“This is nice,” Jackson says quietly during our third round of drinks.
“What?” I ask curiously.
“Having drinks, no pressure. I guess we can be friends after all. Who knew?” He gives me a cocky sideways grin.
“Easy huh?” I say with mock offense.
“Not even missing me a little?” I try to sound nonchalant, but the sadness makes its way past my smile.
“Every day,” he says looking down with sudden interest at the label on his beer bottle. “If being friends is the only way to see you, then it’s what I gladly take.”
The conversation stalls right then, because truthfully, there’s nothing either of us can say. We’re both lying and we know it. This awkwardness, this conversation, will always be the elephant in the room for us.
I knock back the contents of my glass and order another. I should stop drinking. That’s what I should do. We should say goodnight and exit stage left to our respective lonely beds right fucking now. But neither of us go. Neither of us can. The Clever Bean around us is alive with the sounds of glasses clinking and drunken merriment. I knock back the next glass as it lands in my hand.
“I should go,” I say with hesitation before grabbing my bag.
“I’ll walk you,” Jackson says standing up.
“I’m fine, it’s a few doors down,” I reply with a polite smile.
Jackson gives me a cocky grin, “Mama said to be a gentleman at all times. Gotta listen to mama, now.”
I shrug and we walk. The whiskey obviously has a much stronger effect on me now that I’m standing up and using my lower extremities. After me missing the curb twice, Jackson slides an arm around my waist. I would tell him to back off, but he’s all that’s keeping me walking in a straight line. And he smells so fucking good, like soap and fresh mint mixed with an ocean breeze.
This half drunk, half lucid state that I’m in is doing nothing to help me maintain my resolve. I want to fucking leap into Jackson’s arms, wrap my arms and legs around his person and hold on for dear life. The urge almost brings me to my knees a few times in our short walk. I stay silent, as I’m not able to trust myself with whatever could spew verbally from my mouth. Jackson opens my building door and holds it open for me. “
Will you be okay from here?” he asks.
Yes, no, not really, maybe. What the hell do I say? Before my brain formulates a decent response to the question, my body answers for me, and my traitorous lips crash into his. Jackson grabs my waist and kisses me as though he’s been roaming a desert and I’m his oasis, his water.
“Maia.” My name leaves his lips through the kiss in a guttural moan, and it sounds so freaking hot. It must be the alcohol affecting me, because every nerve in my body feels like it’s laced with live voltage.
Jackson pushes me up against the far wall, and the first thought that pops into my head is, thank God I don’t have a doorman. My body rocks between the wall and Jackson, and his hips grind me into the plaster so hard I’m worried for a moment that I’ll go straight through. Our kisses are feverish, almost suffocating us, and the air around us electric. He struggles to find bare skin, practically clawing at my dress. Without a moment’s hesitation, I reach down for his belt buckle, my fingers clumsily prying it apart. I want to feel Jackson so badly that the thought clouds every other in my mind.
Jackson lets out a half-guttural moan and sighs before placing his hand over mine and moving it gently away. My foggy brain takes a moment to process what he’s doing. I meet his eyes and though still lust filled, there is a sadness that illuminates them. Regret? My partially coherent brain can’t quite process what’s happening.
“Maia…” Jackson’s voice trails off as though he wants nothing in the world more than to avoid what he’s about to say.
I hand him the out he needs. Before he can finish the sentence, I shove him away and run up the stairs. He doesn’t follow me, and I don’t dare glance back, although I know he’s watching me race up the stairs. The world blurs as tears distort my vision and the true weight of my stupidity dawns on me, pushing through my impaired lucidity. I let him go, what the hell did I expect?
My shaky hands unlock the door as I stumble over the threshold. My body and heart both ache for Jackson, but abject humiliation stops me from running back out the door to stop him. What will I say? No, I don’t want to be with you. But I do want to sleep with you. No I’m lying because I love you and I need you. But I can’t need you. And I definitely can’t tell you that I need you. My body curls itself into the fetal position on the couch, and that’s where I stay.
