“Are you clean?” JJ asked.
I almost choked on air at his question.
“Dude,” Vi started. “She’s the most organized person I know. She’s crazy about keeping things in their rightful place, and don’t even try to leave a dirty shirt on the floor because—”
“Why would you leave a dirty shirt on the floor?” JJ asked, finally moving his attention off me and to Vi.
“Well, when you take it off and can’t be bothered to put it in the laundry bin, you just throw it on the floor until later.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Vi.”
“Yeah, Ms. Purple.” I tilted my head to the side and smirked. “I told you it doesn’t make sense. Stop being a teenage boy and pick your shit up, you filthy animal.”
She guffawed and pointed at this end of the table. “See? She’s crazy.”
“Says the woman who can’t even walk down a flight of stairs without breaking her face.”
“Hey!” She leaned forward. “They should have a railing on those stairs. It wasn’t my fault.”
I rolled my eyes and huffed out a tired breath. “You were holding onto the railing, Vi.”
“Well…I… It wasn’t my fault.”
Snickering under my breath, I looked over at Jeffery. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want to impose. You don’t even know me, and the motel will be fine. I’ll just get Uber Dave to drive me to classes.”
“You should stay,” JJ said, standing up and relieving my leg from in between his. My heart sobbed at the loss, and my vagina screamed for him to come back, but he just walked away and into the kitchen, ignoring my silent pleas.
“I really—”
“I’ve got a conference in a couple of weeks,” Jeffery started, his gaze flicking toward the door and back to me as he lowered his voice. “JJ could use the company. I worry about him when he’s home alone.”
I bit down on my bottom lip, capturing Vi’s gaze and silently asking her what I should do. I didn’t know these people, however much my body seemed to react like I’d pushed my fingers into an electrical socket whenever I was around JJ. Why would he offer to let me stay? Though I couldn’t deny that it would be easier because they literally lived five minutes from campus.
“I’d pay you rent,” I told him, pointing in his direction.
“Of course.”
“And I want the spot closest to the window on the sofa for when I’m working.”
Jeffery’s lips quirked. “It’s yours.”
“Then you have yourself a new roommate.” I stood and walked around to him, reaching my hand out to shake on it. His large one engulfed mine as JJ strolled back into the room. “And you, mister.” I let go of Jeffery’s hand and spun around to face JJ. “You can’t tell anyone that a teacher is living with a student.”
He frowned. “You’re not my teacher.”
My gaze flicked down to his groin. Not yet, JJ. Not. Yet.
Chapter 9
Confession #6: Life is full of awkward moments separated by snacks.
There was a time in everyone’s life when you realized that you were going to be utterly alone. I hadn’t had that feeling for as long as I could remember. Vi was always there, up until the point I moved to New York after college graduation. And although I’d been moving there on my own, I didn’t have that feeling. I had been a twenty-two-year-old woman who was high on life, ready to start the next phase of my life.
But as I stood in front of Vi at LAX with her one suitcase and carry-on which held Colonel Fourpaws next to her, I felt like I was being left behind. She was starting her life in New York with Axel, and although she thought I’d left a life back there, I hadn’t.
I had to be honest with myself. The life I had built with Chad was a good one, but that didn’t mean I was one hundred percent happy. He fulfilled so many things, but not the one thing I needed most. It wasn’t like I could tell Vi how I felt—like I’d just slipped down the rabbit hole and lost all sense of direction. So instead, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, burrowed my face into her frizzy hair, and took a deep breath. She smelled like home—lavender and coffee—and there was nothing more soothing than that.
“I’m going to miss you,” I whispered so only she could hear.
Her small hands rubbed up and down my back, trying in vain to soothe me. What she didn’t know was that it didn’t matter how much she tried, I could still feel myself breaking apart.
