Mabel wanted to object, but her tongue felt too thick in her mouth for words and all she could manage was a mewl of distress.
“I’m disappointed too, believe me. Just… give me a second.” Jake released her and leaned against the wall, tipping his head back to take a few deep breaths while he surreptitiously adjusted himself in his jeans. With a hard exhale, he bent down to snag his T-shirt from the floor. “Okay, you lush. Time for bed.”
That muffled feeling that had been wrapped around Mabel ever since they left the bar had thickened since she’d gotten home, and it was getting harder for her to think or even stand upright. She pointed down the hall to her bedroom and let Jake lead her there after she almost veered into a wall when she tried to move under her own steam. In her bedroom, she indicated the cat sleeping on the end of her bed.
“Thass Tybalt.” She crossed to her vanity to remove first her left earring, then her right one. “Hope you two get along.”
Jake perched on the edge of her bed and applied himself to scratching Tybalt under his chin while she unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor.
Behind her, Jake muttered, “Christ.”
“Don’t usually drink like thish on show nights,” she tried to explain to the two Jakes who were somehow both sitting on her bed, but the words felt like lead in her mouth. “Or any night, really. You make me nervous.”
She giggled a little and snaked her bra out from under her shirt, dropping it on the floor on top of her skirt. She now stood in front of the Jakes in just her silver sequined shirt, which she tugged down to keep her black lace underwear from peeking out underneath.
“And you,” Jake said tightly, “make me feel many, many things. All of them good, in case that matters to you at all in the morning.”
She nodded blearily and started to slide her arms out of her shirt, but he scrambled off the bed to stand in the doorway.
“Fuck. Just… wait until I’m gone to change into something better for sleeping.” He laughed shakily and ran a hand through his already mussed hair. “Gotta be honest, I’m at my breaking point here.”
But she was barely listening to him. Fatigue pulled at her, and she yawned so widely it made her lose her balance as she listed to the bathroom to brush her teeth and haphazardly wash her makeup off. That completed, she staggered toward her bed and crawled under the covers, no longer concerned about what she was wearing or where the two Jakes were. The dizzily spinning world went black shortly afterward.
Mabel wokeup close to noon the next day with a pounding head and a world of regret, but her fervent desire for the sweet release of death outweighed any embarrassment she should be feeling about the way the previous night had played out. Unfortunately, she also felt too wretched to relive any of the nicer parts of it.
Rolling over, she stared blearily at her bedside table until her eyes focused on the folded note six inches from her nose. She smiled through the pain in her temporal lobe.
Leaving tonight was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. To be continued. SOON.
—Jake
Mabel rolled to her back and clutched the note to her chest, which was still covered in silver sequins. Then she staggered out of bed to retrieve her phone from her purse in the living room. A few texts were waiting for her. From her mom:How was your concert last night, sweetie?From Dave:Good show, dollface.From Ana:Seriously, that man is so hot, and he likes you too. DO NOT HESITATE.
Mabel shook her head in consternation, then winced. No head shaking just yet. In fact, she might still be a wee bit tipsy. It didn’t stop her from sending athank youto Dave and asuper funto her mom. Ana she ignored because she wasn’t ready to unpack last night quite yet. And then she tapped out one more text:I have detailed, ambitious plans to do extremely dirty things to your body, but maybe not today. Thx for taking such good care of me last night. XO
Then she pulled those damn scratchy sequins off, rolled over, and dropped back to sleep, a smile on her face and Tybalt a warm ball at her side.
Twelve
Jake got to the station early on Monday, although he was only early by normal-person standards, not Mabel’s and Dave’s. Since it was seven a.m., nobody other than the morning-show duo was around. He was dying to stop by the studio to check in on Mabel, but he forced himself instead to head straight to his office and boot up his laptop. After a miserable ten minutes, he admitted that he couldn’t concentrate on work. What awful fucking luck. They’d finally been alone on Saturday and had actually admitted that they were desperate for each other, and he’d been so turned on he couldn’t see straight. He’d had no idea she was so tipsy when they left the bar; it wasn’t until he saw her stumbling into the living room and fumbling with the light switch that he’d started to put it all together. What kind of guy would he be if he hadn’t gotten her safely to bed, patted her cat’s head (nota euphemism, sadly), and shown himself out?
Turns out he was the kind of guy who went back to his lonely hotel room, got himself off in the shower, and then ended up staring at his laptop screen thirty-six hours later, desperately fighting the urge to burst through Mabel’s door to demand a do-over of Saturday night that ended with both of them satisfied and smiling.
Searching for a distraction, his eyes drifted across the spray of paperwork on Brandon’s desk, which pulled his mind back to therealproblem facing him. “Goddammit.” He shrugged out of his suit jacket as if it were the cause of his current frustration.
The coat, of course, was blameless; what was threatening to choke him was residual guilt over not telling Mabel what Brandon was planning. He’d been pushing the concern aside as much as he could, reasoning that he was professionally obligated not to get involved. But the guilt was expanding and getting heavier, like a wool blanket soaking up water. He’d tasted her lips on Saturday. He’d experienced her want, seen her vulnerable, curled a hand around the nape of her neck briefly as she’d sunk into sleep. And he’d been so turned on the whole time that he had no idea how he’d had any blood in the rest of his body to walk himself out of her house for the drive back to his hotel.
He hadn’t been lying when he told her at the bar that he’d never been more turned on in his life. Mabel made him light up, made everything in his body fire at once: his brain, his heart, his dick. He was counting the minutes until he could touch her again, but before that, he had to either get this secret off his chest or bury the guilt in the farthest reaches of his fevered brain.
He was staring into space, reminding himself that his entire career relied on him keeping his mouth shut about Brandon’s plans, when he heard a rustle and a click and looked up to see Mabel easing the office door shut behind her. She was dressed in a plain, fitted black T-shirt and jeans, her long hair plaited into two braids.
“Hi,” she said, sounding a little cautious. “I’ve got eight minutes. Dave’s playing ‘American Pie.’ It was the longest song we could think of.”
“Smart,” he said lamely, content to simply drink in the sight of her.
Their brief silence was broken when they both started to speak at once.
Mabel laughed and plowed ahead. “I amso sorryabout Saturday. I swear, I don’t usually end my nights stumbling around like that. I can’t believe you had to babysit my drunk ass.”