The morning sun filters through my bay windows and the blinding glare sears my eyes, which I already know are red rimmed and puffy. I had hope that the alcohol would provide me with a much-needed sense of vagueness about the previous night’s happenings. Sadly though, that was not the case. Along with my throbbing head and churning stomach, I remembered, with absolute clarity, the way Jackson kissed and held me just before he pushed me away.
I peel myself off of the sofa and slowly amble my way to the shower. Coffee, I need coffee. After washing yesterday’s funk from my skin and hair, and deciding that my giving-zero-fucks factor will only allow me to throw on a pair of yoga pants, my Brown sweater and a pair of running shoes, I make my way down to the Clever Bean. The waitress eyes me cautiously when I order a double shot piccolo, but doesn’t venture to make small talk. I must have my fuck off face on as well. As I turn to leave, a familiar frame catches my eye. And it’s the last person I want to see. Not only that, it’s the last person I want to see in the last situation in which I want to see him.
Jackson sits at the window, chatting animatedly to some school-girl looking blond. Her neat bob and swept back fringe, combined with her almost flawless, makeup free face, liken her to a candidate for the nunnery. She smiles shyly as he talks. And all I can do is stare. And envision myself strolling over and yanking every strawberry blonde lock from her scalp.
I turn to walk away, figuring that leaving with my dignity and my coffee is the only likely solution, but in my feverish attempt to escape, I collide with a rock solid structure, sending my coffee flying to the floor, with my person in hot pursuit. A pair of arms catches me just before I completely lose my footing.
“Whoa!” The voice is cheerful, if not slightly mocking.
“Sorry, I…sorry,” I stammer. Well, there goes my dignity. The arms that grab me are long and lean, and so is the body they are attached to. And if I weren’t so mortified by the situation, and horrified by the sight of Jackson with that blonde, I may have paid attention to the rest of him. But I don’t. I hightail it out of the Bean like my ass is on fire. As I steal a glance back, Jackson’s eyes meet mine, and for a fleeting moment, I think I see pity in those beautiful brown wells.
Chapter 22
Jackson
If Maia had looked closer, she would have seen that Jill and I were looking through a CAD design book. She would have noticed that I was not at all interested in the blonde with me. But after sending her to bed last night, alone, I doubt that’s what she saw. I doubt that’s what she thought. I did, however, want to stab the asshole that tried to rescue the damsel in distress. My damsel in distress. I saw red when that athletic fucker looked at Maia the way he did. Thankfully I don’t think she noticed.
“Jackson?” Jill’s voice breaks through my thoughts.
“Mmm,” I answer absently. She eyes me curiously and for a moment I see a flash of what looks like annoyance. She covers it well though. “Hey, Jill, can we go over this stuff later?” I’m sure she wants to throw her vanilla latte in my lap, but she refrains.
“How about back here, later tonight?” Jill’s tone is hopeful.
“Yeah, maybe,” I answer before grabbing my books. “I’ll call you,” I call over my shoulder as I make my way to the counter to order a coffee to go.
This is such a fucking bad idea. I know it. My heart, which is stupid as shit, tells me that I can’t leave Maia thinking that I
was replacing her with Jill. My brain is telling me to fucking run away until she has had a chance to calm down about last night.
I knock tentatively, and stand back apprehensively. I feel like a fucking schoolboy on his way to see the principal. How did we get here? Not so long ago, I was introducing Maia to the family, now she barely wants anything to do with me. A week ago I had her legs wrapped around me with no sign of ever letting go, and today I can barely get her to look at me.
Maia opens the door slowly and peers out through the crack. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to see me, so I hold up the white flag I brought, which happens to be a coffee. Obviously, her desperation for caffeine is an urge too strong to resist, and the door swings open.
“Should I take a guess and say that you and I are not in a real good place right now?” Were it not for the hurt in her eyes that betrayed her, Maia looked calm, way too calm.
“Thanks for the coffee,” she says simply. “I have a class to get to soon though.” So I guess she’s madder than I thought.