There was one person who got me into this mess—me—and why I could only see it now was beyond me. Maybe hindsight was a wonderful thing after all. I’d lived in a bubble for the last couple of years, going day to day, and client to client. Had I really been blinded by what was going on around me? This is what happened when you only had one friend, who was also your cousin.
“You’ll be fine. Jeffery and JJ will look after you.” She pulled back, her gaze boring into mine. “I’m kind of happy you’re going to stay with them. It means I don’t have to worry so much.”
I scoffed. “I’m a grown-ass woman, you don’t need to worry about me.”
She shook her head and stepped away. “But I still do.” She pulled the handle on her suitcase and gave Jeffery and JJ another wave.
I was all for calling Uber Dave to drive us here, but apparently, she’d already made arrangements. Why was it I felt so awkward knowing I was going to have to sit in the car with these two men for the next hour? I seriously didn’t know them. They could be serial killers for all I knew! What if they took me back to their house and chopped me up into tiny parts to scatter me across the country? Although, I didn’t think a serial killer would have helped me when I cut my foot open, but that’s neither here nor there.
So I became dramatic when I was nervous. Sue me.
“I’ll see you at the start of summer. But video calls once a week are mandatory. You hear me?” Vi pointed and raised her brow in warning.
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved my hand through the air and rolled my eyes. “I can hear you perfectly.”
She stared at me for a couple of seconds, nodded, and spun around and into the fray of the crowd that was making its way into the airport.
I bit down on my bottom lip and pushed my hands into the tiny-ass pockets of my workout leggings. Why the hell were the pockets so small? I could barely fit three coins in there. And the fact that I wore workout leggings when I did not ever work out shouldn’t surprise you. They were seriously comfortable.
Staring up at the crystal clear, blue sky, I practically blinded myself with the sun. Damn. I forgot I needed sunglasses all year round in LA. I pulled my sunglasses off the top of my head and over my eyes, protecting my eyes from the sun.
I needed to take a leap into the unknown, no matter how much I was afraid. Because being afraid meant that you were doing something good, right? Wait...I wasn’t sure that was how the saying went. I shrugged. I’d just go with it.
What was the worst that could happen?
Jeffery and JJ were waiting in the drop-off point, so I twirled around and headed back toward their old Tahoe. The back door creaked as I opened it, and the soft hum of the radio wafted to my ears when I was sitting behind JJ in the passenger seat.
“Ready?” Jeffery asked, a small smile on his face as he met my gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He pulled out into the traffic, humming under his breath as he did. I didn’t know what song he was humming, but it was relaxing. I found myself lowering farther down into my seat and looking out of the window.
I’d lived in LA for most of my life, and even though New York had become like home, there was nothing that could describe the feeling of returning to where you grew up. It was like planting a tree and then digging it up twenty years later to move it to a different patch of your garden. The tree would never grow the same in that spot, but if you returned it home, it would flourish.
“How many classes do you teach, Ella?”
It took me a second to realize Jeffery was trying to sta
rt a conversation. I’d been practically asleep with my eyes open. I cleared my throat. “I teach one class Monday through Thursday.”
“So you’re teaching tomorrow?”
“Yep.” I nodded for extra emphasis.
“I’ve got a delivery coming in tomorrow, but I’m sure JJ would meet you after class and walk you back to the apartment to collect your bags.”
I worried my bottom lip. This was where I could tell them that staying in a motel would be fine with me, but I couldn’t deny the comfort I felt not just in their house but when I was around JJ. When he looked at me with his piercing green eyes, I was sure he could see a part of me that no one else could. Like he was looking right into my soul. Would he like what he saw? A chatterbox with a weird obsession to organize? I wasn’t so sure, but it was who I was, and there was nothing I would do to change that.
JJ stayed silent, so I leaned forward to poke my head between the two seats. Pulling in a breath, the faint smell of his musky body wash flowed through me. “Would you do that, JJ?”
“Do what?” he asked, his attention focused on the figurine he was holding in the palm of his hand. I could just about make out the top of it, but I was sure it was one of those Lego people.
