by JB Salsbury
She scampers to the edge of my bed. “Tell me everything. Is he a good kisser? Does he have a big—”
“Ashleigh!”
“Oh! Does he have huge balls?”
“Ew, what?”
She gets a dreamy look in her eyes. “I’ve always pictured him with a great big heavy sac.”
“Okay, you know what?” I rip off my comforter and head to the bathroom, trying like hell to erase the last sixty seconds of my life. “I’m not doing this. You’re insane.”
“Wait!” She chases me and walks into the bathroom right behind me. “You’re not kidding.”
I hit on the water and push tangled hair out of my face. “Of course I’m not kidding! Pastor Langley is like a brother to me. You know that.”
She chews on her lip. “Hm… then why is he loaning you that sickass ride?”
Giving her my back, I pretend to tweak the water temperature to avoid looking her in the eye. “There was someone creepy on the bus and Elliot got freaked out, so he got a car for me to drive until I get my own.”
Sounds believable.
“Dang, how much does he make to afford a Lexus?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care. I’m sure someone in the congregation hooked him up with a deal. Can you just be satisfied with my answers and leave me alone to shower?”
“Yeah,” she says absently as if she’s still trying to piece things together. If she spent half the amount of think-time on her own love life rather than fabricating mine, she’d probably have a lot fewer one-night stands. “I have to get some sleep anyway.”
She closes the door behind herself and I exhale a big breath.
In the shower, I squeeze a generous amount of shampoo into my palm and suds up my hair. There’s nothing worse than smelling like breakfast meat, and that scent really clings to hair for some reason. I feel good about how I talked my way around the luxury car. If I only felt as good about my interactions with Jesse Lee.
Yesterday on the way home from his meeting, I asked about his music and his entire demeanor changed. He didn’t speak another word and opened the door to get out before the car had even come to a complete stop. I felt sick to my stomach that I’d unknowingly offended him and equally sick that he was attracted to Suzette.
My hands freeze on my head.
I wonder if Wyatt loves her.
If he does, I should be happy for him, right?
I pull up to Elliot’s house shortly before nine and sit with the car running in the driveway while my mom goes on about the nutritional value of beets and how gluten is poison.
“Have you tried that new keto diet everyone is talking about?” Her voice is conspiratory, and I consider telling her she needs a hobby outside of food-related fads. “Debra Espinosa lost twenty pounds on that diet.”
There’s movement behind Ben’s open blinds. I imagine it’s Elliot wondering which Disney princess will pour from the door of the luxury car.
“I’m pretty sure the keto diet is just the Atkins diet you tried back when I was in elementary school.” I push the button—yeah, a button!—to turn off the car.
“I don’t think so. This is new and—”
“I’m sorry to cut you off, Mom, but I have to get going.”
“No problem, honey. Have a good day. Oh, and let me know if you hear from Wyatt.” She says his name in a sing-song voice.
I frown because I think my parents might love Wyatt more than I did—do! More than I do.
Leaving my purse in the super-safe car, I trudge up the driveway, yawning thanks to Ashleigh’s early wake-up call. Extra coffee today. Hopefully Ben has a fresh pot brewed.
I knock twice and push inside to find Elliot at the table and Ben dressed and ready in the kitchen, pouring milk into a bowl. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Ben says then brings Elliot her cereal.
“Bethany, Daddy got me Playdough!”
“So we’ll be sculpting today.” I kiss her head that’s covered in soft fluffy curls. “Lucky Charms? Yum.” There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the maker. I head to it, and Ben hands me a mug. “Thanks.”
He props a hip on the counter, and I notice he’s dressed more casually today—jeans, plaid shirt untucked. “How did things go with my brother?”
I sip my coffee and already feel a little more alive. “Good.”
He scrunches up one eye. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” Ben doesn’t need to know the gory details.
He frowns, then smiles. “Great.” He checks the time on the microwave. “I better go.”
“Have a good day,” I call as he nuzzles Elliot’s cheek, making her giggle, before he says goodbye.
“You too.”
He leaves us alone, and I drop into the seat next to Elliot. “What did you watch this morning?”
“Frozen,” she answers through a cheekful of colorful marshmallows. “Some of the ladies at church said it’s satanic, but Dad says they need a theo-lowlogy lesson.”
“Disney is not satanic. That’s just silly talk.”
“I know.” She shrugs and continues to shovel food into her mouth.
“Do you want to do a puzzle today?”
She nods with milk dripping from her lips.
I drum my fingers until I can’t stand it another second and pull out my phone to check Wyatt’s IG page. No new posts since last night. I check Suzette’s. Nothing. Groaning, I set my phone down and sip my coffee.
Ben’s bedroom door clicks open, and my shoulders bunch with tension. I say a silent prayer that Jesse is in a good mood. His bare feet slap on the hardwood floor. When he passes me, I nearly choke at the sight of all his bare skin as he saunters around in nothing but a pair of shorts that I’m pretty sure are meant for sleeping only. They’re soft gray cotton and baggy everywhere but around his slender hips, where they hang low enough to see the top of his butt crack.
