Second String (In Too Deep #3) (12 page)

"I'm not quite where you are yet, but I feel really good being inside you."

"Can you feel what I just felt? Is that what happens when the stuff…"

I nodded.

"I want you to feel like I do," she said. "What can I do to make you feel like this?"

"All I wanted was to make
sure you came first," I said. Then I began the push-pull that, after only a few minutes, ended with me emptying every ounce of myself inside her. I was buried so deep inside her, feeling so good that I reached down hastily to make sure I'd put a condom on.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, good," I said, feeling the condom in it's rightful place. "In fact, I'm
great
. I'm really glad we did that."

We stretched out next to each other for a while before either of us said a word. I broke the silence.

"I like more than casual," I said.

"I know," she said. "I can't believe it feels like that."

"You've never felt that before?" I figured the answer was no since she'd said
"what's happening?"
as she climaxed.

"No." She paused. "Does that happen every time?"

I smiled, even though I knew she couldn't see me with her head down. "It's supposed to," I said.

****

The next morning we woke up to someone knocking on the front door of the guesthouse. Emily and I had both fallen asleep with no clothes on, so we took a second to put something on. She moved faster than I did since it was her place. She'd left the bedroom by the time I was stepping into my boxer shorts. I was still on the far side of the living room when the door swung open revealing Gretchen on the other side. She caught sight of me from over Emily's shoulder. A worried look instantly came over her face.

"Oh, I didn't know you had company," she said.
She looked at Emily with an earnest expression and, in a near-whisper, she said, "There's someone here to see you. He's in the main house… says you'd want to know he's here. I think Joel recognized him as some football player."

I
had made my way to the door by that point. I stood behind Emily, and Gretchen looked at me with regret. "I'm sorry, E. I had no idea you were here. There's somebody here to see Emily." Emily put her head in her hands, ducked under my arms and ran toward the bedroom. Sal followed her.

I stared at Gretchen, confused. "We'll be there in a minute," I assured her. I followed Emi
ly and her dog to the bedroom so I could figure out what the hell was going on.

Chapter 15

Emily

I couldn't think of
a single thing that could happen the day after I
finally
decided to have sex with another guy that would be worse than Jeremy Salyer knocking on my door.
Is Jeremy Salyer really at my freaking house?
He was the only person who fit the description, so I knew it had to be him. Ethan gave a little knock on my bathroom door, and opened it, figuring I owed him the decency. I hadn't even had the chance to sort through the myriad of emotions that were coursing through my body, but I opened the door anyway.

"Who's here?" he asked. I could see some disappointment somewhere in his expression. My heart lurched at the thought of whatever we'd just started to have together coming to an end. I knew if Jeremy was here to see me, he'd most likely be wanting to get back together… unless someone's hurt, or he's delivering bad news from home. I stiffened at the thought. I had to see Jeremy now. I was too curious not to. "His name's Jeremy
Salyer. He's a—"

"Football player. I know," Ethan said. "But who's he to
you
?"

"He's a guy from my hometown." My nerves were so
obvious; I might as well have been wearing them on the outside of my skin. My voice and hands were both shaking. Ethan could tell the news of Jeremy's arrival had me shaken up no matter how much I tried to mask it. "I kind of used to date him. We haven't seen each other in like fourteen months, and even then it was just one night. It's really been more like a few years." Ethan's eyebrows rose at my assessment of how long it'd been, but didn't say anything, for which I was relieved.

I didn't know what to
tell him, but I wasn't about to say that Jeremy meant nothing to me. I had to take the initiative and tell Ethan I was going to Gretchen's to see Jeremy.

"I'm going with you," Ethan said. I'll walk to the main house with you. I was planning on catching up with Joel anyway."

I wasn't thinking clearly enough to tell him that wasn't a good idea. Actually, I didn't care what he decided to do. I wasn't going to take the time to argue with him. I walked around the pool, and into the back entrance of Gretchen's place. Ethan followed a few paces behind me with Sal at his side.

I had to pass through a glass
porch before I made it to the main kitchen where Jeremy was waiting. He was leaning casually against the kitchen counter. His legs were crossed as if he didn't have a care in the world. He'd obviously been entertaining Joel, who was smiling broadly when he turned around to look at me. I glanced at Joel and gave him a hurried smile before focusing my attention on the guy who'd stolen my heart all those years ago.

