We roll around on the bed, stripping out of our t-shirts and sweats, and letting our hands and lips roam. Jackson flips us over and starts lavishing attention on my neck—tasting my heartbeat, as he calls it.
I let out a soft groan as the sensations start to mingle together—the light scratching of his beard, his heated breath, his wet tongue, the sense of pressure as he sucks on my pulse point.
I glide my hands over Jackson’s back, savoring the familiar feel of his hard muscles straining and flexing under my touch. I’m just about to move farther south to give his hole some attention—something he’s become very fond of since our first sponge bath last week—when there’s a rap on the bedroom door, reminding me that it’s the middle of the day and Jackson and I aren’t alone in the apartment.
“I hope I’m not…um…interrupting anything,” Steph says awkwardly from the other side of the door. “But it’s quarter past noon, so I just thought—”
“Fuck!”I stare up at Jackson with wide eyes. “You’re way too good at the distraction thing.”
He offers a wry grin as he starts to climb off me. “Hey, you’re the one who upped the ante with a proposal.”
I offer a goofy smile as I think about the proposal, and his response, and the fact that by tomorrow night Jackson will be my husband. My hand starts to reach out with the instinct to pull him back down against me so we can finish where we left off, but then I remember why we were interrupted and I bounce off the bed and rush for the door.
“Skyler, wait—you’re practically naked!” Jackson calls after me.
I halt in my tracks halfway between the bedroom and the kitchen table, where I left my laptop—and my results. I’m notnaked, but myPower Rangersboxer briefs don’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. And they definitely can’t disguise the boner I’m currently sporting.
“Oh, god.” At Steph’s awkward squeak, I glance up to see her covering her face, which is flushed bright red. “I’m sorry for…”
“It’s fine.” I shrug and continue toward the kitchen table, taking a seat at my laptop.
“If you say so,” Steph says, the doubt clear in her tone.
I draw in a deep, fortifying breath and log into my account again. “Jackson, come on—I’m about to open the results page,” I call.
“What the hell’s happened to all your sweatpants?” he calls back. “Do you know the ones you were wearing have pasta sauce on them?”
“I don’t need pants for this, Jackson,” I declare. “Just you—now get the fuck out here.”
“I can’t wait to tell this story when you’re a Supreme Court justice one day,” Steph says wryly.
Jackson finally ambles out of the bedroom, smiling with exasperated affection as he makes is way toward me. I’m a little disappointed to see he’s fully clothed, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else—the downside of Steph visiting. From the corner of my eye, I see a streak of orange dart out from Rocket’s room and when I turn my gaze, I see him prancing over to me as well, as though he’s sensing this is a moment he doesn’t want to miss out on.
When Rocket reaches me, he springs off his feet, landing in my lap and curling up, just like he does every morning when I’m eating breakfast.
“Okay, I don’t know whether to be relieved that I can look at you again, or weirded out about the lack of boundaries between you and that cat,” Steph says, her face twisted up in a mix of amusement and dismay.
“Weirded out,” Jackson grumbles, but I know he’s joking. He loves Rocket, and after the epic cat room reveal last night, there’s absolutely no hiding it now.
I return my attention back to the screen, moving the pointer to hover over the link to my results page. “Okay, this is it.”
Jackson gives my shoulders a reassuring squeeze and leans in behind me to brush his lips over my ear. “Just remember, no matter what this score says, you’re going to be an incredible lawyer—it’s what you were meant to do.”
I nod, feeling my heart swell with gratitude and love. After another steadying breath, I finally click on the link and read through my results.
For the second time in less than an hour, I’m stunned into speechlessness. Are these actually the right results? Maybe there was a mistake and they’ve been mixed up with someone else’s?
I mean, I left both of the exams feeling relatively confident, but holy fuck.
I was aiming for around the mid-sixties with the essays; the point was to demonstrate my knowledge of the law and answer the theoretical questions in a comprehensive, yet concise manner, and with eight essays to write in a single day, I wasn’t about to pen down any Alito-esque dissertations. And when I left the exam room that first day, nursing my cramping hand, I felt relatively confident I’d achieved that goal. I’d at least managed to complete each of the essays and thought my responses had made sense. It wasn’t until yesterday that I started to doubt. I’d been kind of out of it after that grueling day, and my attention had shifted pretty rapidly to the second part of the exam the next day. Could I even really trust my memory of that day?
I have no idea why it took me until yesterday to hit me that there was a possibility I could have been completely misremembering that slight spring in my step as I left day one of the exam, but it turns out I was worrying for nothing. I didn’t hit my goal of mid-sixties; I did better. I have six essay scores—including both of the higher-weighted ones—in the seventies, as well as two sixty-eights. The total score for the written section is 160.7.
When I glance further down and see my score for the MBE—the Multistate Bar Exam—I almost fall off my chair. 169.2.
Jesus Christ.I knew this section would be stronger than the written one, but fuck. Combined, it’s a scaled total of 330 out of a possible 360. I’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure that scrapes me into the ninety-ninth percentile. What the hell is happening right now?
“Oh my god, he’s so quiet,” Steph says in a soft hush, her voice tinged with concern. “Is this good or bad? I don’t know what these numbers mean.”
