by Susan Renee
“Or, maybe I’m ready now.” We chuckle together. We turn out the lights in the living room and hand-in-hand make our way down the hall and into Linda’s room. Sampson is already curled up on the shaggy blue carpet at the foot of the bed as if he sleeps there every night. We both take care of our nighttime routines and climb into bed. Linda easily folds herself into me, with her head in the crook of my shoulder and her hand across my chest. Hoping to God that she doesn’t feel my heart beating so quickly, I run my fingers through her hair as she relaxes.
“Linda?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you, for letting me pop your snuggle-cherry.”
She giggles next to me. “It’s a good thing you’re a cherry-popping kind of guy.” She teases.
A pang of guilt shoots through me when I hear her words.
Cherry-popping kind of guy.
That’s not me.
I’ve wanted this girl since the moment I saw her but I can’t bring myself to ruin a good thing like I have in the past. She doesn’t deserve that. I’m thankful that she’s being unknowingly patient with me in that regard but fear if I don’t make a move soon, she might walk right[NL10] out of my life. For now, I try to steady my breathing and calm my thoughts, grateful that I’m holding this beautiful girl in my arms all night long. I can tell the moment she falls asleep as her breathing evens out and the weight of her hand on my chest is heavier.
One last pang of guilt washes over me as I watch her sleep and think to myself, “Thank Lemons.”
Chapter 8
Linda
It’s been weeks since we first started talking to each other and Jack Schmidt still hasn’t tried to get in my pants. Granted, the first time I thought it might happen, I had to call it off on account of a nasty ass rash, puffy lips and a shortage of breath, but now?
“Which one do you like best?”
It’s been a little over a week since that sour day and he hasn’t tried anything. I’m pretty sure I could strut my best stuff in front of him buck naked and he wouldn’t try anything. What’s a girl supposed to think?
“HEY! Bitchachos!” Jenna’s voice snaps me out of my own personal hell.
“What?”
“I’ve been talking to you and you’re not hearing me.” She holds up two red pieces of lingerie. One has silver tinsel like fringe hanging from the bottom and one has a collar of white fur. “Which one do you like best?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I like…Bo-ho-hoth of them I guess.”’
Jenna’s arms fall at her sides and she leans on her hip. “Was that supposed to be funny?”
“Yep,” I say after another swig of my beer.
“Well bah-humbug to you too. What’s your problem?” Jenna taunts.
“Jizz, there are still several more weeks until Christmas. I have plenty of time to get in the Christmas spirit. But, let’s kill the turkey first, okay?” Wow. I really am a bit pissy today.
“Yeah, I know, but I have to have these holiday pieces ready to go in time for Christmas shopping.” She stares silently at me before stating, “Clearly your mind isn’t with me today, so let’s have it. What’s going on? Did you and Jack have a fight?”
“No.”
“Did you have some bad sex or something?”
I scoff at her remark and roll my eyes. “Jizz, we would have to actually have sex first to have bad sex, so no, it’s not that either.”
“Wait, how long have you guys been together now? A month?” Jenna wonders.
“AT LEAST SIX FUCKING WEEKS!” I shout in my whiniest voice. “It’s been WEEKS and he still hasn’t tried to sleep with me...well, okay, he technically slept with me that one night a week and a half ago, but you know what I mean.”
Jenna places her lingerie on the table in front of us and sits next to me on the couch.
“Has he said anything?”
I shake my head silently.
“But you see him a lot, right?” she asks.
“If we don’t see each other, we talk every day.” I shrug. “I don’t get it. He’s always telling me how beautiful I am…and every time he kisses me, he kisses me like it’s the last time his lips will ever touch mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he practically drinks me in. He leaves nothing left. It’s like he’s afraid it will end at some point so he has to pour out every last emotion…every single time.”
