Spring Unleashed (The Summer Unplugged Series) (3 page)

Chapter 5

Jace’s apartment smells like fresh lilacs. It’s a huge step up from how it smelled when he first moved in; like motorcycle tires and pizza delivery. I set my backpack of clothing on the bench near the doorway and stretch out my arms. “This place smells amazing. I’m so glad you let me put that wax warmer in your kitchen.”

“I like those wax things even if they are girly as hell.” Jace locks the door behind us and hangs his keys on the key rack next to the door. I can’t help but picture how one day my own car keys might get to rest on the hook next to his. He heads to the kitchen near the wax warmer and shows me a few packages of scented wax cubes that he must have bought on his own. “I used to hate these girly smells but now they just remind me of you.”

“So now you like them?” I say with
an
I told you so
smile. He nods. “I just like being reminded of you.”

I motion toward the living room where the unmistakable changes I’ve made reflect off of nearly every inch of the apartment. The dark blue and grey couch pillows were bought at Target with Jace’s credit card, along with the throw blankets, the fluffy rug and the welcome mat. “My presence pretty much dominates your place now,” I say with a smug self-satisfaction. “What would you do without me? You’d be living like a total pig.”

Jace grabs a water bottle from the refrigerator and chugs half of it. “Trust me, I live like a pig when you aren’t here. I only clean up real quick before you come over.”

“Ah, so the truth comes out!” I sit on the armrest of his couch and cross my arms. “Jace Adams, whatever will I do with you?”

I get lost in his smile as he approaches me. By the time I realize his look of adoration has turned into a sneaky grin, it’s too late. Jace hooks an arm under my knees and around my shoulders and yanks me off the couch. I squeal and grab around his neck so I don’t fall. “I’ve missed you so much,” Jace says as he turns and walks away from the couch, carrying me with him.

Warmth floods into me
as he carries me into his bedroom and gently sets me on his bed. I want to make a sarcastic comment about how he actually made his bed this time, but his lips press onto mine before I have a chance. My fingers run through his soft hair, tangling up in it since he hasn’t had a haircut in a while. I shiver when his hands slide up my waist, pulling my shirt off with the help of me arching my back for him.

“Yeah,” he says, gazing at my chest. “I definitely missed these.” He buries his face into my cleavage and I end up giggling like a dork because his scruffy facial hair tickles.

I push his head away and he leans in for a kiss. I hold my finger up to his lips. “Not fair. If my shirt is off then yours needs to be off, too.”

“Yes ma’am,” he growls as he sits back on his heels while still straddling me to the bed. His arms cross in front of him and then he pulls his shirt off and I watch the ripples in his chest
muscles flex as he slides the shirt over his head and tosses it to the floor. Damn, my boyfriend is hot. I press my hands to his chest, letting my fingers trail down to his abs and then hook into the waistband of his jeans. I guess my feeling him up is the girl version of him snuggling against my boobs.

We’re total opposites. He thinks my squishy areas are sexy and I think his rock hard muscles are sexy. Good thing we’re perfect for each other.
I close my eyes as Jace showers my body with soft kisses. Shivers run across my skin as the stubble on his face tickles my hip bone.

When we’re both undressed, we cuddle under the sheets and Jace makes love to me like I am the only thing in this world that matters to him. After, when I curl up in his arms and feel sleep start to fall over me, I grab on to the love I feel from my boyfriend and hold it deep inside my heart. I’m going to need it when I talk to him about moving in
later.

Jace picks out the snap peas from his Chinese takeout and places them on a napkin. I reach over and grab them one by one with my chopsticks and eat them. He sticks out his tongue in disgust every time he hears them crunch in my mouth. I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t half of the reason why I eat them. Jace stabs a piece of beef with his chopstick When he’s hungry he doesn’t bother using them in the correct way. “So have you given any more thought to what you’d like to study at the college?”

“The better question would be, ‘Have you decided if you even
want
to study at the college?’” I say without bothering to hide the annoyance in my voice. I was hoping we could go at least a whole day at Jace’s apartment without talking about this. I know I need to hash this out eventually but I’m perfectly fine with putting it off as long as possible.

“Why do you say that?” Jace asks. “You’re
not really giving college a chance. You could like it, you know.”

“
You
didn’t give college a chance. Why are you making me go?”

He stares straight past my head, not looking at anything but the thoughts in his own mind.
“I didn’t go to college because I chose a career as a professional motocross racer. That didn’t exactly work out for me.”

