Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (The Crossroads Series)

by Melanie Shawn

  Standing in front of the fridge with the door open, Zach looked over his shoulder at her as she set down the napkins and utensils. “Do you want water, wine, or Coke?”

  Wine. That was what she wanted. Unfortunately, alcohol plus Zach was a surefire equation for disaster.

  “Water’s good. Thanks.”

  * * *

  Reaching into the cold refrigerator, Zach’s hand wrapped around two water bottles. While pulling them out, he tried to slow his racing heart. After leaving his visit with his mom, Zach had gone straight to the gym and worked out harder than he had in a while. He’d punished the heavy bag with all of the pent-up sexual frustration that had been building inside of him like a volcano ready to erupt.

  After his workout, he’d been exhausted. In fact, he’d fallen asleep in Domico’s while waiting for his takeout order. He thought he’d come home, find Jessie already upstairs, carb-load, and head off to bed.

  Not so much.

  He’d practically run into her in the kitchen. She was wearing a Snoopy shirt, black-rimmed glasses, baggy blue sweats, and fluffy white slippers. Her hair was pulled up loosely on top of her head, and her face was makeup-free. She looked adorably sexy.

  Zach had never been tempted to live with a girlfriend. Part of that had to do with the fact that, up until a year ago, his mom had lived with him. And for the two years prior to her moving into Avalon, she’d needed round-the-clock nurses. So in his small two-bedroom apartment, there had always been three people. Not that he’d minded. He would have done anything to keep his mom living with him.

  Once she’d moved into Avalon, he moved into a studio to save money, and he’d gotten used to having his own space. He never let any chick he hooked up with stay the night. It was rare that he even brought anyone home. In fact, in the entire year he’d lived on his own, he’d only brought two women back to his apartment.

  Basically, the only person who spent any amount of time there was Billy. They’d watch games and hang out, and that was only because his friend didn’t listen to him when he told his ass to go home. Zach liked his alone time.

  So, that being the case, he really could not explain why he’d felt so happy, so right, walking in and seeing Jessie wearing her pajamas and glasses. He couldn’t explain it—but that was exactly how he’d felt. In that moment, his world had felt completely, utterly right.

  Walking across the kitchen, Zach realized why it had taken him a moment to pinpoint that emotion. It was because he’d never felt it before. Whether he was dealing with his mom’s health or getting ready for his next fight, Zach always felt unsettled. Seeing his mom today, how happy and fulfilled she was, had eased some of that unrest that was always in a tight ball in his chest. But coming home to Jessie had made it disintegrate completely, which scared the shit out of him.

  As he sat down across from her, he watched as she filled her plate with salad, ravioli, and garlic bread. He knew in that moment that he should have just let her go upstairs, like she’d so obviously wanted to, instead of telling her to eat. Part of his insistence had been the loud growl of her stomach. But the main reason was because, even though he’d promised himself that he would keep his distance from her, that was the very last thing he wanted.

  Reaching out, he scooped a large portion of ravioli onto his plate. He always ate his salad at the end of his meal. He wasn’t sure why. It was just something he’d always done.

  “Mmmmm,” Jessie groaned.

  He looked up to see her eyes closed as she slowly pulled her fork from her mouth. His body clenched with desire at the sensual sight. Zach could now add a fork to the growing list of things he was jealous of that had touched Jessie’s mouth.

  “This is heaven,” she declared after swallowing her first bite.

  Zach’s jeans were growing tighter by the second. If she could look this rapturous, this orgasmic, from some flour, cheese, and tomato sauce, he could only imagine what she would look like from the pleasure he was sure he could bring to her body.

  Damn, he had to stop thinking like that. Eat. He needed to eat quickly and avoid Jessie like the plague.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, which Zach appreciated. People who couldn’t relax unless they were talking had always irritated the crap out of him. Not that he was antisocial or didn’t want to hear what people had to say—he absolutely did. But only if they had something to say, not if they were just talking for the sake of talking.

