Tessa Ever After

by Brighton Walsh

  All the possibilities twist my stomach, making regret sit heavy on my shoulders. I don’t want her to know anything at all about what was said to me, don’t want her to think I’d ever use her that way.

  When we pull up to the house, Tessa gets out without a word, going back to get a still-sleeping Haley. I meet her there and pull her to me, pressing my lips to her forehead. I don’t want to talk about anything that happened tonight, but I hope this is enough to show her it’s not her I’m upset with. Luckily, her arms circle my waist, returning the hug, and I let out a breath of relief.

  She pulls away to get Haley, but I reach around her to open the back door and say, “That’s okay; I’ve got her.” I unhook Haley’s seat belt and pull her limp form from the car, following behind Tessa as she unlocks the door and holds it open for us.

  Haley’s head is resting on my shoulder, and whether consciously or not, she has my shirt clenched in her fingers. I’ve fallen so fucking hard for this little girl. The thought of having this every night, of tucking her in and reading her bedtime stories and building snowmen with her followed by taking Tessa to bed and then waking up next to her every morning doesn’t fill me with anxiety and fear and panic like I would expect it to—or would have expected it to only a few months ago. Now, I finally get what kind of family my grandpa was talking about when I was younger . . . when I couldn’t understand it because my parents never showed even a morsel of love. Now I want it. It’s too soon and I’m too young and this is completely the opposite of everything I thought my life would turn out like, but I can’t deny the truth.

  I want them. Every day.

  I just want it on my terms and not because it would look good to the fucking partners.

  tessa

  Haley barely wakes as I try to get her changed from her fancy dress into her pajamas. With absolutely no help from her limp form, I finally get her tucked into bed with a kiss on her forehead, and slip out of her room.

  I think she was under the impression tonight was going to be like going to a real-life tea party, but I could see the disappointment on her face as the night unfolded and she was bored out of her mind, having to interact with people who were unlike any she’d met before. She behaved like an angel, though, despite the situations we were put in, despite the barbs thrown my way. I only hope she wasn’t aware of any of them.

  I’ve never been ashamed of what I do for a living or the fact that it supports me and my daughter—why should I be? And I resented the hell out of it when Jason’s mother put down my chosen career with little more than a raise of her eyebrow. My mom was long gone when I decided to go to cosmetology school, but I like to think she would’ve been supportive of it—hell, she would’ve been supportive if I said I wanted to go to clown school, if that’s what made me happy. Seeing how it unfolds in another family, witnessing firsthand the sort of pressure and expectations Jason’s held up against breaks my heart for him.

  No wonder he feels hopeless and trapped under impossible standards.

  Something happened tonight—something besides what transpired over dinner—but it’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about it. He was quiet the entire car ride, and I didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts. I can’t imagine what sort of mental letdown he has to go through every time he leaves his parents’ house . . . and he has to do it every single week. I wonder if they berate him for his college career . . . for his choice in university or the amount of time it’s taken him to complete his degree. I wonder if they do it with any sort of subtlety or if they just put it all out on the line when there aren’t other people around to serve as buffers. I wonder how often they do it—if it’s a weekly or monthly occurrence.

  I wonder how the hell he puts up with it at all, because I lasted one sentence from his mother before I snapped, barely reining myself in enough to deliver a semi-appropriate response. If I had to listen to it week after week, month after month, year after year . . . I probably would’ve told them to go screw themselves a hundred times by now.

  Once I get out into the living room, I find Jason sprawled out on the couch, his head resting back on the cushion, eyes closed, and it kills me to see his normally outspoken personality reduced to silence and resignation.

  His eyes stay closed when I climb onto the couch, straddling his lap, his hands sliding under my skirt to palm my bare thighs.

  “I’m sor—”

  I kiss his apology away—not wanting it, not needing it—and sweep it aside with my tongue as he groans into my mouth. His hands tighten against me, pulling me flush to him, and if this is what it takes to get back the Jason I know—my Jason—I’ll give it to him a hundred different times.

