Jenson (Wild Men Book 4)

by Melissa Belle

  I drape my clay-covered hand with a paper towel in order to pull the phone out of my bag.

  No moon tonight. Bring a flashlight.

  Butterflies explode in my stomach at Jenson’s text, and shit…I can’t wait to see him. I exhale and pull the bottom of my shirt in and out a few times to cool off. Now I’ve got clay all over it, but I don’t mind.

  I look again at the model’s pale skin and frail frame. I take my desk and turn it away from him, so he’s no longer in my line of sight. Bea looks over at me, her eyes bright with interest. I smile at her and get to work.

  An hour later, Denice walks around to take a look at everyone’s progress. She stops short when she sees what I’ve done with my clay.

  “Oh…my.” She pauses for breath as she sees the quite obvious male anatomy sitting on top of my desk.

  That’s right. I sculpted Jenson’s package. It wouldn’t have looked so bad if there had been something else to my sculpture, but there isn’t. It’s just a penis and balls. While I was actually working the clay, I was immersed in my own lust and didn’t much care who saw what I did, but now that the entire class—not to mention my mother and Bea—are all staring at my work of art, I want to disappear into the floor. God, why did Jenson have to text me? It’s like he gets so under my skin that I can’t help myself.

  “Well,” Denice says. She looks at the old man and then down at my piece of art like she can tell the two do not go together. I guess the fact that I’m facing away from the model gives me away, so I quickly turn my desk back to the correct position. But my “work” looks too…thick, I suppose, to be a match to the model looking in our direction.

  Bea smiles at me. “It’s…an original, yes?”

  I hope not. I hope it’s an exact replica of Jenson’s goods. As a teenager, I touched him there once, but it was brief and over jeans, so I really needed to let my imagination do the sculpting for me. I’ve certainly felt his hardness desperately pressing against my body, but we were always clothed.

  Mom clears her throat and mumbles something about how the three of us are definitely not taking that papier-mâché class she saw on the Adult Ed bulletin board earlier.

  After class, I seek to put an end to my humiliation and ask Mom to drop me off around the block at Bernie’s Coffee Haus. Bernie’s is the quaint German coffee shop on Main Street where we all hang out—Sheldon and Cara, my best friend, Hayley and her boyfriend, Max, and me. Daphne used to join us too, but once she married Todd and they had kids, they stopped hanging out at Bernie’s years ago.

  Tonight, only Hayley’s going to be here. Thank God, because she’s the only one in my life who knows about Jenson and me. Everyone else just thinks I have serious relationship issues.

  But as soon as I reach Bernie’s, Sheldon meets me in the doorway and immediately stares down at what’s in my arms.

  It’s my sculpture, surreptitiously hidden inside a cardboard box Mom anxiously found for me in her trunk. “You don’t want to parade that all around town, Olivia,” Mom said as she handed me the box and practically threw the sculpture into it. “Now, I’m all for sexual expression, but that artwork is very intimate, and it could give the people in this town the wrong idea.”

  I hold the box tightly with both hands as I stare Sheldon down. “Back off,” I say to him. “I’m not talking to you tonight.”

  “What’d I do?” he says as he tries to follow me inside. His light brown hair is falling in his eyes, and I resist the urge to tell him to get a haircut because I know he’s just an easy target for how vulnerable I’m feeling. Sheldon and I are there for each other in all the important ways, and sometimes that means being a punching bag.

  “I need to talk to Hayley alone,” I say. “So go. I thought you and Cara had date night or something.”

  “Cara and I have wedding planning night,” he corrects me. “I needed a caffeine fix first.” He holds up his to-go coffee cup and grabs his keys out of his jeans pocket. “I’m on my way out.”

  I smile at him. “Well, good luck. I can’t give you a pep talk because I cancelled one wedding and then the one I didn’t cancel ended in divorce.”

  Sheldon grins as he waves goodbye. “You really do need to start dating again. I’m going to find you someone.”

