Chapter 19
Jasper
Jasper: Bad roads. Brake issues. Spending the night in a town called Blisswater Springs.
Harvey: Do you win a prize for using as few words as possible? You guys okay? Can you elaborate?
Jasper: I’ll call you from the hotel. We’re all good. Safe. You don’t need to worry.
Harvey: Come on. Give me something. One bed or two?
Jasper: Talk to you later.
T he tips of my fingers are tingling as intensely as the rest of my body. Sloane is silent and introspective beside me. When I got back into the truck, she stared at me with comically wide eyes, pressing her lips together either to hide a smile or to keep from saying something.
We’re safely back on the highway. The wiring is firmly in place with the connector, and I’m finding it easier to breathe—unless I think too hard about Sloane writhing in my lap, her ass grinding against my cock.
I’m still stopping at the closest mechanic to have the brake connector checked because that shouldn’t have come loose at all. According to Google, that means we’re spending some time in a town called Blisswater Springs.
“Are we just not going to talk anymore?” Sloane blurts, cutting the silence. “Like, I know you’re generally not a big talker. But can we not be awkward about the...” Her hand flaps around in front of her.
“About the kiss?”
“Yeah. It was a stressful moment. A moment of insanity. We can be cool about it.”
I’ve thought about kissing Sloane for a long time now, whether or not I’ve wanted to admit it to myself.
In fact, she almost took the last name Woodcock for the rest of her life because I’ve spent so long thinking rather than doing anything about it.
This might not be the perfect moment for me to figure out my shit where Sloane Winthrop is concerned, but it is a moment.
And if I’ve figured out anything in this Shakespearean tragedy of a life, it’s that life is just moments all strung together like multicolor Christmas lights.
You always end up liking some colors better than others.
Joyful, tragic, peaceful, funny. Unforgettable moments, and moments we wish we could forget.
And kissing Sloane in this truck is not one of those. It’s a moment I fully intend to hang onto. In the past, I was told to stay away from her. In the past, I cared about that warning.
In this moment though? I don’t give a fuck.
“It wasn’t a moment of insanity,” I say matter-of-factly.
“Sorry?” She sounds incredulous.
“I definitely meant to kiss you.”
She scoffs, crossing her arms and turning beet red. “You were barely responsive mere seconds beforehand. You were in shock, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t need you to believe me for it to be true.”
I don’t know why after years of keeping my mouth shut, I’m now blurting this all out.
Most likely, it’s because I saw our lives flash before my eyes back there.
When I looked over at Sloane beside me and saw her beautiful blue eyes clamped shut, fingers gripping the seat, shoulders scrunched up to her ears, I realized it could be my last moment with her.
My last moment and she would never know what she is to me. How much she is to me. That she’s it for me. And that’s just fucking insane. Like a waste. Like for a man who knows loss so intimately, why would I ever set myself up to lose something so precious?
I think that’s the realization that hit me at the dinner where I watched Sloane sit beside a man who talked over her every chance he got. She was about to marry a piece of human chauvinist garbage, but she could have had me—if she wanted me.
If I’d just told her.
And she didn’t know because I was too stuck in my own head to tell her. Too paralyzed by my fear of losing people I care about. Of losing her .
But fuck, losing someone and having them not know that you care about them? Wishing you could go back and tell them?
That’s a special hell. One I have no intention of living in because I’ve given my demons enough of myself already—they can’t have her too.
“I just almost married someone else.”
I nod brusquely, glancing over at her. She looks pissed , which is not the reaction I expected. But then, so am I. Because the mere mention of her marrying someone sends me into a hot, simmering rage so unlike me I don’t even know what to do with it.
“Yeah. That would have been a shame because he really fucking sucks.”
“Ha! Un-fucking-believable.” Her jaw pops, and she stares out the passenger window. “I’ve known you for what? Eighteen years? Almost half your life? And this...this feeling is just occurring to you now? ”
A humorless laugh bubbles up out of her and she shakes her head.
“Someone else came to play in your sandbox and you got all territorial after years of not giving me a second look? Love that for me. I’m not a fire hydrant for you to piss on, Jasper.
” Her hands shoot up beside her head. “Like...I’m supposed to buy that you’ve just had some sort of awakening and your childhood friend is suddenly hella kissable these days?