Jenna smiles. “That sounds heavenly.” When I look at her in disbelief, she explains. “Linds, he’s worshiping you. Don’t you see that? Don’t you feel it? The man clearly has actual feelings for you. Strong feelings. Anybody who knows him-and maybe those who don’t-can see it when you guys are together. He appreciates you. He wants you, he’s showing you that.”
“Well that’s all well and good and yeah, I feel things too. Of course, I feel things, but he doesn’t want me like that.” I shake my head, disagreeing with her.
“How do you know that?” Jenna argues.
“Because he won’t have SEX with me, Jizz!” I shoot up from the couch and walk to the kitchen for another beer. Maybe I should just go home and wallow by myself.
“Linda, you can’t be serious.”
I whip around from the fridge and stare at her. “Look at this face,” I say, pointing to myself. “Does this face say ‘I’m gettin’ laid every day and loving it.’?”
“No, it doesn’t. I can see that,” Jenna returns. “I can clearly see that you’re pissed about it. I just don’t understand why you’re so damn caught up on the sexual aspect – or lack thereof – of your relationship.”
My head snaps up at the thought that just ran through my mind. “Do you think he could be seeing someone else too?”
“Jack Schmidt? The super nice guy that I’ve spent time with before he ever met you? No way. He’s not that kind of guy.”
“What if he is? There’s this girl who lives in her apartment building. She’s a walking fuck-me sign. She’s built like a damn Barbie doll and she knows it.”
“Linda, that doesn’t mean she’s sleeping with Jack or any other guy who lives in his building.”
“Maybe I should just text him and ask,” I murmur.
Jenna rolls her eyes and gives me her best ‘are you crazy?’ expression. “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”
I know she’s being sarcastic but I’m pissed and just tipsy enough to have the courage to pull this off. It’s now or never. I pull my phone out of my back pocket and open the last text conversation I had with Jack.
“What are you doing?” Jenna inquires.
“You were right, Jizz. I should just ask him. I mean he’s bound to tell me the truth, right?”
“You are not seriously doing this,” Jenna says slowly as she watches me put the phone to my ear.
“Hey, babe. What’s up?” Jack answers with a bit of a winded voice, as if he’s running.
“Why don’t you like sex?” The words boldly come out of my mouth.
“Uhhh….” The silence on the other end of the line is a bit deafening. I watch Jenna’s expressions change from annoyance to intrigue. “Who said I didn’t like sex?” Jack’s voice is much clearer now. He obviously changed whatever environment he was in when I first called.
“We’ve been together for I don’t know how many weeks and you’ve never even mentioned it. So, what’s wrong with me?”
“What’s wrong with you?” he stresses.
“Yeah. What’s wrong with me? Is it my hair? My nose-ring? The fact that I’m allergic to fucking yellow citrus balls? What?”
Again, with the silence on the other end. “I’m coming over.”
“Go for it. I’m not home.” I claim.
“Linda what’s going on? Why do you sound so irritated?”
“Because I think I might love you, but you don’t want to have sex with me and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out WHY!” I shout. I catch Jenna’s stare – like a deer in the headlights with the goofiest grin – and immediat
ely gasp, covering my mouth with my hand. Forgetting that I’m even holding a phone I shout again, “SHIT! Jizz, I just word-vomited again. Why are you doing this to me?”
“You’re at Jenna’s?” I hear Jack say into my ear.
Oh, my God he heard me.
I just said…
“Linda?”.
“Yes. I’m at Jenna’s.” I squeak.
“I’m in my car, I’ll be there in six minutes.” He hangs up the phone, leaving me all alone with the paralyzing fear of what will happen when he shows up here.
“I just…”
“Told him you loved him.” Jenna smirks. “Yep. That happened. Just now. It did.” She chuckles.
“Don’t you laugh at me,” I warn.
“I’m totally sort of laughing at you right now, but in the best way possible.” She steps forward and places her hands on my shoulders. “Linda loves a boy.” She swoons.
“So, what?” I try to play off what I said, knowing damn well it won’t work.
“So, what? This coming from the girl who hasn’t spoken about the L word for years. This coming from the girl who basically swore off all relationships for the rest of her life.”