“You’re doing well for yourself. You have a career that’s still in motocross. I wish I had a talent that paid me a lot of money.”

Jace smiles and shakes his head as he swirls his chopstick around his plate. “Oh you have talent…but I’m not going to let anyone pay you for it.”

“Shut up,” I say as blood rushes to my cheeks.
He
so
did not bring up my bedroom skills while we’re eating dinner.

When we finish eating I let Jace convince me to pull up the Brazos Community College website and browse through the different programs they offer. It’s a community college and not a university so they only have t
wo year degrees and certificate programs. Until Becca mentioned them, I had no idea what a certificate was. Turns out it’s a super quick way to get certified to do various careers like the Pharmacy Technician path that Becca chose.

I skim over the list of possible careers, reading them aloud to Jace while he pours us both a drink from the kitchen. “Well?” he asks when I finish the list.

I try to stop my lip from curling. “I don’t like any of these.” My shoulders fall. I’m not trying to be difficult. I just can’t picture myself doing any of these jobs for the rest of my life. And I’m not some stuck up girl who wants to be taken care of either. I want to work. I want to be successful and do something I’m good at and help Jace pay the bills. But for now, the only options seem to be taking a part time job in the evenings or going to college to pursue a degree in subjects I couldn’t care less about.

Jace
hands me a drink and settles beside me on the floor with his back resting against the couch. He looks over my shoulder at the laptop screen in my lap. “Nothing sounds good to you?” he asks. It makes me feel better since his voice isn’t rude or condescending. “Maybe we should research each of the options and see what kind of jobs you can get with them. It might change your mind.”

I sigh and let my head fall backward until I’m staring at the ceiling. “I wish there was a job that involved hanging out with you at the track all day.”

Jace’s eyes light up. “Maybe there is. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier.” He slides closer to me and asks for the laptop. I hand it over without hesitation since it belongs to him and all. With his brows furrowed in concentration, he pulls up Gmail and types in his log in information. “I’m going to email Mr. Fisher.”

“Your boss?
What for?”

He wiggles his eyebrows and the overly confident smile he’s so good at wearing appears on his face. “I’ll tell you once I know for sure.”

I roll my eyes and push myself up onto the couch, stretching my feet out lengthwise. As Jace types up an email to his boss, I watch the glow of the computer screen light up his gorgeous face. Becca’s words from the other day come back to me. Jace had typed in his password right in front of me without hesitation. I didn’t even think to watch him type it like Becca does with the guys she dates. I wonder if he would be upset if I secretly figured out his password by spying on him as he types.

“Hey babe?”
I ask, the words falling out of my mouth before my common sense can force me to shut up. “What’s your email password?”

He doesn’t look up from his computer.
“F-M-X-5-1-9.”

“Five nineteen?
Aww, baby, that’s the day we started dating.”

Jace snorts
as he continues typing the email. “Duh.”

I turn to the side and rest my chin on his shoulder. “I can’t believe you just told me your password.”

This time he does look away from the computer. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well…I don’t know.
Because it’s private? Because Becca said that every guy is obsessed with keeping their stuff secret.”

Jace lifts an eyebrow. “Maybe the
weirdos she dates. Bay, you’re my soul mate. I have no secrets from you. Everything about me is free for you to know.”

“Yeah, no secrets except for talking to my mom behind my back.”

He leans over and kisses me on the forehead. “That was for your own good. And trust me, she gave me no choice in the matter.”

Chapter 6

My boyfriend’s cell phone blasts the room with an annoying ringtone about thirty seconds after we finish making love. Not expecting any sounds so early in the morning, I jump, rolling backward onto the bed and losing my comfortable spot on Jace’s chest.

“Perfect timing,” he says as he leans toward the nightstand and grabs his phone. “It’s Mr. Fisher.”

I pull the comforter up to my shoulders to keep warm. Jace climbs out of bed and answers the call, not even bothering to put on any clothes. It’s fine by me though, I like the view. I don’t pay any attention to his phone call at first. His work stuff doesn’t really concern me, not unless he’s getting called into work on his day off. But then Jace turns around to face me and says, “Definitely. I’ll ask Bayleigh about it. Thank you, sir.”

After ending the call, Jace crawls back into bed and I reclaim my position on his chest. His arm wraps around my shoulders and squeezes my side.  “So…what was that about?” I ask.

“It was about the email I sent him last night. How do you feel about administration work?”

