41 – Stella Mea
Jessie
Casey is a giggling mess as I haul her into my apartment. My arm around her to keep her upright as her ankles battle against gravity in those fucking heels. But fuck, did they look good wrapped around me in that bathroom.
I can’t deny she wore the shit out of her baby-blue dress. I found her immediately, and at the same time, found my new favorite color. Did I mention that my woman is hot? Because fuck me sideways, I nearly passed out from how quickly the blood left one head, going straight to the other.
That dress hugs each of her small curves with perfection, those legs leading to heaven, and all I wanted to do was sink my teeth into her delectable thighs. It was when that piece of shit shimmied up behind her that I realized I hadn’t managed to simmer any of my rage, and I just saw red at his hand on her hip. In that single moment, all I knew was that the fucker needed to remove his grubby hands from her, and I was happy to do the removing for him. I had barely blinked before I had him clutched by the neck of his shirt, ready to tear him apart, but the floral scent of Casey’s hair and the way her proximity set my entire being on fire, paired with that incredible dress, I managed to turn my attention to what mattered.
Casey was thoroughly wasted now, though.
“Ohhh, this is like déjà vu!” she whispers.
After fucking the rage out of my system in the bathroom of Bozzelli’s, we went back out and joined our friends. I tried to pull her away to talk after, but she had simply shaken her head and said it was fine. I couldn’t help the guilt eating away at me, though. I loved that Casey could take it rough. That my need for rage and control has never once scared her. But anytime I got that rough, I liked to be able to smooth it over after. A bath, a massage, something that allowed me to love on her or care for her, counteract the animal with a touch of chivalry. We didn’t get that tonight, and it was killing me.
I couldn’t swipe her tears before she did, and when I tried to get her alone again, she just shook her head at me. I couldn’t get a read on her for the rest of the night. She danced and drank–more than I’d ever seen her drink–and it had forced me to stop so I could keep an eye on her. I didn’t see a single smile, didn’t hear even a trill of her laughter. Casey was a shell, and I had never seen her so lost behind those ocean blue eyes. I eventually dragged her into an Uber to take her home when she started to forget what walking was.
“What’s déjà vu, Ace?”
“Remember? I tucked you in when you were a little drunk. You said my nose was cute. But you probably don’t like my nose anymore,” she mumbles, and I frown in confusion. When I turn to look down at her and ask further, I note the sadness in her expression. I maneuver us toward the bedroom and hold her against me.
“What’s that look for, baby?” I say quietly, tucking her now messy wind-blown hair behind her ears, and she drops her forehead to my chest, hands fisted tightly in my sweater.
“That was the night I stole your manuscript.” She has little tears on her cheeks when she looks up at me, and I quickly wipe them. The pain and anger of what happened, of what we haven’t talked about, sits heavy in my stomach. Despite how confused I am at why she did that, how dirty it felt to have that secret hidden from me for so long, she’s far too wasted to hash this out right now.
“C’mon, sunshine, let’s get you into bed and we can talk about everything tomorrow.”
She crawls into the bed and I sit beside her, removing her heels and lightly massaging her feet as she wriggles out of her clothes, lying almost naked, her flimsy thong the only scrap of material on her body, and I have to physically restrain myself from joining her with my naked body.
Too drunk for a conversation means she is definitely too drunk to be fucked into the mattress.
I drag a frustrated hand through my beard and grab a shirt from a pile of laundry I hadn’t put away from the dryer, and throw it at her. “Put this on.”
She drags it across her body, and I have to turn and look away to stop myself.
“It smells like you,” she whispers. “Your sweater at home smells like you. I wore it today. My sheets smell like you, too. Today, I decided I’m never washing them.” Her words are little breaths of slurred sounds, but in the quietness of my small apartment, I hear every single one. And each of them makes my chest ache.
Confusion, anger, and frustration grip me all at once, and I have to shake my head, knowing she is too drunk to hear anything I say, but I mumble anyway, “I’m not going anywhere, sunshine.”
“I hope I forget,” she whispers, dropping more tears from where she lies on my bed curled up and eyes sealed shut.
“Forget what?”
“You. Because it’ll hurt too damn much to remember.” She sniffles, and I have to rub my face aggressively to fight off the spike in my anger. I had thought turning up, declaring her as mine, railing her like an animal in the bathroom, had been enough to clear up any doubt about where I stood, but my Casey is a gentle soul, and I knew she had beat herself up. I hadn’t realized she was beating herself to the point she was becoming delusional as to how much I loved her.
