Chapter 17
Jamison
“I’ve never done this before.” Derrik’s disembodied voice carried from somewhere to my right, behind the cucumber slices over my eyes.
I lay back on a lounge chair with a cream lathered on my face, and a white robe wrapped across my body.
When Mike had suggested a spa visit the morning of the rehearsal dinner, I’d been skeptical.
But after a surprisingly strong woman applied a massage to my over-tight muscles for forty-five minutes, I was a believer.
“It’s nice,” I mumbled.
“It was this, hiking, or wine tasting,” Mike explained from his wooden lounge chair between us. Behind us the water wall burbled, and overhead ambient sounds eased from the speakers.
“The spa was the right choice.”
“Words I never thought I’d hear you say.” I could hear the smile in Derrik’s voice, and surprisingly I didn’t find it annoying.
A comfortable silence fell between us. I was definitely more relaxed than I had been in . . . had I ever been this relaxed?
“Gene’s been more open to new experiences lately,” Mike remarked.
“Really?”
Okay, now Derrik’s voice held an interest that was decidedly irritating.
“Maybe?” I responded. There was a possibility that I was more willing to try things, and if I was completely honest it might have been from the different experiences that Sadie had suggested. I really was willing to do most anything in order to not disappoint her.
The urge to check my phone for a response to my text from a couple hours ago was hard to ignore.
I’d almost texted her as soon as I woke up, alone.
But then, I’d opened our text message chain and scrolled up to realize just how many times I’d messaged without receiving a reply.
The proof of how desperate I’ve been for her was a lot to take in.
I might have just come to the realization of my feelings, even if they had been there for a long time, like a candle left to burn all the way down.
I’d set my phone down, grabbed a quick breakfast while only able to think about texting her. Too antsy to stay in my room, I went for a swim. Halfway through laps, I lost my goddamn mind and finally texted her.
A couple minutes later, she walked by and expanded into every crevice of my brain. She was all I could think about.
She still hadn’t texted me back.
“So, there’s a woman?” Derrik asked. “Is she the reason you’re finally moving to Chicago? Dad said you’re getting a condo.”
My toes curled as I worked on convincing myself that Derrik didn’t actually know anything and couldn’t read my mind.
Before I had to answer, Mike responded. “This guy? There’s no way.”
“I don’t know.” Derrik had to have the most irritating voice. “Apparently, your dad was quite the playboy before he met your mom.”
Mike and I made disgusted noises in unison.
To my utter relief, Derrik changed the subject. “Can you imagine our dads doing this right now?”
I snorted. My rigid, manly dad, barefoot in a robe at a spa would have been enough to threaten his masculine identity.
“No,” Mike chuckled. “Anyway, our perception of Gene might be more . . . I don’t know, limited. We just learned yesterday that he took ballroom dancing in college.”
Derrik made a huh sound. “Seriously?”
“Mmhmm,” I hummed.
“Why?”
Sighing, I was struck with a wave of emotions that thinking of that time in my life always conjured.
Dad had just died, and I had decided to transfer from Cornell to State in order to be closer to my mom and brother.
He was just starting his senior year of high school, and Mom was clearly struggling in the house alone.
So, I adjusted my plans to be there for them.
But I couldn’t be what they really needed.
I was a Band-Aid for a bullet wound.
“I transferred so close to the beginning of the semester, and I needed an elective that wouldn’t have homework. Then I liked it and did another semester.”
There was a beat of silence, before he said, “I had no idea.”
Settling even deeper into the plush white cushion on my wooden lounge chair, I attempted to be present with my brother and cousin. It was next to impossible with flashes of my night before with Sadie and then the depressing disappointment of waking up without her.
“The hike definitely would have been the wrong choice. Gene already worked up a sweat last night,” Derrik joked, and my heart leapt into my throat.
Swallowing, I unclenched my clammy fists at my sides. Logically, I knew there was no way he could be talking about me and Sadie. It wasn’t like she was going to tell him.
I sure as hell didn’t.
But considering all I remembered from last night was her stepping fully dressed into the shower, and arching into my touch, and moaning as I filled her, I couldn’t imagine what the hell he was talking about.
“What?” I choked out.
“Your late-night activities.”
The masseuse’ work was completely undone as all of the tension went back into my shoulders.
“Again, what?”
He sighed as if I was the one being a pain in the ass. “You know, when you got back from the gym and interrupted my conversation with Sadie.”
“I didn’t interrupt.” My voice came out gruffer than I intended, but Mike was speaking at the same time. “That’s right, I wanted to ask you how that went. She’s pretty cool, right?”
“She’s hot—” Derrik cut himself off, clearly remembering that it was pretty rude to proclaim a woman hot in a public space. More quietly, he added, “She was fillin’ out that dress.”
I shot up into a full seated position for what reason I didn’t know, but the cucumbers slipped off my eyes and plopped onto my lap.
The creak of my chair was loud enough to cut through the ambient noise.
Both Mike and Derrik lifted a cucumber to peak at me.
Slowly, I plucked both the slices off my robe and lay back in my chair.
Leaning back in my lounge, I tried to replace the cucumbers with a modicum of dignity.
“You good?” Mike asked.
I hummed an answer.
“What happened?”
“Thought”—I searched for anything to say other than something along the lines that I might kill my cousin—“. . . a bug.”
“Anyway,” Derrik began, “we were talking, and she’s funny and cute, but then we got to her door, and Gene showed up all grumpy and shit and killed the vibe.”
“You showed up at her door?” Mike demanded.
“Our suites are right next to each other.”
“What a coincidence.”
Something thudded on Derrik’s seat as if he’d flung his hand. “That’s what I said, but this guy did his whole, ‘Sure’ thing.”
“Nothing fazes Gene.”
If only he knew how many different phases I was passing through from minute to minute.
In my robe pocket, my phone buzzed. Like a teenager careful of every creaking floorboard, I took hold of the device with one hand and lifted one cucumber slice with the other. She was finally replying to my question wondering where she’d gone.
Cute as hell Sadie: I wanted to let you sleep.
I let my head fall back against the chair, and my arm down at my side—hiding my phone from Derrik and Mike, not that they seemed to notice what I was doing anyway.
I only had two more nights with her before we went back to Chicago, and she went back to not answering my texts. Or more accurately, I would honor her boundary and only email her for work.
I didn’t want to sleep.
I didn’t want to spend a single second away from her.
I wanted to wring every memory from every moment with only her.
No wonder I’d avoided feelings of attachment for so many years. This was absolute agony.