14. Jess
Jess
BANG. BANG. BANG.
I roll over in bed and moan, “noooooooo” into my pillow.
What is happening right now and why won’t it go away?
“Jess, wake up,” Conor calls.
Wait, what?
I bolt upright in bed. Where I check my surroundings to confirm that yes, I am in bed. And also that yes, I am alone. Conor’s voice is coming from the other side of my bedroom door. A door which he appears to be banging on for no good reason.
I’m a bit blurry on what happened last night. After I spilled the guts of my sad saga about being dumped (a saga longer and much less interesting than the Twilight Saga) and admitted my big, fat porkie-pie about being a house flipper, Conor had not run away screaming. Which was weird.
Instead, he’d laughed his head off and told me the job was still mine. Which makes me vaguely question his hiring skills, but so be it.
I have a job! Of sorts! I have no idea what I’ll actually be doing, because I know precisely zero about staging, or anything to do with house flipping.
Apart from what I’ve learned on TV, of course, which is that it’s pretty darn easy—your makeup always looks perfect, and you make squillions of dollars just to get divorced, remarry an English guy, then divorce him, too.
Then, the network gives you your own show that’s mostly about working out and driving up the coast in a convertible.
But somehow I don’t think that’s entirely accurate in real life.
Anyhow. We laughed, watched the movie, ate popcorn… and then, I’m pretty sure I fell asleep.
I have a vague memory of strong arms gathering me up and carrying me to bed. Gently laying me down and pulling the covers over me. And then—unless I was dreaming, which let’s face it, I may well have been—I seem to remember a hand tracing my cheek for just a moment.
That must have been a dream.
A very good dream at that.
“Jess, wake up!” Conor calls again. I glance at my phone—8:30. What does the man think he’s playing at? We didn’t fall asleep until late, this has got to be a sick joke.
“No, I’m sleeping!” I yell back, flopping into my sheet cocoon and burrowing like a little mole. A very tired mole.
“No, you’re not. You’re talking to me.”
“Nope, I’m sleep talking. I talk in my sleep.”
“Yeah, you do.” His voice softens fondly as he says this and my heart plummets into my stomach. Please, please, pleaseeeee for the love of all that is holy, tell me I didn’t sleep-talk to him last night.
I am a sleep talker. I’ve also been known to dabble in the occasional sleepwalking session.
As a child, I used to bring Aiden pieces of cheese in the middle of the night.
Like, literally steal cheese out of the fridge and bring it to my brother’s room like a thieving house mouse.
When I was twelve, my mother found me trying to walk out of the front door of our family home at 3am.
I had a fully packed suitcase in my hand, and apparently, I told her to eff off so I could go to LA to meet Oprah.
First of all, I never swear. Secondly, I have zero recollection of this as I was FAST ASLEEP at the time. But, somehow, I still got grounded for two weeks for using foul language.
So all bets are off when it comes to what on earth I could have said to Conor last night. Knowing my luck, it was probably something along the lines of “I had thirty-six cellulite dimples on my butt last time I counted” or “I want to eat your shirt.”
Conor raps on the door again, softer this time. “I have something to show you.”
My stomach drops. Something to show me?
“I mean, some where to show you,” he corrects with lightning speed. “A place to show you.”
I’m on my feet in an instant. I don’t care where he’s taking me. I just know that I want to go with him.
“Can you give me twenty minutes to shower?” I ask through the door. Then I get a glance of my reflection in the mirror. I have electric shock hair, a pillow crease on my cheek and I can smell my own gross morning breath. “Actually, can you make that thirty minutes?”
“You have ten minutes.” I can hear the teasing smile in his voice, and I roll my eyes at the memory of the last time we bartered over getting-ready time.
“Fifteen?” I try my luck, just like last time.
“Nine minutes, fifty seconds....”
Twenty-three minutes later, I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Conor’s truck, drinking a cup of coffee he made me.
My hair is in an unruly knot, and I dressed how Conor instructed: in something I didn’t mind wrecking (so, a t-shirt I stole from Aiden’s drawer and an ancient pair of black leggings that have a hole in the thigh).
Conor drives with the windows down and the radio up.
Soft country sounds and the scent of sweet honeysuckle fill the cab of the truck.
He has one big hand on the wheel, his darkly tanned arm taut with muscle, and the other dangling out the window.
I take in his profile greedily, along with the fitted t-shirt and the jeans that hug his butt (yes, I allowed myself a glance or three as I followed him out of the house earlier).
