Chapter 3 Janie
THREE
Janie
I blink awake, squinting at the pale gray light filtering through my old bedroom curtains.
For a moment, I'm disoriented. This familiar childhood room is suddenly different. Then my body registers the delicious ache spreading through me, and memory crashes back.
Warren.
My thighs are sticky and my muscles sore in places I never knew could hurt. Every throb between my legs pulses with flashes of last night. Warren's fingers digging into my hips, his mouth hot against my skin, the weight of him pressing me into the mattress until I came apart.
I turn my head slowly, afraid he might be gone. But there he is, sprawled on his back beside me, one arm flung above his head, chest rising and falling in deep sleep. The sheet barely covers his hips, revealing the lean muscle of his torso.
In this soft dawn light, the hard angles of his face have softened. His mouth, usually set in that serious line, is relaxed, almost vulnerable.
Warren Carter is in my bed.
My heart hammers so loudly I'm surprised it doesn't wake him. I've imagined this moment for years, not that I'd ever admit it, but the reality is so much more overwhelming.
My fingertips hover above his chest, wanting to touch but afraid to break the spell.
What have we done?
A mix of awe and panic swirls in my belly. I should regret this. I should be calculating all the ways this will complicate everything. But my body still hums with satisfaction, with the memory of how perfectly we fit together.
My hips reflexively pulse toward him, seeking his pressure on my hungry center. I'm wet for him, and if this were any other time, in any other place, with any other man, I would wake him for another round.
Blake will lose his mind if he were to ever find out. Mom and Dad... Oh, god.
The clock downstairs ticks, suddenly too loud in the quiet house. My parents. Just downstairs. Probably already stirring.
My stomach lurches as urgency floods through me. I need to get Warren out before anyone sees him here.
I place my hand on his shoulder, relishing the warmth of his skin beneath my palm. "Warren," I whisper, hating that I have to wake him when he looks so peaceful. "You need to get up."
I try not to think about how much I want him to stay. How I'd rather curl back against his chest and feel his arms around me again. That's not our reality. Last night was... what? A goodbye? A beginning? I don't know, but right now, all I know is he needs to get out of here. Now.
The weight of family expectations and history presses down on me, even as my body betrays me by wanting him still.
Warren remains motionless despite my touch. I lean over, my hair brushing his cheek.
God, I want to straddle him.
"Warren. You have to go." My voice is barely audible, even to myself.
He stirs beneath my fingers, forehead creasing before his eyes flutter open. For a moment, he looks at me, his warm brown eyes soft with sleep. And something tender passes between us.
Then reality crashes in. His expression shifts, jaw tightening as he sits up abruptly, the sheet pooling at his waist. He scrubs a hand over his face, suddenly alert.
"What time is it?" His voice is rough with sleep.
"Early. A little after five. But Mom usually gets up at five-thirty." My pulse quickens. "We can't—"
"I know." He cuts me off, already reaching for his boxer briefs beside the bed.
The air between us crackles with everything unsaid. I pull the sheet higher, suddenly self-conscious despite what we did last night. The memory of his hands on my skin makes my breath catch.
"Last night was—" I swallow, searching for words that won't sound ridiculous. "It was incredible."
Warren pauses, one leg in his pants. His eyes meet mine, unguarded for once. "Yeah. Best damn thing I shouldn’t have done."
His words sting and soothe simultaneously. A mistake. The most perfect mistake.
"We can't do this again," I say what we're both thinking, though my body screams otherwise. Wetness pools below me, moistening the sheets.
"No." He zips his pants, movements controlled, deliberate. "We can't. Can I ask you not to say anything to anyone?"
"Of course. Blake would—"
"I know what Blake would do." His voice is tight. "What your parents would think. This has to stay between us. Promise me."
I nod, throat burning. The weight of expectations, Blake's protectiveness, my parents' trust in Warren, all of it presses on my chest until I can hardly breathe.
"It's just—" I start, not knowing how to finish. Just what? Just sex? Just something I've wanted for years? Just the most honest I've ever felt with another person?
Warren sits on the edge of the bed, shirt half-buttoned. His hand finds mine atop the sheets.
"Janie." My name in his mouth sounds different now. "This isn't about not wanting you."
I look down at our joined hands. "I know."
"But we can't—"
"I know that, too."
The silence stretches, filled with the sound of our breathing. I memorize the feeling of his palm against mine, knowing I shouldn't.
Warren stands, tucking in his shirt with quick, efficient movements. Each gesture pulls him further away, reconstructing the careful boundary we demolished last night.
The door clicks shut behind him, and suddenly, all the oxygen is sucked from the room.
I stare at the rumpled sheets, heat still trapped in the hollow where his body had been. My thighs press together, sensitive and aching, every nerve lit from the night before. I can still feel the wide push of him inside me, the way my body clutched and broke apart around him.
I bury my face in the pillow, breathing him in. I know that scent intimately, the clean soap, and his faint cologne. My nipples tighten against the thin fabric of the sheet, a raw reminder of his mouth, his hands.
A shiver races down my spine. My skin is tight, flushed, and restless, like he only just left me wanting. I curl onto my side, knees drawn up, pressing my palm low against my belly as if I can hold onto the pulse he left behind.
