Just Jada

by Anna Cove

I tossed back the glass of champagne as Erika took a delicate sip. I hadn't eaten anything in a few hours, and after only a minute or two a calming buzz start to take hold. I found myself... nervous. I'd never been with a woman before.

  Erika perched on the edge of the bed, glancing around. "I've never been in this hotel. It's nice."

  "It's not bad," I said.

  "Has more room than my entire house."

  That's not hard to do. Somehow, I managed to keep that thought behind the wall of a smile. "Well, enjoy yourself. You can even stay here tonight if you want."

  "I couldn't."

  "Right."

  "I'd love to. Don't get me wrong. I just... with my Dad and everything.... I only stay away for a few hours at a time."

  "Must be nice to be so close with your father."

  "Yeah, it has its upsides," she said, and she lost herself in thought. I let myself watch her, to really look at her. She wore jeans from about five years ago, but they fit her, at least. She had on a T-shirt and no makeup. She sighed and sat up straight and caught me looking at the sliver of her belly that shone with her movement.

  Then she gave me the sweetest smile I'd ever seen.

  I tossed back the rest of my glass and poured myself another.

  "If you're nervous... maybe... maybe we... I don't want to be presumptuous, but maybe we should just take sex off the table for the night."

  "It's not that."

  "You're drinking like you want to be totally oblivious. And we're in your hotel room. And..."

  "Let's do something else," I said. A change of scene usually helped my nerves. "Did you bring your bathing suit?"

  "No," she said. "I was running late and by the time I remembered I was almost here."

  "Oh. Well." Shit. That shot that idea. But what if we didn't actually need the suits? "How about we go for a walk? Get out of here. This room is making me claustrophobic."

  Erika set her champagne flute on the bedside table and bounced to her feet. "Sounds like a splendid idea."

  I finished my champagne and set the glass down on the table and we set out to walk through the hotel. It was one of the oldest in the area. We were in the shoulder season, where the summer vacationers had gone back to school and work, and the leaf-peepers hadn't yet arrived. The hotel was basically empty, and we met no one in the hallway as we strolled along.

  Erika chatted, pointing out paintings on the wall, or funny alcoves. I felt like I was on my way to the executioner. What had happened? Why couldn't I just do what I came to do and get out?

  Somehow, Erika had crawled her way inside of me and blown open, well, caring, without my noticing. And I didn't like it. It fought with my mission for dominance. The champagne, which had been the cheap kind and too sweet, soured in my stomach, along with my mood. We stopped at the pool and weight room.

  "Want to go for a swim?" I asked, needing something to lift me out of this funk.

  Erika frowned. "It looks like it's closed for the day. Plus, I didn't bring my bathing suit, remember?"

  "Come on, Flower Power." I nudged her with my elbow, faking good humor. "Haven't you ever gone skinny dipping before?"

  "Never!" she said, her eyes opening wide.

  "You're such a goody goody."

  "It's not that I never would do it, but I never got the chance. How would we go skinny dipping?" She tried the handle of the door. "It's locked."

  I plucked a bobby pin from my hair. "Only a little breaking and entering."

  "You're so bad."

  "You don't know the half of it." I winked at her and turned back to the door. Thirty seconds went by as I finagled with the lock.

  "A little rusty?"

  "I'll get it."

  "You better hurry. Someone's coming."

  The alcohol had finally done the trick, and I dropped my hands from the handle and pulled Erika into a kiss. She laughed against my mouth, wriggling to break free.

  "Excuse me, ladies."

  I swung Erika around and pinned her up against the wall, and it felt totally natural.

  "Whoa," the dude said. "Get a room!"

  I wrenched away from her mouth. "We already have one!"

  "Then go use it. Hey... aren't you that girl?"

  "What girl?" I asked, out of breath.

  "No, you." He pointed at Erika. "You're the girl in the video with that kid."

  "What?" I asked.

  "The kid... what's his name. Jimmy? I saw a video he made of you. You're an absolute sweetheart, you know."

