“It was private, JJ. What we did was private, and I’m sure that’s not how your dad wanted to find out about us.”
JJ turned to face his dad. “You shouldn’t have asked me. Now Ella is upset, and it’s all your fault.”
“No.” I stepped forward and placed my hand on JJ’s arm, trying to calm him. “It’s not. It’s just...I’m a private person. I don’t like everyone to know everything about me—”
“I know everything about you,” he interrupted. “I know you hate animals, and that Fridays you don’t get dressed. I know you wrinkle your nose when you’re confused about something, and you snore when—”
I gasped. “I do not snore!”
“You do. You snored last night, and it kept me awake until I rolled you over.”
I closed my eyes and chuckled. This guy was going to be the death of me. “Okay, fine.” I opened my eyes and focused on him. “Maybe I breathe loudly while I sleep.”
“No, it’s snoring. You also do this jumping thing when you’re falling asleep.”
I shook my head as I tried to refrain from letting my grin slip free. “Jeez, JJ! Why don’t you just reveal everything about me?”
“I haven’t said who Chad—”
I lunged forward, plastered my body against his, and placed my hand over his mouth. “I was being sarcastic. You don’t need to say anything else, okay?”
His hand gripped my hip, his fingertips digging into my ass through my jeans. His chest met mine with each breath he took. “Okay,” he muffled out. I was locked in his stare, everything fading away. I told myself I was staying like this so I knew he wouldn’t say anything else, but I was lying. I wanted to be close to him always.
Finally, I pulled back and cleared my throat.
“Can we eat now?” JJ asked.
“I…” I looked over at Jeffery, who was smiling from ear to ear. He looked creepy, but I kept that to myself. “Yeah.”
We both sat down, JJ’s hand now resting on my thigh as he scooped up some food and placed it into his mouth. Utensils clicking against plates was the only music in the room, and I managed to take a breath of relief. Maybe Jeffery wouldn’t ask for an explanation?
“I just have one question,” Jeffery asked, his gaze flicking between us as his lips quirked on one side. Damn. I should have known we wouldn’t get away with it. “Did you use protection?”
JJ’s hand gripped my thigh harder, and his body went still. We’d never had the conversation, but we really should have. “We’re covered,” I told him. “I’m on the pill.”
Jeffery nodded. “Okay. As long as I don’t have to hear it, and you’re both respectful, then I don’t care. You can both do what you like. You’re adults.”
“Good.” JJ nodded. “Because I like having sex with Ella.”
Kill. Me. Now.
Chapter 15
Confession #18: I’m an expert in not texting back and sleeping.
Nothing and nobody could remove the smile from my face. Not the students who seemed to take my good mood this last week or so as a pass to not participate in my class, not the call I’d had with Miriam yesterday where she was freaking out because she thought her reflection was someone else, and not when Mrs. Lang came into my lecture fifteen minutes before the end to observe me.
Nope. It was there to stay. A permanent fixture thanks to JJ and all his sexiness.
“So the point is that you always need a presence on the web. Even if your website is the most basic, you still need it. You need people to be able to find you when they put your name into a search engine.” I moved out from behind the podium. “Your assignment this week is to make a mockup of a landing page. I want an interactive button on there, and an about me page to follow it. You’ll find all the materials and sites you’ll need in the online portal.” I paused and smiled over at Mrs. Lang. “This will be worth forty percent of your final grade, so show me that you’ve been listening the last couple of weeks.” That was a sly dig, but the douchenozzles took advantage of my sex-happy mood. Dicks.
Everyone started to pack up their bags, so I did the same, waiting for the room to empty. Mrs. Lang wouldn’t have been in here for no reason. Was she about to tell me that she made a mistake and I wasn’t meant to be teaching these people who were a couple of years younger than me? Or maybe she’d found out about JJ and me and was here to tell me I was breaking some kind of law? I wasn’t technically his teacher, so according to the rules, we weren’t breaking any. At least, that’s what JJ said.
My stomach flipped as she stood and walked over to me, her small smile not giving me an indication as to why she was here. The closer she came, the more my hands started to sweat, and my nerves went haywire.
“How’s everything going, Ella?”
“Good.” I grinned like a crazy person, trying to cover any kind of weirdness that could come out at any moment. “Really good.”
She glanced around, observing the last straggler as she took her time gathering her things, and when she was finally out of the door, she said, “I wanted to speak to you about next year.”
“Next year?” I asked, pushing my laptop into my bag, trying to act indifferent when I was practically pooping my pants.
“Yes.” She leaned on the edge of my desk, her fingers drumming on the wooden surface. “I spoke with the board, and we want to offer you a permanent position. There are still a few weeks left to this semester, but we can already see how much of a difference this course is making.”
I raised my brows, surprised by what she said. “You can?”
“We’ve had people wanting to transfer into your class, so we know it’ll work out. You have a knack for this, Ella.” She placed her cold hand onto my arm, shocking my clammy skin. “This will be good for you.”