I’m glad he’s facing away from me when he pours himself coffee. I study the parts of him covered in ink—his arms up to his shoulders, even his hands. His back doesn’t have any ink, but raised discolorations slash across his shoulders, making me wonder if he’d been in an accident. He turns around. His stomach is also tattoo-free. I remember his thighs having ink. Even his calves have different pictures and words—oh no, he’s coming this way. I swallow my nerves as he struts up to the table, his hips at eye level. I can’t help but notice the massive bulge that moves with his body.
I squeeze my eyes closed as he takes the seat across from Elliot. If he noticed my staring at him, he’s nice enough not to mention it. Maybe he’s in a better mood today and we’ll get through our short time together with minimal jabs—
“That shit you’re eating will kill you,” he says to Elliot.
My jaw falls open. Who says that to a child?
“What?” she says in her sweet voice as she stares at her cereal as if it’s turned into earthworms.
“Don’t listen to him.”
She pushes away her bowl with a sad frown. “I’m finished.”
“Okay, why don’t you go watch TV?” I help her out of her seat, and she glares at Jesse, who shrugs and sips his coffee. “Go on.” I give her a little push toward the living room, and the moment she’s out of earshot, I whirl on the jerk. “How could you say that to her?”
He stares at me as if I’m dumb. “It’s true.”
“Says the guy who has filled an entire coffee can in the backyard with cigarette butts?”
“Doesn’t make it less true.”
“Lucky Charms won’t kill anyone. It’s lucky!” I bite down to keep from saying anything else because everything that comes out of my mouth around this guy makes me sound stupid. I head to the kitchen and rinse Elliot’s bowl and my mug, placing them in the dishwasher and feeling eyes on me the entire time. “What?”
“What?”
“Stop staring at me.”
He tilts his head, his hair an absolute mess of perfection. How the hell does he wake up looking as if he’s
about to do a photo shoot? “Turnabout is fair play, nanny.” His gaze rakes along my body from my feet to the top of my head, and my cheeks must be bright red from knowing he did see me studying him earlier.
I stomp over and take a seat on the opposite end of the table. “What is your deal?”
He looks at me with boredom in his eyes. “Morning sex is my favorite.”
I close my eyes, momentarily at a loss for words, then I find them. “Please, stop talking about sex around me. It’s inappropriate.”
A slow curve of his lips takes me aback. “I make you uncomfortable when I talk about sex.”
“Uh, yeah! I think that’s kind of obvious.”
He leans forward, angling his body toward me, and I’m grateful for the few feet of table separating us. “You feel squirmy when I talk about sex. Like, suddenly your shorts are too tight.”
“No, I do not.”
“You get butterflies, not just in your stomach but in other places too.” His voice is so deep. I don’t think I ever noticed that in any of his songs. “Your boobs get heavy and ache to be touched.”
I force a big, huge grin and even push out a laugh. “That’s pathetic. Tell me, does this vulgar talk work on the women you bed?”
He frowns, and I grin even wider at my temporary victory.
“Because I gotta say, Jesse Lee, you should really consider a different tactic.” I push away from the table. “Heavy boobs.” I snort-laugh. “That’s a good one.”
I leave him speechless, and I’m grateful to be out of the room so I can release some of the tension in my muscles. He couldn’t have been more wrong about how his mentioning sex makes me feel. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sure, I feel a little squirmy, as if I’m covered in cooties, but that’s because he’s a walking advertisement for an STD clinic. And yeah, I guess the weird flip-flop feeling in my stomach could be considered by some to be butterfly-like, but that’s only because the thought of having sex with him makes me nauseated.
I know, I know, I’m crazy for not wanting to have sex with the Coast-to-Coast Casanova, right?
Wrong!
Being one of a million women isn’t the same as being someone’s one-in-a-million, no matter how amazing the sex would be.
Jesse
Day Fourteen
Seventy-six days to go.
Fuck, that sounds like a lifetime.
“Have you been journaling? Getting your thoughts down on paper like we talked about during our last session?” Dr. Ulrich twiddles his fancy gold pen while waiting for me to have some kind of emotional breakthrough. This therapy shit is all the same. Dig deep, crack open the coffins of the past, and air out the stank of putrid rotting flesh.
No thanks.
“I don’t journal, doc.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not a twelve-year-old girl.”
He clears his throat, and I wonder how much Dave is paying this guy to keep him here and put up with my shit. I bet it’s enough to buy him a warehouse full of those fancy fucking pens.
“How about music?” He flicks that damn pen toward the guitar in the corner of the room. “Have you been writing any new songs?”
“That’s not my guitar. It’s Ben’s.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you used it.”
I’m already shaking my head. “Using another man’s guitar is like finger-fucking his wife.”
The good doc cringes but recovers quickly. “Would you like me to see if we can get your guitar here? I’m sure Dave would have it shipped.”
I stare forward blindly. Playing a guitar in my brother’s house makes me uneasy to say the least. Would he hear me and remember the days we’d play together, back when life was simple and my older brother was my hero? “I don’t think so.”
“You mentioned the only reason you’re here is because you’re supposed to write some music. Are you sure you’re not ready to at least try?”
I shift in my seat and scratch the back of my neck. I could work when Ben’s gone. He only comes in his room when he needs to grab clothes every few days.