Resigned to the fact that having this conversation with a drunk Casey wouldn’t get me very far, I don’t say anything. Instead, I peel my clothes off now that she is covered under the blankets, and one percent less of a temptation–let’s be real, she could wear a fucking burlap sack and she’d still be the only woman on the planet worth looking at.
I know I should be a gentleman and sleep on the couch, but I can only put my heart through so much in one day. Knowing that she thinks we’re done is painful enough without being able to clear any of it up in her current state. So, I lie down behind her and pull her into me, a tense breath leaving me at the comfort of finally holding her in my arms and feeling her settle into me. That final piece to my puzzle.
Despite the pain in my chest, the way I’m twisted up, a little unsure and a lot mad. I know that Casey and I could beat anything. Whatever comes tomorrow, it will always be me and her at the end of it.
Morning sun has me stirring awake, but the usual comfort of feeling a small frame, soft skin, and a delicate trace of flowers under my nose is missing. My eyes snap open, trying to clear the sleep quicker than usual. Sitting up, I see the bed is empty, feeling the side Casey had slept on is cold has my heart in my throat.
She left?
The covers are tossed, I’m bolting out of bed, and my bedroom door is thrown open. My knees nearly buckle with relief when I see her standing in the living room. Looking out the window, heavy snow covers the city in a white blanket. She turns her head just so, acknowledging my presence, but returning her attention back to the window, her shoulders inching up ever so slightly.
“You feeling okay, sunshine?” I ask gently, cautious to the fact she’d have a killer hangover this morning.
“Had some Advil and water a couple hours ago.” My heart races at the uncertainty that sits around her, and when my eyes dart to the oven clock in my kitchen, I note the time. 8am. She’s barely slept.
I steal a hoodie from the couch and tug it on, ducking back into the bedroom to tug on a pair of sweats before heading back out to the main area.
“Sleep okay?” I test the waters, and she turns to give me a sad smile.
“I think we should have that conversation.” She angrily wipes at a tear and I frown deeply, unable to stop it, but nod at her. Grateful I was able to postpone this as long as I had. I am no longer livid at what she did… just confused.
Heading to the couch, I sit while she remains standing and pacing, so I stand again. I need to comfort her in some way. At this point, it felt like a basic need. Reaching out, I grab her thumb, twisting the ring that rests there, attempting to stop her racing heart and manic thoughts.
“Breathe, Ace.” She rips her hand from my grip like I burned her.
“You have to stop,” she breathes, her eyebrows drawn in, little frown lines forming on her pink cheeks, and I hate it.
“Stop what?”
“All this kindness. Why aren’t you shouting or something? Why aren’t you angrier? It’s confusing!” My hands make their way to my hips, looking for something to do with them as I feel my skin start to itch with the way fury burns my veins.
“Why is it confusing?”
“Because you’re mad at me.” She spins with hands in the air, her voice raised.
“I am.”
“Okay, so act like it.” I shake my head at her, utterly lost with this woman right now.
“What do you want from me, Casey?”
“I don’t know, not this!” She throws her hands up again and is now borderline yelling. “You’re supposed to act mad!”
“What are you talking about? I can’t care for you and worry about you while I’m also mad at you?” My tone rises to match hers as I work to shove the anger back down. Back in its box. I can’t do this here with her. I can’t show the monster. I won’t be him. I can’t become him.
I breathe deeply through my nose and watch as her intelligent eyes assess me.
“You’re being calm. Loving and kind. You’re attentive and assuring me. You’re acting like I didn’t fuck everything up!”
“Because you didn’t fuck everything up,” I remind her, because she fucked up, but everything is not fucked.
“I lied to you for months. I stole from you, I shared your secrets, I pimped out your fucking soul to a publishing company,” she starts pacing, her adorable angry eyes are everywhere–between me, the window, the ground then back to me–as she talks animatedly with her hands, “and you’re just here like, ‘ Oh, stella mea, you drive me crazy, I’m gonna fuck your brains out in a public bathroom.’ Like, what the fuck is that, Jessie?”
I have to tuck my chin to my chest and bite my tongue to smother the laugh that almost bursts at the seams. Listening to Casey attempt a deep voice impersonation with her very adorable angry face is the most entertainment I’ve had in a long time. If this is how our fights are going to go, I can’t fucking wait to marry this woman.
“Jessie Jenkins, you better stop fucking laughing at me and get serious.” When I look up at her, she levels a pointed finger at me and narrows her big blue eyes. I take a step forward, letting her raised finger jab me in the chest, tucking my hands into my pockets.
“I haven’t ever heard you swear like this without my cock inside you. A new side to you, sunshine. I think I like it.” I tap her adorable nose and she swats me away. I see the exhaustion weigh heavily on her, and when she looks back up at me, there is a sadness in her eyes.
