53. McCarthy
MCCARTHY
“ I ’d say this is a new low point for me,” I tell the dog in the dark, “but I just spent, like, fifty grand on buffalo, so…”
Buddy, in his backpack, pants against my neck and digs his paws against my shoulders as I paddle up to Salish Island, where Jenna’s parents live.
My boots splash softly in the shallows as I jump out of the kayak and wade up to the island. I creep the wooden boardwalk past an enormous rusted statue of what might be intended to be a sea witch.
Is this illegal and marking me as no better than the rest of Jenna’s delusional exes?
Maybe it would if I wanted to think too hard about it, which I don’t.
I creep through the rain. Unlike Truman, Buddy in his backpack doesn’t seem to mind the rainy weather.
Jenna’s bedroom seems like it used to be a small sunroom or something, and I stand in the shadows, peering in through the glass door that looks like it was taken from some other house and patched into this one. Poorly, because there’s a big crack where I can see water leaking in.
Jenna’s wearing a handwoven robe, her hair up in a messy bun, tendrils brushing her neck. She’s texting someone on her phone.
Bet it’s a dating app. It’s the parrot guy or someone equally terrible.
I reach out. The sliding door isn’t even locked. She has no sense of self-preservation.
“Don’t bother, Cupcake.”
Jenna screams when I step into the room.
“I’m going to chase off any man you try to date.”
Jenna clutches the robe. “Why are you in my room?”
“You can decide you want to take a break from me, but I’m not letting another man near you. If I can’t have you, no one else can. I don’t care if it makes me delusional and crazy.” I smile at her. “I, of course, mean that in as nonthreatening a way as possible. To you, anyway.”
Jenna swallows. “Obviously nonthreatening. You have a senior dog in a backpack.”
Buddy wiggles his body in happiness when she acknowledges him.
“Like, ugh, no wonder I’m in love with you. I mean,” she adds in a rush, “not like that, like in a self-destructive, toxic way.”
I wrap my arms around her waist and rest my forehead against hers.
“No? Because I’m in love with you just like that—completely self-destructive. I had a whole grand gesture planned out then lit it on fire just because I didn’t have the patience to woo you. I can’t be away from you that long.”
“But you did have a grand gesture,” she whispers to me.
“You mean the company? Hardly. Your mom called me, said she wanted to help you live your dreams. She offered me a lifetime supply of produce and tarot readings.”
“Oh.” Jenna looks almost… disappointed?
“I told her I’d get you set up if she promised to never give me any more zucchini again.”
Her fingers twist in my T-shirt. “Then what was your grand gesture?”
“A giant cake shaped like a dachshund, filled with sprinkles. A cake the size of a pony.”
“Cake!”
“I opted for creeping at your window instead and watching you change.”
“You were watching me change?”
“Your tits are fucking amazing. And somehow look even better when you’re rubbing yourself when you think no one’s watching.” My hands slide up the rough fabric of the robe.
“I think it really says something about me”—her voice hitches—“that I find that really romantic.”
Buddy uses the opportunity to lean over and lick her face.
“Hey.” I scold the dog playfully and carefully swing the dog backpack down to the floor.
Jenna clasps her hands to her chest. “You’re so sweet with him.” Jenna chokes on the words.
“I told you.” I stand up as Truman and Buddy race out of the room. “It drives me crazy when you cry.”
“They’re not sad tears, though. I’m happy. ”
“I’m not happy,” I whisper to her.
“You have your dog.”
“I don’t have you.” Our noses bump together.
“I just want you, Jenna. You burrowed your way into my heart, and then you left, and I don’t understand why, and now I have to survive with this gaping hole in my chest. I know I shouldn’t feel this way—I only just met you, but you don’t understand.
I get really attached to things and people and animals, and I love them too much, even longer than I really should.
It’s a destructive kind of love, but it’s all I know.
” I stroke her face. “I’ll always love you.
People say that, but I mean it. I’ll always love you.
I’ll never stop, even as my heart breaks day after day.
I’ll always wait for you to put the pieces back together.