  "Thanks." Erika blushed. The man went away with a smile and a nod.

  "See?" she said, her eyebrows raised.

  I went back to picking the locked door. The man's appearance was a reminder of what was at stake here. I needed to get Erika out of my system and I needed to get my money back and I—

  The door clicked open. I turned to Erika and raised my eyebrows. "After you, Flower Power."

  ...

  ERIKA

  "I've never done anything like this before," I said as Jada closed the door behind us. Even my whisper echoed in the tiled pool area. It was dark, the only light coming from the window in the door and the dim lights of the pool.

  Jada was a shadow. I reached out and took her hand, trying to calm whatever beast tortured her tonight, wishing I could soothe it away with words or a touch.

  "When I was young, we always used to sneak into the local YMCA after hours," she said.

  "Is that where you developed your B and E skills?"

  "No." Jada chuckled, pulling her hand from mine. "My friend's Mom used to be a janitor and we stole her keys. They're all the same, you know."

  "The keys?"

  "The pools. The chlorine smell. The tiled floor. This one is certainly nicer than the one at the Y and newer, but there's something here that reminds me of that pool."

  "It's peaceful," I said.

  "Yeah."

  We dropped into silence. It wasn't our first of the night, and I couldn't help feeling like something had changed between us. It had only been a day since the kiss in the woods. The mutual kiss. Jada had invited me here, yet there was something different about her. Something jittery and off.

  "Are you—"

  "So, how 'bout—"

  My cheeks heated as we both trailed off. It was like a grade school crush, except the feelings were more complicated. Complicated by baggage from previous relationships like Meredith, by whatever was going on between us. Was this going to be another situation like that? "You go."

  "There's something I've got to tell you," Jada said, her look all serious.

  Was she going to tell me what was going on with her? Or would she tell me something else, some reason she couldn't see me. It was too dark to see her expression, but the longer she paused, the more my stomach flipped. I didn't want this—whatever it was—to end. All my coping skills, my belief in the universe, fluttered away. The only thing I could think to do was to break up the moment.

  Jada needed someone like her. Someone brave. I ripped off my shirt and pushed my pants down over my hips.

  "What are you doing?" Jada asked.

  "What does it look like?" I turned and ran toward the pool wearing my bra and underwear. Before I could change my mind, I launched into the pool.

  The water caressed every part of me. It was cold, but exhilarating. Terrifying, but also right. I remained under the water, buffered from the world and just existing, smiling like a crazy person until I couldn't breathe any longer and had to surface. Under the water, I'd found my peace again, myself.

  When I broke the surface, she was gone.

  "Jada?"

  My voice echoed back to me.

  I started to dog paddle to the edge, and she came back into the room. "I'm sorry, I had to take a call. It was work."

  "At this time of night?"

  "Emergency hospitalization."

  "I'm sorry. Do you have to leave?"

  "No, a colleague of mine will take care of it." She waved it off. Her shoes clicked on the tile
as she walked toward me.

  I wiped the water from my eyes, some of my happiness fled. "Are you coming in?"

  "I think I'm going to pass. The mood is gone."

  "Oh, come on."

  "I'm just not feeling it, you know? After that call?"

  Jada—or the shadow of her, anyway—set her phone down on the bench and she walked toward me. "Sorry."

  "Please?" My voice echoed back at me, sounding like it came from someone else entirely.

  "Maybe later." Her voice was so down, but there was a tremor of something in me now I couldn't ignore. She had brought me here for a reason. Sure, she might have hospitalized a client, but there was a part of her that wanted to be in this pool with me.

  I floated onto my back, aware of the underwater lights on my body. "Are you certain?"

  "Oh, Lord," Jada said on a breath.

  "You know you want to." My voice sang off the walls, barely recognizable.

  Jada turned around.

  Yeah, she wasn't going to make me swim in here alone.

  I paddled over to the ladder and pulled myself out, the cold prickling my bare skin.