  He slides his hands up my thighs, slipping them under the satin material of my panties until they palm my ass. With my fingers locked in the unruly strands of his hair, I guide his head down when he pulls away from my mouth, holding him to my neck as he nips and licks, as he leaves long, lingering kisses across my collarbone. Then his hands are on my waist, sliding up and under my sweater, and I lift my arms for him to take it off. His eyes flit to every part of me that’s uncovered, thinly disguised want in his eyes. He doesn’t bother to remove my bra, too impatient, and instead just pulls the cups down before he sucks a nipple into his mouth.

  His name is just a breathy sigh on my lips, and his answering groan vibrates against my skin, causing me to arch farther into him. He pulls me closer, gripping my hips and pressing me against the hard ridge of his erection, still confined in his pants. With fumbling fingers, I reach down and undo the buttons on his shirt, then spread it open, my hands roaming up and down the contoured ridges of his chest and stomach. When I slip the button of his pants through the buttonhole, then lower the zipper, I don’t pause as I reach inside and pull him out of his boxer briefs. I revel in the moan he gives me when I stroke him firmly, my thumb circling the head.

  “Jesus, Tess,” he says as he reaches up to cup the back of my neck, pulling me forward to kiss him while I work my hand up and down his length. He pulls back, resting his forehead against mine as he looks down and watches the way he slips through my fist. “You feel how hard you make me? How much I want you?”

  His words and the evidence of his want gripped tightly in my hand are powerful drugs. The knowledge that he’s thick and hard because of what I do to him makes me feel sexy . . . wanted. And when Jason struggles to reach under him and pull out his wallet, retrieving a condom with quick fingers, I know this need isn’t one-sided. He wants this just as badly as I do. He rolls the condom down his cock, then reaches for me, pushing my panties to the side so he can stroke me until I’m clinging to his shoulders, panting against his neck, and rolling my hips in hopes of feeling him fill me with more than his fingers.

  He takes my unspoken plea, lifting me just enough, holding my underwear to the side so he can slide inside me. And when I sink down on him, taking him all the way into my body, watching him watch me through hooded eyes, I can’t get over how different this is with him. All of it—the butterflies and the anticipation and the constant, aching need I feel around him . . . It was something I didn’t expect, something I didn’t count on, but it’s undeniable. This connection between us—both how new it is with him, and how easy it is, like we’ve had years to learn each other’s bodies—is exhilarating and I want to grab on with both hands and never let go.

  His hands grip my hips, urging me to slide back and forth against him, the pressure against my clit exactly what I need to get me higher and higher. He leans forward, licking around one of my barely exposed nipples, and the urgency of our encounter only amps up my desire for him.

  I’ve never had this burning need with anyone else before. Never had that all-consuming want that wouldn’t be sated until I had the other person. Needing to have someone so much I couldn’t take the time to remove my boots. Couldn’t even bother to slip off my panties, instead just moving them to the side because I needed him inside me immediately.

  It feels illicit and naughty and unbeli
evably intimate.

  That I can be this bold with him, that he takes everything I give, every moan and plea, every sigh, and doesn’t hold back with me, either, is unparalleled.

  The revelation combined with the way he grips me, pants my name over and over again as he reaches his peak and holds me to him like he never wants to let me go has more than just my body spinning, free-falling over the cliff.

  My heart decides to jump off, too, uncaring of any consequences.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  tessa

  Jason’s harsh breaths blow across my skin, my head resting on his shoulder. He places a single, soft kiss on the place where my shoulder meets my neck, and I can’t help the shiver from rolling through my body.

  The realization I’ve just come to settles over me—that my heart took the leap for Jason, despite doing everything in my power to protect it. To keep it safe. None of it matters. All my careful planning before Jason, my avoidance and distractions were useless. Because I’m lost to him.

  I don’t want to let go of this feeling.

