Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
JADA
I’ve been looking forward to this movie double-feature ever since I heard about it. But now that I’m going with Ash, my excitement is tinged with nerves.
It feels weirdly performative, assuming that what Ash saw is right. The only reason he’s going with me is so we’ll be seen by this alleged PI.
But I…kind of just want to go on a date. With Ash.
Out of curiosity. It’s not like I have a crush on him again or anything.
Maybe it’s lust? Waking up with his big, warm body enveloping my back and very substantial cock against my ass every morning is driving me crazy.
My vibrator is so loud that my shower can’t cover up the noise of it, so I’ve probably strained a few tendons trying to work the tension out in the shower.
And now we’re going to be properly hanging out. Like a real date and not just casual conversation around my apartment.
The drive-in is showing two movies, plus an intermission between them. Because it’s a drive-in, we can chat in our cars, but I’m not sure how much he’ll appreciate me snarking on the movies the whole time.
“You ready?” Ash asks as I come out into the living room. He’s on the floor with Pip, holding one of his catnip toys.
“Yep.” I grab my purse and ignore the way he looks at me, eyes skimming from my ankles to my face.
I didn’t dress to impress. At least all that much. I’m wearing a comfortable dress that hits me just above the knee and shows a little cleavage. It’s not too tight, but with my curves, nothing ever fits loosely.
He’s wearing what he usually does when he’s dressing down—jeans and a T-shirt. His clothes are high quality and fit him well. It’s subtle, but I can tell he could walk into a store and know exactly what would look good on him or how to fix what was slightly off.
Ash tosses Pip the toy and stands up, opening the door for me. He even opens the door to his car for me, probably because that creep might be watching. A paid creep, but still. I can’t believe Danika even thought to hire someone. I bet someone told her to do it. I doubt she’d think of this herself.
Ash drives my small SUV to the open field where the drive-in is being set up. Usually this is where the annual Jepsen festival and one-off events are held. This time, there’s a booth selling tickets and people to guide us into the right spot.
“I think that’s him,” Ash says, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Two rows back.”
“Can he even see us?” I glance in the rearview mirror, too, and try to casually look behind us. I doubt I’m subtle.
“Probably not, but others can. And he can casually ask about us like he did at Sarah Jane’s.” Ash glances around, then gets out.
He opens my door and helps me out of the car, then takes my hand. The organizer set up a concession stand on the opposite end of the entrance, and we take our time getting there. As with any Jepsen event, I recognize people and say hi. A few people seem to notice Ash and nod in his direction, too.
“Do people actually leave Jepsen?” Ash asks under his breath. “I feel like a quarter of my high school class is here.”
“People do, and they come back.” I shrug. “It’s not perfect, but it’s nice.”
“Yeah, far from perfect.” His eyes follow a couple passing in front of the car. “That guy right there? He told me he wanted to bang my mom unironically, so I dunked his head in a toilet.”
I crane my neck to see the man’s face. “I’m pretty sure he sold me my car.”
“And that woman over there accused me of lacing the shitty weed I sold with LSD when in reality she just ate a bad burger from that old sketchy diner and had to go to the hospital,” he says, nodding toward someone else.
“Wow.” I try to place her in my memory. “I think she teaches with Jeremiah.”
“Fucking hell, she’s responsible for shaping the minds of tomorrow?” Ash raises an eyebrow.
“Surely she’s grown since high school. Everyone has, at least a little.” I laugh, but he shrugs. “What, you don’t believe me?”
He pauses. “It’s just hard reconciling two versions of people. The old version tends to stick if you haven’t really spoken to someone in a while.”
“Oh, like with me?” I say, half teasing but half serious. Even though he apologized, I still can’t get over the fact that he didn’t recognize me. Looking back at the pics from that night, I looked hot, but I think I look pretty good every other day, too.
“Right,” he replies, but with all seriousness. “Not that you weren’t pretty back in high school, but now you’re…”
He trails off as he gestures vaguely to me, and if I’m not imagining it, his cheeks have a tinge of pink to them. The contrast between his usual don’t-give-a-fuck attitude and the blushing has me flustered on top of his admission.
I don’t think I was ugly or anything back in high school, but my fashion was tragic, my skin wasn’t great, and I covered up my body as much as I could I wasn’t exactly getting all the guys.