A weird twinge pinches in my chest. I rub at my sternum. What the fuck is that? I hate to say it, but it feels an awful lot like guilt.
My brother takes on my drunk ass. I treat him like shit. Treat his kid like shit. Get off on making his nanny as uncomfortable as I possibly can. And he doesn’t say anything about it. He feeds me, leaves me alone, and every night, he squeezes onto that piece-of-shit couch while I’m sprawled out on his bed, in his room—the one he shared with his dead wife.
“Are you feeling okay?” Doc pulls off his reading glasses and his brows drop low in concern.
“Never better, doc.” I rub my chest again. “Never better. But, uh, I think I’ll have Dave send my guitar over.”
His face lights up and I roll my eyes. Don’t get your hopes up. I haven’t felt the creative pull since I’ve been sober. It’s possible that without the chemical assistance, I’ve lost my ability to write music. No. Fuck that. I can still write.
He jots a few notes then asks me questions about my parents, what their marriage was like, and how it all made me feel. I ignore most of his questions or give one-word answers because, again, fuck this shit.
“That’ll be it for today.” He closes his leather folder and assures me he’ll be in contact with Dave about my guitar.
It’s almost time for my meeting. I take a piss and head out to let my ride know we need to go. She’s on the couch with her arm wrapped around Ben’s kid and a book open in her lap. She wore her hair down today, so it looks longer as it falls over her shoulder in a thick, dark panel, covering the logo on her stupid fucking uniform shirt. Her lips move, and I lean in to hear what she’s saying. She’s reading a story and changing her voice with each character, making Ben’s kid giggle. For a moment, I get lost in the sound, the cadence of her voice and the soft laughter of the kid combined is almost hypnotic.
“Oh, hey.” The intonation in her voice is replaced with a hint of panic. “Are you ready?”
“Nope, I just enjoy killing time here with my thumb up my ass.”
She looks horrified before she mumbles something to the kid. They both get up, grab a couple bags, and head out the door. I slip on my baseball hat and hop into the passenger seat while they do the shit with the kid seat in the back.
We don’t talk as we head toward the church, no different from the last few days. After she shut me down for sex for the third time, I gave up. My hand gets me the same result and this girl is bad for my ego.
The car is too quiet, so I flip on the radio. Two preset stations later, my own voice comes from the speakers. I grin and turn to the nanny, who gives me an uneasy smile.
“You like this one?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s all right.” Her pinkie finger taps the steering wheel to the beat. She’s lying.
I lean back and listen to the lyrics, remembering the exact moment I came up with the chorus. “I wrote this song on my first tour. We were opening for 311 on their reunion tour.”
“Oh, I thought this was a newer song of yours.”
“It is. I wrote it, like, six years ago but kind of forgot about it until we needed songs for an album and I went looking through some of my old stuff.”
“How do you come up with the lyrics?”
My reaction is to shut down, to say something shitty that’ll get her to leave me alone, but that takes energy I don’t have. “Different things. This one was inspired by the high I was on, ya know? I was so fresh, staring down the bright lights of superstardom.”
“That’s the name of the song.”
“Yeah, genius.” I chuckle.
She does a double-take and grins, probably shocked to hear me laugh. I have to admit, I’m surprised too. I frown and stare out the window.
Too quickly, my song ends and I change the station a couple times, searching for something—
“Leave it here! I love this song.”
“Real
ly? You’re an AC/DC fan?”
“Don’t be so surprised. I like all kinds of music.” She drums her fingers on the steering wheel to “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”
We fall into a comfortable silence for a few seconds until I hear a sound coming from her lips. I peek over to see she’s singing the words.
Singing is an overly generous description for the sound coming from her mouth though. Holy shit… her voice is awful.
She not only butchers the song, singing notes that should only be used by parrots and dolphins, but she’s fucking up the lyrics too.
“Thirty thieves, thunder chief. Thirty thieves and the thunder chief…” She sings with the kind of enthusiasm reserved for opera singers and those on Broadway.
I rub my upper lip to hide my silent laughter, but she must catch my shoulders shaking, and the sound of dying animals stops coming from her mouth. “What is so funny?”
“I—” A burst of laughter flys from my lips. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“That…” I clear my throat and tell myself to stop fucking laughing, but doing so sends another wave of laughter. “What was that?”
Her chin jerks back in offense. “Um, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you were uncomfortable with my singing in front of you.”
“That wasn’t singing.”
Her jaw drops open then slams shut and she glares. “You are such a jerk!”
“Daddy says we shouldn’t call people names,” the kid pipes up from the back.
The nanny’s face turns red, which isn’t nearly as much fun as watching her lose her shit. “Your dad is right, Elliot.” She shimmies her body as if she’s a bird ruffling her feathers to look bigger and more intimidating. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be apologizing to Brian Johnson for butchering his song.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh my gosh, message received, okay? My voice isn’t amazing.”
“Oh, it wasn’t just that. You fucked up the words too.”
“Daddy has to put money in the curse jar when he says bad words.”
Man, who made this kid the behavior police?
“How ‘bout I give you a hundred bucks and you let me off the hook?”