“Next time, I want to hear all the sexy things you say during sex,” he whispered hotly in my ear.Next time?I should’ve put up a token argument, but we both knew this wouldn’t be the last time I surrendered my body to him.
“Next time, you’ll be the one making all the hungry sounds while I fuck you.”
Silence and then finally, “Okay.”
We didn’t say anything else while we cleaned up in the tiny bathroom attached to my office then wiped down my desk, the floor, and my chair. After, Jag handed me his phone, and I knew what he was asking without words. I programmed my contact info into his phone, saved under the name Bones, and handed it back to him. I handed him my phone and watched as he saved his info in my phone too.
One last soft, lingering kiss, then he left me alone in my office to think about what had just happened. It wasn’t the sex part that had me floundering but the kiss he’d given me before he left. All the other kisses we’d shared had been hungry preludes to hard fucking. That goodbye kiss was sweet and remained on my lips long after he left.
I sat down in my chair and could still feel the heat of his body on the leather and smell his scent and the fragrance of our combined releases in the air. I wondered, not for the first time, what I was doing with Jag and why it seemed like I couldn’t let go? Sure, he was a mystery I wanted to solve, but there was more to it than that. This was more than dial-a-dick, and I guessed only time would tell exactly what was happening between us.
JJ
Amonth had passed, and I hadn’t heard from Bones, which left me feeling irritated and conflicted. My confliction came from the hurt and disappointment I felt growing stronger each day that went by without a word from him. I didn’t want our interactions to be important enough to hurt me, but I still ended up feeling rejected. I was irritated I had set myself up for disappointment by handing him my phone in the first place. I’d asked myself a hundred times in thirty days what I had been thinking that night. The answer came easily each time as I sat alone inside my house.
Miller made me forget. He took away the pain and numbness and made me feel. I wanted to hold on to that, but at the same time, I was too afraid to try.
That night at the university alumni event had been the anniversary of the worst day of my life. It was a night when I usually got smashed to hide from the pain, but I would wake up the next morning and remember that my selfishness nine years ago had cost the life of someone I loved so much, someone who’d trusted me to keep him safe, and I’d failed. I wanted to feel miserable and alone for the rest of my life because I didn’t deserve any better.
Somewhere along the way, I’d stopped wanting to be miserable and alone, but I didn’t know how to move forward. I had built so many barriers and blockades to keep everyone away that I wasn’t quite sure how to take them down. Did I slowly remove them one at a time or just kick them all down one right after another? Handing my phone to Miller was my attempt to slowly remove the barriers, to dip my toes into dark, murky water to see what lurked beneath the surface. His lack of response wasn’t inspiring, even though our goodbye kiss had held so much promise. I’d made the first move, and I needed him to make the next one.
In the meantime, I decided to get a cat to combat the loneliness. I had gotten acquainted with Chase and Gray’s cat, Oliver, the few times I had been over and found his purring to be comforting. I also loved his smartass personality if you could say that about a cat. I’d even extended an olive branch to Gray by way of asking him where he’d adopted Oliver. I thought by complimenting his choice in cats it would somehow work in my favor. I figured he’d be less hostile since he and Chase had gotten engaged, but it seemed he still hadn’t warmed up to me yet. In fact, Oliver taking a liking to me seemed to make things worse. Gray was probably thinking I was after his manandhis cat.
I felt some of my sadness ease over thoughts of tormenting Gray a little later that afternoon. I had been invited to their house for pizza and beer while we watched the first round of the NFL playoffs. I wasn’t sure who else was invited, but my heartbeat picked up at the thought of seeing Miller again. Would it be awkward? Would I be able to avoid making a fool of myself over him again? Would I be petulant and demand to know why he hadn’t called? I hoped to hell I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he’d gotten under my skin.
I took my time grooming myself just in case he made an appearance. Just in case he wanted to apologize for his absence by dropping to his knees to blow me later when we could be alone.A guy could dream, right?I believed in being prepared for any occasion, which was why I also stopped at the drug store on my way to buy more lube packets.Just in case.
I turned down the family planning and personal hygiene aisle and came to a screeching halt when I saw Ava standing in the aisle studying the boxes in front of her. I couldn’t help but smile at the long trench coat and Hollywood-style sunglasses she wore. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to disguise herself or if she was about to start flashing people. She leaned over to get a closer look at the boxes instead of picking one up as if she were afraid it might bite her.