God. That’s hilarious. If I didn’t like you so much, I’d kick you in the balls for this. ”
I should be worried, but all I can think is there she is . The firecracker girl. The prima ballerina who trains her ass off and drinks cheap beer like it’s fine wine.
I tell her the truth, eyes on the road. “It’s not just occurring to me now.”
She rolls her eyes, shimmying her shoulders up taller, as if straightening in her seat might make her feel less vulnerable.
“It’s true.” I wish the roads were better so I could give her my full attention and look her in the eye.
Wipe that petulant expression off her face and kiss her again.
Make her believe me. Because I know I haven’t been imagining these moments between us.
The ones where the air grows so heavy that it feels like more than I can bear.
“I don’t believe you,” she repeats, but this time her voice is a little hoarse.
“You kissed me back,” I say right as I’m hit with the sickening thought that maybe I’m out to lunch. Maybe this is all very one-sided and I’ve gone horribly offtrack. After all, my experience with women in any capacity beyond sex is nonexistent.
Except for Sunny. She’s the girl I tell everything. The girl who was always there on my worst days and darkest nights. Not because I asked her to be, but just because that’s what we are to each other.
It doesn’t matter how many years have passed. We’ll always be that to each other.
“No shit.” She’s crossed her arms over her ribs again, and my eyes trail over the way it props her breasts up. The tingle in my fingers is now an itch to explore every inch of her body, to show her all the ways I want her.
Fuck, I want her.
Sloane is soothing. She’s the eye of the storm. True North. Somehow our compasses always bring us back to each other.
When we stop at the first red light in Blisswater Springs, I turn in my seat and ask, “What’s that supposed to mean, Sloane?
I was there. Felt your thighs go all tight on me when I tugged your hair.
Heard you moan when I kissed you. Are we going to sit here and keep pretending that things don’t feel different between us now? ”
“They’ve always felt this way for me!” she explodes, arms flung wide, eyes shining with emotion. “And you’ve never noticed. But now you do? What am I supposed to do? Jump for joy and say thank you for blessing me with your interest?”
I pale, hands going clammy on the wheel.
I respond in a stream of consciousness, trying to explain myself in the wake of what she’s just said.
“I mean...we all knew you had a childhood crush. I was a teenager. But you were just a kid. And then you outgrew it. You had boyfriends and ballet. I had hockey and endless training. We became friends in the city. You got engaged .”
Her pale pink lips part like she’s about to say something, but quickly press back together.
She turns back to the windshield, eyes forced ahead so hard it almost looks painful.
The seconds stretch out and I’m certain she’s not going to respond to me.
And shit, that’s what I deserve for everything I just dumped on her.
But right as the light turns green, her sad voice hits me like a punch to the fucking gut.
“I never outgrew it, Jas.”
When I kissed her, I counted to four in my head. I told myself I’d give it four seconds, but she took more.
It was a moment of insanity.
Or maybe every moment where I tried to deny what I was feeling for her have been moments of insanity all strung together. Lights of all one color.
Does regret have a color?
“Check again,” Sloane says to the woman behind the front desk at the small resort-style hotel. “There has to be something.”
Listening to Sloane explain that we need separate rooms feels like her own moment of insanity. But I’ll let her have it.
Because I know Sloane. I know how she processes things.
What I didn’t know is her childhood crush never left. I should feel bad for never noticing. I should feel like an idiot. But I feel...relieved.
I see a chance. A glimmer of hope.
“Something with two beds at least? How about a rollaway cot? I’m almost child sized.” She gestures down at herself.
I stifle a chuckle and look out the window toward the parking lot, where snow is still falling heavily.
“We can have have a cot sent up, of course.” The woman at the desk smiles patiently, eyes bouncing between us curiously like she can’t quite figure out what’s going on.
“That will be fine,” Sloane forces out, a practiced smile on her face. Cool mask perfectly in place. Her bun is pulled up tight the way she likes it when she’s ready for a performance—or for battle.
That’s what she resorted to doing in the truck. She tugged down the visor and used the mirror to obsessively pull her hair back. It was never flat enough, or smooth enough, so she’d pull it out and do it all over again.