My gaze lingers on his backwards Brady Homes baseball cap and the line of stubble across that strong jaw.
His Ray Bans hide his gleaming green eyes.
Right now, he could say we were going on a tour of the local sewage treatment plant and I’d probably be down.
Those biceps are practically hypnotizing me, and for the first time, I’m allowing myself to give in.
After what happened last night, the way he hugged me, a girl’s allowed to look at her roommate’s biceps, right?
“Stop staring,” he says without taking his eyes off the road. How did he know?! “It’s not going to make me tell you.”
I flush, and in a fluster, take a huge gulp of hot coffee. The rich, dark liquid practically scorches my tongue and I yelp aloud.
Conor tilts his head. “Doing okay there?”
“Yes, yes, fine as—”
“A fine, fine, summer’s day?”
Oh, for goodness sake. Does this man have the memory of an elephant or what?
“Yes. That.” I nod my head staunchly. “And if you’re not telling me where we’re going, do I get a clue at least?”
“Nope.”
He’s way too smug right now, with his secrecy and using my own stupid quotes against me. I decide to try another tactic.
“Pleeeeeeaaaseeeee,” I wheedle.
“No!”
I reach out to tug his shirt like a kid who wants candy. He bats my hand away playfully.
I go in for a second tug. I’m just playing, goofing around. This is not at all an excuse to get near those perfect abs or anything, no way.
Conor laughs. “Okay, okay. One clue.”
Victory! I’m about to gloat when he says, “goggles.”
That stops me in my tracks. I blink. “Come again?”
“Goggles,” Conor says a second time.
What?
“That’s not a clue.”
“Sure is.” Conor takes his eyes off the road for a moment so he can turn and smirk at me.
I crinkle my nose. “Like swimming goggles? Ski goggles? … Night vision goggles?”
Conor laughs. “Something like that.”
He pulls off the main road and into a beautiful residential area. We’ve only been driving for a few minutes, we can’t be at our destination already?
Conor parks in the driveway of the sweetest single-storey ranch house I’ve ever seen.
The house has lemon-yellow siding, a slate roof and a huge, wraparound porch.
Lush greenery and flower beds surround the exterior, and there’s a huge white oak tree in the front yard with a wooden swing hanging from one, thick branch.
White shutters adorn the windows and the front door is London bus red—a perfect pop of color welcoming you to the most perfect little house.
“What are we doing here?” I say, a little breathless.
Conor smiles at my reaction. He pulls the keys out of the ignition, then takes off his sunglasses, giving me the full, blinding effects of that oh-so-green stare. “Come on, I’ll show you. Oh, and put this on.”
He reaches into the back of the truck, and pulls out an oversized red and blue flannel shirt. Before I can ask any more questions, he leaps out of the truck and walks towards the house, shrugging on a second flannel shirt as he goes.
I pause for a moment, and then put on the shirt. It’s massive on me, engulfing my body, and I roll up the sleeves at the cuffs. It has Conor’s clean laundry and pine scent, mingled with hints of sawdust and bleach.
Resisting the insane urge to just sit and inhale, I climb out of the truck and hurry after Conor, my short legs struggling to keep up with his long strides.
When I finally catch up, I defiantly hang back, walking a couple of steps behind him on purpose.
I don’t want to look too eager about his surprise.
And definitely not because I want to give that backside another appreciative glance.
What? I’m only human. It’s not like my admiring his muscled self means anything.
“Is this one of your flips?”
“Not exactly.” Conor climbs the steps to the porch and fishes a ring of keys out of his pocket. He unlocks the front door, then grins at me like a schoolboy, the dimple in his left cheek popping. He pushes the front door wide open, then gestures for me to go first. “This is my house.”
I stop dead in my tracks.
That was the last answer I expected.
This sweet, adorable ranch house belongs to Conor? I’m beyond enamored.
I’m charmed. Infatuated.
Enchanted.
And then, I step through the front door.
If the exterior of this house is the perfect combination of stylish and classic, homey and impressive, then the inside is... The polar opposite.
The walls are plastered with wallpaper that’s salmon pink. The ceilings are salmon pink. Geez Louise, even the window trim is salmon pink. Thick, shag pile carpet in—you guessed it—salmon pink, runs wall to wall. It even smells fishy in here. Like old cat food. Bleughh.
“Conor,” I stammer, my mind struggling for a compliment. What am I supposed to say to this? “Oh my gosh! It’s...”
Conor chuckles at my expression as he welcomes me into Fancy Feast headquarters. “It’s really something, isn’t it?”