by Fiona Cole
“The man is right,” I agreed. “Pineapple and bacon is just glorious.”
“Traitor.” She looked to Jack for support.
“No comment.”
“All of you. Traitors.” Pushing Jack, she went on. “Gosh, I feel like I don’t even know you.”
“Don’t worry, Princess. I made an all cheese just for you,” Jameson assured her.
She threw her hand to her forehead and fell back in her chair. “Thank God. I thought I was going to have to starve.”
The cook brought the pizzas out to the table and we all began to eat. When the conversation had settled, my nerves came back and I could only pick at my food, peeking up at Lu every once in a while. The drawing was burning a hole in my bag and I didn’t know how to get started.
I guess my staring at Lu didn’t go unnoticed because she finally called me out on it. “What’s up? You keep staring at me.”
“Ummm…” I cleared my throat. “I, uh….”
“She has the dress design she wants to show you,” Jameson announced. My head jerked up and my eyes landed on him. He started shoveling food in his mouth, not acknowledging my stare. When I felt his hand clamp onto my knee, squeezing for reassurance, I was pretty sure I almost fell over from shock. “She showed it to me. You’re going to love it. Really gorgeous.”
Eyes wide, I just stared at him. He hadn’t seen the dress, but there he was, talking up my design like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. The swelling in my chest came back and now I began stuttering for a whole new reason as I struggled to process the way his words made me feel. Appreciation for this man roared through me like a fire. My whole body was warm from the praise. Maybe the way Taylor talked down about my job last night had bothered me more than I thought. I brushed it off at the time, focusing on the prize at the end of the night, but his words kept creeping in at random times, making me question myself. I didn’t like it.
But there was Jameson erasing all of that. Dropping my head, I squeezed my eyes shut and let the smile consume my face. Jameson gave one last squeeze before letting go to reach for his drink. But the feel of his fingers offering me the silent support spurred me on to reach in my bag.
“Oh my God!” Lu squealed, pushing her food aside. “Jack, go take your food to the bar. Jameson go with him so he isn’t lonely. He can’t see my dress and I can’t wait. “
“We’re eating, Lu. Can’t it wait? Or can’t you go to the bar?” Jameson argued.
Luella leveled a death stare at him. “My wedding, my rules.”
Jameson looked to Jack for support, but he was already grabbing his food. “You know I don’t tell that woman no.”
The men began walking away with their plates loaded with pizza, but not before Jameson muttered his parting shot. “Bridezilla in the making.”
We ignored him and I pulled out the tattered sketchpad. “It’s just a rough sketch. And if you don’t like it, then just let me know. We can always come up with something different. Don’t feel bad if you hate it.” My words were choppy and stuttered out quickly.
Lu looked at me with scrunched eyebrows. “Are you, Evelyn Valero, nervous?”
“Maybe,” I hedged, rolling my eyes. Not wanting to linger on anyone else calling out my nerves, I flipped to the page. Silence settled between us and I hesitated before looking at her reaction. I couldn’t take it anymore and looked to find her with her hand over her mouth and tears spilling down her cheeks.
“Evie…” her voice wobbled. I stared, frozen, still unsure. But she flung her arms around my shoulders and mumbled in my shoulder, “It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you came up with that. For me. How did I get so lucky to have such an amazingly talented friend?”
Her emotions brought forth mine and combined with the sweet things Jameson said earlier, I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I set the notebook aside and wrapped my arms around her. “So you like it?”
She pulled back and wrapped my face in her hands. “Like it? I fucking love it! It’s perfect.”
“Oh thank God. I’ve been a nervous wreck that you would hate it but not tell me and then we would always be haunted by the ugly dress I made you wear on your wedding day.” Slouching, I let all the tension drain out of me.
“Bitch, please. I don’t think you could design anything I would hate.”
“I mean, I could try,” I joked.
“It wasn’t a challenge,” she laughed. We both wiped our eyes and finished off our pizza, talking accessories and bridesmaid dresses. “Hey, I need your help for wedding songs. Jack and I can’t narrow it down, so we downloaded them and I thought we could listen to them here.”