  Jada was watching me, watching my body, hunger in her eyes. She took a step back. "Listen, Erika. I really have to tell you something."

  I took a step toward her, straightening my shoulders.

  She answered with a shake of her head, with a double-take, and finally with a locked stare. It was enough. She wanted me.

  The excitement boiled over and I ran toward her. I barreled into her and tackled her into the pool. She let out a screech before she hit the water and flailed so hard I had to let go.

  When she surfaced, I couldn't help but laugh.

  "You!" She splashed me with water.

  I splashed her back. We splashed back and forth until we were both screeching and laughing and hollering and I thought—this was it. I was going to have sex in a pool for the first time. I was going to ravage this sexy woman right here. So, she had secrets. So what?

  "Shh," she said, laughing.

  I covered my mouth, forgetting we were supposed to be covert. "Do you think they heard us?"

  In the dim light, Jada looked like a dark-haired goddess, all shadows. Her hair darker than ever. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her blouse stuck to her skin, revealing the lace of her bra underneath.

  Little waves of water lapped against my chest in time with my heartbeat, which had somehow migrated to my ears. She swam to me and I couldn't breathe.

  "I want you so bad," she whispered.

  "Then take me."

  She groaned and leaned in. Just as I'd worked free her top button, the door opened. I broke away and covered myself, finding a light shining in my face. "What are you two doing in here? Get out of there."

  And then I remembered why I never broke the rules.

  Because when you didn't break the rules, you didn't get into trouble.

  CHAPTER TEN

  JADA

  I almost told her all of it. I should have told her all of it. I might have if they hadn't interrupted us. What had brought me there? Her courage in baring herself to me? The look of the thrill on her face? That phone call about the woman who needed hospitalization? All of it, perhaps. Life was too short to play this game. Now, my major worry was that she would find out too much truth before I had a chance to tell her. That and avoiding the gaze of the crackpot sitting across from me in the waiting room of the police station.

  "Your turn." An officer tapped me on the shoulder. I glanced up at him, shivering with the chill from my wet hair. Then I stood and followed him into a bright room. The walls were plain and white, and the nameplate on the desk read Chief Anthony Consigli. Chief. Big time.

  "This seems like an over-reaction," I said, sinking into a hard wooden chair, trying to muster some of my anger. For once, I couldn't mask my sadness. This was my fault, and I was starting to feel sick about the trouble I might have put Erika in. I could probably get out of it if I could find some way to flash my father's celebrity. Erika wouldn't be so lucky. My father wasn't that famous.

  The chief raised a sandy eyebrow. "Are you going to tell me you weren't breaking and entering?"

  I hunched, a hand on my stomach. "Why didn't you just ask us to leave?"

  "The hotel has had a problem lately with vandals breaking into the pool. Plus, the lock on the door was jammed. That's called vandalism."

  "But I was a guest at the hotel."

  "Still, signs clearly mark the pool's hours and forbid trespass at other times."

  "I didn't see them." There wasn't much to look at in the small room, and it made me uncomfortable. How long had this man been chief? Did he keep the walls bare on purpose? "Where's the girl I came in with?"

  "Officer Nick is with her."

  "Can I see her?"

  "Can I have your name first?"

  "No." That was one way I could keep my true identity away from Erika—by keeping it from the police.

  "You know, I can hold you here for that. A girl like you doesn't want to spend a night in a jail cell waiting for arraignment, do you?" Chief Consigli leaned back in his chair and teepeed his hands over his protruding stomach. A ring of straw-colored hair surrounded his bald dome, shining with fluorescent light.

  Exhaustion washed over me. "Can I make a call?"

  "Be my guest." The chief leaned toward me, pushing his desk phone along the laminate desk.

  I picked up the phone and hesitated. "Can I have some privacy?"

  "Nope," he said, his lips punching out the end of the word.

  At least he was letting me use the phone. I dialed my father's number. It occurred to me the chief would perhaps figure out who I was based on who I was calling. It also occurred, a second too late, it was nearly midnight.

  "Hello?" said a groggy voice on the other line.

