Chapter Nineteen #2
I think about it. It couldn’t hurt, I suppose.
It’s not anything I was expecting, but it wouldn’t do me any harm.
Maybe I could even get deals on stocking it at the café.
That’s something I’ll have to talk to him about another day.
“So you’ll do separate ads like our project proposal? I’m pretty flexible right now.”
Isaac’s hesitation makes my brows pinch. “I won’t do separate ones. I’ll do joint. You and Jesse. Together.”
Me and Jesse.
Together.
In the same ad.
Oh.
“And he’s okay with it?” I ask next slowly.
“He told me to ask you,” is his simple reply.
I wet my lips. There’s no real reason to say no to this. Right? No. it’ll be fine. I’ll get paid, maybe get a brand deal for the store. I could do this. I smile, but it seems feeble. Why does the idea make me so nervous? Being around Jesse is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I should be excited.
“Okay,” I answer, although my voice sounds a little weaker than it should. “Okay. If he’s fine with it and I get paid.”
Isaac doesn’t know me well enough to hear how off I sound, and that’s probably for the better. “Great! I’ll get my team to draft up an agreement. Do you want me to send it to the same person to look it over?”
He’s referring to Jesse’s agent. “Sure.”
Once we get off the phone, I stare at the computer screen again before groaning.
In hindsight, this could be a lot of fun.
But there’s a difference between me and Jesse doing an ad together and me doing an ad with hockey star Jesse Clarkson—a man rippling with muscle.
I am…not that. The only muscles I exercise frequently is my mouth because I talk a lot.
Self-consciousness creeps its ugly head in.
I’m pretty. Somebody recently told me in an Instagram post that I have a lethal face card. It was a stranger who then proceeded to message me asking for pics of my boobs, but I’d still take the compliment. I appreciated it.
“This is good,” I tell myself, powering off my computer because it’s obvious I won’t be doing any work on it.
Dobby comes in and jumps into my lap, clearly sensing I need some loving. His purrs melt away some of the bad juju lingering in my head, and I heft out a sigh.
At least I finally stopped thinking about my stepbrother naked.
*
Jesse doesn’t get home until almost eight o’clock, looking like somebody punched him in the face.
“Oh my God!” I exclaim, completely ignoring the chicken wrap I was rolling for him for dinner. There are way too many leafy greens in it for my liking, but I know it’s one of his favorite go-to meals. “What happened?”
I don’t think before I get on my toes and grip his face, carefully examining the puffy cheek that looks slightly purple. It’s going to be a shiner tomorrow. A bad one.
“Somebody punched me,” he says, lifting a shoulder.
I stand straighter. “Who?”
His lips pull up at the corners. “What are you going to do? Fight them.”
I let go of his face and cross my arms over my chest. I don’t miss the way his eyes dip down to my boobs, which are fully covered in the unattractive stained college sweatshirt I slipped on earlier because I was cold. “Maybe. I’m sure I can’t win, but I can at least get a few good kicks in.”
His snort is loud, and that tiny smile grows as he dips down and presses his lips against mine like it’s the most natural thing ever. Like we’ve done every single day he comes home. The light, quick peck swells my heart to the point I’m afraid it’ll leak out of me.
It lasts barely half a second, but my body heats like it did yesterday. How could something so simple feel so…monumental? People did it all the time. They greeted their loved ones with kisses on the cheeks and temples. Jesse had done that before too. But this…
It doesn’t feel the same.
I let out a short breath, almost embarrassed by how shaky it is. But I don’t think he hears its instability. He smiles at me and brushes his nose against mine before straightening.
“I appreciate you willing to go Muhammad Ali on their ass, but it’s fine,” he tells me, backing up a step despite his eyes flashing the way they did yesterday. The kiss did something to him too, but he clearly has more self-control than me.
I lick my lips and gesture toward the plate of food behind me. “I’m making you dinner.”
When he texted me saying he was on his way home, I’d waited fifteen minutes before starting the prep knowing it would take him thirty to drive home from the sports complex.
His eyes brighten. “Is that a chicken ceaser wrap?” I swear I hear his stomach rumble as he follows me around the island. I bite my inner cheek remembering how the edge of the countertop dug into my hips when he—
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Replaying that in my mind is probably not the best idea. My body needs a break. Especially the southern half of it.
