Discovering Us (True Love Trilogy)

by Harper Bentley

  I had liked it. A lot. With my face burning, I looked directly at him. “Yes. I did. I loved it, actually.” Then I uncharacteristically reached over and rubbed my hand on his crotch. He was halfway hard. Wow.

  He groaned. “God, El, you’re getting me hard. We’ve still got over an hour to Omaha. You don’t stop, I’m gonna pull over and have you right here.”

  I didn’t stop, and we wound up in Des Moines and got a hotel for the night. Ha. Maybe I wasn’t so bad at this sex talk stuff. Score one for me.

  We’d stopped in Denver the next evening, and left the next morning for Las Vegas. I was having a great time and I think Jag was too. I’d been a little afraid that spending so much time together might make us a little irritated with each other since it wasn’t the norm, but we were having a blast, discussing everything from personal stuff to the landscape to the weather. We’d both thought it was cool how the snow had just slowly disappeared the farther west we went. Denver had been covered in it, and then it was just… gone.

  We arrived in Vegas around eleven that night, and after checking into the Bellagio (the Bellagio!) we walked The Strip taking in all the sights, stopping in several hotels to play the slots and Jag even tried his hand at Blackjack and Roulette several times. We stayed out a little later than we’d expected to, but we only had about a four and a half our drive the next day, so it wasn’t a big deal. We finally went up to the room and he told me that the next time we went to Vegas, he’d be “known” and would arrange for us to have a villa. The room we had was beyond gorgeous so I could only imagine what a villa would look like.

  We left around one the next afternoon, and arrived at Jag’s condo at six that evening, and boy, was I just dazzled as hell. His place was spectacular! It so hadn’t translated at all in the pictures he’d sent. I don’t know how he’d kept from telling me more about it than he had because it was all kinds of fabulous. I ran to the French doors off the kitchen right off the bat, looking out to see the beach and squealing at how freaking cool that was. He took me through them and out on the patio and I fell absolutely in love with his place. I could hear the sounds from the Pier and I looked at him with a huge grin on my face.

  “We’ll go down there in a bit if you want.”

  Oh, I wanted! I went up on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissed the fool out of him. This was going to be good. I knew it to my bones that my coming there to be with him was where I was supposed to be.

  Chapter 15

  I was almost twenty-two when I discovered that Jag was likely the most wanted man on the planet.

  January in Santa Monica was awesome.

  Jag wasn’t very busy at all. Besides meeting with his trainer every day or having meetings with the team’s manager or other staff, I had him to myself most of the time, which was cool. He’d shown me around the city and taken me on the I-10 over to the university, which had been a piece of cake. It was a straight shot to get there so I wasn’t worried about finding it. We’d driven around campus so I could see where my classes would be and it was all I could do to keep from bouncing up and down in my seat I was so ready to start.

  Besides walking to the Santa Monica Pier, we took in various other sites including, of course, Hollywood Boulevard where we saw the handprints of the stars outside of Mann’s Chinese Theater, the Walk of Fame, and went on one of those cheesy tours of the stars homes, because I wanted to see where George Clooney lived because he was one of my favorite actors… and single… and everyone knows that your Hollywood crush is just waiting for you to turn up so they can marry you. It’s a well-known fact. Google it.

  We ran every weekday morning on the bike path, the best part of which was we got to watch the sun rise. We window shopped on the Third Street Promenade. We swam in the ocean at least once a week. And we made love in every room of his condo and on every piece of furniture he had. Life was good.

  Then one night at the end of January, we were sitting on the patio eating salmon that we’d grilled, Jag told me that he’d be leaving to go to Glendale, Arizona, for spring training the week before Valentine’s Day. I was shocked. I’d forgotten about spring training, and when he told me he’d be gone for more than six weeks, my mouth hung open.

  “Sorry, baby. I thought you knew.”

  “I-I, uh, did!” I sputtered. Duh. My brothers would’ve been so ashamed of me at that moment. How could I have forgotten? Jeez.