“Sure. Yo, Jamie-Boy, we are going to play some music, can we touch your precious sound system?” He had installed it last year and banned Lu and I from touching it, accusing us of possibly breaking it with our “shitty music.”
“I’ll get it set up for you.”
“What? You don’t trust us to do it ourselves?” I asked indignant.
“Well, last time I was assaulted by you guys screeching to the Spice Girls.”
“Whatever, you loved it. Deep down, we all know you did.”
He just rolled his eyes and took Lu’s phone to hook it up.
“Let’s practice dancing, Jack.” Lu stood up holding her hand out to him to join her on the small dance floor. “Maybe it’ll help us figure out which one fits us best.” When she walked past Jameson as he headed back to the bar, she snagged his arm, halting his progress. “No, no, no. You’ll have to dance with Jack’s sister at the reception because we are pairing you guys up down the aisle, so you should practice dancing too. We all know you need it. Evie, help him out.”
“Luella, no…” he hedged.
“Nope,” she cut him off. “My wedding, my rules. Now dance with her.”
Jameson turned to me with a pinched expression. He hated it, but he would do anything for his sister.
Puckering my lips, I blew him a kiss before standing and overly exaggerating the sway of my hips as I walked toward him. His eyes looked heavenward when I added a little shimmy right before I reached him. “Dance with me?”
“I don’t think I have much of choice,” he muttered dryly, grabbing my hand and swallowing it in his much larger one. He pulled me in and wrapped his hand around my waist, keeping me at a decent distance like we were at a middle school dance.
“Is this your first dance with a girl?”
“What?”
“Well, I mean, I figure it has to have been since you were younger and had to be able to fit a balloon between us.” Shaking his head, he didn’t rise to the taunt. “C’mon. Don’t be afraid to hold a woman tight,” I challenged, stepping into his space and making sure to brush my breasts up against him. They only reached his abs since he was over a foot taller than me. But I felt them tighten under his shirt when I pressed myself into him.
Biting my lip, I gave him an exaggerated flutter of my eyelashes. His fingers dug into my back as he pulled me in tighter, finally rising to the challenge. The song changed from Phil Collins to I Swear by All-4-One. We both faltered through our dance steps and he looked down at me like he was fighting a laugh similar to the one I was trying not to let loose. When we both realized we were trying not to laugh, we gave up and let loose.
“What’s so funny?” Lu asked from her position in Jack’s arms.
“Really, Luella? All-4-One is going to be your wedding song you listen to forever?” I asked, surprised by the choice. Jameson had stopped altogether and was hunched over, laughing into my shoulder. “Look. Jameson is crying over the disgrace of your choice.” His shoulders shook harder.
“What’s wrong with this song?”
“It’s the song you shared your first dance with back in middle school. Do you want that memory with your husband? And you come from a family of good music genes. Are you going to tarnish it with All-4-One?”
“Well, thank fuck. Someone agrees.” Jack muttered. “
I tried to explain it to her, but she tried to claim it was nostalgic.”
Pursing my lips, I stared her down. She knew better.
“Ugh, Fine. You guys win. I Swear is out.”
We all stopped and cheered, clapping our hands. She changed to another song and we resumed our positions. One song bled into two and Jameson actually settled into relaxing against me. Not really talking. We’d started off asking questions about how our work was going, but eventually fell quiet.
At some point, I rested my head on his chest and he held me close. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that it was real. That Jameson and I were just holding each other and dancing without the complications lingering from the storage closet and he wasn’t dating a girl that might throw our equilibrium out of balance.
Ingrid Michaelson’s cover of Can’t Help Falling In Love came on and I lost myself in the words and the feel of his large body wrapped around me. For one of the first times ever, I let the games go and lost myself in the peace I found in his strong arms. His hand even stroked up and down my back once in a while like he was getting lost in the moment. I barely noticed the song end when Missy Elliot’s Where They From came on, jarring us out of our bubble.
