17. Chapter 17
seventeen
Jamie
A slice of bright light beams across the television screen, obscuring my view of the movie I’m half watching, half using for company.
I’ve been lying here long enough for the sun to round the top of my building and come at me from the west, which officially marks the end of the third day I’ve spent stewing on this couch.
I can’t stop thinking about the beach and the way it took all of five minutes to go from my mouth at Noel’s neck to her dropping my hand and running away from me.
If you’re offering me a taste, I’m gonna take it .
I groan at the memory. “You’re out of your mind, Bishop.” I knew I was. But then color had crept up her neck, and I pictured myself tasting her there, biting a little. There was no coming back after that. And she’d said it. I’m offering .
Even now, the memory makes the front of my jeans tight and I reach down and adjust myself.
What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I just accept a thing is a bad idea and let it be? I’ve thought about Noel, wanted her, for two years, but talking to her like that, touching her like I did, I’m setting myself up for a big fall.
And yet, if she didn’t run away, I would have turned backwards, closed my eyes, and let myself tip.
I forgot how vulnerable this type of thing makes me feel. I haven’t cared about whether or not a woman liked me in a long time, not since everything imploded with Becca. The side of me that wants that kind of thing has learned his damn lesson, so I don’t know why he insists on popping up again now.
Noel’s leaving. I can spend every day with her, be stupid enough to cross my own lines, but at the end of the year, she’s gone.
The thought feels like a foot on the center of my chest, and I sit up and rub at it.
I just can’t help the feeling that if it weren’t for that piece, the rest wouldn’t be so insurmountable.
There’s a certain possessiveness that comes with being the only head Noel’s been in.
Despite the rules and boundaries I set for myself with women, it’s hard to imagine a world where we don’t explore that.
Kissing her on that beach felt like we were just slotting into our rightful place.
Like when you misthread the top of a jar at first, but then you hear that satisfying click when you set it right.
I push off the couch and head to the fridge, popping open an energy drink.
Part of me wishes I could go back to when all I wanted out of this thing with Noel was a psychic tip.
A favor. But even if I had the ability to rewind, I’d be hard-pressed to find a time when I wasn’t into her beyond that, which is why this whole agreement was a stupid move in a long line of stupid moves.
The reports Wes gave me from the launch are still sitting on the kitchen island, taunting me, and a sigh rips from my chest at the mental work it’s going to take for me to decipher them.
Half the time I just don’t do it. I tell Wes I do, but in reality, I take his word for it.
Lately, though, that feels like an in-my-face reminder of who I’m betting on if I buck Wes’s advice and don’t take this offer, so I force myself to sit on the stool and face the endless columns.
Unfortunately, that only starts a new loop of intrusive thoughts. You’re in over your head. You’ve never understood what it would take. You’ve been running an entire business on vibes and a vision from a drunk girl at a party .
Fuck. I really miss her.
I really need to let this go.
And I have no idea how to even begin to do that.
I pop in my AirPods and put on the focus playlist I found online, but the train’s pretty much off the rails by this point. Thoughts of Noel are like fingers at the back of my neck, drawing my attention away from any task I attempt.
My phone vibrates on the counter, and I grab for it, practically overjoyed at the distraction.
I swipe my thumb across my phone screen to open a text from Greg.
He’s rounding people up to watch the Bruins at The Coppersmith.
Em’s already there, and the yeses and nos chime in from the rest of the guys.
I quickly send a thumbs up emoji and grab my car keys.
It’s a short drive across the bridge, and the guys have saved me a seat at our usual table in front of the television. I slide in between Em and Trev, already feeling better. Like I’ve emerged from the Noel-cave I’ve been in and into the sunlight.
“How’s the recovery going?” Derek asks me when I pass on a pint from the pitcher he’s holding. “Any idea when you’ll be back at hockey?”
“I’ll make the end of the season.”
Greg winces. “You must be bored out of your mind.”
I know he feels like shit about breaking my ribs, so I try to summon a smile. “It’s fine. A little rest never killed anyone.”
Em snorts into her pint glass.
“What?”
“Is that what you’re doing at the boat launch the other night with Noel? Resting? I bet there were a few other cars down there filled with people resting .”
“Actually we were on the lighthouse side, and since I’m not seventeen, it wasn’t fucking like that.”