  I brush past him. “Don’t even think about it!” I call back.

  As I step further into the coffee shop, I spot Hayley waving to me from our usual couch at the far back.

  Hayley and I met at Bernie’s one Saturday morning when I was home from college on Christmas break. It was a snowy day in January, and she and I were both in line to buy coffee. Hayley complimented me on my wool hat, we started talking, and we haven’t stopped since.

  I smile and head over to take a seat next to her on the couch. When I show her what I made in class before quickly putting it back in the cardboard box, she doesn’t say anything at first.

  She just stares at me. I stare back at her.

  “You sculpted his junk?” Hayley sounds incredulous.

  “What the hell is the big deal?” I lean back against the couch cushions and curl my legs under me. “Up until now, my imagination has been the only thing I had.”

  “But now?” She raises a perfectly-manicured eyebrow, the one part of her she fusses over.

  I bite my lip. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “He’s here. For you.” She points to the box next to me. “You don’t need to make up fantasies anymore.”

  “It’s so surreal I don’t really believe it yet. That he’s going to stay.”

  Hayley studies my face. “So you two have been pining away for each other all these years, and you don’t even know what his dick feels like? Olivia, you better find out.”

  I break into an anxious laugh. “Let’s shift this conversation to something less…sex-focused.”

  We chat about her day at work for a bit, until the topic returns to Jenson.

  “It’s surreal that he’s here,” I admit. “I guess I never imagined he would move back.”

  “Do you think he’s going to…” Hayley lowers her voice to a whisper, “ever look for his biological father?”

  “I don’t know. There are things about it that…” I cut off. “That nobody knows.”

  Cindy always tells everyone that Jenson was the result of a drunken one night stand with a man she never caught the name of, a man she slept with right after she and Dee broke up the first time they were together. But then Jenson found his original birth certificate hidden in the back of her closet. And instead of “unknown” in the father box, this one said Donald Waverly.

  We figured out pretty quickly why his mom had covered up the truth. Donald Waverly was Dee’s good friend, along with my dad’s, and when Jenson confronted her about the birth certificate, Cindy admitted that she slept with Donald right before she and Dee broke up. They were all young and Dee and Cindy had been fighting a lot, and Cindy said it was a moment of weakness that brought her a precious gift—her only child.

  She always wanted Dee back, though, and once they reconnected and then married, she vowed to never share the truth.

  So Dee still doesn’t know that Cindy cheated on him with his friend. Donald and his parents moved out of town shortly after he was with Cindy. He was unaware he had conceived a child, and Donald didn’t keep in touch with anyone in Liberty Falls. For almost two years before he left for college, I helped Jenson investigate, but we were never able to track Donald down. It was like he’d disappeared into thin air.

  “Maybe someday.” I shrug at Hayley. “All of it will be sorted out.”

  Chapter Five

  When I reach the covered bridge, I turn my flashlight on to light my way. Jenson’s there waiting for me. He picks me up and hugs me tightly.

  “It’s so good to see you again,” he says in a low tone.

  We just saw each other last night, but I know what he means. In a way, we haven’t really seen each other since I was seventeen.

  Jenson puts his arm arou
nd my shoulders, and we sit down together on the pavement, our backs against the bridge wall and our legs stretched out into the empty road. I look around at the tiny one-lane road that passes underneath the bridge. Hardly any cars take this bridge in the daylight; this late, we shouldn’t even see one. I turn off the flashlight, and we’re immediately surrounded by the safety and escape of total darkness. Under the covering of the bridge, it’s like there’s nobody else in town. Nobody but us.

  “I remember how we came here when we were kids,” Jenson says quietly.

  “You kissed me for the first time here and the last time too.” I swallow hard. “If I’d known it would be our last time, I’d have asked you not to stop.”

  He turns to face me, and my eyes, now adjusted to the dark, can make out his strong jaw and blond hair. His expression is somber.

