Page 22

Chapter 22

Mikey

Jessalyn was a heartbreaker. As in, it broke my heart when I saw the desperation in her eyes getting off the elevator with Cole’s new chick. I was only standing out there to warn her about my mom being there, but I ended up being needed for more. The good news is, I’d been dying to kiss her anyway. That was as good an excuse as any. My years of reading situations and thinking quick on my feet for hockey came in handy.

It was such a relief to finally feel her lips on mine, to taste her, to have her wrapped up in my arms. I’m known for my casual encounters, but I needed her kiss more than I needed to get off with other conquests. It made me realize how empty most of my hookups were. Kissing was just a means to an end with them.

I actually felt something for Jessie. I wanted to keep kissing her until she felt how special she is. I wanted to do other things with her, too, along with plenty of kissing. I wanted to know what she thought about everything under the sun. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to have her tease me and sing along to songs with me. I wanted to hold her hand because I liked how it felt.

What was happening to me?

I couldn’t stop replaying the wildness in her eyes the moment she realized we were actually going to kiss, like it was what she needed, too. The sweet softness of her body pressing into me. Those fucking tits. God.

Well, anyway. I was out to dinner with this powerhouse of a woman and... my mother and her best friend.

Jessie was good-natured fielding Mom and Lori’s endless questions. When Lori asked how we met, we both gazed at each other lovingly. “We were,” I started, and she finished my sentence, “Neighbors.”

I love a girl with a good appetite, and Jessie was absolutely laying into the chips and salsa. Eating her feelings about Cole, I supposed. Or eating her feelings about me. Or both.

Either way, I was happy to see her eating again.

What were her feelings about me? The kiss was a fake, obviously, but damn did it feel real. I can’t deny that I enjoyed it, that I wanted it with every fiber of my being. Maybe I just needed to get laid.

But tonight wasn’t about me. She’d been dealt a serious blow by her ex, and I didn’t need to make it any more about me than I already had. She was cool enough to put up with dinner with my family.

“Jessie, how are you liking Ben’s games?” Mom asked.

“She actually hasn’t been yet, Ma. She doesn’t know a thing about hockey. Can you believe that?”

“It’s true,” Jessie said. “When I found out what he did for a living, I told him I thought hockey players were supposed to be bigger.”

Mom and Lori cackled, eating that up. Peach margaritas lubricated the situation.

Jessie looked over at me with her tiny little dimple out and went on. “He informed me that those are pads that make them so big. How was I supposed to know?”

Mom patted Jessie’s hand on the table. “I like this one, Benny. You should keep her around.”

Jessie blushed and I squeezed her thigh, looking at her all moon-eyed. My stomach even did that dippy feeling. A mousey squeak of a voice in the back of my head screamed to stop, that this was dangerous, but it was too late. I was genuinely enjoying pretending like Jess was mine, so much so that it didn’t feel like pretending. “I plan to try.”

The waiter came by to ask if we wanted drink refills before our food came.

“I do!” Mom chimed in.

“Me, too!” Aunt Lori said.

“Not me. I’m cut off,” Jessie said. I also gestured that I was good, since I’d be playing the next day and I was DD for those clowns.

“Aw, come on,” Mom whined. Lori booed. Man, they really liked Jessie.

“I have to work early, and I’m going to head out to Kitty’s for the night tonight.”

“What do you mean, honey?” I asked. I didn’t know she and Kitty were close enough to be having girl slumber parties.

Jessie waved her hand. “No, y’all need to catch up without me in the way.”

“Jessalyn, we’re not prudes. We don’t mind if you two shack up together. We weren’t born yesterday,” Mom said.

“Mom,” I sighed.

“What? You’re grown adults. You can have all the sex you want,” Mom pushed.

Lori cackled. “Deb, you’re making them turn beet red!”

Indeed, Jessie’s gaze was locked on the empty chip basket, her face a deep crimson.

“ Mom ,” I whined. “Let’s leave our sex life out of this discussion, please.”

“Oh, you kids. So uptight. Your father says hello, by the way. You should call him sometime.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will,” I said tersely.

“I’ll just slip out to the ladies,” Jess said. I scooted out of our booth to let her leave.

“I’ll join you,” Lori said, leaving me and Mom some privacy.

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about Dad. I’m glad you came to visit. Let’s just enjoy this time, okay?”

“Benjamin, when are you going to forgive your father? I forgave him years ago,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Not like he’d change.”

“That’s what makes me mad. He’ll never change.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re not like him, Benny. Jessalyn is such a catch for you! So pretty and sweet. I know you did your fair amount of sowing your oats—”

“Mom,” I protested again. What was wrong with my mother?

“Mikey, is that you?” The timing couldn’t have been worse. A busty blonde woman whose name escaped me but whose body I had definitely been inside approached our table. At that moment, Jess came back from the bathroom, laughing over her shoulder with Lori.

“Hey there,” I said, trying not to show off exactly how much I had no clue what her name was.

“Is this your mom? And... sister?” She gestured to Jess.

I stood to let Jess back in, but grabbed her before she could slide back in and kissed her cheek. Jessie laced her fingers with mine on her hips.

“Not my sister. This is my girlfriend, Jessie.”

The blonde looked Jess up and down with an expression like she was smelling a bad smell. “I thought you didn’t do girlfriends.”

