Hedging His Bets

by Laura Carter

  The voices stop as I step onto the deck and look at Jess. She smiles. The kind of smile that somehow steadies my nerves when I’m not sure anything else could. I’m vaguely aware of Sarah asking why my clothes are wet, but I can only focus on the stunning woman, my best friend, who is staring back at me.

  She sits forward, placing her glass down on the table before her, reading me like only she can, knowing I need her. “Is everything okay?” she asks.

  I think I shake my head as I tell her, “No.” The word comes out barely more than a whisper, croaking through my dry throat.

  She stands and comes over to me, concern on her face. She runs her hands down my arms and leaves goosebumps in their wake. “What’s wrong, Jake? You’re worrying me.”

  I want to tuck her hair behind her ear. I want to run my thumbs across the smooth skin of her cheeks. I want to kiss the lips I can’t take my eyes from.

  But not here. Not like this.

  I slip my hand into hers and lead her through the house, up the stairs to our bedroom. I set my cell phone to play our playlist. One we called “Friday Nights with Red Wine” when we made it months ago.

  She stands in front of the closed door, not coming closer to me. I open the doors of the bedroom balcony, letting the sea breeze blow into the room and the fresh salt air surround us. Then I cross the room to her.

  “Jake?”

  I didn’t know until now what I wanted, what I needed to do. Now, staring at her lips and the eyes that can make me lose myself, I know that what I need is to make love to her. Regardless of the consequences or what happens next.

  I step in to her, forcing her back against the bedroom door. I stare into her deep brown eyes as I take hold of her face and trace her features with my thumbs. Her closed eyelids, the outline of her nose, the shape of her lips.

  “Jake,” she whispers. I know, in that word, she’s afraid. I’m inside her walls.

  Yeah, well, she’s inside mine too. And I’m afraid. I’m afraid of this ruining everything. I’m afraid of losing her. But I’m more afraid of never making love to her. Of never making love to a woman I am truly, unequivocally, in love with.

  “Shh.” I press my lips to her left eyelid, then her right. She sighs as I tip her head back and bring my mouth to the skin of her neck, inhaling the scent of lemongrass from her spa day.

  I take in every crease of her soft pink lips before I cover them with mine. I part them with my tongue, tasting the decadence of Jess, mixed with champagne, and delight in her groan.

  I kiss her here, gently, tentatively, each time moving further with my tongue, until her hands rise from her sides and she takes hold of my T-shirt, fisting it at my hips. She finally opens her eyes and I see they are full of unshed tears. The sight makes my chest tight. Is she feeling this too? God, I hope so.

  I hope I haven’t called this wrong. And I pray we can get through her defenses. Because I need her. I need her to be more than the person who makes me laugh and smile. More than the person I depend on and who I want to be able to depend on me.

  “You’re beautiful, Jess.” And I mean more than the way she looks. I’m talking about her soul. The way the shape of her fits the shape of me like we are supposed to be together. I see it now.

  And I’m wondering why the hell I ever fought it. All because of Emily? It seems crazy now that feeling hurt and betrayed by Emily and Brandon could have kept me away from Jess.

  I close my eyes and pull back from her, resting a hand on the door above her head, steadying myself as the enormity of what I’m hearing in my own mind, what I’m feeling in every cell of my body, hits me.

  She needs to be able to depend on me the way I know I can her. I’m here, forcing her to face her fears, and hoping to hell she can, for both of us. But maybe I’m pushing too hard, too fast.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, keeping my eyes closed, trying to calm my racing heart. Begging her to fight through those fears.

  When I open my eyes, hers are locked on mine. Her chest rises and falls with her deep breaths. Her lips part and she looks at me like she’s taking in everything about me.

  “Kiss me, Jess. I won’t push you. I’m asking you. You’re in my head. You’ve been in my head every moment since I met you. So kiss me.”

  She doesn’t move for moments that feel like a lifetime. I think she stops breathing. And my hope, my faith, falls away.

