“Umm okay... uh tell me a story. Something that will distract you?”
“Distract me from our imminent deaths?” My chest was rising and falling from the rapid shallow breaths I was taking.
“Uh… tell me about that tattoo, Niki.”
“What?” I asked confused.
“The one on your wrist,” he said prying my left hand off the safety bar and tracing his thumb over the ladybirds encircled by an infinity symbol on my wrist. “You and Liya have matching tattoos, right? What do they mean?”
I took a deep breath and focused on the warm trail his thumb was leaving on my skin.
“The bugs? It was our parent’s nickname our parents gave us when we were young.” My breathing, though still erratic, began to even.
“Okay,” he said his hand moving slowly up my arm, “Why’d you get them tattooed?”
Oh damn. Keep it together. Keep. It. Together.
Don’t you dare start crying.
“Umm…” I was alarmed when I felt the tears prickle behind my eyes, and not for the first time in my life, I cursed myself for being so emotional and quick to cry at everything.
Jake’s eyes widened even further, a feat I didn’t think was possible. “Fuck. Please don’t cry, Niki. We’ll get down soon.”
“No, it’s not that... you asked about the tattoos. Liya and I got them done after our parent’s funerals. No matter how old we got, the nicknames just seemed to stick. The tears seem to be an automatic response whenever I talk about my parents. Sorry,” I sniffled.
“Our parents were always so silly, fun and adventurous. The one thing they’d wanted to do together was get tattoos. They’d talked about getting something done for years, but couldn’t decide on the design. Getting the tattoos seemed like a good way to always have them with us.”
His thumb brushed away a tear.
“God. I’m fucking this up so badly,” he muttered under his breath.
“No, you’re not,” I protested, trying to blink away the rest of the tears.
“What about you? What’s the tree on your arm symbolise?” I asked in an attempt to distract him from my ridiculous waterworks and make his guilty expression disappear.
I had briefly seen the tattoo on his bicep when he’d taken off his shirt and climbed into bed with me last night.
From what I saw, it appeared to be a tree with two figures leaning on either side of the tree trunk, with the name Jameson inked in intricate cursive letters beneath the inked roots.
“The tree’s our family, and the couple leaning against the trunk are supposed to be Aunt Deb and Uncle Jeremy. We all have the same tattoo,” he said, the corner of his mouth curving up slightly.
“All of you? Including Debbie?” I simply couldn’t imagine the petite, delicate blonde with a tattoo.
Jake chuckled. “Yeah. As soon as the twins turned eighteen, Alex announced for his birthday present he wanted to go get his first tattoo done. We all loved the design he’d drawn, so thought why not.”
Hearing Jake talking, helped distract me from our predicament, so I decided to continue with my mini-interrogation.
“How old were you when you moved to Starling Falls?”
Another strong gust of wind blew causing the chair to rock violently, and my eyes flew shut as my hands gripped the bar again.
“Eyes on me, Niki,” Jake’s deep voice commanded.
When my eyes met his, he smiled approvingly.
“I was six when we moved here. I don’t really remember much of what happened before we came to stay with Aunt Deb and Uncle Jeremy, but I know we were lucky to get out when we did before things got worse.”
His thumb ran over the knuckles of my hand distractedly. I hated the childhood, or rather lack of it, they’d had to endure before moving in with Debbie and Jeremy.
“Do you remember your mother?”
“Not much to remember. She wasn’t around much, and when she was, she might as well have not been there. She found her happiness at the bottom of a bottle most of the time.
Nate and Caleb were the ones who took care of us and raised us all. They kept us together, they would clean the house and try to get mom decent whenever social services came round, so that we wouldn’t be put into foster care. I don’t know where we’d have ended up if it wasn’t for them.”
His tone was light but there was no mistaking the sadness beneath his words.
“I’m sorry that all of you had to go through that,” I said, cursing myself again as yet more flipping tears surfaced.
“Shit. I didn’t mean to make you cry again,” he said, shaking his head and thumbing away the tears. “I was trying to distract you.”
I chuckled and sniffed again. “Well, it worked. Distraction accomplished. It’s not your fault. I’m kind of an emotional person; happy or sad, I’m usually crying.”
“I hope you re-hydrate properly,” he said quirking an eyebrow.
I let out a small giggle as Jake moved closer to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
Trying to ignore the thumping in my chest, I looked up towards the inky, star-studded sky. “It really is a beautiful night.”
“Yeah,” Jake murmured softly in my ear, making the heavy thumping in my chest turn to warp speed as he placed a trail of slow kisses along my throat before his lips covered mine gently. His tongue coaxed mine out with slow, teasing strokes.
As his hand started wandering, pleasant tingles spread throughout my body.
Oh God. You should probably tell him about your current virginal status.
As his hands settled on my waist I wondered how to let Jake know that I definitely wasn’t ready to take that step, but also the reason why.
Well, this should be a fun conversation to have…
“You seem to be thinking awfully hard, baby,” he said pulling away slightly, “You want to share what’s going through your head?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I should. Jake… I’m… I’ve never…” I groaned in frustration at my sudden inability to form a proper sentence.