“You could read it better if you took off those sunglasses, Ms. Monroe,” I said, comparing her to the famous blonde bombshell. Ava clutched her chest and gasped before she spun around to face me. Then she promptly burst into tears. “Ava, what’s the matter?” I asked. I walked to her and wrapped my arms around her. I couldn’t recall a time I had seen her cry in all the years I had known her. “Surely, it can’t be that bad.” I looked over at the display she had been studying and saw they were early pregnancy tests.
“I-I-I’m not ready for this, J.” She began to cry a little harder, so I hugged her tighter. “I had hoped it would be just the two of us for a little while longer.” Two women had entered the aisle and were giving me the evil eye as if I was the one who’d knocked her up and made her cry. “I want to have kids, I really do, but I…”
“It’s okay, Ava.” My words were met with more sobs. “Does Brandon know yet?”
“No.” Her voice sounded small and broken. “He’s waiting for me to come home so we can go to his brother’s house to watch football.” Ava pulled back from my chest and tilted her head back so she could look at me. “What if he’s mad at me for being careless, J? I take my birth control really seriously, and I don’t know what happened. Maybe I’m just late. I don’t want to say anything to him until I know for sure.” I couldn’t take her seriously with those damn glasses on, so I slid them up onto the top of her head. Her blue eyes were so full of worry I nearly slid the glasses back down.
“This is Brandon we’re talking about, Ava. He’s not going to be mad at you. The man worships the ground you walk on. He’s almost as sappy as Grayson Wright.” Ava gave me a wobbly smile at the comparison because she knew it was true. I used the sleeve of my coat to wipe the tears from her face. “Besides, it takes two to make a baby, and if he was hell bent on preventing pregnancy, he should’ve worn a condom in addition to the birth control you’re taking. Buy your test, take it home, and tell him what you’re going through. Brandon wouldn’t want you to worry about this all alone. Hell, he’d probably hold the stick for you to pee on.” Ava laughed loudly at my ridiculousness.
Ava stood on her tiptoes, but I still had to lean down so she could land a kiss on my cheek. “I love you, J.” It had been a very long time since someone had told me they loved me, and I didn’t quite know how to respond. I did know that those three words were a balm to my desolate, dry soul. She pulled back quickly and gave me a genuine, megawatt smile before she pivoted and grabbed the first test she saw on the shelf. “You’re right. I’m going to go home and tell Brandon what I suspect is going on. I’ll pee on the stick by myself, but I’ll let him hold my hand while we wait for the results. Thank you. I’ll text you later and let you know if you’re going to be an uncle.”
“Thank you, Ava.” It meant a lot to me that she wanted to include me in her new family. A year ago, I might have scoffed at the sentiment, but something was gradually shifting inside me, and I wanted something bigger than my shallow existence. I knew exactly who was responsible for the shift which made me even more pissy that he hadn’t called.
I was still smiling when I arrived at Chase and Gray’s. Gray met my happiness with narrowed eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses. I planted my ass on the couch while he headed into the kitchen. I heard him muttering every step of the way. Oliver jumped onto the couch and began rubbing his head on my arm to get my attention as if the fifteen pounds of fur and fluff wasn’t enough to gain my notice.
“You sure are a pretty kitty,” I said to Oliver as I scratched his head between his ears. He closed his eyes and purred even louder. I felt Gray’s hostility growing when he returned to the room, and I couldn’t help but play it up a bit. He was such an easy target after all. You’d have thought I was stroking Chase by the way he glared at me. “Smart too, aren’t you?”
Gray sat on the loveseat and did his best to ignore me while I cooed to his cat just so I could watch his jaw muscles twitch from clamping down so hard. As much as the guy irritated me, I had to give him credit. I didn’t think I would have been nearly as accepting if the situation were reversed, so I decided to cut him some slack. He was really trying to make an effort. The least I could do was meet him halfway.
“Seriously, Gray, where did you adopt Oliver?” He turned and studied me to see if I was being serious or just yanking his chain again.
He must have seen something he liked, or at least found acceptable, because he said, “River’s Crossing Pet Shelter. My stepfather works with them a lot, and he recommended them to me. They have a lot of animals that need homes, and it was hard to walk out of there with just one cat.”
“Thank you.”
Gray responded with a simple nod, but it was enough. It seemed we had taken a slight step forward, and I was grateful for the ease in tension.
Chase came in with snacks a few minutes later. He laid them down on the coffee table and curled into Gray’s side on the loveseat. I had to admit they were as cute as fluffy kitties together, but I wasn’t going to confess that out loud to either of them. As they snuggled, I found myself wondering where Miller was and what, or who, he might be doing.Why did snuggling remind me of Miller?It was a Saturday afternoon. Maybe he just had other things to do. I didn’t have to ponder for much longer because he showed up a little bit later. He wasn’t alone.
