HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER.
That’s what’s coming from my mouth right now as Jarrett stares at me from his side of the bed, brows furrowed, lips pressed together in a thin line. He’s not amused, and nothing he said was funny, but I can’t stop laughing.
It’s a nervous habit I’ve always had. I’m not good with handling serious situations. Anytime I’m uncomfortable or freaked out, I crack a joke or laugh uncontrollably. In both situations, I piss someone off.
And Jarrett is the last person I want to make mad.
Throwing the covers off, he shakes his head and leaves the bed. I instantly miss him, especially as his tight ass stalks toward his closet. Reaching out, I try to fight the giggles. “Wait, Jarrett.” Still giggling. “I’m sorry.”
“This isn’t fucking funny, Jess. Not anymore,” he snaps, hastily stepping into a pair of boxer briefs and yanking them up to his hips. My eyes are glued to the deep V of his lower abdomen still left exposed, the one I was dragging my tongue across just moments ago. Before Jarrett asked me—in all seriousness, my hands grasped in his as he kissed my knuckles—to be his girlfriend.
His legit girlfriend—not a fuck buddy, not a friend with benefits, not something we don’t title. He wants it all.
And I don’t think I can give it to him.
“I know,” I say, clearing my throat. The early morning light is trying to break through the navy blue curtains of his bedroom, bathing us in the cool glow of dawn. Another fit of laughter threatens to break loose but I twist my face to fight it down. “It’s a nervous habit. I can’t really control it.”
He sighs, pulling a pair of jeans off a hanger and throwing them on just as quickly as his boxer briefs, the metal hanger still flailing against the others. “I don’t understand why you even hesitated when I asked. Are you not essentially my girlfriend already?”
“You know it’s not the same.”
“Oh? It’s not?” He fastens his belt and then slowly crosses the room to me, sitting on the edge of his bed and framing me with his fists pressed into the comforter. “Do you want anyone else? Do you want me to be with anyone else? Do you think about me every minute you’re not with me? Do you see me in your future? Do you want me here with you in your present?” His dark eyes drink me in, begging for me to argue with him. I can’t. “Can you honestly answer ‘no’ to any of those questions? Even one?”
I’m not laughing anymore.
My breath leaves my chest in a slow exhale along with one word. “No.”
“Then fucking be with me,” he pleads earnestly, the veins in his arms protruding. “I’m tired of this game. You’re mine. I’m yours. I want every fucking person in our lives to know that. And I don’t want to have to watch you leave my house every morning wondering if you’ll come back again.”
My breathing accelerates and I pin my bottom lip between my teeth. He makes it sound so easy. Just be with me. But it’s never that easy. What if the whole reason he loves being with me is because he doesn’t have me—not really, not all the way? Or what if, just like how I gained my nickname, I tell him yes, then tell him I love him, and eventually he’s gone—just like all the others. Jarrett is possessive over me now, I can’t imagine how that would transfer into him being my actual boyfriend. Would he let me go to fraternity parties without him? Would he want to meet my parents?
“You’ll lose your job,” I try, knowing it’s the bottom line from my list of excuses.
Jarrett scoffs. “The semester is all but over, Jess. I’ll have a new job within the next few weeks.”
“Still, this could damage your reputation.”
“It won’t. We started dating after I was your teacher, not during that semester. And I wasn’t even technically your teacher. I’m a student. A grad student.”
“But I’m still here. I have years to go. Don’t you want to find a successful woman with her shit together?” Even suggesting he be with someone else makes my stomach lurch.
Jarrett pushes back from where he was angled over me and runs his hands over his bald head, his eyes on the bathroom door. I watch as the tattoos on his arms flex with the movement. They seem angry at me, too.
“Fucking Christ, Jess. How many times do I have to tell you?” He drops his hands to the bed, exhausted. His chest is heaving as he connects his eyes with mine. Suddenly, I’m too aware of my messy, freshly-fucked hair and what I’m sure is smeared makeup. I tuck my knees up to my chest. “I want you. I haven’t looked at a single other fucking woman since the moment you strolled into the bar looking for me. You didn’t know it that night, you didn’t know it was me you wanted, but I did. I knew it when I saw the look in your eyes and the determination in your walk. I wanted you then, I want you now, and if you just fucking let me in—” His voice cuts off, his fists tightening.
An unfamiliar sting hits my nose and eyes but I sniff it away. Am I about to cry? Oh hell no. I’m Jess Vonnegut and I do not do emotions—not like this. I have too much shit going on with Ashlei right now as it is. I should be focusing on how I’m going to help her out of the disaster she’s found herself in, not on this. Why do we have to figure all of this out right now?
“I thought we were fine the way we were. The way we are. Why isn’t this enough for you?”
He pauses, a long, slow breath expelling from his lips as he stands. “I don’t know. I thought I could do this, not put a title on it, just be whatever we are. But I can’t anymore.” He crosses back to his closet and tugs a long-sleeved button-up down, shrugging it over his shoulders. On the third button, he stops, peering up at me with a pained expression. “I love you, Jess.”
I swallow.
“I do,” he continues, his fingers working the buttons again. “And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same. But I need this from you. I need you to be mine—completely.” He’s still getting dressed, as if the words slipping from his lips in the process aren’t life-changing. He snaps on his watch and grabs his nice shoes, the ones he often wears to class. It’s Friday, so he’s a little more casual than usual, but just barely.
“And if I can’t?” I sit up on my knees, pulling the sheets over my still-naked chest. “Would you rather not have me at all if you can’t have me as your girlfriend? Does the title really make that much of a difference to you?”
He halts at his bedroom door, his back to me, shoulders taught.
“It’s not just a title. If it were, you wouldn’t be fighting it as much as you are.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. Somewhere, deep inside my gut, I feel my own soul screaming at me to tell him yes. But I can’t.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He sighs, snatching his keys off the small table just outside his bedroom door. “I don’t have to, you already know the answer.” With that, he crosses the apartment and swings open the front door. His hand gripping the knob, he lifts his eyes to mine again, the space between us deafening. “So?”
My heart races so fast I have to balance my palms on the bed to keep myself upright. I’m not ready to be his girlfriend. I can’t be his girlfriend. It’s too much, it’s too fast, it’s too uncertain. I want what we have now, but he’s saying that’s not an option any longer. Why? What changed? My head is spinning, the room following suit. When my wild eyes find his again, I know I don’t have to answer his question, either.
He bites his bottom lip, eyes falling to the floor as one, short laugh echoes through the apartment. Jarrett shakes his head swiftly and turns, calling out behind him. “Lock up before you leave.”
He doesn’t slam the door. He doesn’t need to. It’s there, sitting naked in the sheets still warm from sex, that I realize I’ve been fooling myself all along. Jarrett and I have always wanted different things. How stupid could I have been to think we could just avoid our questions simply because we already knew the answers?
I almost call out for him but stop myself, thinking better of it. Instead, I whisper to myself.
“He loves me?”
A smile touches my lips before reality chases it away. Jarrett loves me, but he’s asking me to love him back. He’s asking me to give more than we agreed on. We made a deal last semester, and that was working for me. I thought it was working for him. And now, because I won’t be his girlfriend, I can’t have him at all.
My stomach lurches and I sit up, planting my bare feet on the floor, letting the sheet fall to the side. I need a clear mind today and I know I’m not going to get it. I’m meeting with Ashlei in an hour to finalize our plan for Xavier, and yet now, there’s only one thought in my head.
Can I really let Jarrett Locke walk out of my life?