  At least I tried. I put myself out there. And she doesn’t—

  She clasps her hands around my nape and pulls my mouth back to hers. I take her hands above her head, pinning her to the door with my entire body. Craving her touch, all of her.

  As the words of our songs drift into the room, I see images of us—laughing in bars, dancing, watching movies together, crashing a canoe in Hyde Park, rolling on sand, in the sea. I’m not afraid. For the first time, that we have a past together, that she is truly my female counterpart, makes me want her more. Makes me want more.

  It makes me want us. We’re perfect for each other. It’s blindingly obvious now.

  I roll my hips against her as she presses her lips to my neck. “You taste salty,” she whispers against my lobe.

  “I had a run in with the ocean.”

  She pulls back and bites her lip, stopping her smile from spreading to her cheeks. But that move doesn’t distract me; it only makes my insatiable need deeper.

  I’m lost to us. To her. And I don’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t want to think of anything else. I want to drown in her. I want her to bowl me over with her waves, hurtling me into a spin, taking me over, the way I know she can. She can have all of me.

  I pull her lip from her teeth and take it in my own, nipping, sucking. I run my hands over her body as I devour her mouth, not getting enough of her.

  She flips my cap to the ground and tugs on my hair as she kisses me back, showing me she wants me as much as I want her.

  I don’t push her. I know I can’t. But she rolls her hips against me and drops her head back, moaning as I trace a line of kisses along her collarbone. With a groan, she lifts the hem of my T-shirt and brings it over my head, watching me intently as she moves.

  “Jess, I’m…I…” Don’t, Jake. Don’t say it. Don’t make her run.

  She stops, shaking her head, seeming happy for me to keep those three words to myself, no matter how much I mean them. No matter how much I want her to move beyond her past and have faith in her future. Have faith in me.

  I wrap my arms behind her and pull her waist into me as I drop my T-shirt to the floor. Through her thin kaftan I can feel her heat against my stomach but I can take more heat. I lift the kaftan over her head and one or both of us moans as our naked skin touches. I fist my hands in her hair as I roll my pelvis against her, trying to stop my hands from roaming and ending this too soon. I’ll be damned if I’m going to stop this before I physically can’t take anymore.

  When I regain some control, I bring my hands to the front clasp of her bra and kiss the tip of her nose as I unhook the catch. But she covers my hands with hers and closes her eyes, shaking her head.

  “No. Jake. I can’t.”

  My heart starts hammering in my chest for the wrong reason. My entire torso feels like it drops to the floor. “Jess, stop overthinking. Do what feels right.” Please. Please trust me.

  “I just…I can’t.” She steps out of my hold. Whether it’s the loss of contact or that I’m topless in the breeze coming through the window, I’m suddenly cold. “What if…? I think… Are you even drunk?”

  Her question is like a thousand razor blades slicing my flesh at once. “Drunk?” So, this is the same as normal to her? No. I won’t fucking accept that. I know it’s more. I pray it’s more.

  “Well, are you? I mean, that’s the rule.”

  The way she looks at her feet tells me she wasn’t thinking about the rules when she took off my shirt. When s
he kissed my neck.

  She rubs a hand across her lips and steps past me, moving to the window, leaving me staring at nothing but a closed door.

  Have you ever felt like you’re at a crossroads? Like the decision to turn left, or right, or to drive straight over could set your life on an entirely different course? You know each path could be dangerous. It could be the wrong way to go. But somehow, one of those roads speaks to you. It beckons you in and dares you to take it.

  I could be taking the wrong road. I could be setting us both on a cataclysmic course.

  But damn it, I’m doing it anyway.

  I cross the room and step behind her as she looks out to sea. I press my chest to her back and rest my chin on her shoulder. I tell her, “I’m not drunk, Jess. I’m as sober as I’ve ever been. And I’ve never been thinking more clearly than I am in this moment.”

  I kiss her neck until she rolls her head back and covers my arms with her own.

  “Stop it, Jess. Stop being afraid. Let me take care of you. Trust me.”