Jeremy was exactly the same, only a little thicker. He was still really fit, but he'd filled out since the last time I saw him. He looked mor
e like a man. He smiled at me with that Jeremy smile, the one I yearned for all these years. He had on jeans and a Polo, as always. The way past broken in baseball cap was just the thing to sit on top of that all-American face of his. He looked like he could be in an ad for Ralph Lauren.

"What are you doing here?"
I asked as I crossed the kitchen. I cursed myself for not being able to hold back a smile. The thing was plastered on my face. Jeremy reached over and picked up a wonderfully eclectic blend of crazy looking flowers. They were classy and circus-freak at the same time. The bouquet was my exact taste, and Jeremy knew it. "I tried to get here for Valentine's Day, but I'm swamped this semester." His expression shifted to pleading, and his voice came out almost as a whisper. "I've been thinking about you a lot." He paused and looked over my shoulder, taking in Ethan and Sal, who'd both taken a place a few feet over, next to Joel. "Who do you have with you, Em?" Jeremy asked.

"Oh, that? Them? Him?"
I tripped over the words like a total idiot. "Ethan's my friend and Sal's my dog," I said.

I hated to use a word like
friend
after the things we did last night, but it was the best word I could manage given the extreme circumstance. Ethan stuck his hand out to shake Jeremy's. The air grew tense. I should have made Ethan stay back in my apartment. This was about to get awkward.

"Come here, boy," Jeremy said, out of nowhere. Sal
was a sucker for some love, so he left Ethan's side and went over to him. Jeremy stooped and started rubbing Sal behind the ear. "You and I are destined to be pals," he said to my dog. Sal was eating it up. "You're my namesake, after all."

Ethan gave me a questioning glance that Jeremy picked up on. "You must not watch college football," Jeremy said to Ethan. "My last name's
Salyer, but most people just call me Sal. It's a locker room nickname, but the broadcasters use it too. "That's cool if you don't watch football, though," he said.

"I've heard of you,
boss
," Ethan said. "It's that I'm only now putting together the correlation between you and the dog."

Jeremy smiled, although it wasn't genuine.
"Okay then,
chief
. Then you understand how important I must be to Emily if she wants to name the dog after me."

Ethan looked at Jeremy for a long minute before deciding not to speak to him ag
ain. Then he looked at me. "It looks like you have some catching up to do," he said. "I'm going to head south, but can I talk to you for a minute before we go? In private?" I awkwardly excused myself, saying I'd be back before he could blink, or something stupid like that.

"I don't know what he is in your life," Ethan said, once we were behind closed doors, "but there's definitely
not room for two of us." He noticed how anxious I was, and continued, "I knew we were supposed to be casual, so theoretically I should be okay with the idea of you figuring out what's going on with him."

"
Are
you okay with it?" I asked.

"What's it matter? I'm not go
ing to be able to stop you. I have to get back for practice anyway." Ethan was being short with me, which hurt, but I knew it was best to let him head back to San Diego. I didn't know how long Jeremy would stay, and it was just way too weird with both of them there.

"Can you please just
not
sleep with him?" he asked. The question took me by surprise. I didn't have time to answer before he began speaking again. "If you decide to be with him for good… obviously I can't stop you from doing whatever. But right now, while you're sorting through everything, can you promise you won't sleep with him? Just till you figure things out." He regarded me with a sincere, expression, beseeching me to consider.

"I won't sleep with him unless things between us, well, I mean, unless…" I hated when I started to stammer, I paused
for a second to gather my wits. "I'll tell you something official before I do anything." Crap. That came out all wrong. "First, I have to figure out why he's here. There's a chance he's here to bring news from home or something."

Ethan gave me a disbelieving
look. "Em, he brought you flowers. Stop trying to sugarcoat the situation. I can't blame you for wanting to check it out. Especially since we've known all along that this was supposed to be casual."

Casual, casual, casual,
I was sick of the freaking word. "Isn't that what
you
wanted it to be?" I asked.