But that one night, on homecoming, I actually dressed up. We talked like friends for the first time about how terrible the football team was, and why he was even there. And somehow that turned into my first kiss.
The memory makes me cringe less now that he’s apologized.
“Anyway, Jepsen’s kind of frozen in time for me,” he continues.
“Even though you come back for holidays?”
“Yeah. I usually just go straight to my parents’ house or to Nana’s and get out as soon as I can.” He shrugs. “I like wandering around on hiking paths rather than go into town.”
“You’ve never wanted to explore it more?” I ask. “Jepsen’s changed a lot.”
“I know that now. But not really.” He drums his fingers on his leg. “I never liked it growing up. It never felt like I fit.”
I absorb his words. I can see that. Back in high school, part of my crush on him was because he stood out.
He wore mostly black, experimented with his hair, and was into music that no one else listened to.
He was always writing in a notebook and getting into trouble for cutting class or talking back.
Typical teenage asshole stuff in retrospect, but being a small town, he and his few friends were rare. And my dorky ass was drawn to that, even though I would never, ever get away with that kind of attitude. The rules were—and still are—very different for us.
Thankfully he kept a lot of the look but cut the worst parts of the attitude.
“I noticed you never fit in,” I say. “No offense.”
“None taken at all.” He snorts. “I was a dick back then.”
“You think people from high school would still think that you’re an asshole? Based on what you said about having a hard time reconciling the past and current versions of people?” I ask.
He looks at me, thoughtful.
“Don’t know. But also, I’ve been somewhat of a public figure. There’s photos of me partying and being a fucking wreck. I don’t come off that well.”
As I’ve noticed before, he says it casually, but something tells me he doesn’t feel that way about his recent past.
“Do you miss partying?” I ask.
“Mm.” He pauses again. “I miss something about it. I’m just not sure what that is right now.”
His brows furrow a little bit as he stares off into space.
I didn’t mean to send him deep into thought, but now he’s made me curious.
Will this year be the most boring year of his life?
Even if his band sucked to be around, it’s probably more interesting to travel to new cities and meet new people all the time than go to a drive-in and see people from decades ago in the place you left as soon as you could.
“You want snacks?” he finally asks.
“Sure, yeah,” I say.
We go to the concession stand, choosing popcorn and M&Ms to snack on. By the time we get back to our car, the previews have begun. There are only two for the movies they’ll show at the next drive-in, and the movie starts shortly after.
I love a ridiculous movie, but this movie is starting off a little too strong.
“This girl is not for real,” I say, reaching across the car to grab more popcorn. “Sorry, I tend to do running commentary when I’m not watching a movie in theaters.”
“It’s fine. It’s not like I need to pay attention all that hard for this and no one can hear us. And what, you’ve never fallen gracefully down the stairs and into a scuba instructor’s arms?” Ash scoffs and tilts the tub toward me so I can easily grab some kernels.
“I can’t say I have.” I tip the popcorn into my mouth, then wipe my hands on a napkin. “The stupidity of it is kind of appealing, though.”
“For you, maybe.”
“You’ve been sitting in rapt attention since the movie started,” I point out.
“All five minutes of it.” He snorts. We fall silent for another few moments. “Why is he trying to flirt with her when she’s under the water for the first time? She can barely walk on land.”
I laugh. “Because it’s a movie. And maybe he wants her to drown so he can save her. Maybe that’s his whole M.O.”
“That kind of darkness would make this interesting.” He glances around. “I think we should sit closer together.”
I pause. “Right. For the PI.”
“For the PI.”
He puts his arm across my shoulders. It’s warm and just heavy enough to make me feel secure. I want to lean into him, completely let go so I can soak up his warmth. But that feels a little too thirsty, so I just lean into him a tiny bit.
At least at first. Because the longer this movie goes on, the more the stupidity of it suctions out my will to live. I lean into him more and more as I laugh, and he doesn’t push me away. He snarks about the movie with me, too.
If it were a real date, I’d be very pleased.
Eventually the movie ends, but Ash doesn’t move. His calloused fingertips skim across my arm, sending tingles up and down it.
“That movie was terrible,” he says.
“I know. I’m sorry. But it was fun, at least,” I say, grabbing more popcorn. The popcorn migrated into his lap, right above his crotch.
