For Real (Rules of Love, Book One) (5 page)

“Hey,” he says, his voice soft as I realize I’m lying on top of him. At some point during the movie, he’d shifted under me and brought both our sets of legs up on the couch and laid back, pulling me so we’re front to front. My boobs are completely squished into his chest, which is the first thing that makes me try to shift off him.

“Um, hey,” I say as I struggle to get off him, but there’s no place to put my hands, so I end up trying to roll and he tries to help me, but I end up tipping too far off the couch, banging the back of my head on the coffee table and landing on my side on the floor with a crash.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” Is he laughing?

“Ow,” I say. I’m awake now. There’s a sharp pain in my hip, and in my skull. Jett reaches down and hauls me up.

“You’re laughing at me,” I say as I feel the back of my head.

“No I’m not,” he says, while trying to contain his laughter.

“Asshole,” I say, but he’s still holding onto me.

“Where does it hurt?” he says, finally showing some concern.

“The back of my head and my hip banged on the floor. That’s gonna leave a mark.” He walks around me and tenderly moves my hair out of the way to look at my soon-to-be-bumpy head. I go all tingly again, and the pain fades just a little. This guy is better than Tylenol. And then I feel something warm right where the bump is and I swear he just kissed it.

“And your hip?” he says, his voice low.

Is it possible to die from anticipation? Because I think I just did. Jett crouches down and I swear I’m going to have a seizure if he does what I think he’s going to do.

And then he very carefully places the lightest of kisses on my hipbone and OH MY GOD I SWEAR I CAN FEEL HIS LIPS THROUGH MY JEANS AND I’M GOING TO DIE NOW.

He looks up at me from his crouched position and his face is oh so serious.

“All better,” he says and his voice hitches a little and I realize that if I just turned my body, he would be face-to-face with my downstairs. Well, not like my downstairs has a face. It does have lips though . . .

My pondering of my downstairs face is interrupted by Jett standing up and chuckling again. I’m not sure why, but I start laughing with him because, well, I don’t want to be the one not laughing.

“What time is it?” I ask. He leans around me and looks at the DVD player.

“Nearly one.” He stretches his arms over his head and his shirt rides up and I realize four things:

One, he has tats on his stomach.

Two, it is a very nice stomach.

Three, I want to touch this stomach.

Four, I need to resist this urge.

I can’t help myself as my eyes move lower and take in the rim of his underwear that peeks out from under his jeans. I can’t tell if he’s wearing boxers or briefs. Or that weird hybrid thing. Boy underwear is confusing, but I suppose that’s nothing compared to girl underwear. Thongs, bikinis, boyshorts, hi-cut—

“See something you like?” he says when he stops stretching and I figure out that I’ve been staring.

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, what?” I look away from his face and pray to switch personalities with someone with better control over their eyeballs and mouth.

Jett just shakes his head.

I’m trying to prevent myself from saying something else dumb when the door slams open and in barges a guy who looks like he should pose in a calendar with the title “Brawny Beefcakes” or something. He’s one walking muscle and he’s also covered in tats, but his are more of the abstract, sort of black tribal-looking variety. My eyes move up to his face and it isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t cut glass on his jaw.

He sees me, his mouth drops open and I swear I hear Jett groan behind me.

“It’s about fucking time, man!” He crosses the room in three strides and pulls Jett into one of those handshake-manly-hug things that’s supposed to show affection, but not TOO much affection. Because they are men, and they hug like men.

“It’s not what you think, and you were supposed to meet me at—” Jett tries to say, but another voice yanks our attention toward the door.

“Javi, I thought you said we were going out.” A girl wearing a dress so short that shouldn’t even qualify as a dress leans in the doorway, and ignores the fact that Jett and I are staring at her.

“Yeah, babe, we are. I just had to grab some condoms.” Now my mouth is the one that’s dropping open.

“Can’t have my boys going rogue on me and knocking someone up, you know what I mean?” he says to me with a wink as he goes into his room.