Regret knots in my chest, twisting tighter every time I breathe. He was never supposed to touch me. I was never supposed to want him.
And yet my body still hums for more.
Why does doing the right thing have to hurt so much?
I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling I've known since childhood. The same cracks, the same shadows. But I'm not the same Janie who left for college four years ago.
My body yearns for more of Warren's touch, electric currents running just beneath my skin.
My hand slides down my stomach before I can stop it. The sheets are cool now, his warmth long gone, but my body doesn’t seem to know the difference. I find the faint trace he left behind, the ghost of heat that still makes me tremble.
This is wrong.
But I can't stop. My fingers move in slow, uncertain circles, chasing a rhythm that isn’t mine. Every touch is an echo, a poor imitation of the way he found me. I press my palm to my mouth to smother the sound that wants out.
It's not the same. Not even close. But I need this, I need to chase the ghost of what we shared.
My breath comes faster as I imagine his hands instead of mine, his mouth at my ear whispering my name. The pressure builds quickly, a desperate edge to it that wasn't there when he touched me.
"Warren," I mouth silently against my palm as my body tightens, then shatters.
I bury my face in the pillow to muffle my cries. When the release finally comes, it’s thin and brittle, breaking too fast. The ache that follows lingers, heavier than before.
This wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t just sex.
As my breathing slows, my stomach turns. The sheets are still warm, smelling like him. I pull them higher, but it’s useless. Even alone, I can’t escape what he awakened in me. The worst part is, I don’t want to.
I roll onto my side, curling around the hollow ache in my chest. In a few hours, I'll finish packing. Tomorrow, I'll board a plane to Chicago and leave all of this behind.
Chicago will wipe the slate clean. It has to.
I repeat the words like a mantra, even as my body still pulses with the lie.
Five days into my new Chicago life, and I'm buried in moving boxes. My tiny one-bedroom apartment near Northwestern looks like a cardboard fortress.
Outside, gray morning light filters through bare windows, casting shadows across the scuffed hardwood floor.
I position a framed photo of Mom, Dad, and Blake on the table beside the kitchenette. My family smiles back at me, frozen in Palm Beach sunshine, while I prepare myself for the very different Chicago scene.
The radiator clangs and hisses, fighting against the chill that seeps through poorly insulated windows. I wrap my cardigan tighter and attack another box labeled "KITCHEN."
This place is nothing like home. The walls are thin enough that I know my neighbor's alarm goes off at 5:30 AM. The bathroom sink drips no matter how hard I twist the handle. But it's mine. My first real apartment, my first real job, my first real escape.
I shake my head, forcing Warren’s name back into the mental box where I’ve tried to lock it. Chicago is going to be my stepping stone into my adult life. Five days and 1,200 miles should be enough distance to forget the brush of his hands on my skin.
It hasn't been so far. Shit.
I told myself we could still be normal. That we could slip back into the easy rhythm we’d always had. I sent him a few dumb texts since that night, but nothing. Not even a thumbs-up.
I keep telling myself he’s busy, that he’s giving it time to cool off. That’s what grown-ups do after a mistake, right? They move on. Pretend it never happened.
So why does the silence feel like punishment?
A siren wails outside, followed by car horns and the rumble of the L train. I crack the window, letting the frigid air rush in. The cold burns my lungs, shocking me back to the present. Palm Beach never felt this raw, this alive.
I lift a secondhand couch pillow from a box and fluff it, arranging it carefully on my thrift store sofa. "See? Totally adult apartment. Totally put together."
My phone notifies me with a calendar reminder. Orientation, 9 AM.
Panic flutters in my stomach as I rush to shower and dress. What if I'm not ready? What if Northwestern realizes they made a mistake hiring me?
The hospital orientation room hums with voices. Name tags, handshakes, forced smiles. I fumble through introductions, nodding too much, laughing too loud. Everyone seems more qualified, more confident.
"God, your smile looks painful. First day nerves, or are you secretly planning our murders?"
I turn to find a woman with sharp eyes and a sharper grin. Her name tag reads Gemma Alvarez.
"Is it that obvious?" Heat creeps up my neck.
"Relax, we’re all impostors here." She leans closer, stage-whispering, "Even Dr. Harrison, who’s managed to say ‘Harvard’ seven times in five minutes."
A real laugh bursts out of me, loosening the tight knot in my chest.
She glances at my badge. “Operations. Nice. I’m in planning. Same track, different side of the chessboard. We’ll be bumping into each other a lot.”
By lunchtime, we’re tucked into a cafeteria booth, trading stories over lukewarm coffee and cafeteria fries.
She’s from San Antonio, moved up for grad school, finishing her last year while juggling fellowship rotations.
She curses like a sailor, reads people in seconds, and makes me laugh harder than I have in months.
For the first time since I landed in Chicago, I feel like I might actually belong. Maybe I can do this. Maybe this city really could be my fresh start.
I look out the window at the skyline—sharp, electric, nothing like Palm Beach. This city will swallow my secrets whole. Work will keep me busy. Gemma will keep me grounded.
And Warren Carter will stay exactly where he belongs: in the past.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.