We sit there as people get out of their cars to stretch their legs, his arm still around me and my body still pressed up against him. With the lights on, my paranoia about being seen comes rushing back.
“Don’t panic,” he says quietly in my ear. He presses his lips against the side of my neck, once, then again. “The PI is nearby.”
I don’t panic, because whatever he’s doing to my neck disconnected everything in my brain from rational thought. My nerve endings light up and I lean into his touch blindly. My body just wants more.
His hand spans across my thigh, leaving tingles behind. Every man who’s touched me before has had soft hands, but his are rough from playing the bass. The slightest bit of friction makes me want to open my thighs and let his hand wander.
Another feather-soft kiss under my earlobe unlocks that door.
He lets out a small, appreciative sound and lets his hand wander up just a little. Just enough to make me throb. Would he really go for it? He’s managed to shut off my brain with just this little bit of contact. I don’t think I’d survive him actually touching me between my legs.
His lips trail toward my lips, which he brushes with his so lightly that it gives me chills everywhere. It’s so distracting that I let my thighs relax and his fingertips barely brush the fabric over my clit.
Yep, I’m barely going to survive this. His lips trail down my neck and he lightly bites down, pressing a little more firmly. I let out a soft moan and makes an intentional circle that makes my hips jerk.
His fingers move slowly, like he’s trying to give me a moment to back out, but I don’t want him to. I want him to slip my panties to the side and push a finger where I need it.
Then, a burst of laughter nearby brings me back to reality and I snap my thighs shut again. He extracts his hand from between them and gives me a little space.
“I need to pee,” I blurt, extracting myself from him as quickly but as naturally as I can.
“Okay,” he says, clearing his throat.
I slip out of the car as normally as I can, even though I’m wet and aching. How mortifying. We needed to show the PI that we’re married, not…all of that, even though they couldn’t see everything.
I head to the bathroom—some surprisingly well-maintained porta potties—and get ahold of myself. The five-minute warning chime brings me back to the car. I sit in my designated seat instead of smushed up against him. I’m too overstimulated being in this same car, much less being all over him.
“Can you put the popcorn between us again?” I ask as I settle back in.
“Why?” He plucks two kernels out of the tub.
“People might think…y’know.” I gesture vaguely at where the popcorn tub is sitting on his lap, my face and neck heating up.
Ash laughs and puts the popcorn between us. “That you’re giving me a hand job through a bunch of salty, buttery popcorn? I’d have to punch a hole through it wide enough to fit my dick, then get popcorn oil all over it. And the texture isn’t really conducive to getting jacked off.”
My face gets even hotter at the hole being wide enough—unfortunately, I have a general sense of that diameter because of our night cuddles—then I remember this conversation is ridiculous and focus on the moronic thread that my brain pulled out of nowhere.
“Obviously we’d empty it first. But we probably wouldn’t need this massive tub, then.”
“It has to fit the length of my dick, too.” He smirks and I roll my eyes, even though I walked right into that one. “You’re the one who had the idea. I haven’t chosen to get a hand job since high school. Not that I’ve turned them down, but I haven’t flat out asked for one.”
“What’s wrong with hand jobs?” I ask. My curiosity is going to kill me someday and hopefully that isn’t today.
“Nothing. It’s just that I prefer oral instead.” He puts the popcorn back in his lap. “Wouldn’t most people, regardless of whatever genitalia they have?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and look at the screen. I prefer fingers—every time an ex has tried to go down on me, it’s been either too much or too little stimulation. Even those toys that simulate oral don’t do it for me.
I throb between my thighs, like my pussy is trying to remind me that we have unfinished business with Ash’s hands.
But talking about sex with Ash is going to take me down an increasingly embarrassing path.
“Interesting,” he says when I don’t respond, drawing the word out.
Thankfully, the music starts up again, signaling for people to go back to their cars. My face is still hot and I can tell his mind is still on our conversation despite the movie starting up again.
“Very interesting,” he says again.
“Oh my god, forget I said anything about it,” I say. “Just pretend I didn’t start with the whole dick popcorn thing.”
He laughs, putting his arm across the back of the seat. His fingers lightly touch my shoulder, and it’s more than enough to distract me the rest of the movie.