A nervous laugh bubbles from my throat as I look up at his sleepy eyes. My hand glides over his cheek, and he turns toward it and takes a quick bite before moving in and out of me, slow and steady at first, then just like he promised, rough and greedy. My mattress suddenly decides to do its best impression of a waterbed, and just as Jaxson gets in a few aggressive thrusts, as if he’s trying to teach my vagina a lesson, my headboard crashes over the wall with a thunderous clatter.
“Jax!” His name gets garbled in a laugh as my headboard thunders away. But Jaxson continues with his endeavor as he thrusts his way to completion.
His body shudders over mine as he breaks out into a cold sweat. Jax falls over me, and I cover my face in a whimpering laugh.
“You think that was convincing enough?” He leans in and takes a bite of my earlobe.
“I think we’ve convinced the entire neighborhood.”
Jaxson lands one of his magical kisses over my lips, and we start all over again.
We wrestle it out all night long. I always knew that Jaxson Stade was a beast to be reckoned both under and over the sheets.
It’s bliss like this with Jaxson.
I always knew it would be.
“All night?” Sadie can hardly land her fork to her mouth the next day as we enjoy a late lunch at Starry Nights.
“Thankfully, my parents were nowhere to be seen this morning while Jax and I scarfed down that blueberry pancake breakfast. Who knew a sexual feast of fantastic proportions could leave you feeling as if you hadn’t eaten for days?” I take a quick breath at the memory and quickly gulp down my ice water.
“So back up to the I love yous. Why did you have to muck it up with all that friendship crap? Now it’s going to be a nightmare trying to decipher what he meant.”
“Of course, we love each other. Jax is practically my second brother.” I gag a moment at the thought. “Not that way. It’s you know,thatkind of love.” Purely platonic, but I can’t bring myself to say it because for me it isn’t true.
“No, I don’t know.” She pulls her roll apart as if she were readying to feed a thousand pigeons. “Pops, I was married for fourteen grueling months, and I can count on one hand how many times that man said I love you and still have fingers left over.”
“Well, this isn’t like that. We were just...” I pause, fork midair, and suddenly my appetite for the world’s greatest Chinese chicken salad vanishes to nothing. “I don’t know, messing around?” I wince as I say it. “I mean”—I toss my fork into the leafy green jungle plated before me in surrender—“I love him. I meant every word.” Tears come to the party uninvited. “I’ve loved him for so long, and last night was the culmination of all those jacked-up feelings I’ve had to hide from the time I was seven. It’s not fair.” I grab my drink as if I were about to strangle it.
“What’s not fair?” Sadie gets that incredulous look on her face. “Poppy—you and Jax share something the rest of us have to search our whole lives for, and even when we think we’ve found it, we end up proving ourselves wrong. Face it, what you and Jax have is true love. What happened last night was a testament of your feelings. You said so yourself—you love him. So the question is, how does this fit into that little practical joke you’re pulling on your mothers?”
“Oh—that.” It was a stupid idea to begin with. “Of course, we still have to go through with it. We need to see those women suffer in front of a large assembly of friends and family lest they live to torment us another day. This is our perfect chance—our one moment in time. There’s no way we can give up now.”
“But he’s in love with you, and you’re in love with him.” Sadie shakes her head at me with that sickly laugh that screamsI pity you, bleating from her throat. “Don’t you see? The jig is up, girl. This is one prank that’s backfired in the most spectacular way.”
I think on this for a moment. “I guess I should talk to Jax about it.” Something in my stomach churns as if deep down I know this isn’t the best idea. “He mentioned something about a business meeting in Denver today, so he won’t get back until late. But I’ll try to bring it up the next time we’re together.” Maybe.
Sadie reaches over and picks up my hand. “I know this will all work out, Pops. Don’t worry. No matter how this ends, I’ll be there for you.”
“Only, I’ll be in California.”
We wrap up lunch, and Sadie invites me to scout locations around Oak Grove for her up-and-coming coffee shop that’s about to take the town by caffeinated storm. Everywhere we go we seem to run into couples laughing, embracing, looking lovingly into one another’s eyes, and for some odd, Jaxson Stade-shaped reason, I’m morbidly jealous of them.
We stop outside of the Pine Crest Bakery and look in at the sad display of old, plain-looking cakes that no one seems interested in, save for the fly trapped in the refrigerated case. Sadie really called it.
A man and a woman skip on by, chortling at nothing in particular. Her cheeks are rosy, and his eyes filled with far too much lust for Main Street in the middle of the afternoon, and now I wish I had held on to that fork from lunch because I’d really love to stab their collective eyes out.
“Is it wrong that every time I see a happy couple, I want to throttle both of them?”
Sadie starts in on a laugh before it quickly defuses to a rife look of worry. “You do realize throttling innocent people will probably lead to a felony charge.”
“Only if I achieve my goal of killing them.”
“Oh, Pops” —she lands an arm around my shoulder—“I’m sorry you’re in the mood for a good killing spree. As your best friend, I like to help propagate your shenanigans, but seeing that it might garner me an orange jumpsuit, I’ll have to put the kibosh on this one.”
“How could I have let him run away with my heart like this? Jaxson isn’t going to pick up Stade Steel and move to L.A., and I’m not going to pack up the UGG boots I’ve amassed and move back to Oak Grove—although the aforementioned collection would be much better suited in a subarctic climate such as this. But you’ll be glad to know they don’t really roast your feet at seventy degrees since wool can be comfortably worn at stable temperatures, but I digress. If I move back home—and I reallydoconsider Oak Grove my home—then Jaxson will think I’m some desperate stalker.” I let out a Sasquatch-worthy groan. “This started out in the name of revenge, and I’m afraid it’s going to have to end there. I knew no good would come from trying to pull a fast one on those mischief mavens.”
“This is all their fault.”