No, I don’t know what you mean. I look back at Jett and he just shrugs one shoulder.

“That’s Javier.” Like he needs any other introduction. I glance back at the girl by the door. Yikes. Generally, your dress should be longer than your vagina, but this girl clearly hasn’t taken that advice and is busy trying to pull it down while the dress protests that it will NOT be pulled down. She finally gives up and I quickly avert my gaze. I don’t want to see if her downstairs has a face.

“And what is your name, sweetheart?” Javier finally turns his full attention on me and the girl at the door sighs in irritation that he’s ignoring her.

“Sh-Shannon. I’m Shannon.”
Please don’t say anything stupid, please don’t say anything stupid.

“Verrrry nice to meet
you
, Shannon.” His voice drips with innuendo.

“We didn’t have sex,” I blurt out. “I mean, not that you would think that we had, but we didn’t. I wouldn’t do that here—” I’m stopped by Javier’s hand on my shoulder.

“Whoa there. Simmer down, now.” He pats my shoulder and gives me a wink as I try to swallow my tongue so I won’t talk anymore. I can NOT look at Jett. Or the girl near the door. Javier leans close and whispers in my ear.

“Handle with care, sweetheart.” He hovers for a moment, as if he’s smelling me. I can definitely smell him. He’d pretty much bathed in that douche-y fragrance that half the guys on campus wear. Ugh.

He steps away and licks his top lip like he’s in some sort of erotic film. Dude, seriously?

“Javi?” The girl at the door taps her foot and he finally focuses on her.

“Yeah, babe. I’m coming.” He slips his arm around her and then sticks his tongue in her ear as his hand grabs her ass. She giggles and they stumble out the door.

“Soooo, yeah. That’s Javier. I’m sorry.” I finally raise my eyes and meet his face.

“He’s . . . interesting?” It sounds like a question. And that isn’t the best word for Javier. I don’t really have any words for him, and Jett doesn’t either.

“What did he say to you?” He walks back to the couch, and I can tell he really wants to know but he’s playing it off like he doesn’t.

“‘Handle with care.’ What does that mean?” I sit next to him on the couch again, being careful to avoid the coffee table this time.

Jett puts his head in his hands and rubs his eyes. He looks tired when he raises his head again.

“I have no idea,” he says, but the way he says it means that he has more than an idea. He knows exactly what Javier means, but I can’t begin to figure it out.

“Look, I should go. I can, um, call a cab.”

“No, no, you don’t have to do that. I can drive you if you want to go.” He almost sounds sad.

“I mean, I don’t want to go. I just felt kind of weird, intruding on your life.” I start to stand, but he grabs my arm to stop me.

“You don’t have to go. Stay.” His glorious eyes plead with me.

“Okay,” I say without even thinking about it and sitting back down. Wow, I’m easy.

So, what now?

“I’m really sorry about him. He’s a great guy; his delivery just sucks sometimes. He also has issues with tact. As in he doesn’t know what it is and doesn’t want to learn.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Hazel.” I don’t mean to mention her, but it’s sort of inevitable. “My roommate. She was pissing me off so bad tonight. She’s also my best friend, but sometimes she needs to back the hell off. Tonight she went too far.” And now I feel like I’m going to cry again, but I swallow it. Jett gives me a sympathetic look that I want to hide from.

“Friends can be cruel sometimes, can’t they?” I nod.

“You let them get away with things that you wouldn’t let a stranger get away with.

“I hear you.” And then we start talking. About friends, and roommates and going against the grain, and childhood traumas and random life moments. He gets me laughing again and once I start, I can’t stop.

We talk until I’m starving again, and we go to the kitchen, put a bunch of things together and make the most random nachos ever. Velveeta, black beans, tomatoes, leftover chicken, pepperonis, red peppers, onions, hot sauce.

“It looks both disgusting and delicious,” I say as we shove the concoction in the oven.

