31. Jameson #2
“You’ve been acting weird,” she said. “Since L.A.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. My head was starting to hurt. We’d been back for a week, and I’d been busy from dawn till dusk trying to get my piece ready to ship. The days I lost taking her to L.A. had taken their toll.
“I’ve just been busy.”
“Yeah…”
“But what?” I asked, not bothering to hide the annoyance in my voice.
“I didn’t say but.”
“You trailed off like you were agreeing with me, but getting ready to tell me how you’re not agreeing with me.”
“It seems like it’s more than that,” she said. “Are you upset about something?”
“I don’t think now is the time for this. ”
“When?” she asked. “Is that how you do things too? You ignore your girlfriend until you forget why you were mad and hope everything turns out okay?”
“I’m hardly ignoring you. I’m standing here now, talkin’ to you, ain’t I?”
“Yes, but you’re clearly upset, and I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me about it.”
Frustration burned in my veins, running through me like molten steel. Clenching my fists, I turned and started back to my house.
“Jameson, don’t you walk away from me.”
I whirled around, anger sitting like a hot coal in my gut, searing me from the inside. “You want to talk about why I’m upset? All right, let’s talk. What the fuck happened between you and Brock Winston on that show?”
Her eyes widened, and she froze, almost like I’d slapped her. “What?”
“You’ve never told me what really happened between the two of you,” I said. “And I never asked because I assumed if there was somethin’ to tell, you would have been up front with it. But now I’m not so sure about that.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Her cheeks flushed, and it pissed me off more. I loved the way she looked when her skin got that hint of pink. Damn it, I was angry, not turned on.
“I’m dead serious, sweetheart,” I said. “Lay it out for me.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Nothing? Not a damn thing? You just went around makin’ eyes at each other all season long, but nothing else happened all those times you two were alone?”
“Making eyes?” she asked. “I was supposed to flirt with everyone. I did. Shamelessly, and I’m not proud of that. The show edited the rest of it out to make it look like I was only flirting with Brock.”
“What about all those times you were alone, away from the cameras?”
She put her hands on her hips and my eyes drifted down to the shape of her legs under that skirt. God, she looked good.
“Why don’t you just say it? Ask,” she said.
I blinked, tearing my eyes away from her sexy legs and back to her face. Damn it, why was I getting hard? This was ridiculous.
“Did you suck Brock’s dick in that back room?”
Her nostrils flared, her jaw tightened, and I knew in an instant that I’d just fucked up. Badly.
“No, I did not,” she said, her voice laced with anger.
“I followed him into that back room because I knew he needed to talk. He was worried about Maisie, and the producers weren’t letting us have any contact with the outside world.
He’d been trying to get them to bend the rules for him, since she’d been injured.
He’d told me earlier that they’d said no, and I felt bad for him.
He needed someone to talk to. That was all. ”
“Were you tempted?”
“Was I tempted to blow Brock Winston?” she asked. “God, Jameson, why would that even matter? Even if I was, how could you hold that against me? We’re talking about something that happened before we were dating. Do I have to answer for every blow job I’ve ever given?”
I almost said yes, but thankfully I stopped myself before it came out.
“He was married, and you were engaged,” I said. “Although you were lying about that to everyone, so I don’t know what that means. If you were tempted, that’s an issue. ”
Every time I said tempted , my cock got harder. She was feeling it, too. I could tell. The two of us were fixin’ for a good angry fuck. And maybe that was what we needed.
She stepped toward me, her tits straining against that little top. “Me being tempted by another man before we met is an issue?”
“It wasn’t before we met. We met when we were five.”
“Oh my god, you know what I mean,” she said. “Do you know how crazy you sound right now?”
I threw my arms up in the air. “You make me fucking crazy. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with you.”
She stopped, her posture changing. We were outside, but it was like something had sucked away all the air. She stared at me, her lips parted, and blinked a few times.
The last thing I’d said hung in the space between us. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with you. The truth of that hit me square in the chest. Took all the fight out of me. The lust, too.
What was I doing? Fanning the flame of anger so we could angry fuck and pretend that was making up? Sounded an awful lot like my parents. And they’d been miserable together more often than not.
I had no idea what I was doing with her.
Leah Mae had spent almost half her life away from here, living in a world about as far removed from Bootleg as you could get.
And how much of that life had she really left behind?
How much did she want to leave behind? She’d slipped right back in easily enough, soon as we were in front of all those Hollywood people.
She’d done what they said, like she was happier with someone telling her what to do.
I’d hated it. Hated seeing her like that. I didn’t understand it, and it made me realize, I had no idea what I was doing with her .
I probably wasn’t cut out for a relationship with any woman, but with Leah Larkin? I was damn lost.
“I’m goin’ alone tomorrow,” I said, my voice quiet. “Go home, Leah.”
Then I turned and left her standing there.