  “I’ve gone over that moment a million times since things ended between us. I wish eight years hadn’t passed since then.”

  I exhale. “I know what you mean.”

  “This whole thing’s been torture.” His voice is rough.

  He’s never said it outright like that.

  I inhale. “It has.” Reaching for an easier topic, I say, “Both the boys seem good.”

  “They are.”

  I smile at the pride in his voice.

  “They’ve been enjoying coming to work with me lately.”

  “Really?” I laugh. “That is so cute—do they know all the players?”

  “Pretty much.”

  I hear him suck in a breath. And then—

  “I’ve been hired as an assistant football coach for Randolph College.”

  “Wait…” I stumble. “What?”

  “I’m working for Randolph’s football team.”

  “But that’s where Dad teaches—Randolph is just outside Liberty Falls!”

  “I know. I told you I’m moving back home, Olive.”

  “You—” I drop the flashlight and then scramble to grab it before it rolls away. “How did I not know this? Randolph always announces their new coaching staff, and I don’t remember seeing your name on the website.”

  And God knows I would have noticed.

  “It was a last-minute opening, and they haven’t made the announcement yet. The coach called me up a month ago; I’ve known him since high school, but he wasn’t sure they had room in their budget for me. I’m going to work with the offense, study game tape and design plays. Today was my first day on the field; the announcement should be coming out tomorrow.”

  “Congratulations. But isn’t that…a big step down from the Division I program you were coaching at out in Pittsburgh?”

  He brushes my cheek softly with his hand. “Coming back to Liberty Falls is a million steps up, Olive. It can’t be quantified.”

  I drop my jaw as I stare at him. “You’re willing to give up that coaching position for…”

  “Yes.” He kisses my forehead. “A million times over. Yes. It feels perfect.”

  My heart lodges somewhere in my throat. He’s right. It does feel perfect. Too perfect. Because the last time I thought Jenson Beau and I were finally going to be together, our fairytale ending was ripped apart.

  “What about Kyle and Connor?” I ask him.

  “They’re coming with me,” he says.

  “What about Meghan? You guys share custody.”

  “She and her boyfriend, Andy, are going to move in together, and Andy’s from out this way. They’ve decided to move to Philly, and they’re driving out here this week to look around for housing. So she and I will split the time with the boys while she’s in the area, and then they’ll go back with her to Pittsburgh until she packs up next month.”

  “So you’re moving in the fall? How will that work with football season?”

  “I’ve already moved.” His tone softens. “I have my townhouse in Pittsburgh until the end of the month, and I’ll have to go back to deal with that. But I’m officially on staff with the football team as of today, so…I’m here.”

  “That’s…” I swallow hard. “Wow. A lot of changes.”

  “I hope it can be a fresh start,” he says, his meaning clear.

  A fresh start for us.

  I still remember Jenson’s last words to me before he left for college in Seattle for what turned out to be one of the many unplanned chapters in his life. “Ask me to wait for you, Olive.” His eyes were pleading. “Ask me.”

  Because he would. I was all he wanted. He was all I wanted. But I was young and naïve, and in my heart, I knew I wasn’t ready for everything we deserved.

  Plus, we had two years to fill—I was sixteen, and Jenson was nineteen—before we could be together in any real sense, and I wanted Jenson to enjoy his college experience, his first time away from home. We talked it through, with Jenson adamant that if we were going to do this, he wanted to make sure it went both ways so that I would experience high school like a normal sixteen-year-old deserves to. We tried to look on the bright side—if we didn’t take this time apart, even if we did end up together, one or the other of us would end up resentful.

  After much tearful discussion, we made a promise that for the next two years, we would date “age-appropriate” people and not discuss our love lives with one another.

  “No holding back,” Jenson said to me. “Okay? Whoever you want to date, or…” He cleared his throat and trailed off. “Don’t censor yourself. We’ll still see each other when I come home, and it will be like old times. But this is your time, Olive. You’re only sixteen years old once. I don’t ever want to be the one who held you back from anything. Promise me you’ll take the time to focus on yourself.”