  I want to run away as fast as I can.

  I’ve been here before—or I thought I was, anyway. Young and in love, though I realize now I wasn’t ever in love with Nick. Because this—whatever this is that I feel for Jason—is a thousand times more powerful than anything I ever felt for Nick.

  And I’m terrified.

  I’m terrified of what this means for our future. For my and Haley’s future. What Jason would do if he knew . . . Would he panic? Flee? Would he push me away or pull me closer? Everything I’ve known of Jason for most of my life says the former, but everything he’s done in the past several months points to the latter. I wish I could be sure, that I could know what he’s feeling. If he’s in this with me or if I’m his distraction.

  Jason’s hands move down to my ass and hold me tight against him as he stands with me still wrapped around him and walks us down the hallway to my bedroom.

  “Wait, our clothes . . .” Because that’s what’s important after the realization that I’m in love with this man.

  “I’ll get them,” he says as he lays me down on the bed, kissing me before pulling away. He quickly rids me of the rest of my clothes, unzipping my boots and pulling them off, then doing the same with my skirt and bra. “Be right back.”

  I unabashedly watch him as he walks away, carefree in his nakedness. And when he’s out of sight, my worries and fears compound a thousand times into something that eats away at me. Despite my revelation, or maybe because of it, I can’t stop thinking about what I realized on the ride home from his parents’ house—that Jason’s never invited me to his place. Is it just because he’s being a guy about it, unaware of how it may seem to me that he’s never once had me over there? Or is there something more to it? Is he trying to keep that part of his life separate from this? From us? Is it a clue that he’s not invested enough in this to show me something as simple, but deeply personal, as where he goes most nights?

  And then a part of me I try very hard to keep pushed down rears her head, wondering if he’s brought other girls there . . . if they know the color of his walls, the smell of his sheets. And I ache, thinking that dozens of others might know this about him, when I haven’t even gotten a cursory invitation.

  It barely registers when Jason slips into bed behind me, his arm reaching around my waist and pulling me back against him. My body wants to sigh at how right, how perfect it feels to be pressed up against him like this, but my mind won’t shut off. It keeps spinning, images of a thousand faceless girls in an imagined bachelor pad flitting through until I can’t stop the words from spilling out of my mouth. “You know I’ve never seen your apartment?”

  Jason’s hand stills on my stomach, and it’s not until he freezes behind me that I realize he was brushing his lips back and forth over my shoulder. I close my eyes against what I fear is coming. This is when it’ll finally be too much for him. When he’ll start retreating, pulling away from me, all because I wanted to see where he lives.

  And then he laughs. Puffs of air blow out against my skin and his chest shakes against me.

  “What the hell are you laughing at?”

  “You.” He presses a kiss to my shoulder, then pulls me tighter against him. “I have no idea how your mind works. In the span of five minutes, how did you go from coming so hard I had to press my hand over your mouth to keep your scream from waking up Haley to wondering what my apartment is like?”

  I don’t know how to answer that, so I just shrug. And I can feel the way the smile he had pressed into my skin slowly fades away, and then he props himself on his elbow so he can peer down at me. “Wait, does this really bother you?”

  His brow is furrowed, his eyes flitting between both of mine, and I breathe for what feels like the first time in five minutes.

  With a nod, I say, “Yeah.” Glancing between his eyes, I see the genuine confusion there, and sigh. “So I take it this was a boy thing?”

  “What was a boy thing?”

  “You not inviting me over . . .”

  “I don’t know what you mean by ‘boy thing,’ but if it’s me being a dumbass and not thinking you’d even want to be there in the first place, then yeah.”

  I stare up at him, trying to read his expression. He looks contrite and sincere, but the part of my brain that wove all those detailed exploits in his imagined apartment isn’t pacified yet. “Did you . . . I mean, have you ever had anyone, you know, other girls or whatever, there? At your place?”

