Chapter 23 Jamison
Jamison
Iflip open the pizza box, and Claire practically drools when she sees what’s inside. There are a few miscellaneous slices left over from today’s pies, and about half a Hawaiian that Mikey kept to the side for me when I texted him earlier tonight.
ME: Need a favor.
MIKEY: Fresh out of those.
ME: Funny. I need a pie after closing but at least a few have to be Hawaiian.
MIKEY: Done. Just took one out. I’ll set some aside for you.
ME: Thanks, man.
MIKEY: This for the girl from the other night?
ME: How in the hell?
MIKEY: Ro said you got it bad.
ME: Do you two have to tell each other everything?
MIKEY: Just the good stuff.
Unreal. Apparently, my business is everyone’s business. But Ronan’s not wrong. I do have it bad.
After the mall this morning, I knew I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see Claire.
My run-ins with her around town have been the highlight of my week — hell of my last six months.
And I just wanted another chance to be with her.
Tomorrow will be cool, being out with her for the first time, but we’ll be surrounded by strangers in a dark club with loud music. Tonight I just want her all to myself.
Having seen her eat Enzo’s the first time, I knew she wouldn’t pass it up.
So, at the risk of looking like a total fucking creep, I decided texting her this late was worth a shot.
Would I hate pressing her against another wall and kissing my way down her body?
No. But did I come here just for that? Also, no.
I came because I like talking to her, and I can’t get her out of my fucking head.
This girl is like two ends of a spectrum.
Like the first drag of a cigarette after a long, shitty day — she’s soothing but intoxicating.
When I’m around her my body relaxes but my heart starts to race.
When I’m not, there’s that withdrawal again.
So here I am, acting totally out of character — quenching my most recent thirst.
Claire carries the pizza box to the coffee table and pats the spot on the couch next to her.
“Do you want to tell me where the plates are?”
She’s already mid-cheesepull when she mumbles out, “Don’t bother.” I watch her wrap the cheese around her tongue until it finally separates from itself. God, this girl’s amazing.
Sitting next to her, I grab a piece of plain for myself. I don’t mind Hawaiian but she looks like she’s about to put it back, so I’ll save those for her.
“So wuh you bah at tha mall?” Her cheeks are already full as she pops a piece of pineapple into her mouth that first went rogue onto her lap.
“I’m sorry, what?”
She chews her bite dramatically, swallows, and then licks her lips. She’s not trying to be sexy but goddamn if it isn’t the most seductive thing I’ve ever seen.
“What did you buy at the mall?” She takes another bite waiting for my answer.
“Jeans, a t-shirt, and these.” I put one foot on the coffee table next to the box. I realize I now have my dirty shoe on her table next to our food and quickly pull it back.
“I like them,” she says as she stands up. She comes back with a roll of paper towels and two beers. Handing one to me, she opens the other and takes a long sip. “But just when I was getting used to the boots.”
I wouldn’t have pinned her as a beer girl, but I’m not complaining.
I crack mine open and take a sip before sitting it on the lid of the box.
Somewhere deep in my chest, I feel a warmth spread to a very buried place, and it’s not from the alcohol.
It’s a pair of shoes but it’s like her telling me she doesn’t mind the boots, is her telling me she’s accepting me for who I am.
That’s because she doesn’t know the rest, I think.
“Oh, don’t worry, they aren’t going anywhere.”
She smiles and grabs another slice.
“So you never told me what you do. You know where I work.” I change subjects and shove the self-deprecating thought back down.
Not all at once, I respond to myself. A reminder that I am opening up little by little.
It’s easy to feel like I’m hiding all of my demons but I realize I don’t know much about her either. I guess this is how it starts.
“Well, for the last three years, I taught middle school English.” She sets her slice back in the box and pulls a pillow to her lap.
“But they cut my position at the end of last school year.
Budget cuts meant combining classes and combining classes meant needing fewer teachers.
Unfortunately for me, the other English teacher had been there for almost a decade so," she raises her hand, "short end of the stick.”
“Shit, that sucks. They can’t just move you somewhere else?”
“There’s no need anywhere else in the district right now, and honestly,” she picks up her can, “I’m not sure I would have accepted another spot anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
She fidgets in her seat, pulling her legs up and then putting them back down. Finally, she settles with one on the floor and one beneath her, tucked under the other.
“I kind of started to hate my job.” She takes a sip. “I know it’s cliché and probably kind of entitled to say, but I just think I’m too young to be spending my life doing something I don’t even like.”
I consider this a minute. She’s not wrong.
It’s not pretty, and I don’t make a fortune, hell I even complain about it, but at the end of the day, I love what I do.
I love fixing cars and helping people appreciate them again.
I spent more than the first half of my existence living a life I hated.
I don’t think I could do it again. Especially, if I had a say in the matter this time.
“And what do you like?”
She sets her can down and wraps her arms around the pillow.
“I like to write.” I nod, remembering our conversation about hobbies, as she loses herself in thought for just a second. Reaching for her beer, she snaps back into focus. “I'd actually like to do that for real, but as my dad would say, writing doesn’t pay the bills, so…”
“I used to steal cars when I was younger.”
She chokes on the sip she just took and places her can back on the table. “Okay, so we’re spilling all of our secrets. Got it.” She’s kidding but all I can think is, you don’t know the half of it.
“Not my best moment, I know. But I would hot-wire cars I could tell needed work and then fix them up behind an abandoned warehouse.” I pause to take a sip of my beer.
