Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
T he alarm on Penny’s cell beeped, reminding her she had a dress-fitting to get to. Yet she stood there staring at the door, mouth wide open like some kind of surprised cartoon goldfish. She had to be sleeping. That was the only reasonable explanation for what had just happened. Because no way in hell had BJ dropped by her place and casually proposed they have sex with each other.
Okay, so it hadn’t been all that casual. In fact, the man had a pretty solid reasoning behind his request. And it had been a request. A genuine one she could turn down with no fear of losing his friendship or his agreement to help her. Because she knew him. She also knew if he would have stayed any longer, she would have been willing to strip naked and jump him at the snap of his fingers.
Her body hummed with awareness, nipples hard and tight, beginning to be touched. One kiss from BJ and her brain disengaged, female hormones completely taking over. He wouldn’t have even had to ask. Two more seconds of that kiss and she would have been demanding he take her.
But he left.
Because he knew her. Knew she needed time to process. Time to reason this out.
“Dammit!” Did he have to be so dang wonderful on top of all the sexiness? It wasn’t fair. How was she supposed to resist all that?
Don’t resist. Go for it!
Her libido needed to calm down. It had been too long since she’d been intimate with a man. That’s all this was. She needed an orgasm that wasn’t self-achieved, and BJ just happened to be the only available man in her vicinity.
That explains you jumping him, but not him willing to jump you right back.
Okay, fair point. Her best friend had never shown any inclination to get down and dirty with her. Why now? Was it the whole baby thing? Maybe. He pointed out that they made a good team and she also had to give him credit for the money saving option of his plan. Not that she needed to desperately save. She’d planned everything out, accounted for a few tries as her doctor suggested. But it would be nice to put that cash toward the baby. Maybe start the college fund early.
His idea wasn’t totally irrational. Except for the part where she and her best friend had sex!
Her alarm chirped again, reminding her she had to leave now if she wanted to make it to the dress shop on time. Grabbing her purse, she hightailed it out of her apartment to her car. Kismet had many tourist-type clothing boutiques but zero bridal shops. Cassie had chosen one in Denver. Thankfully, traffic on I-70 was light. Rush hour at this time of day headed away from the city, not into it. She made it just in time for the appointment.
After parking her car in the small lot, she hurried inside the shop, relieved to see Cassie and Charlie already seated on a plush couch.
“Penny,” Cassie smiled, standing as she came over to them. “I’m so excited you’re here.”
Yeah right. More likely, the woman was excited to get married. She liked Cassie, but it wasn’t like they were close. Unfortunately, Penny didn’t fit in with most people. But they’d known each other for years and were connected through the Jackson family. When Cassie asked her to be a bridesmaid, she couldn’t say no.
Secretly, she’d been thrilled. She’d never been a bridesmaid, not even for her own sister’s wedding. In truth, she never thought she’d get the opportunity. With Cassie and Charlie, she could almost pretend she had girlfriends. It felt nice, even if it was mostly pretend.
“Hey, Penny.” Charlie waved from her seat on the couch. “Ready to try on our potato sacks?”
Cassie scowled. “You said you liked the dresses.”
“Of course I did. Because I’m your best friend and maid of honor and you said you loved them. It’s my job to lie and pretend I love dressing up in blue taffeta.”
“It’s a poly-cotton blend. Not taffeta. What the heck even is taffeta?”
“Hell, according to my mother.”
Penny stifled a chuckle, listening to the two women banter back and forth. A slight ache grew in her chest. She loved being best friends with BJ, but sometimes the fact that he was a man. and she was a woman came into very stark contrast in their friendship.
Yeah, like when he suggests you sleep together.
Dang it! Now she was thinking about that again. Stupid brain. She needed to talk to someone about this whole situation. Problem was, she would normally talk to her best friend. But he was the situation!
“Besides,” Charlie continued, rising from her seat to come over and wrap an arm around Cassie. “You’re the bride. It’s your day. You will be the most beautiful woman in the world and the rest of us are supposed to look like cat puke.”
Lovely visual image there. She didn’t think the dresses were that bad. In fact, she kind of liked hers. The pale blue color accented her fair skin tone without drawing attention to her orange mop of hair like darker blues did.
“But I don’t want you to look like cat puke. That will ruin the pictures.”
