peeking out from behind the collar.
She was stunned momentarily by how beautiful this girl was.
Her fair skin complemented her dark brown eyes and winged eyeliner, and she wore head-to-toe black aside from a few pieces of silver jewelry.
A vintage looking band t-shirt was loosely tucked into her ripped black jeans with platform Doc Martens.
“‘Office’ makes me sound so corporate,” Jette said coyly. Her lips curved into a concentrated smile as she focused.
Reese nervously fidgeted with her rings and joked, “Sorry, I wasn’t sure what I should call it.” Her voice came out higher than usual.
Jette laughed and handed one of the cups to her as she looked around the room, “Station works. But yeah, this is all me.”
“Station…got it,” Reese felt her cheeks flush as their fingers brushed slightly during the exchange.
She looked away and raised the cup to her mouth when Jette cleared her throat pointedly.
She looked back to Jette who was clearly holding out her own solo cup for a toast. Reese smiled sheepishly and mouthed ‘Sorry’ before tapping their cups together with a dull clink.
Jette’s eye contact was too intense and she had to look away before taking a sip.
“You drew all these?” Reese asked quietly, inspecting the collection sprawling over the walls.
Thousands of delicate sketches adorned the walls.
Realistic bugs and snakes that made Reese’s skin crawl, and lush and full floral bouquets that looked so lifelike Reese swore she could actually smell them.
“Mhm. Do you have any?” Jette asked.
A collection of tastefully drawn nude sketches caught Reese’s attention.
The soft curves were immaculate, clearly drawn with explicit attention to every detail.
Her gaze trailed over one particularly lascivious sketch—two women in an embrace that would’ve made anyone blush.
Though she was far from shy, the detailed nature of the drawings made Reese hyper aware of her actions.
She didn’t want to be seen as some gawking voyeur, or worse—a stuffy, conservative prude who couldn’t bear to look at a naked body.
Her eyes widened slightly. “Any what?” she asked distractedly.
“Any tattoos?” Jette asked with a questioning smile.
Reese took a bigger sip of wine before replying, “No I don’t…but I’ve always thought about it. They’re just a little—”
“Painful?” Jette offered.
“Permanent,” Reese shot back with a grin. “The permanence freaks me out I guess, you know? What if I don’t like it after a while?” she rattled on nervously. Jette nodded but she wore an expression that Reese couldn’t quite place. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Jette answered casually. Reese reckoned it was amusement that hid behind Jette’s dark eyes.
She looked down at the red liquid swirling around her cup as she tousled her dark waves.
Her pointed black nails gently raked through her scalp, filling the room with wafts of her floral shampoo.
Reese fought the urge to lean closer to the intoxicating smell.
“What?” Reese repeated with a giggle. “I’m a planner. I like to plan things out. If I can’t see myself with it in twenty years, I’m not interested,” she teased.
“Nothing wrong with that.”
Reese’s eyes narrowed playfully, “Then why do I feel like you’re mocking me?
” She held Jette’s eyes longer this time and a bubbly feeling filled Reese’s chest. Jette’s dark brown eyes were intense and alight with something playful.
Like she was daring Reese to be the first to look away.
Captivated, Reese felt like her gaze was holding her in place.
Like a deer in headlights, Reese didn’t want to move.
Jette placed a hand over her heart in a show of faux offense.
“I’m not mocking,” she defended, “I just think it’s interesting.
” Reese opened her mouth to speak but Jette continued before the words came out.
“Are you planning on wearing those clothes for the next twenty years?” Jette quipped.
Dark eyes slowly scanned over Reese’s canvas sneakers to her cuffed light wash jeans, up to the jean jacket with her signature rolled sleeves, and back down to the carabiner jingling against her left hip.
She cheekily grinned at Reese’s incredulous face when their eyes met again.
Her smile consisted of tiny perfectly white teeth behind dark matte lipstick and Reese could feel herself staring at Jette’s mouth for a moment too long.
She chuckled nervously and looked down at herself to break the tension. “Maybe,” she countered, “But that’s different.”
“How so?”
“Well if I don’t like my clothes anymore, I can take them off.
” The words slipped out before she could think.
Immediately, her cheeks flooded with heat as Jette tilted her head.
Her dark eyebrows raised in definite amusement this time and the corner of her lips twitched into a charming smirk.
Jesus, why was she talking about taking her clothes off to a stranger?
Reese frantically tried to think of something—anything—to change the subject.
A warm prickly feeling crept down her back as she desperately sought to push the conversation away from herself.
“Touché,” Jette conceded with a laugh. Even her laugh was pretty. “Tattoos are a little harder to take off, I’ll give you that.”
“Do you have any?” Reese asked politely.
“Plenty,” she answered plainly. Reese cringed inwardly at herself.
Obviously Jette had tattoos, they were clearly visible despite the long sleeves that covered her fair skin.
Tiny strokes of red ink peered out behind the large rips exposing Jette’s knees and bold greenish black lines ebbed from under the sleeve of her leather jacket.
“Any you regret?” Reese pressed with a challenging smile.
“Of course,” Jette answered. She rolled up her sleeve to a faded tattoo of a feather morphing into a flock of birds on her forearm.
“Like this,” she paused to let Reese get a look.
“This is the most basic white-girl tattoo I can have, right? But as a seventeen year old, I thought this was so artsy and deep,” Jette chuckled.
Her eyes crinkled as their eyes met. “And now I can look at this tattoo and think back to who I was at seventeen and how little I knew about who I was, or who I was going to become…” she paused.
“I don’t know. It’s kinda nice to look back on that innocence and know that the na?ve girl who got this truly terrible tattoo turned into the person I am today.
” Jette’s voice trailed off at the end and she scratched her throat absentmindedly.
Her dark nails in stark contrast against her pale skin, so fair Reese could just barely make out the blue green veins sweeping under her collar.
Jette cleared her throat in the silence that hung between them.