“Would you meet me after class and help me get my things from Vi’s old apartment?”
“If you need help, I can help.”
“Awesome.” I placed my palm on his shoulder. He jerked with the movement, but after a beat, he relaxed back on his seat.
“I like it when you touch me.” His voice was monotone. Not like he was trying to flirt, but simply as if he was stating a fact. “I only like it when Dad touches me,” he offered as an afterthought as he turned his head to look at me.
“I…” I didn’t know what to say to that.
His green eyes focused entirely on me as his brows pulled together in a frown. “The law states you should wear a seatbelt. For safety reasons.”
I swallowed and slowly moved back. “Right. Sorry.”
“You don’t need to say sorry. Wear a seatbelt. It’s important.”
I leaned back and grabbed the seatbelt, clicking it into the lock next to me. When I looked up, Jeffery’s gaze was on me, and that small smile had turned into a grin.
“I think it’s going to be fun having you around, Ella.”
“Yeah?” My lips quirked. I could see where JJ got some of his charm from. It was obvious he was his father’s son.
He made a noise of agreement in the back of his throat and looked back out onto the road. “Sometimes mixing things up is a good thing. Isn’t it, JJ?”
“Cake batter is a thing, and you mix that up.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth, trying my damn hardest to hold my chuckle in, but Jeffery didn’t hold back as he let his free. JJ shook his head and turned his body away from him, placing the figurine on the lip of the closed window. His long fingers messed with the arms and legs, placing it just how he wanted it, and then he let go, staring down at it intently.
I felt like a stalker watching each one of his movements, but for the first time in my life, I was fascinated by someone. By each word he murmured, and each action he took. Moving my attention to the figurine, I realized it really was a Lego figure. The hair was ridiculously wavy for a piece of plastic, and the red body and stubble drawn onto the face had me wondering just who the hell this dude was.
“Who’s that?” I blurted out, not able to stop myself. Silence greeted me, so I curled my hands around the headrest of JJ’s seat and lowered my voice. “Who is that Lego figure?”
“It’s StarLord.”
I waited for him to expand, but when he didn’t, I asked, “And who’s that?”
“He’s a half alien, half human who protects the galaxy—”
“Galaxy?”
He huffed. “Yes. Guardians of the Galaxy. He protects it with Gamora, Rocket Raccoon—”
“Wait!” I sat up straighter and pulled myself closer to him. “I know that raccoon dude!”
“You know him?” JJ asked, tilting his head to the side. I still couldn’t see his face, but I could imagine what it looked like. Probably the exact opposite of my excited one.
“Yeah! He’s in that film with Chris Pratt.”
I waited for him to confirm I was talking about the right person, but the silence that greeted me had me perplexed. It was that dude, right? I was sure Chris Pratt played some kind of superhero-person-thingy. After another five minutes, and still no answer, I pulled my cell out and asked good old Google. Apparently, I was right, but JJ didn’t feel the need to tell me that.
I found myself clicking on articles, trying to gain as much information as I could to be able to get JJ to talk because I wanted to listen to his voice over and over again. Clicking onto a site that was titled “Facts about StarLord,” I soaked in every piece of information, but just as I was about to reel them off like I was some super-Marvel-nerd, the car halted, and JJ picked up the figure and exited.
Well, that was the end of that conversation after all.
Watching all the students file out the door had me sagging against the table where my laptop sat open. I had no idea teaching was this friggin' hard. I’d been so preoccupied with whether I should come here in the first place that I didn’t even think about the fact that I’d actually have to teach people things.
I had a completely different respect for all of my teachers throughout the years. I bet they absolutely hated me as a student. I was the one person in class who would shout out the answer or talk nonstop. I had one of those students now and hated her. I wanted to sew her lips together to get her to stop interrupting me just once. Jesus.