  It’s the slightest move of her head but it comes. She nods. I waste no time in taking her away from her thoughts. I turn her to me and wrap her legs around my waist. She holds my face as she kisses me, her tongue turning around mine, agreeing to let me take her far away from this room, far away from her fears, if only for now.

  I carry her to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I set her on her feet and forget who I am, what I am, whoever and wherever we are, as I devote myself to her and feel her give up the fight, her body melting into mine. She brings her hands between us and unbuttons my jeans, breaking our contact just long enough to push them to the ground with my boxer briefs. I undo her bra and this time, she doesn’t stop me. She doesn’t fight as I push it across her shoulders and to the ground. As I take her sweet nipple in my mouth and feel her back arch in my arms.

  I brace her as her legs falter, holding her up. I lift her to the vanity unit and slide her lace thong down her smooth legs. I want to talk to her, but nothing can move past the tightness of my throat. It’s a feeling I haven’t had before when I’ve been with a woman, not even her; I can’t speak.

  As steam fills the room, I lift her into the shower. Water runs over us, between us, making our bodies slide easily across each other as she kisses me like no one else before. The kind of kiss that wraps around my soul.

  And hell, I’m afraid. I’m not afraid of being with my friend. I’m afraid of the force that’s taking over me. Something powerful. Something more powerful than either one of us. A strong, intangible force that I can’t describe. I think maybe it can only be felt. And I think maybe I will only ever feel it with her.

  “Jake, make love to me.”

  The tension I didn’t realize I was holding fades into her. It disappears as she tightens her hold on my neck. I want to. God, I want nothing more. But I don’t want it in a shower. I don’t want to fuck her, the way we usually do. I want to take her to bed. I want to look in her eyes as I push into her. I want to see her rise to those white clouds of ecstasy with me. I want all of her.

  “Not here.” She seems to understand as she silently tells me, Okay.

  I turn off the shower and wrap a towel around her, drying her as I pull her to me and kiss her, as I lift her around my waist and take her to bed.

  I lay her back and move over her, taking my weight on my forearms, running my fingers through her hair as I think how lucky I am to be about to make love to this incredible woman.

  Neither one of us thinks about protection. For my part, I don’t want it. I want to be with her, to feel her, every crease and curve of her. Her heat. Her desire.

  I haven’t been with anyone else since Jess and I started sleeping together, and I don’t think she has either. For a split second, it occurs to me that I never thought Emily was sleeping with anyone when she was with Brandon all those months. But my lips start to curve when I remember, this is Jess. Honest. True. Brave. Pure. Jess.

  I will her to keep her eyes open as I slide into her. She does, and I watch them fill with everything I feel. I watch her mouth open and I feel the breath she inhales.

  I watch her as I move in and out of her, feeling like I can never stop, like the moment I’m not inside her, I’ll lose something. Something real. Something important. Something precious.

  With every drive she takes another part of me, and I beg her to give me every beautiful part of her. Those words are back and I want to tell her how much I adore her, how much I will cherish her for the rest of her life, if she’ll only accept me.

  But I don’t. I groan as I fight against the words. She squeezes down on me. Feeling her rise to her climax takes me to the edge. White clouds take over my vision as I feel desire, lust, love, through every part of my body. My orgasm seems to come from every limb and shatters me as she pins me to her, holding on so tight I think she’ll never let me go.

  We hold each other as we ride it out. And she holds me as I collapse on her chest, breathing harder than if we’d gone hell for leather in the shower.

  Chapter 15

  Jess

  When the airplane hit the tarmac at London Heathrow, the bounce of the wheels woke me from a deep sleep. It was a little more than two years ago and I can still remember standing on the top step of the plane, rain blowing against my face, the cold of England striking my body, which had been in warm climates for such a long time. I remember how I just stood there, still, looking at the gray sky, breathing in the less than fresh air, thinking I immediately felt more at home than I had in the last fifteen years.

  I collected my backpack and, tired as I was from my night flight from Los Angeles, I rode the Tube as far west as I could go. Then I took another train over ground and then a bus. It’s remarkable, in some ways, that I even knew how to get there. In others, I could never have forgotten how to find my childhood home.