“Um, Lu?” A laugh bubbled out. “As much as I love this song, I’m not sure it’s first dance material.” I pulled back and turned to Lu who stared back with wide eyes.
“What? You don’t approve of this song?” she asked with all innocence. “This was our top pick.” She turned around in Jack’s arms and started shaking her ass on him. He always tried to contain himself in front of Jameson, but Lu never cared, and he just held her hips, laughing.
Deciding to take the chance to wash away the soft, mushy feelings I’d felt in Jameson’s arms, I joined in the fun and turned my back to him, giving a mischievous tilt of my lips as his only warning.
“No,” he warned, trying to back away. But I grabbed his hand, turning and pulling it to my waist. Gyrating my hips into the crotch of his jeans, I swayed back and forth to the beat, singing along to the words. Every time he pulled away I would turn around and hold him close to me, shaking my breasts against him. When I started acting out the lyrics in my dance, I even caught a smile gracing his lips.
Lu and I continued to belt the words out. She kept her dancing a little tamer, but I reached my hands to the floor and twerked my ass against Jameson, causing him to jerk back, but I rolled up, pulling him back before placing my hands on my knees and continuing to torture him.
I yelped when the song ended and I received a hard smack to the ass. Wide-eyed and smiling, I glanced over my shoulder to look at the sexy giant who’d just gave me a sexy slap. He pointed his finger at me. “You are rotten and deserve more than that.”
“Oh, Jameson. Yes, please, I would love it if you bent me over your knee and slapped my ass,” I moaned. He stared me down like he was considering doing just that, not willing to back down. Pushing it a little further, I reached for the button on my jeans and acted like I was going to undo them as I sauntered toward him. “Here. Let me take my pants off so you can get flesh on flesh. Thankfully I didn’t wear any panties today.”
That did it. He threw his hands up in the air and walked away, shaking his head.
“Oh c’mon,” I called after him. “Spoil sport.”
Lu and I walked back to the table and helped the guys pick up after our lunch. “Oh, hey! I just remembered I wanted to ask you about a date for your bachelorette party.”
“Um, I didn’t really think about it.”
“That’s why you have me. What about two weekends from now? Do you think you’ll be free?”
“Yeah. God, thank you so much. I’m not sure I would be making it as far as I am without your help.”
“Obviously, since you wanted Where They From as your first dance.” We both laughed and set the plates on the bar. “I’ll get it all planned out,” I assured her with a wink.
Jameson piped in. “No strippers!”
“It’s not like you’ll be there. What do you care?”
“Because she’s my baby sister and she doesn’t need strippers at her bachelorette party. Keep it classy.”
“Jamie-Boy, all I am is classy,” I promised, blowing a kiss. “Besides, your baby sister doesn’t need any strippers. She has Jack to attend to all her needs and –”
“Nope!” he called out loudly, cutting me off as he took the plates and headed to the kitchen.
“He’s going to kick my ass if you keep talking about me with his sister,” Jack jokingly warned.
“Nah! He’s just a soft teddy bear.” Smiling in victory, I grabbed a rag and wiped the table.
Six
Time passed in a blur of wedding preparations and plans for the bachelorette party. Lu didn’t want anything big, so I decided to keep it simple: pizza and drinking at my house as we got all fancy. Then we would take a cab downtown to Mynt Martini on Fountain Square.
I used the wedding preparation to distract myself from my lack of interest in dates. I reasoned that it was normal when I was designing. Not only was I working on my line for the website, I also had to design my best friend’s wedding dress. It was normal. I wasn’t at all caught up in the way Jameson had praised my work and set tingles of happiness through me. Not at all.
So, instead of going on dates a couple nights a week with different guys, I fell into my bed exhausted and reached for my vibrator. It was fast and easy and got the job done.
Our Sunday lunches that we still had every week for family time turned into wedding planning between Lu and I. Jack and Jameson would usually sit at the bar talking about whatever boys talked about. The wedding was taking up all my time in between my regularly scheduled designs.
