Chapter 24 #2
I’m unemployed, broke, single, with a Mexican criminal record, and I’ve spent five days having crazy sex with a guy I hate. What’s one more atrocity on the list?
“Nope,” Jasper replies, just as bored. His eyes stay fixed on the bus blocking the road.
“Are you at least going to tell me where we’re going?” Same tone. Zero expectations. I’ve got nothing better to do anyway.
Jasper shoots me a quick glance, then looks back at the road. Traffic starts moving again.
I’m completely caught off guard when he answers, no joke, no mystery. He just gives me a sideways look and says, “We’re going cenote-hunting.”
Cenote? We’re going cenote-hunting?
“And the cake?” The traffic stops again, he turns to me with one eyebrow raised and his lips pressed tight, clearly judging me. And from the look, I already know: the cake is absolutely fine. “But you told Mila–”
“I just delayed the delivery by a few hours,” he cuts in. “It’s all under control.”
This son of a bitch! He wanted this. He orchestrated an entire plan just to go cenote-hunting – or whatever – and drag me along.
“Because you knew Mila wouldn’t trust you to go alone,” I conclude.
He gives me the “obviously, Julie” look again.
I try my hardest not to smile. I really do.
But it’s useless. I feel the corners of my lips tugging upward in a mischievous grin as I ask, “Jasper Hassmann, do you… do you have a crush on me?”
He looks at me with the deepest boredom on earth.
“Are you taking me on a date?” I sing.
“This is not a date.”
“If it’s not a date, then you’re kidnapping me. Which one is it?”
“There are literally a trillion options between a date and a kidnapping, Julie.”
Don’t care. It’s a date. And I will torture him with that fact as many times as I want.
The whole Yucatán peninsula is full of cenotes. Some tiny, some gigantic. Some lead to waterfalls and incredible underground caves. I don’t know much about them, but I know cenotes were part of the van tour.
The one we missed because we were preparing the welcome bags.
And the hangover.
Mostly because of the hangover.
I grin from ear to ear, finally taking in the road ahead of us. It’s almost the same as the van tour route. And you know what else was on the van tour route?
“Are we going to see the pyramid?” I throw it out, hopeful.
He shrugs.
“We can see the pyramid.”
I clap my hands in excitement like a child opening their gift on Christmas morning, fully aware he’ll hate it. Fully aware he already regrets agreeing so quickly.
“Well, then I accept the date.”
“It is not a date,” Jasper repeats.
“Will there be food?”
“Maybe.”
“Jasper, it’s a long trip,” I start complaining. “You can’t expect–”
“There will be food, Julie,” he interrupts, like he’s consoling a toddler who just broke that Christmas present.
“And you’re paying for it?”
“Only because you’re poor,” he teases.
“I’m not poor!” I protest.
I am very poor. But I refuse to let him have this one.
“I own a home, you know?” I emphasize. “In New York. If you live alone and bought your own place, that means you’ve made it in life.”
In my first years after graduating, I covered the Bengals during football season, following players around to produce social-media content.
Freelance job, but I made good money, so I bought a tiny ground-floor apartment in the Village.
The first and last time I ever had money, but whatever, we’re not thinking about that now.
Jasper gives me a half-smile, amused and indifferent at the same time.
“Maybe you should pay for the food, then.”
“I’m not paying for anything. The rule is if you’re the one who had the idea for the date, you pay.”
“This isn’t a date.”
“Whatever you say, Jasper,” I conclude, rolling my eyes.
But Jasper is driving with that little smile tugging at his lips. His expression is neutral, and his hands are relaxed on the wheel, like he isn’t thinking about anything. I could believe what he says, sure, but no.
The smile gives him away.
Then he glances at me, and that look warms everything inside. Warms me so much I barely notice the moment his hand rests on my thigh, palm open, as if waiting for me to place something there.
“Oh!” I gasp, unable to suppress my smile. “I knew it.”
“Shut up,” he mutters.
Still smiling, I do exactly what he’s waiting for: I place my hand in his.
Jasper tangles his fingers through mine, silently admitting what he’ll never admit out loud just to torture me.
This is a date.
Oh my God, Jasper and I are on a date.
It feels completely surreal. Like I can barely contain the fluttering inside me. It’s like… like I’ve never been on a date in my entire life.
Like it’s the first time ever that a boy holds my hand.
Jasper is not a boy. He’s a man. A man who’s already lived a million things. And I’ve lived a million others. So it makes no sense for this to feel so… innocent. And good.
And sure, I’ve felt his hand on the most varied, and I mean varied, parts of my body. But never like this. Never interlaced with mine. Rough and soft. Firm and somehow very, very gentle.
He looks gorgeous today. All in black. Black dress pants, black button-up shirt, the thin fabric intentionally wrinkled, dark sunglasses… he doesn’t even look like he’s close to the beach. He looks like he walked straight out of some mafia romance novel.
“This isn’t happening,” I whisper, my thumb sliding slowly over his skin, each touch sends an electric jolt from my fingers straight through my whole body.
Jasper finally breaks into a full smile, his eyes shining brighter than the whole world when he agrees, “Of course not.”