  “I’ll be back home end of March or first of April.” He cupped my face and rubbed his thumb over my cheek.

  “O-okay,” I replied, my head still whirling from information I’d so stupidly forgotten.

  “You’ll be fine here, right?”

  “Yeah! Oh, yeah, it’s all good. You go get ready to be a star,” I replied with a smile.

  “I’ll definitely try,” he said with a grin.

  I was settled into my class schedule, the labs kept me busy, we were getting ready to work with cadavers (ick), so I knew I’d be focused on school and it wouldn’t be so bad being without him for a month and a half. Or at least I tried convincing myself it wouldn’t.

  One evening as I was walking out of the condo—I was dressed in a Dodgers hoodie, my ripped-at-the-knees jeans, and had my ponytail pulled through a Dodgers cap, totally a walking billboard for my boyfriend’s team—I had my head down since I was texting Rebecca, and I all but ran into a gorgeous woman who was coming up the walk.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry!” I said. When I looked up, I had another jaw-dropping moment in less than a month as I recognized her as one of those underwear models for a lingerie store. Holy shit, she was stunning.

  “It’s okay,” she said with a sexy accent as she smiled at me.

  “D-do you live here?” I asked, smiling back, totally fangirling over this chick.

  “Yes. In number 248.”

  Number 248… just down the hall from Jag’s condo. Hm. “Oh, cool. So how long have you lived here?”

  “For about a year. I usually come here when we have a beach shoot. But I also have places in Brazil and New York, so I’m not here a lot. Which condo is yours?”

  “Number 243.”

  She thought for a second before her eyes lit up. “Oh! The sexy American baseball player, right?”

  “Right,” I answered, narrowing my eyes at her suspiciously.

  “I told my agent that he and I should do some commercials together. We’d be so hot together,” she said with a giggle.

  “Right,” I repeated. Is it possible to be enthralled with someone while at the same time you just want to stab them in the eye?

  “Are you his sister?” Sister came out as seester and it sounded beautiful and I totally needed to stab her in the eye then just for the fact that she hadn’t even presumed that Jag and I were together.

  “No, I’m his girlfriend.” I kept my eyes narrowed at her, sizing her up. She was around five foot ten and weighed maybe a buck fifteen. I was pretty sure I could take her.

  “Oh,” she said, looking me up and down with a shitty smirk on her face as if she’d found me lacking.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you,” I lied. “I was heading to the grocery store,” I said, turning to go.

  “Is your baseball player home? My car was making a noise and I wondered if he could take a look at it again. He did one time before when he was alone.” Her eyes now sparkled wickedly at me as she smiled, which made her cheekbones so beautiful and pronounced and I wanted to stab her in them too. I thought back to Thanksgiving when Jag had said he’d feel a lot better when I moved out here. I wondered if that was because he’d been tempted by her… Oh, who was I fooling? He was a red-blooded, American male. Of course he’d been tempted. Ugh.

  And seriously? This chick could probably have George Clooney, so why’d it seem as if she was challenging me with Jag? Not that Jag wasn’t as hot, if not hotter, than Clooney, but this woman could probably have any man she wanted. I let out a breath and looked out at the parking lot to see some fancy, little red convertible that p
robably cost a mint and I was sure there was nothing wrong with it.

  “No, he’s not home. Sorry.” I started moving down the walk to my car wanting to get away from her and her superior looks.

  “What was your name?” she hollered after me.

  I glanced back at her, all perfect in her skinny jeans and heels and blouse that was opened to show her cleavage, her long, beautiful, highlighted brown hair flowing so lovely around her face, past her shoulders, and sighed, sure that she wanted to laugh at my outfit and it was obvious she felt threatened by me not one little bit. “Ellen.”

  “Ellen.” Then she humphed. She humphed at my name! What a bitch. “I’m Alessandra. It was nice meeting you,” she said on a hair flip and with another gorgeous smile, turned and model-walked her way to her condo, leaving me standing alone there feeling like the ugly, illegitimate child of Keith Richards and Steven Tyler.

