Chapter 19 Jessie
Jessie
There’s something about Luke that’s different.
I can’t put my finger on it, but I can feel it.
For the last few weeks, he’s been different around me.
I don’t know when or how it happened, I only know that it did.
He doesn’t flinch when I try to get space from him.
The scared, on-the-edge-of-being-hurt look is gone.
It’s been replaced with a sureness that confuses the fuck out of me.
It’s like he can see straight through my bullshit.
Like it doesn’t bother him. Like it doesn’t apply to him the way it applies to other people.
It annoys the living shit out of me.
It also turns me on harder than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Our fucking is different, too. I’m holding back less. I don’t feel like I could break him at any minute. He lets me say and do things to him that I’ve never said or done to anyone. It’s not just that he lets me, it’s that he wants it. He burns for it as much as I do.
The other day I told him I was going to fuck him until my dick hurt. I wasn’t touching him. I was standing six feet away from him. We were alone in the kitchen in the main house. He was looking at me when I said it and when my words landed he moaned.
He fucking moaned.
He didn’t try to hide it or apologize for it.
He owned it. The sound he made moved around the room like oil in water.
Thick and heavy. It slid over me, coating me, spilling down my face and my chest, then down to my groin.
It was a strange sound. Exactly the same as the sounds he makes when I fuck him, but different because it sounded like it came from a different place.
The sounds he makes when I’m inside him come from his throat or his chest. This one didn’t.
It came from lower down. From his core. From something inside him. From his soul.
Jesus.
The sound came from his soul?
Am I fucking kidding?
What the hell is happening to me?
I guess the thing that’s more disconcerting than Luke being different, is the inescapable fact that I’m different too. There’s no getting around it, I’m being weird as fuck. I try to check myself all the time but every day I slip up.
“Jess, can you bring me some OJ when you come out?”
He’s outside in the pool and I wasn’t expecting to hear his voice. It startles me. It makes my heart beat three times in a period of time that strictly only requires two.
See?
Weird, huh?
He’s out of the water by the time I get outside.
He has a towel wrapped around his waist and still has water running down his neck from his hair being wet.
There are five other loungers free. All of them dry and spacious.
None of them have a big, wet, blond beefcake reclining on them.
I set his OJ down on the side table next to him and then I squeeze onto the lounger he’s on.
I lie on my side and throw an arm and a leg over him, burying my face in his neck as he wraps a cool arm around me.
Like I said, weird as fuck, right?
I find myself sinking into a warm place.
A safe place. He runs a big hand through my hair, combing his fingers through it and nuzzling his face against the top of my head.
After a while, I can’t tell if I’m feeling cool, or if he’s feeling warm.
I can’t tell where I end and he starts. I sigh into his chest and feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into something that makes me feel like my bones are bendy, and nothing can hurt me.
It slows my thoughts and makes me feel like all I’ve got to do is stay right here and everything will be okay.
Look, I don’t know what to tell you.
This cuddling shit makes me really, really fucking happy.
“Gould’s coming by.”
“What? When?”
Luke shows me his phone.
Gould: Your place 5 mins.
Gould has been avoiding us since the night at the club.
I thought it would bug the shit out of Luke to have someone he cares about being mad at him, but he’s taken it remarkably well.
He sent Gould a message the day after we went out and when he didn’t reply, he shrugged and said, “Guess he’ll get in touch when he’s ready. ”
Personally, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Gould-free time.
Can’t speak highly enough about it. I’m kind of bummed that he’s back, though I admit I’m microscopically interested in what he’s planning to say to Luke.
I hate drama in my own life, always have, but the same can’t be said for other people’s drama.
“Hey shitheads,” says Gould, crossing his arms and arranging his face into a self-satisfied smirk, “how’s it hanging?”
Shitheads?
That’s new. No more Lukey Pookie and getting Luke in a headlock?
Sign me the fuck up.
Luke makes nice with pleasantries and light banter. I hang back and observe. Gould’s smile is a little too bright and looks a little forced at the corners of his eyes. Luke seems genuinely happy to see him. His shoulders are relaxed and there’s no sign of tension written across any of his features.
“What’ve you been doing? Haven’t seen you for a while?” Seems like Gould’s decided to ignore the fact he’s the one who’s been scarce.