The last student exited the room, and I stared at the open door for a second. I needed a nap. The kind that you’d promise only for an hour but wake up three hours later not knowing who you were or whether you’d been kidnapped by aliens.
I packed up my laptop into my bag, placed the strap across my body, and walked across the lecture hall to the open door. Murmuring voices had me halting, and when I looked to the left in the hallway, I spotted JJ, but it wasn’t him that had my attention. It was the girl who was talking to him that I focused on. Her lips spread into a small smile as I closed the door behind me. I couldn’t hear what she was saying from here, but when she reached out and placed her hand on his arm, I clenched my teeth. JJ jerked back from the touch, and my feet were moving before I could send the signal from my brain.
“Maybe we could work on the assignment together?” the girl asked.
I was a couple of feet away now, and my eyes were practically burning her hand off his arm. Why the hell was she touching him?
JJ’s throat bobbed as he looked from her hand to her face and back down to the floor. His feet shuffled, and his hand at his side clenched into a fist as he sidestepped her. I could tell he was trying to control himself, but this chick was two seconds away from earning his wrath.
“You could—”
“JJ!” I shouted, causing his head to snap up in my direction. His green eyes swirled when they met my gaze, but seemed to calm the closer I moved toward him. I didn’t even think twice about placing my hand on his chest over the soft, black cotton of his T-shirt that had some kind of Star Wars ship on it. I had no idea what it was, but I could tell it was well-worn from where it had faded. His chest expanded on a breath at my touch, and his words from yesterday rang through my head. He liked it when I touched him.
“You ready to go?” I asked him, keeping my gaze fixed to his.
“Yes.” He moved past me, not acknowledging the girl.
I shrugged, gave her a closed-lipped smile, and followed after JJ who was practically sprinting out of the building. “Whoa, slow down, JJ.” I heaved my breaths, trying to catch up to him as he pushed open the door to the main building.
Why the hell did he walk so fast? I had little legs, and he was probably a foot taller than me so obviously had the gait of a giraffe whereas mine was more like one of those little sausage
dogs. He halted at the bottom of the steps, looking down at his feet, his hands clutching against the straps to his Millennium Falcon backpack. His knuckles turned white, and I sensed he wanted nothing more than to get off campus right now. I understood that because being back in college was hard work.
My sandals slapped against the concrete steps, my bright-pink nail polish glistening in the sun and providing a stark contrast to the white straps. “You’re going to have to walk slower than that, JJ.” I tried to catch my breath. “My legs are shorter than yours.”
“Okay,” he replied and brought his head up, his gaze flicking over my face but not meeting my eyes. “Can we leave, now?”
“I... Yeah.”
I adjusted the strap of my own bag and moved forward to walk through the quad. JJ strolled beside me, the muscles in his arm tensing. I tracked my gaze over his bicep, his forearm to his hand and over his long fingers that were flicking the legs of a Lego figure back and forth.
“You love those Lego figures, huh?”
“Yes.” He nodded and stayed beside me as we made it out of the campus and onto the sidewalk. It was a twenty-minute walk to Vi’s old apartment, and normally I’d dread this time of day, but not this time. Today I was looking forward to it.
“Why do you have that one?”
“To keep my hands busy,” he told me like I’d just asked if the sky was blue.
“Right.” I tilted my head to the side and bit down on my bottom lip.
We walked in silence for the next five minutes, but it wasn’t the kind of silence that needed to be filled with small talk. It was the comfortable kind. I didn’t think I’d ever been around that kind of silence before. I always felt the need to occupy it with my voice, but it was different with JJ. He didn’t need unnecessary words.
I pulled my sunglasses over my eyes and swiped my hand across my forehead. LA was a furnace of heat this time of year, and it was taking its toll on me getting used to it again. I flicked my gaze to the side of JJ’s face, taking in his straight nose and high cheekbones.
Confessions Of A Chatterbox (Confessions Series Book 2) Page 9