“It doesn’t mean anything.” I argue.
“It damn well does mean something.” She nods. “It means you’ve allowed yourself to be vulnerable. And being vulnerable is risky and means you could get hurt in the end, but Linda, what if this one time you allowed yourself to let go and have feelings, you found someone who could share those feelings with you? Someone who could treasure those feelings, wrap them up with a gigantic bow, and protect them for you?”
I don’t answer her because, quite frankly, I don’t know what to say. I simply shrug my shoulders instead.
“Promise me when he gets here you’re not going to turn this into a fight? Especially a fight about sex.” She pleads.
I shrug my shoulders again, silently, staring at the floor.
“You’re hopeless,” Jenna sighs. “I love you to pieces, but you’re hopeless.”
I don’t have time to respond even if I want to, because a knock at the door alerts us both to Jack’s arrival.
“You okay?” Jenna asks quietly.
“Yeah.” I whisper, sniffling back my emotions. Jenna heads for the front door and opens it. Jack walks in a sweaty mess in his gym clothes. Immediately I feel this pang of guilt in my gut for interrupting whatever it was he was doing. Working out, most likely.
“Hey,” he says to me, looking me over, probably for signs of distress or even drunkenness.
“Hey,” I reply.
“Where’s your car?” he asks me, gesturing toward the driveway. “It’s not parked out there.”
“Home. Jenna brought me here.”
“Perfect. Let me take you home.”
I whip my head up and meet his eyes. “Why?”
He laughs lightly. “Because I have some things I would like to say, and I was hoping to get to see you this evening anyway, so why not?”
“But I’m hanging out with…”
“Ahhh I just remembered I need to umm…wash… my thongs.” Jenna pitches her thumb over her shoulder as she backs up down the hallway. “Yep. You guys just do your thing. It’s ‘Thong-washing Thursday’ so uhh…yeah. I’ve got to do my thing…my thongs…” She laughs quietly. “…you know what I mean. Linda…thanks for hanging out. I’ll catch you later.” She winks before turning into her bedroom, not saying another word.
“That is so fucked up. Thong-Thursday isn’t even a thing,” I mumble as I shake my head in disbelief.
Jack takes my hand and pulls me in for a kiss to my forehead. “Come on. Let me take you home.”
***
“What are these?” Jack asks, picking up a sketch book from the coffee table in front of us.
“Just a few design logo sketches that came to my mind. Nothing important,” I mumble in reply. Jack thumbs through the book of drawings, his eyes growing with each page. “Wow! I’m seriously impressed. You’re really talented. You’ve never shown me these before.”
I shrug like it’s no big deal, even though to me, they are sort of a big deal. “It’s nothing. It’s just a hobby. I was bored.”
Jack puts the sketch book down on the table and turns to me, watching me with sad eyes. “Linda, I’m so sorry I’ve left you doubting my feelings. I’ve never really made clear my intentions, or my desires when it comes to you, or to us.” Jack sighs. As we sit on the couch, he holds my legs on his lap.. “I need you to believe me when I say that I like sex. I love sex, and I want you. I do…I just…”
“Just what? Have I said something to offend you or something? Is it because I’ve slept with other guys?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head. “No way. Look, I know it’s going to sound really stupid when I say it’s not you, it’s me, but it’s really not you and it really is me.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“That’s because you don’t know the Jack Schmidt of the last ten or fifteen years,” he explains.
“Then tell me about him. I want to know him,” I plead.
“You don’t want to know him. I’m not sure I want you to know him.”
“Why not?”
“Because every time I have any kind of feelings for a girl, everything goes wrong. And I don’t mean emotionally. I mean, something literally goes wrong, leaving me wanting to just run away and hide.”
“Like what?”
“Like…jizzing in my pants after touching my first pair of breasts in high school and having to stand in messy pants while talking to the girl’s father, pretending everything is just fine.”
Oh noooo!