  “You too.” I held his hand tightly in mine, fighting back the tears that were already sliding down my cheeks. “Promise you’ll enjoy college, J. Date, have girlfriends, and party. Do whatever you want to do. Okay? We’ll meet up again soon.”

  “Two years.” His voice dropped so low I had to strain to hear him. “It will fly by. And then you’ll be mine. And I’ll be yours. Forever.”

  “Forever,” I repeated.

  We held to our promise. I went to Prom, to Homecoming, and to the movies on the weekends. I let boys kiss me and tried to feel a spark even if there wasn’t one. I had a few boyfriends, and I know Jenson had his share of dates in college. We did our best to be “normal,” knowing that this was our time to explore and grow on our own.

  And whenever Jenson came home, we were as inseparable as ever. “Cousins” to our family and to everyone in town and so much more in private. Never more than stolen kisses; our clothes never came off. Because Jenson was serious about waiting until I turned eighteen. He wanted to do things “the right way.”

  At the edge of seventeen, I was exhausted from trying to maintain a line my heart and body were desperate to rebel against. I was one day away from starting my freshman year at UPenn and one month from turning eighteen. I was so looking forward to crossing that finish line so Jenson and I could finally be a real couple.

  I only had one month to kill at college before my big birthday. One more month of going on dates with boys who couldn’t hold a candle to the only boy I’d ever really wanted.

  But the night before I left for school, Jenson found out the piece of news that would unequivocally change the course of his life. And the course of mine. He was going to be a father. And the mother of his children wasn’t me.

  The memories flood my brain while we sit together underneath the safety of the bridge, and I clench my hands together on my lap. “Looking back,” I admit, “I feel like I got married just to try to numb the pain of losing you.”

  “Being married never helped me, Olive,” Jenson says in a ragged tone. “I know my marriage was…unplanned. And I love my sons. Wouldn’t change that part of it at all. But Meghan and I never should have forced the marriage through because she got pregnant. We always used protection, were always so careful. We both knew what we were doing was temporary. And yet, Kyle and Connor came along anyway.”<
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  “And you wanted to be a full-time father, to be there for your sons every single day from the moment they were born, the way your biological father wasn’t,” I say softly. “I got it then, and I get it now, J.”

  “And yet, I know how it crushed you.”

  Yes, going to Jenson’s wedding was deadly. I couldn’t even make it through the ceremony. Hearing about his divorce was less so. Of course, he and Meghan had their two boys by then, so she’s a permanent part of his life. She’s very nice; I always liked her. She was in the impossible position of marrying a man who couldn’t love her back, whose heart was already with somebody else. She never knew about me, and Jenson was never unfaithful to her. But we’d already given our hearts to each other, and no matter how hard we tried to move on, it didn’t seem to work.

  “I thought I was taking responsibility as a father. Doing right by my sons.” His tone sounds strangled. “By everyone.”

  My throat goes tight, but I finally say the words I’ve always wanted to say to him. “I’m sorry I told you I wanted to forget about us. I was seventeen, stupid, and heartbroken.”

  His eyes find mine in the dark. “Can you tell me the whole story?”

  I choke back the emotion filling my throat. “My father…”

  “Your father?” Jenson’s tone is hard. “What’d he say to you?”

  “He had no clue about us,” I assure him. “None of them did.”

  We were always experts at hiding our attraction to each other. Because we had always been close, everyone in our family accepted that we were simply best friends.

  “So if he didn’t suspect anything, what did he say?”

  “He came to see me a couple weeks after I’d moved to school in Philly. And he talked about you. About how we had all learned you were going to become a father.”

  “And…”

  “And he kind of told me to take a step back in my friendship with you. He said it was important for us to remain close, like cousins, but that you and Meghan needed time to sort things out. He said with all the big changes, you becoming parents together, you needed private time to get to know each other and go through her pregnancy.”