Jess
This would happen to me.
I would finally land an interview at one of the top wedding planning firms in the city and then wake up on the morning of the interview sick as a dog.
I would go to the interview anyway, hoping they couldn’t tell, only to be looked at with wide, bulgy, don’t come too close to me eyes.
I would have what otherwise would have been considered the best interview of my life… and then promptly sneeze and send snot flying into my hand without a tissue anywhere in the room.
Just the memory of my interview this afternoon has me groaning again, and I roll over in bed, sniffling and peeking out from the burial ground I’ve made with my sheets and comforter. I’m completely burritoed up, save for my eyes, and the hand holding my phone as I scroll through social media.
There’s nothing worse than when you’ve already had a bad day and you scroll through your newsfeed only to discover that everyone else is just out living their best life.
I’m engaged!
I got a new job!
I spent my day on a boat!
Well, good for fucking you.
With a resentful sigh, I pull up the add a post tab and snap a picture of me under the covers with my red, puffy eyes and raw nose. I flip the camera off for good measure, and then post it with the caption being sick sucks.
So original, Jess.
I don’t feel any better once it’s posted, even with the flurry of hearts that come in and the waterfall of feel better comments.
Probably because I know every single one of those people commenting couldn’t care less about me in actuality.
I’m just another stop on their social media tour, a quick like and obligatory comment, and then they’re moving on and I’m forgotten.
Wow, I really am in a sour mood tonight.
A huff of a breath leaves my chest as I scroll a few more times. “Just put the phone down, Jess, and go to bed,” I say to myself, and I’m on track to do just that when the little notification lights up in my messages.
When I click them, my heart freezes at the sight of Jarrett’s name.
I swallow, opening the message like it’s a highly flammable tank of gasoline and I’ve got a match in my hand.
He sent me a link to my post, and then underneath it, there’s just one simple word.
Soup?
My heart picks up its pace from a trot to a gallop, and with a groan, I sit up in bed, staring at his message with two opposing thoughts warring in my head.
No, I should not hang out with my ex-boyfriend.
Well, I’m sick, it’s not like I’m going to do anything sexy right now, no matter who’s around.
Kade wouldn’t like it.
Kade said he’s fine with us being friends.
Kade would be here with you if he could be.
But he’s not.
It’s Jarrett.
It’s just Jarrett, and besides, soup does sound really good…
That last thought wins out, and I type out a response before throwing my phone across the room like it’s a bomb about to go off.
Part of me thinks he won’t even really come. I hear my phone buzz across the room and imagine that he said something along the lines of ha ha, wish I could, feel better. He’s probably out with his friends. He doesn’t have time to bring soup to a friend.
But the other, louder part of me reminds me that Jarrett is nothing if not a man of his word.
It’s only a half hour later that my phone rings, and the front desk tells me I have a visitor.
“Shit!” I mutter after telling them to send him up and hanging up the phone. I jump up out of bed with my body aching, and then I’m in front of my mirror, staring at the absolute wreck of my reflections. “Double shit.”
My half-ass attempt to tame my hair and make myself not look disgusting is subpar at best, but it’s all I’ve got time for before there’s a knock at the front door.
I make my way down the hall, and when I answer the door, Jarrett stands on the other side of it looking like trouble with a capital T.
A cool front whipped through South Florida tonight — probably the last we’ll have, now that we’ve tiptoed into the first day of March.
And thanks to that, Jarrett’s bald head is covered with a black and gray beanie, his tattooed arms shielded by a well-fitted leather jacket, and the dark jeans he’s paired it with hug him in all the right places.
Which means I’m thinking all the wrong things.
To top it all off, he’s got bags full of groceries hanging from his arms and a too-sexy-for-his-own-good smile spreading over his perfect lips.
Jesus Christ, I’m screwed.
Jarrett’s eyebrow arches as he takes in the sight of me, and then with that sexy grin still intact, he says, “You look like shit.”
I breathe out a laugh as I hold the door open wider, signaling for him to come in. “I feel even worse.”
“Symptoms?”
“Congested. Sore throat. Body aches.” I sniff on cue when the door shuts behind us. “Generally, feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”
“Sounds like a virus, alright,” Jarrett says, already unpacking the groceries he brought. “Have you taken any meds?”
