Chapter 14 #3
The circle around them is a full-blown audience. Phones are raised, cheers erupt, bets are being made in real time.
“Ten thousand pesos on the blonde!” a skinny guy shouts from the other side of the growing circle.
“Jesus, Robbie! What the hell is happening?”
“She went crazy out of nowhere,” Robbie pants, struggling with a wildly flailing Mila.
“Out of nowhere, my ass! That bitch saw me in line and still took the last guacamole they had.”
My eyes widen in total shock.
Guacamole? This is over guacamole?
“Mila, for God’s sake!” I try to intervene, even though I’m barely capable of doing anything.
“It was my taco, Jules!”
“We’re in Mexico. I’m sure Robbie can find you another taco with guac, right?” I say, glancing at Robbie at the end.
It’s like I’m talking to a child.
“I don’t want another one! I want that taco with guac.”
“You’re lucky they’re holding me back, blondie!” the brunette shouts again, thrashing. “Otherwise, I’d shove this taco up your ass.”
Jasper exhales beside me.
I wanted to say I’d forgotten he was there, but no, I feel his presence everywhere.
“I’ll call the driver,” he says, utterly emotionless. “Try not to kill anyone until I get back, alright?”
“I’ll kill whoever I want, and it’s none of your business!” I snap immediately.
And maybe, just maybe, Stage Three is hitting me too.
But I can’t think about that now because the moment I shut my mouth, one of the brunette’s friends twists her heel and loses balance. She wobbles, letting go of her friend to steady herself. That’s when the brunette lunges at us.
“You want my taco? Look at this, bitch!” And she shakes the taco right in her face.
Mila goes so berserk she manages to slip from Robbie’s grip with a sideways yank that almost throws him and Tony into each other.
She slaps the brunette’s hand with all the strength she can muster.
The taco falls to the ground.
The guacamole spreads across the sidewalk.
Time slows.
Absolute silence.
The punch lands clean, direct, and precise, without a single hesitation. Nobody has time to react or stop the disaster. My best friend – soon-to-be ex-best friend if she keeps pulling this shit – who’s getting married in five days, just got punched in the face.
She spins like a toy before collapsing stiffly on the ground, right next to the taco she went insane over.
Mila woke up about ten seconds later, whining and saying she just wanted a taco, nothing more. So I guess the tea softened her a bit. At least for her, because I’m still struggling with all the symptoms, and nothing I do seems to bring me back to sobriety.
I’ve tried eating, cold showers, changing into the comfiest nightgown, washing my face to get rid of sweat and makeup, and applying every moisturizer imaginable… but then, just when I think I’m improving, something happens, and I start losing my mind again.
And three times more intensely, because this time, the “something” is Jasper.
The bedroom door handle starts to turn. I yell that it’s occupied before the door moves, but does he hear me? Of course not. He opens it anyway.
“Assman!” I exclaim, furious, but it’s too late, he’s already inside. Wearing nothing but gray pajama shorts. Thin fabric. Very, very thin.
“Relax, I just wanna brush my teeth.”
I don’t care what he wants. I just care about my privacy, so now that the universe has granted me permission to lie again, I say, “I was doing lady stuff in here!” and try to push him back out.
Every time you say “lady stuff” to a guy, he immediately thinks pads, period blood, and topics he has zero interest in.
Of course, Jasper doesn’t care. He probably drinks blood to survive. He’s used to this.
“You can keep doing them,” he says. “I love lady stuff.”
See? Period blood. This sick vampire probably enjoys things just as absurd as this.
“Fine!” I mutter, rubbing deep cleansing foam on my cheeks.
He sighs, disappointed.
“Not the kind of lady stuff I was imagining.”
“What kind of stuff were you imagining, you pervert?”
“Definitely not…” Jasper eyes me while I wash off the last traces of makeup, “… rubbing slime on your face.”
After that, he just moves to the sink, forcing my body aside so we don’t touch.
It would be a terrible mistake if we touched.
Especially since I’ve already stripped from the party and decided to wear only my nightgown, thin fabric like his shorts, panties, no bra, leaving almost nothing to the imagination.
And Jasper… well, I already told you, he’s practically naked.
Defined muscles with the golden tan he got from days doing nothing by the pool while I killed myself trying to organize Mila and Robbie’s perfect wedding.
“Did the bride really puke on the limo’s sunroof?” he asks casually, toothpaste in hand.
Because there’s a raging monster inside me that already thinks it’s a judgment, I blurt, “Oh, please! You smell like stripper perfume!”
“That’s crazy, Julie!” Jasper retorts, totally offended. “We went to a soccer game.”
