22. Nick
22
NICK
B ecause I’m not sexism and a bag of dicks wrapped in a trench—and because I have living human sisters—I know that whole “women don’t sweat, they glow” thing is bullshit. Except for right now.
Jasmine glows. Between her fiery hair, the flush in her cheeks from embarrassment and probably fear, the stage lights illuminating every corner, she’s a freaking moonbeam. She’s glorious. She’s beautiful. For the life of me, I can’t remember why I’m mad. She left. Twice. So, what? She can’t make a decision to save her life, even when the right choice is literally right in front of her, or behind her, on top, beneath, between her legs. Who cares? She’s stunning and she’s brave and beneath the perfection she’s compassionate.
She wants to invest in my bar. She wants to help me.
As the band begins to play the first notes, she holds the mic up to her mouth and says, her eyes on me, “This is for you, Nick.”
Fuck. I love her.
And then she starts to sing.
I’ve never heard this room get so quiet so fast.
Jasmine Palmer, regal, beautiful, aflame, is a terrible singer. Like, absolutely horrendous.
She mumbles the words. The only reason I can hear them is because I know them by heart myself, but the mumbling is for a purpose: so we can’t hear her.
Pitch? Never met her before. Someone has to be paying her to sing off-key. She’s alternatively flat or sharp and nothing in between.
It’s not until the end of the first verse that the first wrinkle of a frown forms between her brows, specifically when she sings about what Bob and a certain black-haired beauty get up to in a truck. She drops the mic in the few moments between verse and chorus and says, “This isn’t a love song.”
Around me, people chuckle. I laugh, too loud for the weirdly quiet room, but still she doesn’t let this stop her. Through the chorus her frown deepens, especially when she’s forced to sing the titular line.
“This is a song about sex,” she says, aghast.
I jump on the stage, ready to put an end to this. “It’s not a love song,” I confirm. The band keeps playing for a few more notes then slowly fades. People chatter now, mostly sounding perplexed at why I’ve interrupted her.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say, my voice amplified by the microphone.
“I’m sorry.” She grasps my wrists, my elbows. “I talked about business when I should have told you the truth. The most important thing.”
“No, it’s okay.” I cup her face, rub her lips, her cheek with my thumb.
“It’s not,” she says, her voice high and strained. “I…”
“We’re not a match,” I say quickly.
She blinks, confused. “Y-yes we are.”
I sigh. It’s pretty embarrassing to have to admit this right now. “I went to Core Cupid.” I follow her hairline with my finger as a distraction. “Told Chloe everything and she signed me up to see if we could be a match. But we’re not.”
She shakes her head. “That’s the thing, I don’t want an algorithm to tell me how I feel anymore. I canceled my Core Cupid membership. I decided to follow my gut.”
The softest butterfly wings brush against my ribcage. I never thought of myself as a butterfly guy but it turns out I just needed the right girl. “And what does your gut say?”
“That I love you,” she whispers, trailing her fingers through my hair, scratching her nails through my stubble.
“Jazz.” I say her name like a sigh.
“I mean it though. I want to be a part of this with you. I know it’s a risk, but I see the community you created here, how happy it makes you. I don’t have a lot of experience running a bar. I might be bad at it at first, but I want to save Moonbar.”
“I thought you didn’t like doing things you’re not good at,” I tease.
She fights her smile. “Clearly, I’ve given up on that.”
“O-M-G kiss already, please!” Jade squeals from the front of the stage. Jasmine turns bright pink at the realization that we are being watched by…everyone.
“We should give the people what they want,” I say, pulling her attention back to me, tugging her closer by her hip. Tentative at first, as I run my nose along hers. Then not tentative at all when the spice of her perfume fills my nose, when all I can think about is being surrounded by her, feeling her laugh against my throat. Her lips are warm, her tongue soft. I taste her teeth because she can’t stop smiling, her giggles turning to buzzing against my lips. Then the whistles start, the catcalls and the affectionate requests that we get a room.
She presses her face into my throat, my shoulder. I cup the back of her head. I want to hold her, feel her next to me forever. Until her fingers find the tender skin of my triceps and she pinches me.
“What are you doing?” I scrub my stubble across her neck.
“Just checking,” she says, kissing my chin, my cheek. “Wanted to make sure this is real, you’re real.”
I kiss her again to a chorus of hoots and hollers. “Very real.”
There’s nothing fake about how I feel for her.