“Yeah.”
His pointed look tells me he doesn’t believe me, and when he tosses some cold medicine my way, I laugh.
“Why did you ask when you already knew the answer?”
“Wanted to see if you were still a shit liar.”
We share a smile as he continues unpacking the groceries, and I open the medicine he brought, popping two of the nighttime pills.
Jarrett whistles as he looks around the condo. “This is a sweet pad. You live here by yourself?”
“Erin and Ashlei live here, too. They’re both out tonight, though — Erin is with her study group, and Ashlei is at the pole studio working on her routine for competition.
She said they’ll probably all go out after…
” I shake my head, taking a seat at one of the barstools at the kitchen island.
“Must be nice to not be snotting involuntarily.”
Jarrett laughs. “Honestly, I’m just surprised you posted about your situation. Last time I found out you were sick, it was a very different situation.”
He cocks a brow as I hold up my hands. “Hey, I didn’t want the dude I had major hots for seeing me all disgusting, okay?”
“You also didn’t want to admit that you were falling for me.”
“Shut up and make me soup.”
The laugh that bubbles out of his chest is like music to my ears, a long-forgotten sound that warms my heart like a hot cup of tea. I swallow down the knot building in my throat as I watch him work.
And then like not a day has even passed, we slip into easy conversation.
It’s the strangest thing, watching Jarrett Locke work in my kitchen like it’s his own.
He strips out of his leather jacket and takes the beanie off his head, and I try to ignore the way it makes my stomach tighten to see his biceps practically bulging out of the white thermal he’s wearing as he slices and mixes and cooks.
But he seems so relaxed and comfortable that before I know it, I feel the same way.
I ask him about his new tattoos, the ones lining his arms that weren’t there the last time we were together, and smile when he tells me how he got the one of the American-style fish to remind him to go with the flow.
He asks me how the job hunt is going, and I fill him in on my latest embarrassment, making him laugh so hard he has to pause his work in the kitchen to brace his hands on his knees.
Back and forth, question after question, we catch up like two old friends.
We talk about school and work, I catch him up on the girls while he fills me in on his work at the Miami branch of the nonprofit so far.
We even talk about me and Kade, and he tells me about his short stint dating a girl in Manhattan who turned out to be on the run from a grand theft she’d committed in Nebraska.
He’d been in her apartment when they found and arrested her.
The later it gets, the more the cold medicine swims through my system like a tall glass of whiskey. I feel my eyelids getting heavier, my words harder to get out.
“Mmm,” I say when we’re finally sitting on the couch with a bowl of soup in each of our hands. “Seriously, this is the best soup recipe in the world.”
“It’s about the only thing I know how to cook well, so thank you.”
I smile, sipping on the creamy potato broth. “It’s your mom’s recipe, right?”
Something passes over him, and he pauses where his spoon is lifted, taking a breath before he answers. “It is.”
“I remember the first time you made it for me, and you told me the story…” I frown, stirring my spoon in the soup. “Why didn’t you tell me back then that you had brothers?”
I can see it happening, as if in slow motion, all the warmth draining from him, the gates closing, walls going up. He shrugs. “Didn’t think it was pertinent information at the time.”
“Okay,” I concede, because at that point, we hadn’t even defined what we were. “But even after we were officially dating… you never told me… I always assumed you were an only child.”
“My family life is complicated,” he says, lifting his eyes to mine.
“My dad is a piece of shit and an addict. My mom died when I was young. I don’t have a good relationship with either one of my brothers.
” He sighs, staring down at the soup in his hands.
“And if I’m being honest, I’ve tried my whole life to grow outside of who I was in that family, to leave that shit behind, and I didn’t want it to be part of my story when it came to you. ”
My heart squeezes painfully in my chest. I know enough to know I’m fortunate to have grown up the way I did, with money and parents who gave a shit.
College was the first time I woke up to the fact that not everyone has those luxuries.
Hell, I used to give Skyler shit for playing poker all the time instead of partying with us, until I found out her situation.