“You’ve got glitter on your face,” I inform, just in case he hadn’t noticed.
Then he laughs. That laugh. The one he gives when he finds my insults funny but isn’t really affected. He never laughs with me, always at me. As if I’m a little kid saying things so silly they seem adorable.
Then, as if nothing happened, he starts brushing his teeth. I shove him aside to wash my face, and because he shoves back, his arm brushes my shoulder. Which was a huge mistake. A mistake that makes me grab my toothbrush and sit on the marble counter so he can’t touch me anymore.
Obviously, I miscalculated. I know.
If he approaches now, there’s nowhere left for me to escape.
That’s probably why I start brushing my teeth like a caveman. Well, like a caveman would if they had toothbrushes back then.
I spit the foam into the sink caveman-style, and Jasper leans back to avoid any splash.
He stares at me for three seconds before finally asking, “Did you get bitten by a demon or something? Why are you so mad?”
“I’m not mad! Why would you think I’m mad?” I snap, clearly mad, spitting again. He has finished his brushing, should have left already. “What are you still doing here?”
“It’s the tea, isn’t it?” Jasper guesses. “First that whole fiasco with Mila, and now…”
I roll my eyes. He’s lucky I didn’t try to bite his ear off like Mila tried with Robbie after waking up from the punch.
“I feel like I drank a whole bottle of Bourbon and chased it down with cocaine!” I admit. “I just want to crush your whole face like a raisin.”
Instead of running – what he should have done – he grabs a glass from the sink, fills it with water, and hands it to me.
His eyes aren’t scared, they’re staring right into my soul. Like when you’re facing a lion in the savanna. You hold your ground, show enough dominance that the lion reconsiders, and starts backing off.
I rinse my mouth with water, this time spitting back into the cup. Jasper dumps it in the sink. As if my caveman spit wasn’t even there.
“Feeling better?”
Yes.
But thanks to my newly recovered ability to lie, I can say whatever I want.
“Don’t think that just because you helped me today, I owe you anything.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” he responds.
“Because I didn’t need you chasing me, giving me water, or dealing with Connor at the club.”
“Someone had to. You were a wreck, Jules.”
“Did Robbie give you that mission because I’m single, desperate, and have no one else to help me?”
“Robbie didn’t give me any mission.”
“Tony?”
He shakes his head.
“I did it because I wanted to.”
“Because you were thinking about getting laid!” I deduce immediately.
“I wasn’t thinking that,” Jasper repeats. Then he steps closer, right in front of me. “Maybe now I am.”
“No way!” I say, and he rolls his eyes, dismissing my opinion. The opinion of the adorable little fool he thinks I am.
“Alright,” he says, then steps forward, raises his right hand, and out of nowhere asks, “How many fingers do you see here?”
I stare at him, stunned.
“What?”
“I’m just checking. I won’t do anything if you’re still high on tea.”
“You won’t do anything?” I laugh. “I just said–”
“I know what you said, Julie. And I know that every time you say no, that’s exactly when you mean yes.”
I can’t even begin to list all the things that are wrong with this. What happened to my rights as a woman? And why the hell do I feel like he’s totally right? I can’t even disagree.
“Now.how.many.fingers.do.you.see?” he repeats, slowly, commanding. Dark eyes locked on mine… so sexy! Why the hell is he so sexy?
I lick my upper lip, bite the lower one, holding a smile. My mouth moves before I can stop it.
“Three.”
Fourth Stage of Madame Ximena’s Tea: LUST
Jasper closes his hand and raises his fingers again, changing the number. Either to ensure my sobriety or to piss me off a little more.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter. And because he’s still standing there, waiting for a response, I say, “Two.”
“What’s four times four?”
“I hate you,” I reply.
“Wrong answer.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I shoot back.
“I’m gonna wash your mouth out with soap.”
I shrug.
“Fine by me. At least it’ll cleanse me of all the dirty things I was planning of doing with it today.”
Jasper laughs in fake disappointment and moves his hand to my mouth, rubbing his thumb on my lower lip in a way I can’t tell if he wants to destroy me or worship me. Maybe both.
His hand slides from my mouth to my neck, fingers pressing firmly, almost tearing my skin as they travel, burning and hurting and consuming everything inside and out.
“God, you’re a mess,” he says, but he clearly likes this mess because his hand continues down my shoulder with the same intensity. “and all burnt. How did you manage to get such a bad sunburn?”
“I spent every day of this trip locked inside the house solving wedding problems while the rest of you had fun by the pool, Jasper. I had to catch up on my tan.”