  As Jessie took a deep breath, her face turned from a look of ecstasy that the meal had inspired to no-nonsense business. “Actually, I’m glad that we’re doing this.”

  “What? Eating?” Zach knew that wasn’t what she’d meant, but he liked seeing the little spark of fire light up in her milk-chocolate-colored eyes whenever he gave her a hard time.

  “No. Well, yes, that too.” She motioned to her plate. “It’s delicious. Thank you. Just let me know how much I owe you—”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Yes, I do. Buying dinners is not part of our arrangement. Actually, that is what I wanted to talk to you about. I have some questions that we need to answer so that we are both clear on our boundaries and limitations.”

  “Is this like deciding a safe word before having sex?” The second the words left his mouth, Zach wished he could take them back. He hadn’t meant to make that joke. He was used to being around guys all day every day. And for some reason, he felt comfortable around Jessie. But that was no excuse.

  Just as he opened his mouth to apologize, a flush rose up her cheeks as she smiled and said, “Kind of.” Then she was back to all business. Staring down at her iPhone, she tapped on the screen several times. “Okay, how do you want to distribute the cabinet and refrigerator space?”

  He had no idea what she meant. “What?”

  “Do you know how much cabinet space you’ll be needing?”

  He could tell she was serious, and he appreciated the fact that she’d rolled with his inappropriate sex joke, so he figured he would humor her. “Just one.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, a look of surprise on her face.

  Zach planned on rarely being here, and most of the food he ate was refrigerated anyway. “Yep.”

  “Okay.” She looked down and typed on her phone. “What about fridge space?”

  “I will probably need two shelves if that’s okay. I try to eat a lot of veggies and fruit. But you are more than welcome to help yourself to any of it.”

  “Thanks.” Jessie smiled as she brushed a stray strand of hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. “But I think it’s best if we stick to only eating the food we buy.”

  Since Zach had never lived with anyone who wasn’t his mom, grandparents, or nurses for his mom, he was completely new to this dividing-space thing. If that was how she wanted it, he wasn’t going to argue with her.

  “Okay, bathrooms should be fairly clear-cut. We each have our own and we’ve already established that you have access to the tub as a therapeutic resource. Now, laundry days. Do you have a preference?”

  Zach had never had ‘laundry days.’ He just did laundry when his basket was full.

  “Whatever works best for your schedule is fine.” He continued eating as she nodded and typed into her phone.

  “I prefer to do my laundry on Sundays. Sometimes I need to do a load or two mid-week. So I will take Sundays and Wednesdays. You can have Saturdays and Thursdays, and the rest of the time is first come, first served.”

  “Sounds good.” Zach knew that Jessie was organized, but this seemed a little extreme.

  “Okay. She glanced up, her large brown eyes peeking above the thin, black rim of her glasses. “That’s all I’ve got as far as living logistics go, but there is something else that we need to discuss.”

  After setting down her phone, she cleared her throat as she slipped her glasses off her face. Once she folded them carefully, she placed them next to her phone beside her half-empty plate of pasta and salad.

  Za
ch had no idea what she wanted to talk about. A little voice in the back of his mind was saying that she was going to bring up the elephant in the room, a.k.a. their insane attraction to one another. She seemed like a straightforward girl. He wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to address the issue head on. He was prepared to discuss the situation like an adult. Obviously, they couldn’t act on their mad-crazy chemistry. Maybe if they said it straight out, it would take some of the power away from it.

  “After you left to go visit your mom, my sister Krista told me that Mabel and Margie are both invited to my family’s Thanksgiving get-together.”

  Okay, he had to do a reset on his mind. That was not at all where he’d thought this conversation had been going. Jessie’s statement hadn’t just come out of left field. It wasn’t even in the same ballpark he was batting in.

  “My sister didn’t invite them,” Jessie quickly clarified. “Chase called Krista while she was doing the dishes with Mabel, who, in turn, somehow ended up finagling an invitation for herself and Margie after finding out that Chase would be there.”