So much for getting my mind off of it.
Trev shakes his head. “Only Jamie Bishop could pick up a woman while sporting a black eye.”
I ball up a napkin and toss it at him left-handed.
Chase uses his goalie reflexes to bat it away before it hits a woman at the table behind him.
Trev should talk. I’m pretty sure he was missing a front tooth when he met his wife Julia.
He used to have a reputation for being borderline insane on the ice.
Now he designs banking software. Also, my eye is nearly back to normal except for some yellowing around the cut.
“Nah,” Chase says. “Women love a mysterious facial wound. He’s probably doing better than ever.”
“I didn’t pick her up,” I say with a little too much venom in my voice. It gets their attention. Though, now that I have it, the panic sets in. I really don’t want to talk about this. The first time I mention a woman to these guys in years, and it’s after I’ve already fucked it up.
I’ve backed myself into a corner, though. Trev rolls his hand to tell me to spit it out, and I clear my throat. “You remember the party a few years ago, with the fortune teller?”
“Not exactly something you forget, J.” Chase chuckles but I’m not sure if it’s with me or at me.
I tug at the collar of my hoodie. “Anyway, well, she’s back in town and I…”
I what? I guilted her into hanging out with me and now I’m dreaming about her mouth ? I tried to kiss her and she ran away ? I need her to tell me the future of my business, but now the only future I care about is whether I’m going to get to see her again ?
Fuck, what if I don’t get to see her again?
A high-pitched squeal distracts me from the cold sweat creeping up my spine, and for a blessed second everyone’s attention turns away from me.
The women at the table beside ours are greeting two others who just arrived: A tall brunette in knee-high boots and a very familiar blonde who I last spoke to when she was declining to pick me up at the ER.
I tip my head back and groan at the ceiling. Really?
Em leans in, dropping her voice. “Is that—?”
“Yeah. It is.” There’s something almost cosmically on the nose about Kelly’s timing, bursting into my line of sight while I’m trying to forget how stupidly hooked on Noel I am.
She spots me immediately, shuffling around chairs until she’s beside mine. “Jamie?”
I tip my chin politely even though I’d rather have pretended not to see her. “Hey, Kel.”
“Oh my God. What the hell happened to your face?”
I guess she forgot all about the other night when I called her from the hospital. “Hockey,” I remind her.
“Oh.” Her eyes slide over my chest then back up, her lip between her teeth. “Well, how’s the rest of you?”
Then she drops herself into my lap, grabs my face with her manicure pressing painfully into the bruise she just commented on, and kisses me.
One of my stepfathers used to talk about bell ring moments, where all of a sudden something becomes so clear to you that you can’t believe what an absolute dumbass you were before that instant.
As quickly as the very public proposition is out of her mouth, the first emotion Kelly has ever elicited from me hits me square in the chest. I’m pissed.
“What the fuck, Kel?” I stand up, dumping her back onto her high heels.
“What’s wrong?” She looks genuinely confused which is even more embarrassing.
“We’re not… This isn’t.” I lower my voice to a harsh whisper. “The last time we talked, you left me at the fucking ER.”
“Jamie, come on.” She tucks her hair behind her ear nervously. “We were never ‘ ride home from the hospital’ friends.”
I glance at Em and the guys, the tips of my ears burning at the way they’re watching me with various curious expressions.
They know as well as I do that my reaction here isn’t typical.
I’m not even sure I have a right to it since it’s exactly what I told Greg that night— it’s not that kind of relationship —but for some reason it still feels like a slap of heat across my cheeks.
This would be easy, falling back into Kelly.
I’d have to dust off my pride a little at the fact that she could totally ditch me when I needed her and I’d still be there with open arms, or an open invitation to my bed, but I could do it.
It would hurt a hell of a lot less than the memory of Noel running away from me.
But it could also never feel as good as Noel taking care of me on my couch. Her hands in my hair on the fire escape. Goddamn it .
“That’s a general human compassion kind of thing, Kel.” I step around her, pulling out my wallet to toss some cash on the table for my share of the food that hasn’t even come out yet. Greg can take it home to his kids. “I’m going to head out.”
“Jamie,” Em calls, catching up to me in the parking lot.
With my knee the way it is, I can’t outrun her, so I reluctantly pull to a stop. “What?”