I finish rolling the wrap and push the plate toward him, grabbing a napkin from the cupboard and giving him that too.
“Thanks, Bells,” he says easily, taking no time at all to devour the food. I can tell he’s tired. He had to get up early this morning. I vaguely remember him unwinding his arm from me, pressing a kiss against my cheek, and sliding out of bed telling me he had to go.
I’d been so exhausted from…well, everything that I barely remember giving him a coherent response. It wasn’t until at least two hours later I peeled myself out of his bed and reaching out to touch his cold sheets, remembering where I’d been.
We could talk about the asshole who punched him or about how his day went. We could discuss the weather or how he likes his wrap. I could ask him about the advertisement and Isaac, which I definitely need to bring up at some point but decide now is not that time.
“Are we going to talk about it?” I blurt, sudden anxiousness filling my chest.
He’s wiping his mouth with the napkin, but I can see the edge of a faint smile hiding behind it. And then this smug asshat plays dumb.
“Talk about what?”
I gape at him. He’s going to make me say it, isn’t he? Heat crawls up the back of my neck and prickles the skin of my cheeks. “About…” I wave my hand in the air as if that’s supposed to signify everything he needs to know.
“About…?” he presses, leaning his elbows on the counter and watching me.
Oh my God. He is. He is going to make me say it. But I’m a big girl and I’m wearing big girl panties. Well, that’s a lie. I’m wearing leggings, and I never wear underwear with leggings.
“Are we going to talk about what happened yesterday?” I finally ask, meeting his eyes and making sure I don’t look away.
He runs his hand over his clean-shaven jaw that he must have shaved this morning because he had stubble that left scratch marks on my inner thighs last night. And I didn’t hate it.
“Which part?” he counters casually, his elbow now propping his leaned body up on the counter. He props his chin in the palm of his hand as those eyes dance with mischief. “The part where I ate you out on the counter or came inside of you repeatedly in my bed?”
My jaw drops at his unforgiving honesty. Seriously, I think my brain is fried. Because…yes. Yes, to both. “A-All of it,” I confirm, swallowing down the lust rising from my belly.
How can he look so nonchalant about the whole thing?
He just admitted he came inside of me multiple times.
Me. Belle. The girl who’s harbored a crush on him for twenty years.
The one who thanked him an unknown number of times for everything he’s ever done for me.
From the day he bought me blackout curtains, I’d held him close to my heart.
Not even my mother, who I love dearly, had done that. She never thought to.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks in a voice that doesn’t sound any different than normal. I’m in awe at how he’s acting right now.
Before I can think, I blurt out, “You bought me blackout curtains.”
He stares at me, parting his lips to say something before closing them in surprise.
Which is a fair reaction, considering he’d bought me blackout curtains over fifteen years ago.
Technically, he’s made sure the curtains in my rooms since are also blackout.
But he knows I’m referring to the original ones.
I wet my lips and release a breath hoping to come out rational rather than flustered.
“You have always done such nice things for me, but that was the first time that I felt seen by you. I knew who you were before our parents started dating.” I blush despite myself, and I’m sure he can tell the sudden awkwardness in the way I move from one foot to another.
“Everybody knew who you were in school. You were popular. And I was…not. Which isn’t exactly a secret. ”
I’m not sure I was ever labeled a loser, but maybe a nerd.
And nerds are cool as far as I’m concerned.
Just not in high school. I was chubby for a while before I hit a growth spurt, my boobs were always a little too big for my body, and I was quiet.
Shy. When I got to know people was when they couldn’t shut me up, but that took effort. Not many people made that back then.
Jesse did.
He went from small smiles across the cafeteria to sitting with me and eating lunch.
He’d ask me what book I was reading. Ask about homework and classes and tests.
If I got headaches, he’d try making sure they didn’t turn into more.
Our friendship has been one of my favorite things on this planet.
It’s been pure and simple and beautiful. Because he’s those things.
Jesse watches me as I collect my scrambled thoughts of the past and gather them up to explain where my head is at.
“I think I had a crush on the idea of you long before I ever got to know you, and I figured it would go away. But then our parents fell in love, and we moved in, and I got to know you in ways nobody else did. It felt like…”
What was the best way to describe that feeling to him without sounding out of my mind? I’m not sure there was a good way.