That’s cute.
“Or being known as ‘Flaccid Jack’ for quite some time in college because of one very shitty night.”
Trying to hold back a chuckle while looking as sympathetic as possible is a huge challenge. “It’s okay. You can laugh. I’m over it now.”
I rub his arm tenderly to show my sympathy but absolutely cannot hold back a few giggles. “Flaccid Jack? That’s so horrible.”
“So, I just need you to understand that it’s not that I don’t want to have wild, passionate sex with you, because oh, dear God, I do. Your body puts all sorts of thoughts in my head, believe me. It’s just that…I’m not ready for us to end, and I’m scared to death that by taking the next step with you, I’ll do something that will mean an end to us. And I don’t want that.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to…make you mine,” he says fervently. “I want you to know every minute of every day that I’m with you. I want you to know how I feel about you. I want you to see the evidence every day so there’s never any doubt.” He looks around the room, and then down at the coffee table. He grabs a red marker and a black marker and holds them between us. “Do you trust me?”
“Uhh…” I look between the markers and Jack, not sure of where he’s going. “Of course, I trust you.”
“Good. Close your eyes,” he whispers.
“Why?”
“Don’t ask questions. I promise I won’t hurt you. Just trust me.” He softly swipes down my face with his hand as I cover my eyes. Leaning in closer to me I feel the soft kiss of his lips on my cheek and his hands as they reach for the buttons on my shirt.
He’s unbuttoning my shirt?
Am I even wearing a nice bra?
He trails his fingers down my shirt, unbuttoning the top half and pushes my shirt open. I jump when I feel something touch my skin that clearly isn’t his finger.
“It’s okay.” He stops. “Just trust me.”
I take a deep breath and sit there facing him with my eyes still closed. When he touches me again I can tell it’s one of the markers he had in his hand. He’s writing on me. Or drawing something…or both. I can’t quite tell. I hear when he puts the cap back on one marker and opens another. My breathing quickens in anticipation.
“Almost done,” he whispers.
> The last thing I feel before he speaks again is a warm kiss on my chest right above my heart. “There. Finished,” he says. “You can open your eyes now.”
I open my eyes and look down where he was drawing on my skin and almost burst into tears. It’s only a couple of markers but Jack Schmidt just tattooed the words ‘I Love You’ with a red heart in place of the O in Love, right above my left breast. Right above my heart. When I look up at Jack, my mouth hangs open in awe. I don’t know what to say.
“You said about thirty minutes ago that you might love me, and it’s okay if you didn’t mean it. I just thought maybe now would be a good time to tell you how I feel, because I don’t ever want you to have any doubt.”
“I did mean it, Jack.” I take a big breath and reassure myself that Jenna’s right and it really is okay to be vulnerable. “I meant it as much as I can mean it. I don’t really know how to do love. I haven’t allowed myself to think about the L-word for a long time, but it’s all I think about when I think of you. So, I think that means I love you, sooo…yeah. I meant it.”
“Good. Because I love you too.” He smiles. “And I really want to kiss you right now.”
“Then shut up and kiss me already.” I chuckle as I climb onto his lap. He holds my face with his hands and pulls me toward him. His lips clench mine in an enchanting kiss that fuels my desire for him. We spend many minutes wrapped around each other, reveling in our sweet love before our lips separate from one another.
“You’re so beautiful and I am so damn lucky.”
“Do you want to stay?” I encourage him.
Jack closes his eyes painfully. “I do. I really do, but Sampson is at home, and I have a big day in court tomorrow. Remember I told you about Lexi and Tim, the two kids in the custody battle?”
“Yeah.”
“Tomorrow is the big day. I know that means I’m leaving you hanging for one more night, but I need to be there for them and I need to be prepared. I still have some studying to do before I call it a night, but I promise tomorrow, I’m all yours…and you’re all mine,” he says, kissing my neck.
“It’s okay. You do need to be there for them. They need someone to be in their court…pun un-intended.”