So when we finally made it to the bar for the bachelorette party, I was ready to let loose.
And let loose we did.
Between me, Luella, and two of her friends from work, Victoria and Gwen, we killed five bottles of wine. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, we did it in less than forty-five minutes. When we walked into the bar, Lu threw her hands up and declared, “Shots!”
By shot number six – or seven – we were grinding against each other on the dance floor. The mint green lights flashed all around us as we celebrated the last month of Lu’s freedom. Seeing her laugh and dance or jump around, my chest pinched in fear that she would pull away and leave me out once she started a family with Jack. Nausea settled heavily in my stomach at the thought of seeing her less and less.
But then she grabbed my hands, pulling me out of my melancholy, and screamed at me that she needed another shot. She mouthed “bar.” We formed a train, making our way to the bar lined in mint green lights. The bartender kept pushing martinis at us, but we held true to our shots.
We lined up three more each, downing them one right after another. Lu leaned in to my ear. “I need to peeeee,” she dragged out in my ear.
I pressed my cheek to hers so I could speak into her ear. “You want me to go with you?”
“Gwen has to go too, so unless you need to, we’re good.”
“Nah, I’ll guard our spot at the bar.”
She gave me a thumbs up and disappeared into the crowd. It was too loud to talk, so Victoria and I did another round and bobbed our heads to the music, while people-watching everyone around us.
Lu and Gwen had just reappeared when some of the bartenders climbed up on the bar to dance to Baby Got Back. That song was my jam.
When they reached down to start pulling other women onto the bar, Lu shoved me forward. I looked back at her with an eyeroll, but she only shimmied at me, pushing me to head on up. I managed to wiggle my way onto the bar, thankful I wore high-waisted shorts rather than a dress.
Once I was on the bar, I gave Luella a show with all my best stripper moves. One of the bartenders held a bottle like it was a microphone and shared it with me to sing into.
When the song ended, a hot guy with dark hair and a tight black tee helped me down. Feet firmly planted
on the ground, I winked at him in thanks.
“Let me buy you a drink,” he shouted low in my ear.
“Sorry,” I shrugged. “I’m here with my girls. If you wanna buy me a drink, you gotta buy all of us drinks.”
He looked at them and nodded. “Okay. But you have to let me take a shot out of your sexy-as-sin belly button.”
My heart raced at his bold suggestion and forward attitude. I liked a man that didn’t beat around the bush. It had been a long time since I’d done a body shot, but I was just drunk enough to go for it. Apparently, the girls had heard the proposition because the next thing I know, I had hands clasped on my shoulders from behind and a bunch of high-pitched voices started screeching, “Do it! Do it!”
I shrugged and climbed onto the bar space they cleared for me. I had to admit, I loved the attention. It had been a long month of no sex, and the way he looked at me made me want to let him see more than just my stomach. I wanted his tongue in many more places than just my belly button.
He decided on vodka with a lemon chaser that he placed between my lips. The cool liquid splashed into my belly button and made chills break out all along my body. His tongue dipped in and slurped up the liquid, leaving a lingering kiss behind that shot straight to my core. When his tongue flicked one more time, it tickled, making me laugh and drop the lemon.
“Jack!” I heard Luella scream excitedly from beside me. Jerking my head to the side, my eyes crashed with angry midnight blue ones.
Jameson.
What the hell was he doing here? I looked over at Lu who was now plastered all over Jack’s tall frame, his arms wrapped firmly around her.
The stranger who had his mouth on my bare stomach a moment ago moved in front of my line of sight and asked, “You want to get out of here?”
The next moment he was jerked back. “Let the girl up. What the hell is your problem?” Jameson growled in the man’s face, sneering in anger.
“Jameson, it’s fine. I’m getting up.” I went to roll off and missed the edge. But before I could hit the ground, two strong arms caught me and gently placed me on my feet. I wrapped my arms around Jameson’s stiff body, inhaling his musky scent. “My hero,” I teased.