“Jessie, please. ” I nod at her, understanding her need for this.
“Okay, then. We’re doing this,” I say, settling back into my anger. After all this time, it’s become easy to tap into it; it’s burying it that is hard.
“Why?” I question and she straightens, swallowing deeply, but settles in.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing. I tripped on it, kind of… Anyway, I found it, read it… Jessie, it truly is a masterp—”
“You lied to me for months . You stole from me, shared my secrets, ‘ pimped out my fucking soul’. I don’t really care about your opinion on the writing, Case. I care about why you would do this to me, how you could lie to me like that,” I interrupt her and level her with a look, focusing on keeping a level tone. I appreciate her need for a fight, but I refuse to disrespect her by losing my cool and becoming my father.
“I knew you wouldn’t do anything with it. I knew you wouldn’t see the beauty and the incredible story in that writing.”
“So, I was your pity project, then? Something to fix?”
“No, it wasn’t that. You would have sat there and thought that no one cared what you had to say. That no one would support you and be excited for you. I thought…” She pauses and mulls on her words, each of her previous ones feeling like little slaps to the face. But I deserve them… she isn’t wrong.
“You thought what?” I ask through gritted teeth. Pain sears me as she looks up at me, those incredible blue eyes swimming in tears.
“I thought that if you could see that people do care, that people felt something when they read your writing, that maybe you’d have faith in yourself, too, that maybe you’d start to believe that you deserved more. It was a mistake, I know that. You have no idea how sorry I am. I am so sorry, Jessie. I didn’t mean to betray you.” Her voice is dripping with self-loathing and pain. She lowers her head and sobs, but she doesn’t let me go to her, instead she backs away.
“I know how much you probably hate me—”
“Casey—” I try to stop her, but she holds up a hand. And I’m still reeling from everything she’s said, the way she had perceived me as something to fix. It’s humiliating, and shame covers me like a wet blanket. But what she doesn’t understand is that I know this. I was hiding, but I was learning and healing, and she was the reason for that. I know she can’t help herself. She saw a way to help someone she cared about, and she took it. I know her intentions were pure. What I don’t know is why we are talking like this is the end, how she could ever think I hated her.
“I don’t want to be a point of pain for you. I only ever wanted to help you.” She covers her face, and everything she feels surrounds her like an aura. I want to take it all away, but I’m… stuck. Struggling to wrap my head around any of it. Before I can say anything to smother her fear that this is the end, my phone rings. I pull it from my pocket to stop it when I see the café’s number pop up.
“ Fuck, ” I mutter and run a frustrated hand down my face. They would only call if it is urgent because they are under strict instructions not to fucking call unless it is.
“You should take that. I’ll get going.”
“What? No, Casey. just let me get this. But don’t leave.”
She doesn’t listen, instead she heads for the door. I shut the phone off and head toward her. Fuck the shop. I need to fix this first.
“Case—”
The phone rings again. “ Goddammit! ” I hiss in frustration under my breath again and feel the rage boil up. Casey flinches and I scold myself.
“Just wait here, baby, please, okay? We’re not finished,” I urge before quickly turning and heading for my room, answering the phone with a bark at whoever was choosing today to piss me the fuck off. “What!?”
“Oh, sorry, boss. Umm, there is a guy here who said he needs to talk to you?”
I swear to all that is holy, if it’s not the fire department because the shop is burning down, Eugene was going to be fired so fucking fast. “Who?” I growl.
“Uhh, I don’t know someone from a development pla—”
“Tell him to fuck off. I’ll be at the shop later, but unless the place is on fire, don’t fucking call.” I hang up without waiting for an answer, making a mental note to apologize for that later as I turn around and head back into the living room. Completely unable to control my shit right now because my woman wasn’t making any sense, and I needed to fix—
The room is empty. “Casey?” I call out, which is fucking stupid because I can see her purse is gone from the counter and in its place is the key I had cut for her. My apartment is small enough to know she isn’t here at all. I practically run to the door and rip it open. “Casey!” I shout, and when there is no response, I slam the door again, pacing the apartment and almost ripping the hair from my head.
“Fuck!” I scream at no one but myself. This is my fucking fault. She is gone because I couldn’t handle my shit quickly enough to clear up any of her concerns. I couldn’t tell her all the shit I am feeling and bury all the stupid emotions.
For the second time in my life, the future I had mapped out feels like it is slipping through my fingers. The difference is, this time, I know exactly what the fuck to do about it.
I’m going to go get her the fuck back.