“I—”
“Think about it. We don’t need your answer until the end of the semester.”
I opened my mouth, not knowing what was about to come out of it. I hadn’t thought about next year. It hadn’t even entered my mind, but the idea of leaving LA and going back to what my life was in New York had my emotions all over the place. I felt like I was in a constant loop of PMS when it came to the future, and I couldn’t for the life of me find a way out of it.
Something caught my eye, and I looked toward the open door, spotting JJ waiting for me. Our new routine had come naturally. He’d meet me here after my class on a Tuesday and Thursday, and we’d go and eat lunch on what was now our bench while talking about nothing but everything at the same time.
“I’ll think about it,” I told Mrs. Lang.
She nodded, smiled, and turned around, her heels clicking on the floor as she exited.
“Is everything okay?” JJ asked me as I continued to stand there, doing my best impression of a wax statue.
“Huh?” I whipped my head around to face him. “Yeah, sure.” I pulled my lips up, allowing him to consume me and take me out of my own head. “I was just thinking.” I walked over to him and placed my hand on his chest as I pushed up onto my tiptoes. “I missed you.”
“It’s been two hours and fifty minutes,” JJ replied, giving me a small smile, but I witnessed the way his eyes sparked at my words.
“I know.” I pressed my lips against his, careful not to get too caught up in the moment. He was an easy distraction. “But I still missed you.”
He let out a slow breath. “I missed you too.”
His palm ran down from my shoulder to my hand, and he pushed his long fingers between mine. Elvis' voice rang through my head, and I could just imagine this was what he was experiencing when he sang about being caught in a trap. There was no way out of this with JJ, not that I wanted to find one anyway.
“Ready for lunch?” I shouldered my bag and started to stroll down the hallway with JJ beside me.
“Yes. I’m really hungry.”
My stomach moaned in agreement. I could destroy a brownie or ten right about now. “Oh! I forgot to tell you.” I cleared my throat, not sure how this would go dow
n. “I changed your schedule.”
“What. Why?” JJ asked, his voice higher than usual.
I squeezed his hand in reassurance. “We’re going on a date on Sunday.”
“Why are we going on a date?” he asked, his head tilting down so he could meet my gaze.
“Well, JJ, that’s what couples do. They go out to places and have fun together.”
“We have fun in my bedroom.”
A snort broke free as my cheeks heated. “We do, but I want to go out with you.”
“Where?”
I grinned big and wide, excited for his reaction. I’d locked away every little thing he’d ever said to me and kept it in its own personal little diary at the front of my mind. “The science gardens. I want to see those butterflies we were talking about.”
A slow but steady smile worked its way over his lips as we came to a halt outside the coffee shop. “I like the science gardens.”
“I know.” I shifted closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around my waist. “And you can tell me all the facts about the insects as we walk around.”
“I know many facts. Did you know—”
I placed my hand over his mouth and whispered, “Save the facts for Sunday, big man.” I bit my bottom lip as I slowly removed my hand and replaced it with my lips, not caring who would see because the only thing that mattered was us. I didn’t care what anyone else thought or said. He was becoming my everything, and I wanted everyone to know it.
JJ’s palm sweated against mine as we waited in line for our tickets. His gaze batted back and forth, taking in the people milling around us and the signs lining the walls of the reception area. I wanted nothing more than to tell him everything was going to be okay, but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. He was assessing his situation, and I’d learned to let him work through it on his own instead of making it about how I felt.
Who cared what everyone else thought when they saw him freaking out over something they didn’t think was that big? This was who he was, and I loved that part of him just as much as every single other part.
I never understood these people who fell in love, and suddenly nothing else mattered. How could they become so consumed in one person? But I got it now, and I wanted to shout from the rooftops how I felt, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Not until I’d spoken to Chad and worked everything out. New York felt like a cluster-fuck, and I didn’t want to think about that right now. I wanted to be in the moment. Just JJ and me.
“Two tickets, please,” I told the woman behind the counter when the people in front of us moved.
She clicked her nails on the keyboard, her lips in a flat line and gaze focused on the screen in front of her. “Twenty-five dollars.”
I went to pull my wallet out of my small backpack, but JJ beat me to it, handing over the correct amount of money and blurting out, “I need a map.”
She didn’t even look up as she passed him a small pamphlet and then the tickets as they printed out of the machine. JJ’s hand tightened in mine as we ambled away. He wouldn’t let go, even as he struggled to open the map up with one hand. He needed to feel me against him, and I was more than okay with that. I’d do anything to make him more comfortable because he was doing this for me.
“We can walk around clockwise. Let’s start at the butterfly room.”
I smiled and glanced up at him. “I’ll follow your lead.”
He nodded and swallowed as he looked over the top of my head. “It’s this way.”