When the smell of scrambled eggs quickly turns into the smell of scorched eggs, I hop off my barstool and shove Jace away from the stove. He wanted to be sweet and cook breakfast for us while he tells me more about this crazy work idea of his, but clearly I need to take over. He hands me the spatula with a big pouty frown on his face. “Sorry babe. I tried.”

I laugh and toss the burnt eggs into the trash, then lower the heat on the stove so I can start a fresh batch. “Leave the cooking to me. You still need to finish telling me this idea of yours.”

Jace grabs my butt as he walks behind me and I swat at him with the spatula. He takes a seat at the bar and continues the conversation we started in the bedroom. “Your comment about wanting to hang out at the track with me all day made me remember that Hana was looking at a stack of job applications the other day.”

I crack another egg and glance back at him. “That sounds promising…” I say, more to myself than to him. Hana Fisher is the track owner’s daughter and she also works at the track with Jace.

Jace taps his fingers on the counter. “Yeah, so I asked him what they were hiring for and he said they need a front desk kind of person. Someone with administration experience who can handle phone calls and paperwork and basically all the clerical stuff that goes on at the track. Jim and Hana and everyone else have a passion for the motocross aspect of it and don’t like doing office stuff.”

“I could totally do that,” I say as thoughts of hanging out with my boyfriend at work all day play through my mind. Office stuff doesn’t sound hard. I mean, I’m one hell of a copy maker and I’m quite skilled with a stapler.

“There’s a catch.” Jace tries to give me an innocent smile when I glance back at him. “He was only looking for someone experienced and with a college degree in administration.”

I scramble the eggs with a little more force than necessary. “That’s not a
catch
, Jace. That’s a deal breaker. Why are you even telling me this when there’s no way I could get the job?”

“Babe there’s
always
a way to do
anything
.”

I cut him off with a violent eye roll and shake of my head. I am not in the mood for one of his motivational speeches.
I am not one of the kids he trains at the track. “And how exactly do I get a job that requires a degree when I don’t have one? Do you have some kind of magic wand I don’t know about?”

Sometimes I expect Jace to get angry with me when I act like this much of a bitch to him but he never does. And sometimes, like right now, his ability to remain calm makes me even more annoyed than if he had gotten mad.
“Well…?” I ask after a few moments of silence.

Jace lets out a slow breath. “I’m just waiting for you to get all of your ranting over so you can be totally embarrassed when I tell you the
details.”

“Oh gosh,” I say, already feeling my cheeks blush as I fill our plates with breakfast food that isn’t burnt. “Go on.”

Jace takes a huge bite of eggs and continues, “Jim likes you a lot and we all know he likes me. He said he’d be interested as hiring you as an intern while you’re in college. And before you give me that look, just hear me out. There’s a two year associates degree for administration. Jim said that’s all you need. Once you finish that, you can get hired on fully and have benefits and vacation pay and all that.”

I push the food around my plate with my fork. “That’s kind of an awesome idea. I could go to college for two years.
That’s not too bad.”

“I don’t know babe.
” The seriousness in his voice bothers me. “It’ll make your mom very happy and I know how much you hate doing that,” Jace jokes with me. I stick my tongue out at him. He grabs his laptop and opens it, turning the screen toward me. “Here. You can read his email for all the details. He sounds pretty excited about getting you onboard. You know how he’s all big on family and stuff.”

“But I’m not family.” I slide over in my barstool to read the email on his laptop.

“Yeah you are. You’re my family. He knows how I feel about you.”

This brings a smile to my face. “You mean he’s not one of those adults who
thinks we’re total idiots for falling in love so early?”

Jace shakes his head.
“Nope. Hana and Ash just got engaged and they’re only nineteen. He’s freaking psyched about it, but who can blame him? His future son-in-law is a professional motocross racer.”

“Wow, they got
engaged
?” I ask, feeling a tiny tingle of jealousy pierce into me. Hana is really nice and a fun person to be around. I’m happy for her. I would love to be in her position…only with Jace and not her boyfriend. He’s nice too, but a boyfriend with dreadlocks? Ew. 

Jace nods with his mouth full of food. The boy has already cleaned his entire plate and I’ve barely touched my breakfast. He motions to the laptop for me to read. “I’m going to get dressed for work. You should look up that degree again on the BCC website and see if you’d like to do it.”

An entire five minutes pass as I read the email and then check out the college’s website again before I have a Becca moment and realize that I’m currently on Jace’s computer with his email logged in and I have no desire to snoop around on him. I guess that’s what makes Becca and me different when it comes to keeping a relationship strong.

I am not a snoop.