I just want all my favorite things all in one place. ”
“I’m one of your favorite things?” she whispers.
“You’re my most favorite thing.”
“That’s funny, because I get weirdly attached to people, too, especially unattainable men. It’s like a complex.”
I kiss her hand. “I’m not unattainable. I’m yours, Jenna. Always will be.”
I lean in. Hesitate. “Can I kiss you?” I whisper to her. “Even if it’s just a goodbye kiss.”
She nods.
I press my mouth to hers gently, savoring the softness of her lips.
“What kind of fucking kiss was that?” She shoves me back.
“I’m trying to be respectful,” I argue.
“I told you that I was turned on by your stalking me outside my window. That implies certain things.”
“Aren’t you traumatized from your stalkers? ”
“PR lesson number one. You can get away with a lot if you’re an attractive young male with all your hair.”
I tug off my shirt, letting her push me back onto the bed.
She straddles me. I kiss her face, run my hands down her body, loosen her robe, and luxuriate in the feel of her soft skin against mine.
Jenna rests her head against my chest, pressing her lips to my rib cage. My heart, which had felt like it was rotting in a chest that was caving in, finally feels normal.
I run my fingers through her hair. “I love you, Jenna,” I murmur. “I need you to know that. I need you to believe that.”
“Hm, depends. Where is this cake?”
“It was going to take two weeks because they had to custom make a pan. I wasn’t sure if you’d approve of the amount of money.
It was an expensive cake. I could have bought a used car and given it away to a needy person for how much they wanted.
So I did that instead. Figured you’d appreciate the gesture. ” I tap her nose.
Jenna clamps her mouth shut. Then: “That’s… very kind of you.”
I can’t stop my grin. “You want that cake, don’t you?”
“You really are speaking my love language.” She wrinkles her nose.
I pull her up so I can kiss her.
“It was supposed to be our wedding cake,” I confess.
“I can’t wait that long anyway.”
I kiss her again. “No, wait. I was going to whisk you off your feet and marry you at sunrise tomorrow.”
“What? ”
“I figured that the only way you’d believe me when I say I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you was to marry you.”
“But I don’t have a dress.” She sits up. “Or rings.”
“Got them in the bag.”
Jenna’s half hanging off the bed, digging for the bag on the floor while chickens mill around, hopping in the pots of rainwater.
“Shoo,” she tells one chicken.
It hisses at her as she picks up the bag.
I run my hand over the curve of her ass just because I can.
“Ooh!” Jenna pulls out the box with the rings. “Shiny! And a dress!”
She shimmies it on, jumping up to pull the fabric over her chest. It’s a short white dress with layers of lace.
“I picked it because it makes your ass look like a cupcake.”
“And you wanna eat it up.” She straddles me, leans forward. “I love you so much, McCarthy. It’s unhealthy.”
“I was going to wait to fuck you in that dress until after I marry you.”
“We aren’t getting married.”
My hands tighten on her ass. “I am marrying you.”
“I mean today.” She grabs my crotch, making me hiss. “I’m having a big, huge wedding.”
I kick off my pants, fishing a condom out first.
“I’m spending way too much time wedding planning.” She grabs the condom and slides it on my cock.
I slip two fingers in her cunt as she leans forward to kiss me sloppily on the corner of my mouth .
“I want the big bachelorette party at a fancy resort. Then I want you to see my slutty Instagram photos and show up in my hotel room and bend me over and fuck my pussy then my ass just so you remind me that I’m yours.”
I spread her pussy, angling her so she can impale herself on me.
“Fuck, your cock feels so good.” Her breath catches as she rolls her hips. “I want that big-ass cake with all the sprinkles.”
I finger her clit and grab her bare ass under the dress.
“I want pinatas.” She rakes her nails down my chest. “That look like our faces.”
I sit up to grab at her tits then pull them out so I can suck them. She shoves me back down on the bed.
“I want tons of flowers and candles down the aisle and a huge Princess Diana dress.”