  Now, I didn’t think that I had self-esteem issues, I’d always felt pretty good about myself, but I’d bet that any woman who ran into someone who looked like that and that woman knew that the woman looking like that had been around her man… alone… would have felt the same way I was feeling right then.

  I got in my car, started it and took off, all the while mumbling, “Alessandra” the way she’d said her name. God, even her name was beautiful and just saying it made me want to flip my hair back.

  “Hey, babe, how’re things going in PT land?” Jag asked that night when he called.

  “They’re good. How’re things going in ST land?”

  “Good. Got my arm on ice right now. Threw around thirty pitches today. Haven’t thrown that much in a while, so I’m dragging a little.”

  “Dang. You’re a damned workhorse.”

  “Yep. That’s me,” he said with a chuckle.

  “So… I met our neighbor today.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yep.” I couldn’t help but pop the P, having gotten a little pissed off the more I thought of Jag checking out Alessandra’s car for her.

  There was silence for a couple seconds until he asked, “You gonna tell me which one?”

  “I’ll give you a hint. Little, red sports car. Legs up to her flippin’ neck.”

  I heard him clear his throat. “Oh. So you met Alessandra?”

  “Yeahhhhhh.” I drew that out about three seconds too long. I didn’t want to come off as the jealous girlfriend, but give me a break here.

  “Babe.”

  “Don’t you ‘babe’ me, Jagger Knox Jensen.”

  “El, she was coming back from the beach and she asked me to loo—”

  “Wait.” Dear God. If she’d been in a fucking bikini I was so seriously gonna stab the cow now. “She was coming back from the beach?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Jag. I’d like to think that I have a pretty good handle on who I am. But when it comes to underwear models coming back from the beach then asking my boyfriend to help with her car that I know there wasn’t a goddamned thing wrong with, then I tend to get just a little irritated!”

  “El, calm down, baby.”

  “Is she the reason when, at Thanksgiving, you said you needed me out here?”

  I could hear him sigh into the phone. Was I wrong to argue about this? I mean, really, was I? Besides, Mom’s always said that sometimes couples have to argue to be reminded that their love’s worth fighting for.

  “The reason I said I needed you was because I fucking needed you.”

  Oh.

  Well, now I felt like a first-class bitch. He hadn’t been gone for even a week and I was already ripping into him. Yay me.

  It was my turn to sigh. “I’m sorry, Jag. It’s just that she’s… well, she’s beautiful. I got a little jealous, I guess.”

  Lame. I was so lame.

  “El, if I wanted anyone else, don’t you think I’d have found someone else by now?”

  Well, that wasn’t very nice. My hackles rose on that little pronouncement. And, by golly, two could play that game. So, stupid, stupid me antied up and went for it. “Same here, Jag. There’ve been lots of opportunities that I could’ve taken, but I’ve always chosen you.” (Can I use the excuse that I was only twenty-one and that’s why my maturity level was lacking? Didn’t think so. Damn.)

  I swear a blast of cold air hit me smack dab in the face from my phone’s receiver.

  “Jag?” I whispered.

  “All you gotta do is say the word, El.”

  Huh? What word? Idiot? As in “I’m an”?

  “I don’t know what you’re saying, Jag.”

  I heard him sigh again and I knew he was rubbing his hand over his face. “You don’t wanna be with me, just say the word.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, Jag. I said I’m sorry. I told you I got a little jealous. What you said hurt my feelings, so I reacted like a five year old. End of.”

  “Nothing to be jealous of, El. Did you talk to Alessandra at all? She’s a bitch. If I wanted a bitch, I’d be with one. End of.”

  Uh oh. Hateful, sarcastic Jag was never a good thing. But at least he’d seen through her big-boob-gorgeous-hair-make every man in the entire world lust after her-super-dee-duper-model façade. And that totally didn’t make me feel much better.

  “I said I was sorry…”

  “I know. Look, you’re tired, I’m tired. Let’s call it a night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay. Jag?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  “Forever and a day, babe. ‘Night.”

