31. JT
Chapter thirty-one
JT
“What the actual fuck?”
It is far too early for my mind to process anything, but I sit up anyway, every synapse in my brain firing to warn me that something is wrong, very, very wrong.
A shape moves by the door, and I realize what the threat is: Jameson Walker is in our bedroom.
“Shit, Jameo,” I start, but am cut off as Lila sits up and yells, “Argh!” her bare chest on display as the sheets slide off her lithe frame. I quickly reach out, attempting to pull the sheet up over her.
“NO!” Jameo yells, turning around quickly. “No. My eyes. My brain. I’m going to have to carve part of my hippocampus out with a spoon to get rid of that image.”
I run a hand through my hair, still tangled from my late-night activities with my best friend’s little sister. Good God, could this get any worse? Jameson has clearly been shocked back to his human anatomy and physiology classes if he’s pulling out words like “hippocampus.”
“What the hell, Jameo?!” Lila snarls from the bed next to me. “Get the fuck out of our room!”
“YOUR room?” he bellows.
“Jameo,” I say, in a consoling tone. I’m considering getting out of bed, but I think him seeing both of us naked at the same time might be too much for my friend. I hate that this is on me. I should’ve told him about Lila and me last time we were together, and I have an overwhelming urge to jump out of bed and beg him to forgive me.
I knew I was crossing a line. Shit, everyone knows sleeping with your friend’s sister is crossing the line. But I came to a decision last night, and I’m going to see it through, even if Jameson’s unexpected arrival just made it far more complicated. So there will be no begging for forgiveness as if there is something wrong with Lila and I being together.
“Are you fucking kidding me, JT? You could have any girl in the world and you’re fucking around with my little sister?”
“I…that’s not…I don’t want just any girl.” I don’t know how to explain to him that it’s not what he thinks. This isn’t just a casual hookup for me. Even when it was timebound, in my mind, it was never casual.
The door opens, and Bryn steps in. “What’s going on in here?” she asks cheerfully. I take in her shit-eating grin and realize in an instant that Bryn knew, or at least suspected, that this might be happening. Fricken Izzy. No way was Kelsey the one to blab the secret.
But it doesn’t matter who it was because all that matters is that it wasn’t me. It should’ve been me and Lila, telling Jameo and the world about us, rather than trying to hide it like we’re ashamed. Though it’s not like we’ve been dating in secret for months or years or something. We’re on, what, week two? If we weren’t living together, this probably wouldn’t even count as a thing.
My heart constricts at the thought, and it tries to argue with my brain: We are something. I just thought we had more time to define it, to figure out what this could be. Jameson isn’t supposed to be home yet. He’s not supposed to be back for another week. I’ve actively fought against any positive feelings I’ve had for Lila for the past six years because she is off-limits. I decided long ago that as much as I physically might desire a fling with Lila—which was all that it could ever be—it would never be worth the possibility of losing my best friend.
Now? Now the possibility seems worth it.
“These two are sleeping together!” Jameo shouts in response to Bryn’s question.
“Yeah, I know,” Bryn says, patting him on the shoulder. “You have not been quiet about it. Clearly handling it super well.” She shoots him a double thumbs up, and I want to laugh, but the look of death on Jameo’s face convinces me otherwise.
“Get out, Jameo,” Lila says in a menacing growl.
“Really, Lila?” Jameo turns his attention to his sister, who just glares back. “Really, JT?”
“It’s not what you think,” I say, and I swear all three other people in the room huff in disbelief. Jack may have even let out a little dog huff of disbelief in the living room.
“Oh, really? What is it, then? Have you given up your ‘I don’t date. I have to focus on my career’ mantra? Are you two dating?”
“No,” Lila says, and I see Bryn’s face fall a bit in disappointment.
“That’s not what—” I start to say.
“Don’t tell him anything, JT. We are grown-ass adults,” Lila says. “We can do what we like with whomever we like.” Jameson starts to say something else, but Lila cuts him off. “No. Just get out, Jameo! I’m naked under here, but if you don’t leave, I’m going to start getting dressed whether you’re in the room or not.”
“Come on,” Bryn says, grabbing her boyfriend’s hand and pulling him forcefully from the room. “I’ll get you some coffee, and then we can cover why barging into people’s rooms at six in the morning is a terrible idea.”
Jameson basically growls in response, but Bryn just laughs.
“I just wanted to surprise my friend.”
“Well, you did surprise him. And, as a bonus, it looks like he surprised you too. A two-fer, you might say.”
Lila stands up, heading to the closet where she’s been keeping her clothes with mine. She’s upset, but I don’t know if it’s with me or her brother, or, shit, maybe Bryn? But I do what I always do: I try to make it better. “I’m sorry, Lila.”
“For what?” she asks, her tone biting. Soo…me, then?
My sleep-deprived brain is now functioning solely on adrenaline dregs, so I’m having a harder time than normal figuring out how to make this right. I take a deep breath and climb out of bed, joining her by the closet and getting dressed as I decide how to respond.
I’ve got on a pair of athletic shorts and a T-shirt when I finally say, “I’m sorry your brother is mad at us. I know how important your relationship is with him.”