“You can always Photoshop new dresses on top of us. Or replace us completely with actual cats. It’ll go great with the cat toss.” Two sets of eyes turned to stare at her. “It’s…um, a thing on the web. This older meme where people remove the flowers in the bouquet toss picture and replacing it with a cat.”
Oh crap, she’d done it again. Opened her mouth and spouted out something only she and a bunch of dudes living in their mom’s basement would find funny.
“Did—did you just make a joke?” Charlie’s lips twitched with amusement.
“Uh, yeah. Kind of.”
“BJ always tells us you’re funny, but I never believed it ‘til now.”
BJ told his family she was funny? Why did that make her heart warm and her cheeks heat?
“Do people really do that?”
She nodded at Cassie’s question.
“Holy shit, you have to show me. That sounds hilarious!”
The two women crowded around her, each grabbing an elbow and dragging her to the sofa. They all sat while Penny removed her laptop from her purse. She never left home without it. They were in the middle of laughing at dozens of cat-tossing memes when a woman in a black pencil skirt, crisp white tailored button-up and three-inch heels came into the room wheeling a dress rack behind her.
“Here we are, ladies. The final adjustments have been made. They should fit perfectly, but if they don’t, we can do some last-minute adjustments. Let me know how they fit. Once you give the okay, Ms. Brown, we’ll have them steamed and ready for your wedding.”
“Thank you, Missy.”
Missy nodded, a smile on her face, and left them to it. They were in a small private room. One dressing partition stood in the room's corner. Charlie stood, stripping out of her black T-shirt with the phrase “I don’t smile, I bite” written on it. The woman had been raised with three brothers and wasn’t shy when it came to…anything, really. Charlie was a badass Penny secretly looked up to. She wished she had the confidence and screw-off attitude Charlie possessed.
Not as comfortable undressing in front of others, Penny took her garment behind the partition and changed. The bridesmaid dresses were cocktail length, hitting right above the knee. Hers went over one shoulder and had beautiful fabric flowers cascading down the strap. It tucked at the waist and flared out a bit in the skirt. Overall, it was comfortable and pretty. She would have to wear a strapless bra with it, but since the dress had padding in the cups, she might forgo the bra entirely. Not like she really needed one.
As she came out from behind the partition, she saw Cassie smacking Charlie’s hand away as the woman tugged at the bodice of her own dress. Charlie’s was completely strapless. Something Penny could never pull off, considering she had nothing to hold up a strapless dress. Charlie had plenty.
“Stop tugging at it.”
“It’s squishing my boobs. The boys can’t breathe!”
“Who the hell makes their breasts guys?” Cassie sighed.
“I do. They’re big, annoying, always getting in my way, and making life difficult. Hence, guys.”
A laugh escaped her. She couldn’t help it. BJ’s sister was funny, in a grumpy I-hate-the-world kind of way. Cassie turned to look at her and gasped. A hand covered the bride-to-be’s mouth, tears gathering in her eyes.
“Oh Penny, you look beautiful.”
Really? She’d say she looked okay or not bad, but far be it from her to argue with a woman who was about to get married.
“Thank you. I think the dresses are lovely.”
“Suck up,” Charlie muttered.
“Ohmigod, I can’t believe I’m getting married to Del in less than a week.” Cassie fanned at her eyes as they watered.
“Sweetie, none of us can believe you’re marrying my numbnuts brother.”
“Actually, I rather like his nuts.”
“Ew! Gross, TMI. Never say that again!” Charlie made a gagging sound. “Oh shit, now I have to scrub out my brain with bleach.”
Cassie winked, and Penny couldn’t help but laugh. These women were a lot of fun. They’d hung out here and there over the years, but never alone. BJ and the other Jackson brothers were usually present. She’d never gotten a chance to interact with the women without the men around. It was nice.
“You’re just mad because you’re not getting any.”
“I’m on a guy break. After Dipshit, I’m done with men.”
She had no idea who Cassie was talking about, but if she had to guess, she’d bet it was her last boyfriend. Whom she broke up with months ago. BJ really hadn’t liked the guy. From all she’d heard about him, Penny didn’t either.
“Not all men are as bad as Brad.”
The women chatted about men and relationships. Penny stood still and let Cassie walk around her, glancing at the dress from all angles to make sure it was to the bride’s liking. She really wanted to do well with this whole bridesmaid thing. Now that she finally had a small in into a woman’s circle, she didn’t want to do anything to rock the boat. She discovered she enjoyed having female companionship. Even if it was mostly surface.