“I know.”
I frowned at him. “You know what?”
He nuzzled my neck again before whispering in my ear, “That you’re a virgin, Niki.”
Oh my God. How? Have you started giving off virginal vibes now?
“How did you know? Is it that obvious?” I asked appalled, “Does something about me just scream virgin?”
Jake heaved a long sigh.
“Okay. You’re going to be pissed, but keep in mind, you were refusing to talk to me or let me in, I was a desperate man,” he paused and looked at me warily.
The thought that I could in anyway intimidate this huge man amused me, and I nodded at him to continue with his story, my brows drawing together in a small frown.
“I lied,” he paused and ran a thumb over the apple of my cheek. “At the party when you asked what happened on New Year’s Eve. It was wrong to not tell you the truth, but I just wanted you feel comfortable around me again.”
Oh boy. That doesn’t sound good.
“Okay?” I said nervously.
“On New Year’s Eve, after you passed out I took you up to my room. You asked me to stay with you, and we napped. All of that was true; I just left out what happened after…
When we woke up a couple of hours later, you… sort of straddled me, tried to take my pants off, and then you asked me to be your first,” he blurted quickly.
My jaw dropped open in shock, my cheeks flushed from embarrassment.
“You said nothing happened!” I whispered, completely mortified, as his confession caused clearer flashbacks of that night.
Oh no... You really did straddle him. Drunk Niki is a frisky little harlot.
“Did I tell you Little Niki and Little Jake needed to meet?” I groaned and buried my face in my hands as humiliation swept through me.
“Well, I liked drunk-Niki’s plan, if that helps,” he chuckled weakly.
“I can’t believe I did that.” My voic
e sounded muffled from beneath my hands.
Jake pulled my hands away from my face. “Would you look at me, please? What happened that night really wasn’t a big deal.”
I sent him an unconvinced stare, and he snorted.
“It fuelled my fantasies for the past six months,” he chuckled as I groaned again. “But apart from that, it changes nothing.” He paused again. “I’m sorry that I lied to you, Niki.”
I frowned at him. “I’m not thrilled about that… but you were right. If you had told me about it then, I probably would have freaked out,” I sighed.
“We okay?” he asked, looking worried.
I nodded briefly. “Yeah. We’re okay.”
The look of extreme relief on his face would have made me laugh if I hadn’t been trying to process my own influx of emotions.
“But don’t keep stuff from me again,” I said, giving him a hard stare to let him know how serious I was. “No more lies.”
“None,” he said immediately, “I promise, Niki.”
“Okay,” I whispered loudly before his mouth covered mine again, the searing kiss long and slow as if he was trying to memorise every crevice of my mouth.
Our kiss was interrupted by my squeal of surprise as the Ferris wheel jerked suddenly and began to rotate slowly once again.
“Thank God,” I gasped in relief, “Can we get off this blasted thing now?”
“Hell yes,” Jake said signalling to the carnie to let us off.
I had a serious case of jelly legs as I stepped off the ride and clung onto Jake’s arm for support until I was steady again.
“Land, sweet land,” I giggled relieved, scratching my arm again, assuming I must have been bitten by a bug while on the Wheel of Death.
Damn insects.
“Want to get something to eat?” Jake asked winding his arm around my shoulder.
“Sure.”
“I say we start with the hotdogs and work our way through all the stands,” Jake said, pulling me further into his body.
“Sounds good to me,” I said rubbing the inside of my arm against my side to help relieve the irritation.
“What going on with your arm?” Jake said grabbing my arm and pulling it up into the light, “Holy shit.”
“What?” I asked and gasped in horror as I looked down at my arm and saw the angry, bumpy, light red rash that had developed along the inside of my right arm.
“I think you might be allergic to the creepy, stuffed toy, Niki. You need to get rid of it,” he said firmly trying to take the animal from me.
I hesitated, holding onto the toy sturdily, not wanting to throw away the first memento of our time together.
“I don’t think it’s from the toy. It could have been from something else?”
Jakes shook his head while looking at me in disbelief. “No way. It has to be that thing. You had it under your arm the whole time we were stuck up there. Just throw it in the trash.”
“But-”
“Niki, get rid of it!” he said pulling firmly on the tiger, finally getting it out of my grasp.
I pouted, and fought the urge to scratch my arm again, as Jake threw the tiger into a large trash can.
“Do we need to go to the drugstore and get something for that rash?” Jake asked as he ran a hand through his hair, a gesture I recognised as being his tell when he was stressed or frustrated.
“No, I should have something for it at home.”
He nodded, looking slightly forlorn.
“Hey! We still have the food stands to try!” I said cheerfully, trying to ignore my arm that felt like it was on fire.
“C’mon, I’m starving. Let’s start at the hot dog stand and work our way down!” I tugged on his arm.
He smiled reluctantly and wound his arm around my shoulders again as he took a deep breath. “Yeah, okay.”
We walked up to the stand, and I turned to Jake, gently rubbing my arm against my side to provide some sort of relief to the itchiness. “What do you recommend I get?”
“Hot dog with all the trimmings.”