“Yeah, well, the right one came along. Ain’t that right, hon?” I nestled my nose into her neck and planted a kiss there. Jessie leaned into me and giggled, pressing her hand to the side of my face.

“That tickles,” she sighed.

“More where that came from,” I mumbled in her ear. Her breath caught. Jesus, what was I doing?

My old friend was not amused. “Cute. Well, let me know if you change your mind and want somebody more your type. You have my number. Have a good night.” She disappeared in a flash of blonde hair.

Jess pasted on a smile, but I could tell she was uncomfortable. Like she was my actual girlfriend, I tried to smooth it over with an arm around her shoulder and a kiss to her temple. It was the kind of shit I saw Guy do to Kitty, so I figured that’s loving boyfriend stuff. Luckily, our food came right then.

“Actually, sir, could I get another margarita?” Jess said. Her voice was calm and sweet, but her eyes had absolute anguish in them. I turned to our food.

“Not going to Kitty’s after all?”

“What’s another marg?” she asked with a grimace of a smile, to Mom and Lori’s excited whoops.

“Dig in, everybody,” I said, desperate to shift the mood.

* * *

Jess didn’t talk while we got ready for bed. Pissed off radiated from her like a black cloud. She was in the white silk pajamas she wore when we first really met, with the tiny shorts that gave her the Sweet Cheeks name. I had to focus not to stare at her boobs, because that was not going to help my case.

As she put on maybe the fifteenth step in her skin care routine, I spoke.

“I’m sorry, Jessalyn.”

Her fingers stopped moving over her skin and she stared at me in the mirror for a second. Then she continued her meticulous skin care application. When she finished, she turned to face me, crossing her arms.

“What exactly do you think you’re sorry for, Ben?”

I wanted to reach out and touch her, to hold her hips while I spoke to her. But we were not actually dating, and that was also part of the problem. I looked very pointedly at her eyes as she rubbed some cream into the skin over her boobs, doing my best to have some decorum when I really wanted to bug out my eyes and pant like a dog.

“For upsetting you. For dragging you out to dinner. For making you uncomfortable.”

She studied me, blinking slowly as she took off the headband that held back her bangs. “Hmm. Okay.”

I was not sorry for touching her as much as I did, because goddammit, I liked it. And, she’d agreed to the fake girlfriend thing. Touching was part of it.

Why was I feeling defensive about the touching? Was it because I liked it so much and I wasn’t sure if she felt the same? I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. I wanted her to want to touch me, too. Did she?

“Not sorry for not telling me my boyfriend was cheating on me?”

“Jessie, see it from my perspective. If I were in a relationship, and you thought I was being cheated on, would you have told me?”

Her mouth went into a narrow line. I had her there. She moved on to the next thing. “You’re not at all sorry that you didn’t defend your fake girlfriend in front of your old hockey whore? Is that the term? It’s something cutesy and demeaning like that, isn’t it?”

I slapped my hand over my face and croaked out a humiliated, “Puck bunny.”

“Ah yes! How could I forget?” she said sarcastically, heading into the bedroom. “Such a kind term for a woman giving you her body!”

“I don’t use it, Jess.”

She grumbled something that sounded like “not all men.” I went back to her prior point.

“I felt like I stuck up for you, Jessie,” I argued. “What more did you want?”

“She was the second woman and third person this evening to look at me like I was trash, okay? Maybe that wore me down a bit.”

“Jess, she was jealous of you. Take it as a compliment.”

“She was jealous because I fake have something she wants! I don’t even know why I’m worked up about this. What we’re doing isn’t even real. Soon enough, you’ll be right back to women like her so things won’t be ‘stale’ for you anymore,” Jessie ranted, plopping down on her side of the bed.

God, I could never imagine things being stale with Jessie, but I knew it was the wrong time to say that. “Honey—”

“I don’t even have a real boyfriend, but Cole is dating someone else. He just thinks I am.”

She wasn’t facing me, but her shoulders shook as her tears came. I moved to sit next to her and put my arm around her.

“Let it out, babe.”

Jessie wailed, leaning into my chest. “Four fucking years,” she spat, her teeth chattering with how hard she was crying, “and who knows how long he’s been cheating.”

I cradled her head as she cried, feeling awful that Cole had put her through so much pain, and that I didn’t lighten the load that night like I’d intended.

I could have asked her to be my real girlfriend right then. But I didn’t want her to date me out of desperation. I was the desperate one. I didn’t want to be her rebound. I wanted to be the one she wanted. The knife twisted in me, too.

Her crying slowed.

“You’ve gotta get up early, Sweet Cheeks. You wanna try to get some sleep?”

She nodded, and I pulled back the sheets for her, tucking her in. I wanted to do anything I could to make her feel cared for, to make her life a little easier. I draped Yarn Wad across her neck.

She looked at me, mystified. “Thanks.”

“Will you let me drive you tomorrow?”

“Why?” she asked.

“I want you to have fun on your way to work. Just the two of us. Otherwise, Mom and Lori’ll be here, and there’s a game, and then I’ll be going on the road. Can we have Jessie and Ben friend time tomorrow morning?”

Her breath shuddered as she dabbed her face with a tissue. “That’d be really nice.”

“Okay. Do you need reading time?”

“No, I’m exhausted,” she said with a sniff. I opened my arms just expecting a hug, but she tangled her legs with mine, burrowed her face in my chest, and fell asleep within a couple of minutes.

I didn’t object.