He led me through the small walkway and into a domed room that had sunlight streaming through it. Butterflies flew from one section to another, landing on the trees and plants surrounding us. Trickles of water resonated from somewhere and basked the room in a tranquil kind of quiet. The more we weaved through the room, the less intense JJ’s grip became. He was at home in this room, and I was in awe watching him as he held his hand out in front of him, waiting patiently for a butterfly to land on his skin.
We didn’t need words or conversation as we observed the beauty in the room, we soaked it in together. I expected JJ to reel off hundreds of facts, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled me closer and placed a soft kiss on my head.
“I love it in here.”
“I can tell.” I pushed my face into the crook of his neck, placing my lips over his pulse and kissing it softly.
His hand smoothed up my back, clutching the back of my neck to hold me in place as he whispered, “If you could become any insect, what would it be?”
“I…” I bit my bottom lip as I thought about it. I remembered sitting in the playground as a small girl and watching ladybirds as they walked over blades of grass, fully at peace. “A ladybird.”
JJ’s chest rattled on a chuckle. “They’re actually called lady beetles.”
I pulled back slightly so I could see his face. His straight nose led up to his brows that were raised as he stared down at me, almost expecting me to say something, but instead, I stayed quiet. I loved when he told me things I didn’t know.
“I think you’d be a pretty lady beetle.”
A giggle escaped from my throat, and I was horrified at the sound but couldn't bring myself to be embarrassed. He brought out a part of me that I never knew existed.
“What insect would you be?”
He pulled back and led me along the pathway. “I’ll show you.”
I laughed as he yanked me out of the domed room, completely forgetting about everything else and the plan to go around the whole place clockwise as he dragged me through a garden area full of statues and down a winding path. Had he not led me down here, I never would have known it existed, not that I’d looked at the map, but it seemed quieter down here. When he came to a stop in front of a glassed-off partition, he halted.
He pointed through the glass. “I’d be one of them.” He moved in behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind and placing his chin on my shoulder. Each of his breaths fanned over the soft skin of my neck, causing me to shiver.
I stared as someone dressed in a white suit and mask came forward, heading for some kind of wooden box. They pulled a tray out, and I was amazed by the number of bees that were on there. “You’d be a bee?” I asked, not moving my attention off the person.
“Yes. They’re the only insect in the world who make food humans can eat.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh.” We both watched as the person pushed the tray back inside and pulled out another one. They had a system they had to follow, and we were both fascinated by it. “I wanted to be a beekeeper when I was a kid.”
“You did?” I leaned the side of my head against his, peace consuming me.
“Yes, but Dad wouldn’t let me. He said bees were too dangerous.”
I tended to agree with him, but JJ was an adult now. He could have bees if he wanted them, and from how his eyes lit up at watching this person, I knew he still wanted to keep bees.
“You should do it now.”
“Really?”
“Hell yeah.” I placed my hands over his on my waist and squeezed. “You’re an adult now. I’m sure they do some kind of beekeeping classes or something.”
“I should investigate when we get home.”
I turned in his embrace and hooked my arms around the back of his neck. “You totally should.” I bit down on my bottom lip. “I could help you make a list of things you’d need.”
“You make good lists,” he told me, his eyes brighter thanks to the LA sunshine.
“Why thanks.” I quirked my lips. “I’ve had lots of practice.”
“Practice makes perfect.” JJ paused. “I never understood why people said that.”
“People are weirdos. We’re probably the only two normal people on the planet.”
JJ nodded and stared down at me, his lips in a straight line. “I agree.” His lips parted, his breath fanning over my face.
“I’ll be normal with you any day of the week, JJ.”
“Me too,” he whispered, bringing his face c
loser and finally placing his soft lips against mine.
I’d never get tired of those lips.
Chapter 16
Confession #46: Life is short, smile while you still have teeth.
I ran the tips of my fingers over JJ’s chest, playing with the smattering of hair between his pecs. He calmed a part of me that I never knew was out of control. My mind was always working overtime, thinking about what I had to do constantly. I was the queen of lists and had so many of them that I had a list to track the lists. But when JJ had his arms around me or looked at me with those beautiful eyes of his, I forgot all about it.
We’d spent the last few weeks getting to know each other, but there was always one subject I never approached. I didn’t know why. No, that was a lie. I did know. I didn’t want to rock the boat and make either of us uncomfortable, so I shied away from it.
“You’re tense,” JJ announced, his deep voice vibrating through his chest and through the side of my face.
“I was just thinking…” I let that hang in the air for a second. “How old were you when you were diagnosed?”
“Eight.”
I lifted my head so I could see his face and ran my gaze over the scruff lining his jaw. I loved it when he had that, and it wasn’t just because of how it felt when his face was between my legs. “What happened when they told you?”
“Dad told me, and then Mom left and never came back.”
I snapped up into a sitting position, not giving a damn that everything was on show. My boobs needed air otherwise they’d suffocate. “Wait. What? She left because of your diagnosis?”
He shrugged and sat up. “I think so. Dad told me that it wasn’t because of that, but I’m not stupid. I know what’s going on. She left because of me.”
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