  I hoisted my backpack and walked the few hundred meters to the street I grew up on. I had decided months before that I needed to come back. I had started to forget those magical days, the sights, the smells, the green of the trees that lined the street. I had thought about coming back sometimes before and I suppose I was afraid that returning would ruin the memories I held on a pedestal. That instead of seeing lush green and bright blue skies, instead of hearing the laughter of children playing in the street, I would see a damp, gray, lifeless street. More than that, I feared I wouldn’t see their faces. That the blush of my mum’s cheeks, the brightness of my dad’s eyes, would have been replaced by memories of him sick in his bedroom. That I would remember the day my mum and I moved out because she couldn’t bear to be where they had once been incredibly happy.

  But I sat on the red brick wall of the front garden opposite my old home and I looked at the once blue door, now white. And it came back. Tears filled my eyes as I saw my dad playing with me on the lawn. Despite the drizzling rain coming down on me, I could see the blue skies I remembered and I saw my mum, bringing ice-lollies out to Dad and me because it was so hot.

  I sat on the wall for hours, smiling, until an elderly lady came out of her house nearby. My eyes squinted as I took in her vaguely familiar face.

  “Can I help you, dear?” she asked. She didn’t shoo me away or ask why someone who probably looked homeless was sitting on her wall.

  “Mrs. Ashley?” I asked.

  She looked at me then, scrutinizingly, the way I suspected I was looking at her. “I’m sorry, I don’t…” Then she gasped. “Jessica?”

  I nodded too quickly. “Yes. Yes, it’s Jess.”

  She surprised me, wrapping her arms around me, and a bizarre sense of homeliness came over me as I breathed in her scent, still powdery like baby talc and floral perfume.

  She invited me into her home and asked my story as we drank tea and ate old English biscuits. We talked long into the afternoon, until her front door burst open and giggling voices came into the kitchen.
Mrs. Ashley’s grandchildren crashed into her stomach, the girl, then the boy.

  I smiled as she asked about their day at school and they told her tiny, pointless details about snapped crayons and broken biscuits at reading time, but she was interested.

  “Oh, hello.”

  I turned to see a woman I instantly recognized as, “Stephanie Ashley! Hi! It’s Jess. I used to live—”

  “Oh my gosh, yes! I remember you lived across the road. We went to school together.”

  Like her mother, she hugged me. It was one of the most bizarre days of my adult life, and there had been a few. As we spoke of our past and Mrs. Ashley told us stories we didn’t even remember, I had an overwhelming sense of belonging. For the first time ever, it felt as if I had a past. Not one that I had made up and perhaps even twisted, but one that other people had shared.

  I stayed with Mrs. Ashley for a few weeks. I helped her by doing chores around her house and she came with me some days to buy materials and fastenings for my clothes. I hadn’t intended to stay in the UK. I wasn’t sure where I was headed; I had only wanted to come and refresh my memory of my parents, but I found myself in those weeks reluctant to leave. And so, for the first time since I could remember, I considered planting roots. Small roots, that could be dug up easily and carried with me, but semi-permanent roots, nonetheless.

  I spent time in London, trying to get my clothes into boutique stores. I found one taker in Camden Market and one store on Portobello Road. Both were known for their slightly alternative clothing, and given the Asian twist I put on most of my clothes, I thought the fit was perfect. I wrote a few articles and submitted them to magazines. Eventually, one fashion magazine paid me a small sum to write semi-regular articles on alternative fashion and international clothing inspiration. Since I had a lot of photographs from traveling, it worked out well.

  I had income, but I knew I could take either job anywhere with me. I could submit articles via email and I could have my clothes shipped from almost any place on earth. I had no idea where I would go next but I could flee. It was all I knew, moving on. The thought of staying in one spot was something I didn’t think I could manage anymore. For so long I had wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere, but I had traveled alone for so many years, my longest relationships lasting only weeks, I knew I would end up running at some point. I needed an out when things became too much.