I look at Luke with interest. I’m intrigued to know how he’s planning on answering given that pretty much all we’ve done for the last two weeks is bone. Or recover from boning. Or get ready to bone again.
Luke shrugs one shoulder and says, “Eh, you know.”
“Ah, like that, is it?”
“Yep.”
The conversation is making me borderline uncomfortable, but I’m digging the unapologetic way Luke’s handling it.
“So are you two like a thing now? ‘Cause if you are, I hope you’ve thought it through. I hope it’s serious, ‘cause it’s going to cause a major headache for your mom and Greg if it goes tits up.
If it’s like some kind of…dalliance or something, it’s going to wind up being way more trouble than it’s worth. ”
“We haven’t exactly…” I start, but Luke cuts me off, using a voice that’s a hell of a lot more certain than the one I just used.
“It’s serious,” says Luke.
He says it plainly. With absolute certainty.
His tone is mild, but his face is set. His eyes are a sky of blue without so much as a hint of cloud.
His lips are soft and pink, puffy enough to make him look sweet.
The slant of his head is what does it. It gives the unmistakable impression that this man cannot be moved.
Jesus. The balls on this guy.
Momma’s boy sure knows how to handle his shit.
We start heading to the entertainment room to shoot some pool, but on the way there Luke turns and heads back to the kitchen to make one of his famous snack platters. It leaves Gould and I with no choice but to keep walking on our own. The exact opposite of my idea of a good time.
The tension in the room ratchets up almost immediately. We set up a game of pool and I break. When it’s Gould’s turn, he shoots with such force he hits a cue clean off the table.
“Easy,” I say.
He doesn’t answer but looks at me in a way that makes me wonder if today’s the day Gould and I come to blows. I can’t deny I’d love the opportunity to kick his ass. I’d enjoy every second of it. I kind of crave it, if I’m being totally honest.
I’m as surprised as he is to hear myself say, “If you have something to say to me, Gould, just say it. You’re going to upset Luke if you’re a dick about this.”
“I’m going to upset Luke? Oh, I think you’ve got that wrong. Luke’s my best friend. We’ve been friends since we were eight. I’d never do anything to upset him and even if I was dumb enough to try, I couldn’t. You’re the one who’s going to hurt him. You’re the only one who can.”
Luke walks in right then bearing a long wooden board laden with smoked meat and an assortment of cheese.
Gould changes the conversation seamlessly.
We both keep things light and neither of us talk about anything more serious than our next shot.
I focus a huge amount of my attention on keeping my eyebrows arched nice and high and trying to hide the fact that what Gould said hit me like a kick in the guts.
He stays for a couple of hours, long enough that the mood has time to shift from stilted and awkward back to the comfortable banter that feels normal for the three of us by the time he leaves.
“Well, that went well,” I say sarcastically as we wave him off.
“That’s Gould for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that’s what Gould’s like. He gets worked up about shit, but he gets over it and it’s like it never happened.”
Um, not exactly how I read the situation.
“You know he has a huge thing for you, right?”
“No, he has a thing for me, not a huge thing. That’s not how Gould works. It’s no big deal. He has a low level of interest in lots of people but believe me, he’s never lost sleep over anyone. It’s either not how he’s made, or he hasn’t met the right person yet.”
“I’m going with not how he’s made.”
Luke grins, “Fine, I’ll go with he hasn’t met the right person yet.”
We walk back to the guest house. The unspoken urgency to get back to the important matter of boning lengthens our strides.
“He’s wrong about you, Jess,” says Luke, without breaking his step.
“Who’s wrong about what?” I admit, the aforementioned urgency to bone may be disrupting my processing skills.
“Gould. He’s wrong about you. You’re not going to hurt me.”
The conversation has shifted into something a lot more serious than I was expecting.
I feel ill-equipped to deal with it right now.
It makes me feel like something inside me is pinching.
I’m partially furious with Gould for being enough of a dick to say something like that to me but mainly, I’m furious with him for being right.
“He’s not wrong. I’m not going to try to hurt you but, I mean, how do you see this playing out? You’re nineteen and I’m twenty. What do you think’s going to happen? We just live happily ever after?
“Yeah. Pretty much, actually.”
Well, fuck me sideways.
That doesn’t even sound like the worst idea I’ve ever heard.