  Zach grinned with amusement. The M&M sisters were quite a force to be reckoned with. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the kind of trouble they’d gotten into when they were younger.

  “And you don’t want them to go?” Zach wasn’t sure what he could do as far as running interference. He could invite them to spend Thanksgiving with him and his mom, but somehow he didn’t think that offer would seem quite as appealing.

  Jessie shook her head as a sigh of frustration escaped her mouth. “No. I don’t care that they’re coming. That’s…whatever. The problem is we”—her hand waved back and forth between them—“are a couple. They are going to expect that we are spending Thanksgiving together.”

  “Ohhh.” Zach was obviously a little slow on the uptake, but now he got it. “Right.”

  Jessie’s eyes were wide as she slowly nodded her head up and down. A hint of panic rose in her voice. “I mean, when we went into this, I thought we would pretend to be a couple until we got the place and then that would be it. Now, everything has changed. Not only do the ‘M’ sisters live upstairs, they’re coming to family holidays.”

  Even though the thought of coming clean and putting an end to this charade he and Jessie were living in bothered him a lot more than it should have, he couldn’t stand to see her upset.

  “Maybe I should go talk to them and explain the situation. You know, tell them the truth. They seem like reasonable and kind people. They might even think it’s funny.” Zach was trying to put a happy spin on this. Inside, his gut was saying that it was the wrong move, but he thought that might just be because he had enjoyed the private talks they’d had to have today or the fact that he could place his hand on the small of Jessie’s back when they exited a room or flirt shamelessly with her while Margie and Mabel were around.

  Jessie shook her head. “That was my first instinct, too. But I was outvoted.”

  “What?” Zach had heard of people having voices that spoke to them, and even he heard his conscience pipe up, but if she was having “votes” with the voices, then whether or not they were a fake couple might be the least of their worries.

  She held up her hand and started ticking off her fingers as she spoke. “Krista, Haley, Katie, and even Chelle and Jamie all thought it was a bad idea. It was a landslide victory by the peanut gallery in favor of not rocking the landlord boat.”

  Zach smiled at Jessie’s description of her family. “Well, did the peanut gallery come up with any solutions?”

  “No. But I did,” Jessie said. She was tapping her finger rapidly on the table, and he didn’t know if this conversation was boring her and she wanted to speed things up or if it was a nervous thing.

  “Okay.” Zach waited expectantly.

  “You need to come to Thanksgiving dinner with my family. It’s the only thing I can think of to not have this blow up in our faces. I know that it’s a lot to ask and we will have to pretend to be a couple the entire—”

  “It’s not a lot to ask,” Zach said, interrupting her speed-talking. “The only issue is I need to be with my mom.”

  “Oh.” Jessie’s face sank. “I totally understand that you have your own plans. And I get that you wouldn’t want to drag her into this mess. This whole thing is crazy. I don’t know what I was—”

  He interrupted her again. “Jessie, if you’re inviting both of us, then we’ll be there. I just wasn’t going to go without her.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course she’s invited.” Jessie sighed, her face beaming with relief. But that expression only lasted for a moment. “Are you sure that she’ll be okay with us pretending to be together? I know my family thinks it’s hilarious. I talked to my mom earlier and she couldn’t stop laughing, but I would understand completely if she didn’t.”

  “Are you kidding me? She thinks this whole thing is better than any one of her soaps. And when I told her that Krista was engaged to Chase Malone, she screamed so loud everyone in the place heard it. Spending Thanksgiving with Chase Malone is probably going to be the highlight of her life.”

  Jessie laughed and looked more at ease than he’d seen her look all evening. Smiling from ear to ear, she said, “I highly doubt that. I’m pretty sure having you as a son is the highlight of her life.” Then, after picking up her fork, she cut a ravioli in half, slid it onto her fork, and popped it into her mouth.