“Wait, you would steal cars, just to work on them?”
“Yep. Sometimes I’d be in a tight spot and had to sell them,” for food or cigarettes or money for rent, “but most of the time I would just leave them somewhere I knew they’d be found.”
She’s looking at me intensely. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but the fact that her reaction isn’t instant judgment or disgust encourages me to keep going.
“I was fifteen and in foster care. I couldn’t hold a job because I was always moving, and I couldn’t afford my own car because I didn’t have any money.
But cars made me happy, still do, and all I wanted to do was get my hands in them.
” I wish I could blame the alcohol for putting all of this out there, but I’m not even halfway done my damn beer.
“I guess my point is, that doing something you love doesn’t always have to pay the bills too.
Sometimes you can do something just because it makes you happy.
” It doesn’t seem like a hard concept to grasp but nowadays everything comes back to making money.
But, having come from a place where I lost everything except for my passion, I know how priceless it can be to just hold onto something you love.
Claire smiles with her eyes. I love that her face isn’t full of pity.
If anything, it looks like…pride? There are a lot of feelings I have around everything in my past — regret, anger, shame, hate — but feeling sorry for myself, isn’t one of them, and Claire seems to get that.
She just seems to get everything about me. Everything she knows.
Claire extends her hand across the couch. I set my can down, place my palm on hers and our fingers intertwine. Two perfect interlocking pieces.
“Thanks for that,” is all she says.
I brush my thumb along hers and she sucks in a slow breath. Between the sound she makes, her smooth skin, and our raw communication, I suddenly need her close to me.
I tug her arm gently, pulling her to me. She crawls across the couch until her knees touch my hip. Still, it isn’t close enough.
I grab her by the waist and guide her to my lap, slowly releasing her so she’s straddling my legs.
I’m instantly hard and by the way she sits deeper onto me, I know she can feel it under my jeans.
I reach up and tuck a stray wave behind her ear so I can see her whole face.
Her eyelids hang heavy and that mouth I’ve fantasized about for days sits right in front of me — lips parted, panting, asking to be kissed.
When she bites her lip, I fucking lose it.
Grabbing her face with both hands, I pull her in and kiss her like I’ve wanted to since the first time it happened. Our tongues brush, and Claire whimpers the most delicious sound. It feels eager and greedy. Like we’ve been deprived of each other for too long.
And we have been.
She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls our bodies closer as if any space between us is too much.
I drag my fingertips down her back and she arches it in response.
Skimming the exposed skin above the waistband of her shorts, she grinds her hips under my touch, and I pull them down harder to increase the pressure.
Claire removes her arms from around my neck and glides her hands along the bottom of my shirt.
She pulls it over my head and throws it to the ground in one fell swoop.
I catch her taking in all of me as she runs her fingers over the rise and fall of several scars.
She leans forward and kisses the one below my collarbone.
A rough circle where Foster Dad number five decided to use me as an ashtray because I stepped in front of the TV.
Her kiss is so soft and gentle, so delicate in contrast to the burn she places it on — to what we’re feeling now.
I reach up and gather her hair to one shoulder.
I wrap it around my fist like I’ve thought about so many times before and gently pull it so the other side of her neck is completely exposed.
I kiss behind her ear and then again, lower, and lower, until I reach the lace of her shirt, stopping at the same spot she did on me.
Her flawless chest heaves under my lips and I suck, leaving my mark on her in the same location. Claire hums, her cleavage vibrating beneath my touch. I move my hand to one curve, grazing my thumb across the middle, taking everything in me not to completely fucking bury myself between the two.
Catching me by surprise, she grabs my wrist and pulls it away.
For a second, I think I did something wrong — that she wants me to stop.
That is until she places one foot on the ground and then the other, pulling me up with her.
I instantly miss the weight of her on me.
I want to beg for the pressure back, but she turns towards her bedroom, and I follow her instead.
This is not what I came here for. I mean, of course I want her, need her even, but the last thing I want, is for her to think I came here for a booty call. She, I hope, is becoming so much more than that.
Claire sits back on the bed and reaches for the hem of her shirt. Pulling it over her head, I wince at how beautiful she is. She is making what I’m about to do so much harder.
“Claire.” I step forward, leaving space between us.
“Jay.” She grabs my belt loops and closes the gap.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I close my eyes and muster up all of the self-control I have.
“I’m not going to do this.”
She freezes where she is, before dropping her face. Her hands follow suit.
I put her chin between my fingers and tilt it to me.
“It’s not that I don’t want to. Because trust me,” I look down at where my pants bulge from the strain underneath, “I really fucking want to. But I don’t want any part of you to think this was my plan.
” I move a loose hair back into place. “I came here because I wanted to be with you, Claire. All of you. Not just like this.” She exhales and then looks at me understandingly.
“I get it,” she says. “This wasn’t my plan either.”
I drop to the floor, kneeling between her legs.
I run my hands up her thighs and let out a heavy sigh, cursing myself for doing what I know is right.
I pull her head to mine and kiss her hard one more time.
She leans into the kiss hungry for more.
Breaking apart reluctantly, I rest my forehead on hers.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She smiles. “See you tomorrow.”
I stand, looking down at her one more time. I trace the outline of her lips with my thumb. I can’t believe I’m here.
And I can’t believe I’m leaving.
“You’re fucking flawless.”
Before I can see her reaction, I walk straight for my shirt and out of her apartment, knowing if I hesitate for even a second, I might change my mind.