I turned back to the vendor and smiled as I placed my order, but noticed that Jake didn’t. “You not hungry?”
“Not for a hot dog,” he said with a forced grin as he bent down and placed a brief peck on my lips.
Frowning at his tense smile I took a big bite of the hot dog and moaned happily as the flavours of ketchup, mustard, pickles and onions exploded onto my tongue.
Jake finally chuckled. “Good?”
“Mmm,” I murmured around a full mouth, sending Jake a big smile, that finally got a genuine smile from him in return.
As we wandered slowly down the various stands, I made a point to sample most of the foods on offer, and suggested he consider putting some of the food on the menu.
“Hmm, desserts from the fair. I like that,” he said as he fed me some funnel cake. “We could do a little trio of desserts; a mini funnel cake with loads of toppings, bite size toffee apples and maybe a small snow cone on the side.”
He gave me another peck on the lips and kissed the corner of my mouth. I looked at him and quirked an eyebrow.
“You had a little icing sugar just there,” he said smearing more onto my bottom lip before he took the lip into his mouth and licked the sugar off slowly.
The swooping in my stomach returned as he threw away the empty wrapper and rested both hand on my hips, pulling me closer to him.
I tiptoed to meet Jake halfway as he bent down to kiss me, and I realised at this rate, I was going to have some seriously well-defined calf muscles.
As his hands started to wander, I felt a churning in my stomach that I didn’t think had anything to do with Jake’s kisses. I pulled away from Jake as the feeling intensified.
“Oh no,” I muttered and turned, walking as fast as I could away from the lights of the fair and towards the grass on the edge of the fair.
“Niki?” Jake asked alarmed as followed me. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t feel so good.”
He took me by the wrist and gently pulled me to a halt. Realising that I wasn’t going to make it to the trees that surrounded the fair, I turned and looked for the nearest trash can, and proceeded to empty the contents of my stomach into it with a noise so awful I could feel people around me cringe.
“Fuck,” Jake cursed as he ran a hand down my back, “It’s okay, Niki. Let it all out.”
I groaned at his words and did exactly that. After what felt like a lifetime, I finally straightened and accepted a bottle of water from a guilt ridden Jake.
“Come on, let’s get you home,” he said pulling me into him gently, and I nodded, resting my tired head against his chest.
Well, I think you found a new contender for the award of ‘Worst Date Ever’.
Jacob
Josh and Alex were lounging on the couch when I got home. After glancing at the clock hanging on the wall, Josh looked at me incredulously.
“You’re home already?”
The look I sent him let him know exactly how the date had gone, and Josh grimaced sympathetically.
Alex looked between us confused. “So? How was the date?”
“I made her get on a Ferris Wheel, not knowing she has a fear of heights. We ended up getting stuck up there for half an hour, and she had a mini panic attack. So, to distract her I asked about her tattoo, which then got her talking about her dead parents which made her start crying.
Then she had an allergic reaction to the prize I won her. The hot dog she ate gave her food poisoning, so she was barfing on the ride home. Niki finally stopped throwing up by the time we got back to her house. Even though she was exhausted, she refused to let me in to look after her. She said ‘goodnight’ and practically slammed the door in my face.”
There was a long silent pause as Josh and Alex exchanged a look of disbelief and then looked back at me amused.
“So it was a good date then?” Alex said sarcastically, and I flipped him off before heading towards the st
airs.
“I’m just saying, if you ever need dating advice, my rates are very reasonable,” Josh called out from the living room.
As I climbed the stairs, I wondered how much his rates were and if I could get a family discount.
Fuck. You must be desperate to actually be considering taking advice from Josh.
Nate was right. You are screwed.
CHAPTER 19
Annika
“Niki,” a soft voice said gently as a hand smoothed back my hair. “How are you feeling, cutie?”
“Debbie?” I croaked from under my bedspread. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you weren’t feeling too good. Liya had to work, but she asked me to come check on you, seeing as you wouldn’t let anyone come check on you last night,” she said in a concerned tone. “I brought crackers and broth for when you feel like you can handle eating something.”
The thought of eating anything made my stomach clench unpleasantly.
“No food yet, thanks. I think I just need to rest… I feel awful, and I bet I look like a hot mess,” I groaned, trying to bury myself further into my mattress.
I’d eventually stopped throwing up some time after midnight, but I felt as if my midsection had been run over by a small car.
“Oh, cutie. No one cares about that. We’re just worried about you,” she murmured gently. “I gather you and Jake had a rather rough start to your relationship.”
I finally pulled the bedspread down, and reluctantly emerged from the comfy burrow I’d created to look at Debbie. Her warm and concerned expression felt so maternal and loving that I felt a pang of longing for my own mother.
“I was an idiot last night,” I whispered staring into her warm light brown eyes.
Her hand resumed stroking my hair. “Jake told me what happened; I think he’s feeling the same way about himself.”
“What?” I turned over to look at her properly, “Why on earth would he think that? He tried so hard, and I-”
“From what I gathered it was just a run of bad luck.”
When I sent her a look of disbelief, Debbie snorted.
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