I reach over and squeeze Jarrett’s wrist, and when I do, a shiver rolls through me that I hope he can’t see. “I get it,” I say with an understanding smile. Then, I lean in to whisper, “You just wanted me to focus on the tattoos and general badassery, instead.”
“Damn straight,” he says, and I feel him lighten with the tease. “These tattoos are my armor.”
I chuckle, but as Jarrett takes another bite of soup, a yawn rips through me, so long and strong it makes my eyes water and sends another shutter through me.
Jarrett smirks. “I think someone’s ready for bed.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Tell me what else you’ve been up to.”
He chuckles, setting his soup aside and standing. He reaches his hand down for mine. “There will be plenty of time to catch up. Right now, you need rest.”
I just stare at his hand for the longest time, like it’s a wire that I’m not sure is safe to touch or will blow me to smithereens.
“Come on,” he ushers, wiggling his fingers.
So, I set my nearly empty bowl aside, slipping my hand into his, and do my best to fend off the blush that heats my cheeks as he pulls me to stand.
Even though he’s the one guiding me, I have to tell him which room is mine.
He helps me get into bed, and then turns down all the lights, save for the lamp by my bed.
I have the corner room, the one with the floor-to-ceiling windows lining two walls, so the city lights stream in even when Jarrett turns off the lamp.
He’s sitting on the edge of my bed, helping me pull the comforter up to my chin, and he smiles when I’m settled. “I think those meds are knocking you out.”
“I feel loopy,” I say with another yawn.
“Good. Hopefully you’ll get a good night’s rest.”
Maybe it’s the medicine. Maybe it’s the virus. Maybe it’s the way the lights streaming in from the windows remind me of the way Jarrett looked every time we’d video chat when he lived in the city. Whatever the reason, there’s no way to stop the question that tumbles from my lips.
“Jarrett,” I whisper.
“Yes?”
“Why did you break up with me?”
The breath he inhales is stiff, and he looks away from me, out the window. I expect him to say we shouldn’t talk about it, that I should get some sleep, but instead, he answers with brutal honesty.
“Because I was a fucking idiot.”
The words slam into my chest like an anvil, and I roll my lips together, forcing a swallow and waiting for him to continue.
“I let other people get inside my head. I was just… I was so impressionable, this new fish in the big city, and I thought everyone else knew better than I did. When I told my team about how you were reacting to me working with Jenny, not a single person said you had a right to be upset, that long distance was hard, that I was doing a shit job of being a good boyfriend from afar.” His eyes find mine. “Which I was, for the record.”
I sigh. “No, you weren’t, Jarrett. I was young and sus—”
“Normal,” he finishes for me. “You were asking the exact questions I would have been asking in the reverse. But I was so fucking stressed out. We were working all the time, and I forgot I had a life outside of that office, outside of those people. So, when they started talking about how you were young and jealous, how I’d outgrown you…
I listened. And they were with me the night I saw that post of you and Greg.
They hyped me up, saying how childish it was, how you were playing games and I was above it all and I just…
I don’t know. Something inside me snapped. ”
“Nothing happened with Greg,” I assure him. “At least… not that night. Not until well after we’d broken up. And even then, it was just a temporary… thing.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation. I know you didn’t do anything with him that night. But I think, in a way, I also knew that I couldn’t be what you needed. Not at that time in my life. So, I just…” He inhales another stiff breath. “I let you go.”
God, I wish I hadn’t taken that cold medicine, because I’m so fucking drowsy I can’t even convince myself that I’m not dreaming all of this.
Jarrett brushes my hair off my forehead, his eyes searching mine in the low light coming in from the city. “Get some rest, Jess.”
“Wait,” I say, reaching for him. “Don’t go. Not yet.”
He smiles, and I don’t miss the way his next swallow is strained. “I’ll wait until you’re asleep, okay?”
I nod, and then, even though I have a million questions racing through my mind, I succumb to the drowsiness slowly pulling me under.
And I feel him there beside me, staying just like he promised he would.
Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe the medicine is still making me loopy. But I swear it’s not long after sleep takes me that I feel Jarrett lower his lips to press a kiss to my forehead.
But I can’t quite make out what he whispers in my ear before he goes.