  His chest tightened as he watched her eat. She was totally oblivious to the effect her words had just had on him. He was sure that she was just referring to the love any mother would have for her child. Jessie had never even met his mom, so obviously it wasn’t personal. But the words she’d spoken had felt personal to Zach. He’d had women come on to him, compliment him, proposition him, declare their undying love and devotion to him, and even ask him to marry them in so many different ways that he couldn’t count. But Jessie’s one sentence had made him feel more, feel deeper than he’d ever felt before.

  Her words had hit him square in the chest.

  As they continued to eat and their conversation turned to small talk, Zach had to remind himself that this wasn’t real. She wasn’t his real girlfriend. They weren’t really living together as a couple.

  But damn…it sure felt real.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jessie’s fingers flew across the keyboard. She had almost dug herself out of the mountain of emails she’d been bombarded with following Friday night’s pot-at-the-airport fiasco. Thankfully, she’d come in and worked yesterday. If she hadn’t, then she would have been drowning today. As it was, she was just managing to tread water.

  Initially, her coming into the office on Sunday had been just to get out of the house. After Saturday, she’d needed to not see Zach’s perfect face and body or hear his perfect voice and laugh for at least a few days. She was mentally referring to it as her Zach-detox.

  She realized that she could only take him in small doses. Not because he annoyed her or she didn’t like him. Nope. Quite the opposite. The more time she spent around him, the more she…felt. And if this was going to work long term, then feelings could absolutely not be factored into the equation.

  Keeping her hormones in check was proving to be much more of an uphill battle than she’d ever imagined. Especially since her little theory, that the overwhelming way her body responded to Zach was only pheromones and would lessen with time, was not holding up. It was actually going the other way. Every interaction she had with him increased her out-of-proportion desire for him.

  Still, if it were only a physical attraction—even one as intense as theirs—Jessie knew she could handle it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all she was feeling. Between Zach’s insistence that she sleep in his bed so that she would be safe and eat dinner so she didn’t go to bed hungry, his sticking around Saturday and helping her move, his getting along with her entire family, watching him with Margie and Mabel, and—the real topper—seeing how amazing he was with Joey…she didn’t stand a chance.

/>   Turning in her high-backed leather swivel chair, she let her gaze fall over the river that rushed through the city. Jessie’s fingers wrapped around the armrests, and the cold steel pressed against her fingertips as she took in a deep, cleansing breath. From her office’s eighteenth-story view, she watched as people walked over the Loop bridge. They reminded her of toy figurines. Everyone was bundled up in jackets, scarves, hats. Businessmen and women hurried across. Parents pushing strollers and holding the hands of their little ones crossed at a slower pace. Tourists taking pictures of the river and the buildings stopped every few feet to get a different shot.

  Watching the nameless strangers go about their lives filled Jessie with a sense of calm. Her inner struggles to get a tight handle on her yet-unnamed, totally unwanted feelings for Zach were put into perspective as she realized that she was just a speck in the grand scheme of things. What seemed monumental to her meant nothing to the people below—or anywhere for that matter. A lot of times, it was easy to fall into the trap of letting your whole world revolve around you, but in reality, your world was fairly insignificant unless you used it to help others.

  Which reminded her… Spinning back, she grabbed her phone and typed in a reminder for Thursday night. She would head down to Faith Rescue Mission and serve the homeless dinner. Since Jessie was a sophomore in college, she’d made it a priority to volunteer at least once a month. Back in Boston, she’d worked at the Boys and Girls club at the after-school program, helping kids with their homework. Since moving back to Illinois, she’d been splitting her volunteer hours between Faith Rescue Mission and the Pups for Life no-kill animal shelter.

  Jessie knew that her life was pretty good if the biggest problems she had were the fact that she lived in a beautiful brownstone that happened to house her landlords, who thought she had a fake boyfriend, who she found herself more and more attracted to—not just physically, but emotionally as well. Yeah, she really didn’t have a lot to complain about.