“I still think the hot dogs would have added something special,” he says, setting the timer and leaning back against the counter.

“That’s just too much meat.” I make a face.

“That’s what she said.” I roll my eyes at his terrible joke.

“Yeah, Javier is the immature one.” He smiles again and I’m struck with the urge to lick his face. Yeah, I have no idea where that came from. I have never had the desire to lick someone’s face before. Temporary insanity?

“Do I have something on my face?” Whilst I’ve been pondering the face lick, I have, once again, been caught staring.

“Nope. Nothing.” I manage to play it off. Maybe I’m getting better at this. Just requires practice.

Jett’s phone rings when the nachos are almost done. His ringtone is the sound of Darth Vader breathing and it scares the shit out of me until he answers it.

“Hey . . . No . . . No. NO. You’re drunk. Goodbye.” He looks down at his phone and shakes his head.

“I swear if I have to pick up his drunken ass again, I’m going to hogtie him, draw penises all over his face with permanent marker and take tons of pictures.”

“Javier?” I ask.

“Yeah. He’s still in a good place, drunk-wise, but one more drink and he’ll start crying about losing his cat when he was ten. If I have to listen to that again, I’m going to lose my shit.” He groans and stares at the nachos as the timer dings.

“I should probably go get him. He’s already had one DUI and he doesn’t need another.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll just call a cab. No big.” He looks at me and I feel it too. I don’t want to leave. Despite all the stupid things I’ve said tonight, I like being around him. Yeah, sure, I’ve known the guy for only a few hours, but sometimes you meet people and you click. You get each other. And if you get each other’s twisted sense of humor, that’s even better.

“I can go get him and then drop you off, if you want. The least I can do is offer you a ride.” He’d already given me a ride, let me crash at his house, let me force him to watch
Mean Girls
, kissed the back of my head and my hip and made me nachos. Any more and I’m going to have to owe him, or at least send a thank you card.

“Please,” he says, cutting off my protest.

“Okay, but no more, or else I’m going to owe you.” Am I flirting with him? Was that flirty? I’m a really bad judge on that kind of thing.

“I think I could be okay with that,” he says in a low voice with a half-smile. And the world ceases to spin. Or at least it feels that way.

“Oh, you want me to owe you?” Where the hell did that come from? Whatever, I’m going with it.

He bites the corner of his lip and then his phone rings again.

“Yeah, we should go.”

We pull up to a bar that’s the definition of “seedy”. I don’t really know where that term comes from, but I know it when I see it. This is it. I didn’t even know this bar existed.

Tucked into the corner of an intersection with a tattoo shop on one side and an abandoned building on the other, the brick front is crumbling, and covered in graffiti and a cacophony of neon signs for various beers. The door is propped open by a bucket filled with cigarette butts.

“Classy,” I say under my breath. Jett just pulls over to the side of the bar and parks.

“I don’t know if it’s safer for you to stay in the car, or come with.” I don’t either. A few of the people hanging outside look like lost cast members from
Sons of Anarchy
. Are there Motorcycle Clubs in Maine? There must be.

“I think I’ll come with,” I say and he gives me a look that says, “Are you sure?”

I fish in my purse and bring out my pink Leatherman tool.

“What’s that for?” Jett says.

“You can never be too careful. Also, it has a bottle opener.” I hold it up and pull out some of the tools to show him before we get out of the car. He automatically takes my hand, and I can’t tell if it’s to keep me close so I don’t get lost in the crowd, or for some other reason.

There’s no one at the door checking IDs, which is probably why there are several girls that barely look like they made it out of high school going gangbusters on the dance floor. Jett scans the room for Javier, but I’m having trouble seeing over everyone’s heads.

The place smells like moldy cigarettes and sticky beer with a hint of puke and sweat. They should call it The Dive. It’s also so hot in here that it’s almost steamy. Jesus, get me out of here. I grip my improvised knife, ready to attack if need be.