“Yeah, JT. It is important, but so is my relationship with you.” I can’t help but smile when I hear her call it a relationship. I know I haven’t told her how I feel, but it hurt when she denied there being something to her brother.
“You two better not be doing it in there!” Jameson yells from the kitchen.
Lila rolls her eyes before yelling back, “We. Are. Coming!”
“That’s what he’s afraid of!” Bryn yells back. And I’m pretty sure I hear Jameo choke on his coffee.
“What do you want to tell him?” I ask, my voice a whisper.
“I’ve been told honesty is always the best policy.”
“Do you think I should tell him how I made you come twice in five minutes that one night?” I ask with a smug smile. That had been a damn good Monday night.
“Only if you want him to know how you sit down to pee at night because you’re too tired to stand up.”
“What? How? I shut the door!”
“Sounds different.”
“Why are you listening to me pee, you weirdo?”
I laugh, and that is clearly not the right move, because Jameson barges back into the room, glaring at us like we personally poured itch powder into his underwear. “Do you think this is funny? Get your asses to the living room.”
“Yes, Dad,” Lila says in a fake apologetic voice, and I do my best to stifle the chuckle that wants to pass through my lips. Lila shoots me a conspiratorial grin, and it feels good, like Lila and I are on the same team.
Jameson points us to the chairs in the living room, making it very clear with his gesture that we are not to be on the couch together. Unfortunately for Jameson, his dick behavior just makes Lila want to push back, so she grabs my hand, sliding her body right in front of her brother to reach the small couch. She nods for me to sit down first, and when the gleam in her eye tells me that she’s going to sit on my lap, I tip my head toward the seat next to me. I want Jameo to stay out of our business as much as any other guy, but I don’t think we need to poke the fucking bear.
Jameson looks at our entwined hands, and we wait in silence as he decides if he’s going to make a big deal out of it or not. Luckily, Bryn must notice the awkwardness from where she’s at in the kitchen, and she hustles out three cups of coffee. “Jameo,” she says, the couple silently communicating something. Bryn clearly wins, not that any of us are surprised, and Jameson sits down heavily in the chair across from us.
“How did this fucking happen?”
“Well,” Lila starts, and I know from her tone this is not going to go well. “When a man loves a woman…well, I suppose they don’t actually have to love each other. When a man and a woman are attracted to one another—”
“I know how fucking works, Lila.”
“Can confirm,” Bryn adds helpfully from the place she’s taken up at the stove, clearly thinking eggs will somehow improve this situation.
Jameson closes his eyes and exhales before starting again, “How long has this been going on? Oh my God. Is this why you act the way you do together? Is it like some weird kind of foreplay?”
“Vegas!” I all but shout, because I cannot have Jameo or his parents thinking I was hooking up with 18-year-old Lila after spending Thanksgiving dinner with a fucking boner.
“What?”
“We accidentally hooked up in Vegas last year, and then basically nothing happened until we moved in together a few weeks ago,” I say in a rush.
“To be clear, the disdain was real,” Lila adds, somewhat unnecessarily in my opinion.
Jameson looks between the two of us, his elbows on his knees, a deep scowl on his face still.
“What does ‘basically nothing happened’ mean?”
It’s like I can’t catch a fricken break.
Lila curls up to my side, and without thinking, I tuck my arm around her. We’ve spent so many hours in this exact position, reading together or watching TV, that it’s second nature at this point to cuddle her to me.
Jameson, however, looks like he just saw a dog solve a quadratic equation before reciting Shakespeare. “I’m sorry. Are you two cuddling? On my fucking couch? Right in front of me.”
I go to pull my arm away, but Lila keeps hold of it.
“Yep,” she replies.
“I fucking hate this already.”
“Well, no need to get used to it,” Lila says. “We’re just roomies-with-benefits until the Ferguson Tournament.”
“Jameson told me you’re coming to that!” Bryn chimes in as she brings out four plates of eggs and passes them around before plopping down on Jameson’s lap. The hypocrisy seems a bit strong, but other than shooting them a pointed look, it doesn’t really feel like the time to call Jameo on it. “The four of us should go out to dinner a couple of the nights we are all there.”
“Bryn,” Jameson says, his patience obviously wearing thin with his girlfriend’s desire to talk about anything other than Lila and me.
She rolls her eyes in a very Harper way. “What? I don’t see what the big deal is. JT is a great guy and one of your best friends in the entire world. Lila is your sister and also one of your best friends. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes there has been something between them for a while.” We both start at that, but she just shrugs. “At least as long as I’ve known them. So, I’m not really sure what you’re expecting from me. I assumed they were hooking up.”
“Fine. But no more fucking in my house.”
“No,” Lila says at the exact same time I say, “Fine.”
Lila turns to me with an exasperated look. “Neither of us have anywhere else to go, JT. We’re both going to be sleeping in that bed, and there is no way we aren’t going to fool around. My idiot brother can just get over it.”
“I could go…somewhere else, if Jameo really doesn’t want me here. I could get a hotel room in town or something. Maybe someone in town would let me bunk with them.”
Jameson looks between us as if it’s finally becoming clear to him this isn’t just some one-night thing. “No,” Jameo says, though I can tell he’s none too pleased about the idea. “It’s fine. But if I hear anything, I swear I will ruin you both.”