CHAPTER 16
“What are you doing here?” Ali’s eyes widened when she walked into the community center room and saw Jess.
Jess looked around at the other women seated around her. “I’m here for knitting club.”
“Yeah,” Ali’s response was in the affirmative but her head was shaking no. “But you’re early.”
“Oh, right, I am.” Jess chuckled. She managed to be on time for some things, but she’d never been early for anything in her life. “I needed to talk to you. In private.”
Now it was Ali’s turn to scan the area around her. “Um, do you want to go somewhere else?”
“No. Just sit down.” Jess patted the chair beside her.
She and Ethan got back to Whisper Lake two days ago, but Ali had still been sick. Today was the first day she was feeling better, and they’d both had to work. This was the first chance that she’d gotten to speak to her since her wild weekend in Chicago.
Her friend sat and got right down to business. She dug into her bag, grabbed her needles and yarn. The Needlepoint Mafia had strict rules about the meetings not being “social visits.” They took their knitting seriously, so both girls cast on before Jess leaned over to Ali.
“I have to tell you something, but don’t have any reaction.”
“Okay.” Ali’s face was blank. Comically blank.
“And no sudden movements.”
“Is this a stick-up?” Ali teased.
“No. I just don’t want you to draw any attention to us.”
“Got it.” She looked down at her hands as she worked on one of the beanies that she sold in the shop.
“Ethan and I hooked up,” Jess whispered and then held her breath waiting for Ali’s reaction, but her friend didn’t have one.
For a moment she was disappointed, but then she remembered the instructions she’d given her less than five seconds earlier. This sex brain she was running on was no joke.
“Okay, you can have a little reaction,” she modified.
“I mean…” Ali’s eyes darted up to hers before returning to her beanie. “I kind of figured that you would.”
Crap. Jess had forgotten that she’d never told Ali this was a fake relationship. At least that’s how it started. Jess wasn’t sure where they stood now.
After the first night of debauchery she’d gone to the convention and returned around midnight. Ethan ordered her up food, they ate, talked, and then made sweet love until the sun came up. They sat on the balcony of the room and watched the freaking sunrise. All of her life she’d wanted to live in a John Hughes movie, and that’s exactly what she’d felt like she’d done last weekend.
They’d caught a few hours of sleep, or at least she had. Ethan had been awake when she passed out and had woken her up in time to shower, they’d checked out of the hotel, grabbed breakfast, and then drove back to Whisper Lake. When he dropped her off, he told her he was on call for the next forty-eight hours. He’d texted a few times with updates of where he was, but she hadn’t seen or talked to him since.
And she missed him. Her body ached for him. And she had to talk to someone about it. About all of it.
“Remember how I told you not to have any reaction or make any sudden movements?”
Ali’s brow wrinkled as she slowly said, “Yeah…”
“That’s back in effect.”
“K.” Ali nodded in agreement.
“Ethan and I aren’t a real couple.”
“What?” Ali looked up at her. “You just said you guys-”
“I know.” Jess nodded, and she spoke at a very low volume as she continued doing a double stitch. “We did. But the whole us being together was a show. He proposed that we pretend to be a couple to get the matchmakers to back off. He didn’t want to spend his entire summer having random run-ins with Laura or Kennedy or whoever else they threw at him.”
“Okay, I get why he would want that arrangement, but what are you getting out of the deal? Wait.” She grabbed Jess’s arm. “You said that you two hooked up. Is that what you’re getting out of it? Was your proposal the indecent one?”
Jess looked at her friend like she’d lost her ever-loving mind. “No. I didn’t tell him that I would pretend to be his girlfriend to get him into bed. I can’t believe you thought that.”
Ali just stared at her.
“Okay, that does sound like something that I would do, but no, that’s not what I’m getting out of this.”
Well, it kind of was, but that wasn’t all she was getting out of it.
Ali looked at her expectantly.
Jess figured if she knew it was a fake romance, then she might as well tell her about the dance. Mrs. Weathersby knew about it. Why not Ali?
Jess felt her lips turn up. “He’s doing the nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner dance with me for the talent show.”
Ali’s eyes widened, she gasped audibly, and then her hand flew over her mouth catching the attention of several women in the room.
“Seriously?” Jess said flatly, as she turned her attention back to her knitting to hopefully project a move-along-nothing-to-see-here vibe. “That’s what gets the big reaction?”
“Sorry,” Ali said quietly, and Jess could hear the smile in her friend’s apology. “I’ve just never seen him dance.”
“He’s not bad.” Jess had been impressed with his moves. So was Miss Penelope.
Thinking of the way his body had moved against hers on the dance floor had her thinking about how his body moved against (and in) hers in the hotel room. Even though she’d heard the theory that hotel sex was hotter than regular sex, she had a feeling that it would be just as hot with Ethan no matter where they were.
And she was anxious to find out. But she wasn’t sure if that was going to happen. Was Chicago a one-time, or five-time thing? Would they continue hooking up as long as they were pretending to be together? Or would it go back to business as usual?
She liked to have answers in her life, not questions. Control was a big deal to her. It was something that she hadn’t had over her health, and as a result, she didn’t like to relinquish it in any other areas of her life. And when she was with Ethan, the last thing she felt was in control.
So, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if she adopted Vegas’s motto and decided what happened in Chicago, stays in Chicago. Then at least she’d be in control. She’d be clear on the rules. She wouldn’t be wondering if he was going to call or stop by. She could take back the reins of her emotional life.
At this point, she wasn’t sure what her emotions were doing. Especially after the bombs that Ethan had dropped on her about his childhood and being her first kiss. She wasn’t sure why those changed things for her, but they did. They’d connected in a way she’d never experienced with anyone, and that was before they got naked.
Her mind was so busy trying to categorize and compartmentalize what had transpired between them that she wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. The next thing she knew she was getting rapped on her knuckles by Mrs. Chen.
“You dropped your stitch. Do it again.”
Mrs. Chen loved playing the role of taskmaster, but out of all three of the women that ran the club, Jess was most intimidated by Mrs. Dobrinski.
Mrs. Chen lifted her cane and pointed it at Jess’s chest. “Nice shirt, Miss Myers.”
“Thanks.” Jess glanced down at her shirt. It read “Knitting Takes Balls” and it featured two balls of yarn over her tatas.
When she’d received the invitation to join The Needlepoint Mafia, she’d agreed, even though she’d never picked up a pair of needles in her life for three reasons. The first was because her best friend’s life had just imploded when her brother died, and she’d been roped into joining the club that even with two twenty-eight-year-old women it only brought the members’ average age down to the mid sixty range.
And second, was because if she wanted to have a thriving beauty business in Whisper Lake, then she needed the support of the knitting club demographic.
And third, was because she got to wear these punny shirts. It brought her joy on several levels. Jess had always been a fan of a good pun. She came by it honestly. Her mom was the pun queen. And just beneath that surface of enjoyment was the faces on the women when she did wear them.
Some of them acted as if they didn’t like the more shocking ones, but Jess called BS. They loved the drama of a rebel in their midst.
After examining their projects, Mrs. Chen moved on to harass, er um, help other members.
When she got far enough out of ear range, Ali leaned in closer to Jess. “Okay, so, you guys hooked up, does this mean that you guys are together now?”
“No idea,” Jess answered honestly.
“Do you want to be with him?”
“No.” It was the first answer that popped into her head, but that was quickly followed by, “Yes.” She sighed. “I don’t know…it’s complicated.”
“Well,” Ali sighed. “If there’s one person that can un-complicate it, it’s you.”
She was glad her friend had faith in her. That made one of them.