“Can I get a ride in?” my question is posed so hesitantly, I almost feel afraid for me.
“How’d you get here in the first place?” she asks quietly.
“Jill gave me a ride over. We’re doing an assignment together.” I reply, so timidly that for a moment I think I may be lying. I probably wouldn’t believe me either. But fuck it, there it is. The truth. Not the whole truth. The whole truth would go something like, I hate not being with you, hate that this is awkward, we’re wasting time on this talking shit, and I’m slightly relieved that you were jealous this morning. But having testosterone means that men find it hard to lay all our shit bare like that. And I am no exception.
“Give me a sec,” she answers, before walking into her bedroom.
About twenty minutes later, we’re driving down the busy streets to the Brown campus.
“Maia, about last night…” I say after ten minutes of awkward silence.
“You don’t have to explain,” she says, cutting me off. “I was drunk. I’m sorry for throwing myself at you like that.” Her hands wring the steering wheel nervously.
“I do,” I reply. “Believe me, there is not one single part of me that doesn’t want you. But you trust me so little as it is. Do you really think I wanted you to wake up thinking that I took the first drunken opportunity I had to fuck you?”
I sigh in frustration. My cold shower did nothing to calm me down last night after leaving Maia’s. Her eyes are fixed pointedly at the road ahead, as she expertly avoids my gaze. “Jesus, Maia, I barely got you to agree to be friends! And there is nothing going on between Jill and I.” My voice inches up a notch in exasperation.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Jackson.”
Maia has perfected the art of distancing herself. The girl sure can be stone cold when she wants to be. Our conversation comes to an abrupt halt when she pulls up outside my dorm.
The morning leaves me completely deflated. I admit that I had chosen to meet Jill at the Bean in the hopes that it would elicit some kind of jealousy from Maia. I didn’t count on her completely shutting down on me like this. I had hoped that proving to her that I was a gentleman last night would score me a few points. Turns out, I’m zero for two. Nothing happened as I had envisioned it. Fuck!
I pull out my phone and try one last ditch effort to fix this.
Can we at least talk tonight? My finger hovers over the send button. No man likes to send a message that they know is going to result in a firm fuck off disguised as a no.
My phone buzzes back a few minutes later and surprisingly the answer is simple: Okay. There is a God after all! Come by later.
The rest of the day moves painfully slowly. I barely register my presence in any of my classes and only just manage to keep up with my lecturers. The thought of seeing Maia this evening dominates every minute of my day. I receive a text from Jill asking about studying later, which I don’t hesitate to reply to with a resounding, yet slightly more politely worded no.
My phone rings late afternoon and I’m sure it’s Maia calling to cancel. “Hello?” I answer. Maia’s voice doesn’t greet me on the other end, but one that I miss equally does.
“Forgetting your friends?” the voice asks sarcastically.
“Not at all, Jade,” I quip. “How you doing?”
“Missin’ you and Maia, otherwise okay,” Jade replies casually. “But I called to give you a heads up about something.”
“What’s up?” I ask, my curiosity definitely piqued.
“Word around here is that Emmanuel has something big in the works, big and probably very bad. Supposedly, he’s calling in all his favors for this. He’s real mum about it all. I can’t get anything through the grapevine, but apparently he’s joining the big time. Says you owe him a few favors, too.”
“Pfft,” I laugh dismissively. “I don’t owe Emmanuel shit, and after the massive fuck up he caused with Maia, he better not even think of dialing my number.”
“Hey, hey now, don’t shoot the messenger, just giving you a heads up is all,” replies Jade swiftly.
“Good looking out Jade,” I respond with complete sincerity. “How you been, anyway?” I ask, initiating a quick subject change. “I’m lonely without you here.”
“Doin’ okay. Enjoying not being on that uptight college campus for a bit. Still planning on coming back, though. I thought I had found true love a little while ago, but she ended up getting knocked up by that Timmy kid down the road so… Anyway, why are you lonely? Maia not agreeing to keep you warm yet?”
