Chapter 6
SIX
Elle
“THINK SEXY, ELLE! GIVE ME a look that says, You can look, Daddy Jesse, but you can’t toooouch.” Ruthie giggled. She clutched her instant camera like a professional photographer.
So many things were happening in my bedroom that I could barely focus on the task at hand. Operation Make Jesse Jizz His Pants was underway.
Jewel’s “Intuition” played throughout the room. My favorite voice on the planet comforted me while I posed on my bed. Attempted to anyway.
Sitting up on my bare knees and back on my heels, I used the insides of my arms to squeeze my tits together and force my cleavage higher. The white tank top stretching across my chest barely supported my large C cups, allowing small, hardened nipples to peek right through.
I was freshly showered, so my hair was dripping wet. Damp spots pooled and slid down the front of the thin fabric, clinging to my body like elastic wrap.
“I’m too embarrassed! Stop looking at me!” I demanded.
I was shy, but not usually in front of Ruthie. Shit, we’d gotten topless spray tans together and skinny-dipped numerous times. The photo session should have been shameless.
“First of all, how can I stop looking when I’m the one taking the picture?”
Point taken.
She continued, adjusting her standing position by the foot of my bed, “Second, you’re fucking hot, babe. The glistening skin, that girl-next-door smile—you’re every man’s wet dream! Maybe even mine because dayum!”
Embarrassment tangled with the peachy blush I’d stroked onto my cheekbones, giving me a little extra flush. I was never the confident one of our duo. Ruthie’s praise made my heart thump as if I were.
“Can I just close my eyes and visualize him for a second? Maybe it will help loosen me up.” My eyes shut before she could respond. I found Jesse’s face in my mind.
A strange thing had happened after Jesse left.
Whenever I envisioned his profile, the ocean eyes I loved so much had an overtone to them.
They looked mossier than I remembered, as if seaweed had overtaken their once-clear pools.
Before I reopened mine, I made a mental note to stare at his picture later and refresh my clouded memory because I never wanted to lose those eyes.
“Or perhaps our dear friend Mr. Tequila can assist?” Ruthie grabbed one of the two shots of liquid lust she’d purposefully staged on my footboard for the occasion and brought the short glass to my lips.
Hesitation advised me not to swallow her overpoured shot the night before my six a.m. shift at the coffee shop. My best friend’s desperate puppy-dog expression urged me to do it for Jesse. He’d asked me to include a few photos with my letters. Letting him down wasn’t an option.
An overstuffed envelope judged me from my desk across the room.
If we ever got the damn picture, I planned on sending it out with my fat stack of letters the next morning.
Imagining my boyfriend opening a week’s worth of my words, accompanied by images I knew would drive him wild, made me giddy.
As much as I craved Jesse’s words and missed his face, I was sure he needed mine even more.
Seemingly disappointed with my hesitation, Ruthie downed my shot like a drunk, unfazed sailor, barely batting an eyelash at the taste before reaching for the other glass and offering it to me again.
Fuck it.
I accepted her challenge and followed suit. Pursing my lips at the tequila that warmed my esophagus as it sloshed down my throat, I replied, “Did it smudge my lipstick?”
“You look perfect. Now stop overthinking this and look at the camera like you look at Jesse when he’s about to get you off!” The excitement in her voice rose, and the twinkle in my eyes fell. “What’s wrong?” Ruthie couldn’t conceal her wary expression.
“It’s nothing …” I trailed off.
“Liar.” Ruthie put her instant camera on the mattress and lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, leveling our eye contact.
She knew me too well.
“I feel bad admitting this … but I feel like Jesse’s better at making me come when he’s gone than when he’s here. Like it’s easier for me to think about him and pretend he’s touching me than when he’s actually touching me,” I confessed.
Since he’d been gone, I’d made myself come more times than he had in the last few months combined.
“What about the IUD? Didn’t it help?” Ruthie had high hopes for the recent introduction of birth control into our relationship. Higher than she should have.
“It helped him get off faster. He loves not having to use protection. But now I don’t even stand a chance with how quickly he can blow his load …”
Ruthie’s laughter erupted and sliced the tension like a blade.
Little bitch.
“Oh, Jesse … Mr. Perfect needs to step up his game if he expects you to marry his ass.” Her eyebrow rose, complementing her little dig.
“That’s the thing. He asked me to finish my grad program wherever he gets stationed, but he doesn’t make real promises.
Without a ring or a place to land my career when I graduate, I’m not sure I’m ready to uproot my life.
I mean, does he even care about my future?
My career? Or just his?” Frustration brought my hands to my eyes.
“Shit, babe, I didn’t know you were sitting with all this. I knew you guys had some bedroom issues, but I never took Jesse as the commitment-phobe, make-his-girl-chase-him type. Attached at the hip is an understatement for y’all. He’s obsessed with you.”
“If he wasn’t fully committed, he wouldn’t be writing to me, right?
” I asked. The worry softening my voice bubbled from the question.
“His letter was freaking perfect. It was sweet and loving, funny even. He makes me laugh and smile, and he even set up a romantic night on the beach before he left. College guys don’t do those things unless they’re in love.
We fit; there are just some loose pieces we’re trying to pop into place … ” I justified.
Was I justifying us to Ruthie or myself? Anxiety and alcohol curdled in my stomach.
“Is he helping you fit them together? Or are you the only one thinking of how to do that without giving up on your dreams?”
A single tear fell from the corner of my eye. I swatted at it to save the makeup we’d just worked so hard to perfect. No relationship was free of obstacles, and our time apart was not the right time to work on things.
My boyfriend—the man I loved—needed my support.
“All I can say is, no man is worth wasting twenty-five-dollar mascara on. Enjoy the pen-pal moment while it lasts, drive him crazy in your letters, and when you fly up for graduation, I’m sure the absence will help him realize how lucky he is to have you. If he’s your person, things will work out.”
“Yeah … yeah, you’re right. I’m sure they will,” I agreed, hoping he already knew.
“Now, sit back and let me snap the perfect shot of my sizzling hot best friend. We need Jesse’s eyes to pop out of his head when he gets this.”
After taking a moment to reinflate my confidence, I rearranged the still-soaked ends of my hair. Jesse liked it in front of my shoulders.
Focusing on the camera’s lens staring back at me, I flashed a glare and a smile that I prayed screamed, I’m yours. It was innocent and alluring, to the best of my ability.
Before it fell from Ruthie’s camera, I snagged the pic and shook it, allowing the air that revealed the image to tell me it was the quintessential shot for my man.
“Oh, hell yeah, it’s perfect! I’m a damn photographer!” My best friend glanced at it and agreed before taking a bow.
Tequila-powered, I walked to my desk and placed the photo inside the envelope that cradled three pages of my thoughts and commitment. Leaving myself with no time to change my mind, I licked the sticky strip closed, sealed the mail, and placed it in my backpack for send-off.
The mailbox would be my first stop on my way to work tomorrow morning.
There was no way I was letting Jesse forget how lucky he was.