  "Dad, it's me. I don't have much time to explain—"

  "Luisa?" my father slurred.

  "Yes, yes."

  "What are you doing calling at this hour?"

  "I—I got arrested."

  "You what? What for?"

  I let my eyelids fall over my dry, aching eyes, aware of the chief watching me. "I was trying to take care of my problem."

  "What?"

  "Erika."

  "Who?"

  "The girl nominated for the Calver with me."

  "The forest spa girl."

  "Yes."

  Precious moments ticked by as my father worked this out. He was not lucid when you woke him. When he spoke again, all tendrils of sleep were gone. "How the hell did you get arrested?"

  "It's a long story. I'll tell you once I get out of here."

  "This is incredibly irresponsible of you, Luisa."

  "I know. I messed up." My voice cracked a little, showing the strain of the day.

  "You certainly did."

  "I'm sorry. Can you..." I turned away, putting my back to the chief, feeling the horror and the shame of what I was about to ask. "Can you make it go away?"

  My father let out a breath that kept going and going. "I should have known you couldn't see this through."

  "I know." I squeezed my eyes shut. Where was Mom when I needed her? I hadn't spoken to her in so long I could barely conjure her voice. Every time I tried, it crumbled into sand and floated away on the winds of my mind.

  "Can you do anything right?"

  "Apparently not," I said.

  I sensed someone at the door and looked up. Erika stood, flanked by an officer twice her size. She looked pale and a little wild with her air-dried hair. She caught my eye and raised her eyebrows, her mouth tugging up in a half smile.

  That small movement, what could have been a twitch, broke me. The full effect of what I'd done made itself known. Erika was a human. A human who cared for me, who was trying to reassure me even though I was the one who got us arrested.

  "I've got to go," I said.

  "Wait. Where are you?"

  "I shouldn't have called."

&
nbsp; "Luisa?" my father barked. "Tell me where you are right now or I'll—"

  I hung up the phone. Had Erika heard my moment of weakness? Based on her face, I guessed not.

  Chief Consigli sighed. "Officer Nick, thank you for bringing Ms. Jones by. It seems we have a problem. This young woman here refuses to identify herself."

  I sat up straighter, the sickness in my stomach rising to my throat. "Don't bring her into this."

  Chief Consigli stood and ambled around his desk, setting himself between me and Erika. He jerked his thumb toward me. "What's her name?"

  Erika frowned, a wrinkle appearing between her brows.

  She didn't know my full name. I had to distract her. I gave her a little shake of the head.

  "I don't know," Erika said with a shrug, her voice low but even.

  "You were naked with her in a pool."

  "I had underwear on and she was fully clothed."

  A smile pulled at my lips.

  Chief Consigli was not amused. "I can throw you both in jail, you know. Obstruction of justice."

  A thrill of fear ran through Erika's eyes, and I almost told them who I was just to make it go away. This was my chance. I could do right here. I could fix this. But would it really fix anything? Wouldn't we still get in trouble?

  "I have no idea who this woman is," Erika said, enunciating each word.

  Chief Consigli bent, his sandy eyes in his sandy face level with mine. "I don't know what you two are playing at, but I don't have time for this tonight. Are you going to tell me your name or not?"

  "Don't tell him," Erika said.

  Her words stunned me. She was fighting for me. She trusted in me. And what had I done? I looked away from them all, stricken.

  Chief Consigli's hot breath tickled my cheek. "Okay, then. That's your answer. Maybe you'll change your mind after a stay in the Hotel de Jail."

  ...

  ERIKA

  Everything will be okay. This was supposed to happen. The universe is for me and so is everything else.

  My usual aphorisms weren't quite holding up in this cold cell surrounded by bars. Thoughts more negative than I'd had in years poked through my carefully constructed happy place. When Meredith had used me, when my father had his first scare at the doctor's, I managed to keep it positive. For some reason, this was the thing that broke me. And why? Because it meant a loss of something I hadn't realized I'd wanted.