So why the hell she opened her mouth to ask her next question was beyond her.
“Have either of you ever mixed sex with friendship?”
Both women stood stone still. She glanced at them, realizing her mistake too late. Oh no! Two sets of eyes gazed at her with speculation. Had she really asked about having sex with a friend? Because both women knew she only had one male friend. And one of them was related to him.
Crap on toast!
“Are you asking if we’ve ever had a friends-with-benefits type of relationship?” Charlie raised one brow, but bless her, did not call Penny out on her obvious insinuation.
“Um, uh, yes. I-I was wondering if…if it ever works out.” At their continued silence, she stumbled on. “The having sex and maintaining a friendship…thing.”
Oh shoot, this was worse than awful. She’d just formed a friendship with these women and now she’d ruined it by basically asking Charlie what she thought about Penny boning her brother. Stay cool. She doesn’t know it’s about BJ. Yeah right, who the heck else would it be about?
“Well,” Charlie said, carefully unzipping her dress and dropping it to the floor. Cassie huffed and grabbed it, quickly putting it back on the hanger. “I’ve only had one of those. It was with this guy I went to college with. We both were super busy with classes and stuff. We didn’t have time for a relationship, but we still had needs, ya know?”
She did indeed. At least, as of late.
“We had a mutual agreement. Worked out great for a while, then we stopped when he found a woman he wanted to seriously date.”
“And that didn’t bother you?”
She shrugged. “Naw. We didn’t have deep feelings for each other. But we didn’t really stay in touch after that either. No hard feelings. We were more casual acquaintances than close friends.”
Charlie’s head tilted, pale blue eyes—the same color as BJ’s—stared intently at her.
“I’d imagine it would be a lot more complicated if the two were, say, best friends and tried to add sex to the mix. Might get messy.”
Yeah, that’s what she was afraid of.
“I had a friends-with-benefits guy once.” Cassie reached out to grasp Penny’s hand in her own. “It started out all fun and, well, more fun, but then things got complicated when we realized the fun had turned into something more.”
“What happened?” She realized she was holding her breath, waiting for the answer of impending doom, a horrible break in the friendship, a colossal mistake that could never be taken back.
A wide smile graced the future bride’s face. “I’m marrying him this weekend.”
Well, crap! That was even worse. BJ didn’t want to get married. She highly doubted their relationship would go in that direction and she didn’t want it to go the opposite way into weird awkwardness once they stopped sleeping together.
“Marriage is…big,” she said.
“Sex is big,” Cassie replied.
Charlie snorted. “Not if it’s meaningless.”
Cassie sighed. “Charlie, sweetie, I love you, but you are not as big a ho as you want people to think.”
“Am too.”
“Remember I know you. You’re a big ol’ softie on the inside.”
“You take that back, you evil witch.”
She chuckled, the women’s teasing easing some of the rising panic inside her.
“Seriously, Penny,” Cassie said, focusing on her again. “Think long and hard about the outcome you want before you jump into bed with anyone. Because sex changes things.”
“Yeah,” Charlie came over to her side—fully clothed again—slinging an arm around her shoulders. “You can never be sure if a guy is a prince or a frog until you kiss him.”
BJ wasn’t a frog or a prince. The way he kissed…the man was a god.
“And you never know if a guy will stick until you bone him.”
“Lovely, Charlie.” Cassie frowned.
“Blunt, but true.”
BJ would stick. He had to. They would have a child together. They weren’t getting married or anything, but he would be in her life, in her child’s life. He’d be there. Right? He had to be. He always had been. Since she’d been an awkward, shy fourteen-year-old in need of a friend. He wouldn’t abandon her after they…went there. Would he?
No.
She knew BJ. He wouldn’t do that to her. He’d stick. They could have their sex and friendship too. She was sure of it.
Mostly sure.
Eighty percent sure.
Two to three odds in her favor.
She smiled. Thankfully, the women let the matter drop. Cassie deemed the dresses ready for the wedding. Bridesmaid duties done for the moment. Penny changed back into her clothes. The dress shop promised to have the dresses cleaned and steamed and ready for pickup the following day. Cassie and Charlie invited her to dinner with them in the city, but she declined with a promise of a rain check. Tonight, she had work to do.
As she drove back to Kismet, she made a mental list in her head. One she planned to chart out, graph, and detail until she came to the most logical conclusion. The only problem was, in matters like this…logic rarely held any weight.