  When the smile slowly spreads across his face, I want to reach up and slap it off, shove him in the shoulder and push him off me, then off the bed altogether, because I’m embarrassed that I’ve been reduced to this kind of insecurity. It’s something that doesn’t happen very often, and for that I’m thankful, but with a rap sheet like Jason has, it was inevitable.

  “You’re jealous,” he says with a grin.

  “Shut your face, I am not.”

  “You are.” He huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t, because I’m not.” I jerk away from him, rolling over and curling away from him and his stupid face and his smiling eyes.

  “Aw, come on, baby, don’t be like that. It’s cute. It’s nice. I don’t think anyone’s ever been jealous about me before.”

  “I can probably name twenty girls off the top of my head who’ve been jealous when it comes to you.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase that: no one who’s important to me.”

  I turn my head and peek at him again, my chin pressed to my shoulder, and wait for him to continue.

  “No, no one’s ever been there, unless you count Adam or Cade, and believe me, I don’t. They don’t smell nearly as good as you do.” He slides over closer to me, fitting his body against mine again as he presses a kiss to my neck. “Is this the cold shoulder? I’m new to all this, so I’m not so good at picking up these subtle hints. If you’re pissed at me, you need to just come out and tell me.”

  I look up at him, all messy hair and whiskey eyes, and I realize he’s being completely and totally honest with me. I release a deep breath and lift up to kiss his lips. “I’m not pissed. I wasn’t ever pissed, just . . . uncertain, I guess.”

  His once-playful eyes turn serious as he reaches up and brushes his thumb over my lower lip. “You don’t need to be. It’s just you, Tess.” He leans down and kisses me, slow and deep, his tongue sliding against mine before he pulls back, his mouth brushing against mine as he repeats, “Just you, baby.”

  • • •

  THE SOUND OF deep, rumbling laughter wakes me, and I stretch, reaching back automatically, even though I already know I’ll come across just cold sheets and an empty bed.

  After our talk last night, after I exposed the first crack in my armor, Jason proceeded to kiss and lick every inch of my body, as if he was trying to prove his words to me. Prove to me I was the only one. I think he was worried that I suddenly felt like that because of t
he rushed and hurried way he’d taken me on the couch, afraid I’d think I was just like all the others who came before.

  Little did he know that was the exact moment I realized I’m in love with him.

  I take a deep breath, absorbing my thoughts, smiling when it doesn’t send me headfirst into the panic it did yesterday, though the flutters in my stomach are still there and no doubt will be for a while.

  I push back the covers and pull on a pair of yoga pants under the oversize T-shirt I slipped into last night before finally falling asleep pressed against Jason. When I step out into the hallway, I hear the laughter again, only this time I’m aware enough to realize it’s not Jason’s normal laugh, but an exaggerated, deep, and haunting one followed closely by a higher-pitched, softer laugh attempting to mimic the original.

  “That’s good, but do it deeper. Like this,” Jason says, then proceeds with the maniacal laugh again. “From your belly, shorty. Make ’em think you’re crazy evil.”

  My perfect, angelic daughter who dresses up in tutus and has tea parties with her teddy bears does as Jason instructs and lets out a perfect replication of his evil-villain laugh, and I can’t help the smile from spreading across my face. Quietly, I creep down the hallway and through the living room, peeking around the corner and into the kitchen, where they sit at the island, way more donuts than the three of us could reasonably eat spread out in front of them. Haley’s arms are around the pile perched on the plate in front of her, like she’s protecting them from all the trolls roaming around the house.

  “There, now you’ve got it! Make sure everyone knows whose donuts these are.”

  She lets loose another laugh, growing louder each time until her head is tossed back, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this sight. This is everything I’ve been striving for for so long—someone to take the occasional early-morning shift so I could sleep in an extra hour. Someone to laugh with Haley, have fun with her, and do things with her I don’t. Someone to take her out at 6 a.m. for a donut run just because she no doubt begged for it . . . just because it would make her happy.