Typical Jade, her whole life story and the probe into mine, all in one swift movement. “No,” I sigh, suddenly feeling quite deflated. “The more I try to fix things, the more I seem to fuck them up. I don’t even know what I do wrong half the time!”
“Don’t give up,” Jade reassures me. “Maia can be a stone cold bitch sometimes, part of why I love her, but she’ll come around. You know she’s complicated. Anyways, I gotta go, call me sometime.”
Jade hangs up, and I think back on how I ended up at Brown in the first place. I came here to avoid complication, get away from the drama in my life. And here I am, chasing the very thing I was trying to run away from.
I’d give up right now if I weren’t absolutely sure that Maia is worth every minute of complication. As I make my way over to the Bean, a whirlwind of trepidation engulfs me. There’s so much that I want to say to her, but it feels like whatever I do say just pushes her back into the bubble that she has created for herself, further out of my reach. I’m not going to lie, this friends thing is hard as fuck. The thought of seeing Maia puts a spring in my step, and unfortunately for me, also an ache in my groin, an itch that no one else, myself included, can scratch.
I park the Mustang off on a side street, in the event that I stay the night. The thought is almost laughable, but still, my dick is hopeful. As I round the corner, the first thing that catches my eye is the last thing that I want to see. The silhouette of Maia’s frame standing outside the Bean in her skinny jeans, with tendrils of her hair floating weightlessly in the breeze that’s picked up, causes my heart to beat erratically and almost uncomfortably in my chest. That’s the thing with us guys, take something away from us, and we want it a million times more.
The smile that has made its way to my lips, however, quickly dissipates as I see that she’s laughing animatedly with same douche that she nearly scalded with coffee this morning. With any luck, he’s pissed and she’s convincing him not to sue. But I doubt that. Every fiber in my being erupts in a searing, heated rage, and the first thought I have is to walk over and fucking deck the prick for even talking to her. More so, after the issues that Maia and I have had, truthfully, I want to fuck him up because he has no right to be making her smile like that. It takes every ounce of self-control I have to root myself in place on the sidewalk in an effort to calm the fuck down. I watch in abject horror as he leans in to say something and she ducks her head away in a shy smile.
Fucking asshole. Not that I know him, but he’s fucking asshole all the same. I let the scene play out for a few more seconds before I purposefully make my way over to the Bean.
Chapter 23
Maia
The guy who I accidentally scalded with my much-needed coffee this morning turns out to be a medical intern at Rhode Island Hospital named Blake Carson. I was shocked as hell when he pulled me aside outside of the Bean to strike up a conversation. I laugh because he’s genuinely funny, and continue the conversation at least partially because I know that Jackson will be walking down the street at any given moment. If I hadn’t been so intent on getting the hell out of dodge and away from Jackson this morning, I may have noticed that Blake is nothing short of a god. He has that expensive, well-bred look about him, but without the pompous arrogance of Bryce, and the same kind homely feel that Jackson has. With the sandy blonde waves that casually frame his face, tan and lean swimmer’s physique, and soft hazel eyes, Blake is the kind of guy for whom women would drool, fight over and fall for.
“Seriously though, you do owe me a shirt. So maybe you can take me shopping and I can buy you lunch?” says Blake, with a teasing glint in his eye.
I smile at his not so subtle hint at taking me out, but don’t offer any more. Truthfully he’s not Jackson. He never will be. A slight pang of guilty finds its way to my gut at the thought of entertaining this chat with Blake just to make Jackson jealous. And further, if Jackson isn’t jealous, I may very well just be gutted. I open my mouth to respond to Blake’s offer, when in my peripheral vision I see Jackson sauntering across the road. He offers me a placid smile as he closes in on us, and it erupts a bevy of butterflies in my stomach. That’s more than Blake achieved in ten minutes of conversation. He strolls over and plants a kiss on my cheek, blatantly ignoring Blake, who shifts uncomfortably as the display of territorial demarcation happening in front of him.
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