  “Good night, Jag.”

  We hung up and I went outside to sit on the patio and cried. In all the time Jag and I had been apart, at least I had someone else around, but now I had no one. I was completely alone. And lonely. Guess I could’ve asked Ms. Fabulous herself to hang out, but I’d had enough bitchiness for the evening and didn’t want to add hers to mine.

  Waiting at the airport for Jag, I proudly held up the bedazzled-with-silver-glitter-and-multicolored-rhinestones sign that I’d made that said “Mr. Jensen” on it. I knew that when he saw it, he’d roll his eyes at me, but I was so excited to see him and I wanted him to know that I’d missed him enough that I was willing to utilize my limited art skills.

  I stood amidst a slew of reporters who held microphones, checking with their cameramen to make sure the lighting was just right, photographers ready to snap pictures left and right of their beloved Dodgers arriving back from spring training, and hoped my silly, little sign would draw his attention.

  It’d been a long almost two months to say the least. The good news was that I’d made some friends at school and had also met Mr. Ashton across the hall and the Lenoxes who were down the hall had invited me for dinner one night, so I hadn’t been as lonely as I was when Jag first left, thank God. I think I would’ve gone stir crazy if my social life, if that’s what you wanted to call it, hadn’t taken off.

  Mr. Ashton was a sweetheart who’d asked for help with his groceries one day and had given me a standing invitation to have coffee with him mornings whenever I felt so inclined. I’d gone over a couple times, but his fifty-five cats, okay, he didn’t really have that many… so, his fifty-four cats had made my allergies act up and I’d ended up leaving both times with watery, red eyes and sneezing my face off. To make sure I didn’t hurt his feelings, I was going to have to either plan my visits farther apart or have him over to our place to avoid all the dander.

  The Lenoxes were one of the nicest couples I’d ever met. They reminded me of Jag’s parents a lot. Mrs. Lenox, Amber, was the motherly type just like Mary, and she’d even brought me some homemade chicken noodle soup when my allergies had flared up. Mr. Lenox, Al, had made sure to check on me daily since he knew Jag was gone.

  When I saw Jag coming into the concourse, my heart practically skipped a beat. The man seriously got better looking each time I saw him. And that walk of his. Good God. The way he carried himself was so damned sexy, his long strides smoothly moving him forwa
rd so easily. I saw that he’d kept the scruff and I couldn’t agree more that it was a good look for him. Gah! My boyfriend was freaking hot!

  As our eyes met, I saw a flicker of wickedness in his as if he couldn’t wait to get me alone, which was way okay by me. He picked up his pace before a sassy little female reporter jumped in front of him, immediately sticking her microphone in his face as the cameraman did the same with his camera, halting Jag’s progress toward me. A look of surprise appeared on his face at first, which made me giggle, but as she asked him question after question and he grew more comfortable as he answered, he looked like a real pro as he laughed a couple times with her, and my chest swelled with pride.

  When his interview ended, he resumed his original course, heading toward me, but then another reporter jumped in his path, halting his progress once again. And this pattern went on for at least thirty more minutes. No lie. My guy was famous!

  I ended up taking a seat in the waiting area and called Jag’s mom to tell her what was going on. She was so excited to know that he was getting so much attention from the press. Then she started crying which made me start crying, so there I sat in an airport blubbering like crazy. A sweet older woman came over and handed me a couple tissues, and I thanked her through broken sobs. Jeez.

  I’d hung up with Mrs. Jensen and was dabbing at my eyes when Jag finally broke away from the madness.

  “That for me?”

  I looked up and saw him standing in front of me as he jerked his head toward the sign I’d put in the seat beside me.

  I nodded and started crying again before jumping up and wrapping my arms around his neck. His arms laced around my waist and he twirled me around while burying his face in my hair and mumbling, “God, I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” I said through my tears when he set me down.

  “Baby,” he said with a smile, wiping my tears away with his thumbs as he cupped my face in his hands. Then he leaned down and laid a hot, wet one on me as the cameras flashed away. Yikes.