Chapter 9
After the meeting is over I’m dying to talk to Jesse alone, but Mike—gifted with the excellent timing of a finance bro who buys a bunch of stocks the day before a market crash—asks me to help him pick a gift from his cousin’s wedding registry.
When we’re done scrolling through miles and miles of towel pictures, I look around, but Jesse is gone, and…
No, dammit.
I run toward my room, darting right past Kai, Manny, and Mila, all wrapped in winter coats and thick hats and ski gloves.
“Oh, Vee, you’re here! We’re going to take a walk in the snow since the storm doesn’t seem to be too intense, do you want to join—”
“No time,” I reply, rushing upstairs.
Once I’m standing in front of Jesse’s room, I don’t hesitate.
I knock, no doubt more forcefully than necessary, and square my shoulders as I hear him taking the few steps to the door.
His eyes widen once he sees me, but only for a second.
Then his expression shuts off into something impenetrably pleasant.
“Hi. How can I help you?”
I duck under the arm that holds the door open, step inside the bedroom, and go to stand in the middle of it. When I turn, his brow is furrowed in confusion. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Will you close the door, please?”
He huffs out a single, baffled laugh. “Is this something you do often? Walk into someone’s room and start making demands of them?”
“Suit yourself, then.” I take a deep breath, wet my lips, and come right out with it. “Do you like me?”
He goes still. Absolutely, utterly still, like his heart stopped beating and his lungs shut down, and for a handful of seconds I’m a tiny bit worried that I might have broken Jesse Andrews.
Or at least severely damaged him. After a while, though, his lips press together, and then he does push the door closed behind him.
“See?” I lean back against one of the bed’s posts, relief fluttering in my stomach. I hope I look braver than I feel. “I figured you might want to have some privacy for this one.”
“You did, didn’t you.”
His tone is dry, and it feels a bit like he’s punting, trying to buy time, so I ask again, “Do you like me?”
He looks very calm, but he’s not. I know it in my bones. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you told me. Last night.” He blinks, confused. “Ever wonder how you got from Red Dead Redemption to bed?” I point a thumb at my chest. “This girl. You weigh a ton, by the way.”
His eyes widen, this time in worry. “Did I touch you? If I did anything that you—”
“No, nothing like that. But you did confess to…” I shrug. I don’t think I have the vocabulary for this. “Having a thing for me, for lack of a better term. I figured you were just wasted, but then I found out that this morning you assaulted Ethan for supposedly ‘cheating’ on me—”
“I did not assault him.”
“Whatever. Semantics.”
Jesse rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “Is he always that dramatic?”
“Yup.”
“I barely talked to him.”
I wave an impatient hand and continue, trying to sound calm and rational even though I feel anything but.
“The thing is, ever since we met you’ve been so doggedly indifferent to me that if twenty-four hours ago someone had asked whether you were interested in me, I’d have laughed in their face.
And I’m not even gonna get into the mistletoe incident, and the fact that you told my cousin that you wanted nothing to do with me.
Because yes, I did hear that. But then last night you mentioned something about…
” I cannot bring myself to say, About me, being beautiful.
About wanting me. So I continue with, “About the way I look. And this morning you threatened my friend—yep, he’s just a good friend, always has been—and, well, I hope you will forgive me for coming across as conceited, but I think you can understand why I cannot help but wonder if you…
” I pause, holding his eyes for a beat, “…like me.”
In the end, I don’t need an answer. Not a verbal one, for sure.
Not with the way Jesse looks at me, his eyes dark and clear and for once so, so easy to read.
This man might hide and deflect and withdraw, but he’s no liar.
And the truth is there on his face, for me to pick up and study and marvel at.
“Right,” I mumble. My voice sounds strange and croaky to my own ears. “I thought so.”
He closes his eyes, running a hand through his hair. My brain registers the movement, and all I can think of is how soft the curls look. “Viola, I…”
He. He…something. As time trickles by, the silence in the room broken only by the laughter of the people exploring the woods outside, it becomes clear that Jesse has no intention of completing the sentence.
But at this point, I just want to understand.
“Why, then?” I turn around and walk to the window, taking in branches of pine trees that look about to collapse under the weight of the snow.
“Is it a recent development? It must be.” I’m thinking out loud now.
Brainstorming possibilities. “Otherwise, why would you go out of your way to avoid me for years? Why would you act so appalled at the idea of kissing me?”
Next to one of the decks, Kai crouches to make a snowball. Shannon beats him to it and slides a handful of ice down his collar. They both scream while Mila takes a video of them with her cell phone.
“Unless,” I muse. The thought occurring to me is almost too painful to put in words. “Unless you hate it. Unless you despise yourself for it. Unless your opinion of me is so…so low, you’re so upset by the idea of being attracted to me, that you just can’t help being a total—”
“No.”
I turn around. Jesse’s face seems so familiar, and yet so new.
“No. I don’t…” He tiredly runs a hand down his face. “I think the world of you, Viola.”
It’s hard to believe. Impossible. This whole situation, it’s like the script of a bad movie. “Do you really?”
“Yes.” Slowly, he nods. And doesn’t meet my eyes. “You are…” He stops. Touches his lips, as if looking for the right words to describe what I am to him. Which seems to be a whole lot.
“Then why? Why didn’t you just…try to spend time with me? Try to get to know me? Ask me out?”
Jesse looks to the side, as if fascinated by the framed flower art that looks exactly like the one in my room. The tendons in his neck are suddenly in relief. “That’s a little cruel of you to ask, isn’t it?”
“Cruel?”
He turns back to me. “You know why I couldn’t do any of those things, Viola.”
“No, I don’t. How could I possibly know—”
A knock on the door, and we both jolt. “Housekeeping! May I come in?”
I meet Jesse’s eyes again, feeling frustrated by the interruption, but also…
No. I don’t know why he couldn’t try to ask me out, especially since I was crushing on him for years.
I have no clue, and maybe I should say it to him, I should ask him to come up with a logical explanation for his behavior, or at least with a decent apology.
But all at once, I cannot bear to be here, in front of Jesse Andrews—not for a second longer.
I scrunch my eyes shut, once, and then step away from the window, giving him as wide a berth as possible as I walk past him.
“None of this matters. We don’t need to be anything but coworkers. Let’s…Let’s just pretend that this conversation never happened, okay? We’re both good at that. I’ll see you around, Jesse.”
I open the door and exit the room, flashing the housekeeper a subdued smile. As I hurry down the stairs, I think I hear the sound of my name being called, but I never turn back.