Ethan breathed a sigh. "What I want isn't really the issue here."
He shot me a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Call me." He didn't reach for a hug, or handshake, or anything.

I didn't know what I expected him to do… I mean, what else
could
he do? I really regretted Jeremy's timing, but I'd loved him for too many years. I couldn't let the opportunity pass without at least giving it a shot. I'd never forgive myself.

I went back into the kitchen where I found Jeremy standing by himself. He was wearing a wide smile as he held open his arms. I walked into them, feeling a sense of relief at finally
living the moment I'd dreamed of so many times. I breathed in the smell of him as I rested my head on his chest. He smelled exactly like I remembered. He was wearing Acqua di Gio, the same cologne he'd worn in high school, but why change something that works, right?

"Your friends went out for brunch so that you and I could catch up," Jeremy said. He was smiling down at me. "This is a nice place you got here, Ems, How'd you hook this up? How do you know those people?"

I couldn't tell Jeremy that guy who'd just left was the same guy I'd
SLEPT WITH
last night, and was also the guy who'd introduced me to the super wonderful people I lived with. I smiled again at the ridiculousness of Jeremy's timing.

"I met them in Vegas. Then I came to L.A. and randomly ran into them one night."

He seemed content with that answer. He looked at me, then out of nowhere said, "I want to get back together, Emily. I think I'm ready for commitment, and I want to see if you might be the one."

For some reason, I wasn't bowled over by his love confessions. Something about the words he said or the way he said them made me a little skeptical. "I
'd like to get to know each other again," I said. "I think it's going to take that to see if we're still compatible."

"Of course we're still compatible. Just the fact that you're talking like that makes me
know
we're still compatible. You're still the same Emily. By the book." He shot me a wink. "Did you wait for me?" He asked the question right on the heels of saying how
by the book
I was. I knew he had no doubt in his mind that I
had
waited for him. If only he knew I still had Ethan all over me.

"H
ow'd you find me here?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Your parents," he said
, like it was no big deal. "They had your address."

I wondered what kind of conversation he'd had with my parents. "Where did you see my parents?" I asked. "At your house, of course. I went over there to ask
about you when I was in Sedona the other day."

"And you just
knocked
on the door and had a conversation with them? What'd they say?"

"Your dad wasn't there, but your mom told me where you were and what you were doing. She was happy to see me. I think they'd like to see you sometime, Emily. She said they really miss you."
I was unsure how I felt about Jeremy opening a line of communication with my parents, but ultimately, I wanted to please them and get to know them again, so I chose not to worry about it.

"She said that?" I asked.

"Yeah, and she also said your dad was gonna be pissed about missing me. She made me sign an old football she dug out of the closet."

"She did?" I asked. "I didn't even know we had any footballs."

"It was a miniature nerf with a tail sticking out of one end," he said, laughing, "and the tip of it looked like a dog had been chewing on it."

Jeremy was one of the mo
st charming people I'd ever met. I found myself comparing him to Ethan. When it came to charm, Ethan, believe it or not, had him beat. Or maybe it was a matter of taste, and I was simply starting to prefer Ethan's charms over Jeremy's. Either way, there was a tiny element of cheesiness with Jeremy that I hadn't noticed before.

"You
know you're a fucking dime piece now, don't you Emily?" He said, confirming my thoughts. The question took me off guard, but he didn't give me time to answer anyway. "The other night Cooper Matthews showed me a clip of you dancing at a Laker game, and I couldn't believe my eyes. You filled out, baby girl."

"Don't call me baby girl," I said. I wasn't sure if I s
aid it because he was already rubbing me the wrong way, or because that's what Ethan called me.
Well, not all the time, but sometimes Ethan called me that. He'd done it a few times, anyway.

"
Heyyy, aren't you happy to see me?" he asked.

"Of course I am. God, Jeremy, it took you long enough to—"

"Aww, let's not go there," he warned. "I'm here now, and that's all that matters, isn't it?"

"I gues
s so," I said, a little pouty. I almost asked him if he'd ever thought about me before he knew I was a Laker Girl, but I was a little afraid I didn't want to hear the answer. I figured it was normal for me to have a tiny bit of doubt about Jeremy's intentions, but I wasn't going to let that make me question my decision to give it a go.