I flip her over so I can pound into her, her legs wrapped around me, fucking her so hard into the lumpy mattress I think the bed’s going to break.
“Then I want you to take me on a fancy honeymoon and fuck me without a condom and give me a baby that looks just like you.”
“Shit, Jenna.” I curse as her pussy tightens around me, then she’s coming on my cock.
Just thinking about my come in her pussy means I’m jerking into her, kissing her, telling her I love her more than anything in the world.
“I want to marry you,” I tell her, still tangled up in her. “The ferry leaves at five. The courthouse opens at seven. Can we take that VW bus?”
“Wait, what?” Jenna pushes her hair out of her face. “Didn’t you hear me? ”
“I thought you were just…” I gesture. “I don’t know, doing some sort of role-play.”
“I love that you planned a whole wedding, McCarthy. No one’s ever done that for me before.” She kisses my bicep.
“Three fiancés. You’d think one of them would have.”
She slaps my chest. “I have a Pinterest board, McCarthy. I have been waiting for this moment for my entire life. Yes, it’s pathetic, and yes, I am a victim of the fairy-tale wedding industrial complex, but I will have my big wedding.”
“What about your no-presents rule?”
“That was for clients.”
“I’m still your client,” I remind her.
“Dammit.”
I kiss her anywhere I can reach. “I think I can convince you to break your rules for me. I mean, I have a pretty good track record of it.”
“Fine. But in addition to the massive wedding, I want a baby shower like the one from Father of the Bride 2 , with the storks and everything.”
“That’s illegal in Washington state.” I kiss her. “But you will marry me eventually?”
“This isn’t exactly the proposal I was hoping for, but honestly, I’ve had worse. So yes, I accept!”
I scowl at her. “This isn’t me asking you to marry me, Cupcake. I’ll do better than that when I ask you to be my bride.”
“No!” Jenna squeaks. “Engage me now! Where are the rings?” She pats around on the bed.
I jerk back when a chicken appears out of the covers and gives me the evil eye.
“Jenna…” I point.
“ No. ”
The chicken is making a weird hacking noise.
“I didn’t want to bring it up because I know how you are about nice things, but that was a very expensive diamond ring.”
“Edwina.” Jenna shakes her head. “It will make its way through,” she tells herself. “It’s the circle of life.”
“You don’t sound like a girl who’s grown up on a farm.”
“Our farm is a hobby farm at best.”
“I don’t know. That was a hell of a zucchini crop.”
I peer at the bird. “I have a knife in my boot. I can get that ring out and make you a pretty decent roast chicken.”
“Edwina is a family member. I can be patient.”
“Oookay.”
“It’s for the best that we’re holding off. I have to go shove garlic, crystals, and other bits and bobs up my snatch this weekend.”
“Cupcake…”
“In the middle of nowhere,” she adds.
“It’s going to be cold.”
“Great. It’s a nudie retreat.” She waits a beat. “Aren’t you going to offer to send me and my mom on a fancy all-expenses-paid retreat to Sri Lanka or something?”
“I respect you too much to offer that.”
“Right.” She sighs, looking up at the leaky ceiling. Water drips onto her nose.
“Can I at least please take you back to my penthouse before we all get bird flu?”
“You know what?” She throws back the covers. “Yes. Yes, I will trade sex for a place to stay. Come on, Edwina. We need to get that ring out.”
There are voices out through the curtain that leads to the kitchen .
“Yeah, we have to get out of here.”
Truman and Buddy are playing a slow game of chase, and they bound into Jenna’s bedroom, barking and scattering the chickens.
“No, no, no! Edwina! Edwina! ” Jenna screams, chasing after the dogs and Edwina, who has made a break for freedom through the sliding door that was left open a crack.
“Jenna.” I curse then curse again as several wrinkled faces appear in the doorway.
Granny Mavis looks me up and down appreciatively. “You coming to the nude bachelorette retreat?”
“No!” Jenna yells from outside. “Stop flirting with my almost-fiancé and help me catch this bird.”
“brB, gorgeous.” Granny Mavis winks. “Gonna go get my shotgun.”