Jesse
When I’d gotten home and Mom had told me that Millie was at Rowdy’s with Sarah, I knew that I had to go and see her. I needed to tell her right away what I’d decided before I lost my mind and talked myself out of it. Then, when I walked in and saw that douche’s hand on her, I was in no doubt that I’d made the right decision.
“Jesse,” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“To get you and take you home. Now get your things.”
My eyes remained on the douche, daring him to say a damn word.
“Sarah,” I snapped. “You’re coming, too.”
“Oh, Jesse,” she cried. “Stop being a caveman and sit down and have a drink with us. Trent and Corbin are doing no harm, and Zak and Pop will be here soon to pick me up.”
My eyes switched between the two preppy boys. I didn’t know which was which, but the one who’d had his hands on Millie looked about ready to say something.
“I wouldn’t,” I growled. “Nothing you can say will be a good enough explanation as to why you have your hand on my woman.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Jesse,” Millie hissed. “Corbin was just being kind.”
“Yeah really, well if being kind is his dick getting hard for you, then good for him, but it stops now.”
“Hey man,” the Corbin guy said. “She was upset, talking about you.”
I looked at Millie questioningly.
“I haven’t seen you in four days, and had no contact whatsoever in three. What did you think Jesse? That I’d hire a marching band to celebrate?”
She looked hurt and I saw now that she’d been crying, making me feel like the biggest tool on the planet. That being said, it still didn’t explain why Corbin felt the need to touch her. Fucking Californian frat boy if ever I saw one.
“We’ll talk about that when we get home,” I replied, picking up her jacket. “Let’s go.”
“No,” she spat back at me. “I’m staying with Sarah and waiting for Zak.”
I huffed a sigh and crossed my arms over my chest. I could see by the look on her face that she was not budging.
“Fine,” I sighed. “You mind?” I nodded at Corbin, wanting him to move.
He hesitated at first, but when I took a step closer, he got down from the stool and pushed it towards me. That would have made me happy, but he pulled another one over and sat on it.
“Well this is fucking cozy,” I muttered.
“Jesse, stop being an idiot.” Millie gave me a look that pretty much told me to shut the fuck up.
The next twenty minutes, while we waited for Zak, were more painful than a tooth extraction. Millie and Corbin tried to continue a civilized conversation, but I have to admit, every time preppy spoke I sighed or rolled my eyes, until in the end he gave up and suggested to Trent that they left.
When he hugged Millie and kissed her cheek, I felt like punching him, but when he offered her a place to stay if she ever went to Florida, I actually pushed up off my seat. If it hadn’t been for Zak and his pop arriving, I think there may have been a bar fight. Zak came over to me while Pop went to talk to Sarah’s brother, Dusty, at the bar.
“Hey, Jess,” Zak said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “How did Booker go?”
“Okay, got the deal I wanted. He’s going to take all of them.”
“Sheesh, well done, buddy.” Zak looked over at Sarah and laughed. She was talking at the Trent guy and giving him a hug. “She been flirting with guys for drinks again?”
I looked at him and shook my head. “And that doesn’t bother you?”
“No way. I’m betting she told them she was married and had kids, but invited them to sit down and buy her some fancy assed drink anyway. It’s me she loves, me she’s married to, and it’s me she gives unbelievable blow jobs to, so no, it doesn’t bother me.”
I could not imagine being that cool about Millie asking another man to sit and drink with her.
Zak started laughing. “We’re all different buddy, you’re a fighter and I’m a pacifist. We love our women hard, but just in a different way, doesn’t mean that either of us is wrong. Hey, baby,” he called to Sarah who was now cupping Trent’s cheek while she spoke to him. “What’ve you been up to?”
Zak went to join his wife, leaving me watching Millie as she took her turn to say goodbye to Trent. Corbin, thankfully, kept his distance, eyeing me warily. Finally, they were gone and Millie came back over to me, but she was not happy.
“What was that all about?” she snapped, snatching her jacket up and putting it on.
“He had his hands on you,” I stated. “And I didn’t like it.”
“Well you have no right to say whether you like it or not.”
I narrowed my eyes and took hold of her hand. “Excuse me? I have no right?”
“Yes, you have no right.”
She bit on her lip and I knew she was desperately trying not to cry, and once again I felt like a shit.
“Baby,” I whispered. “I have every damn right. You’re mine, I thought I made that clear.”
The words almost made me want to punch myself in the balls. Running away and not speaking to her for almost four days was not me making it clear that she was mine. It was the total opposite, but that’s exactly what I’d been thinking at the time. Push her away and she’ll soon forget about loving me. I didn’t want what she was offering, because if I took it, what I’d had with Melody would’ve been a lie.
It had only taken a three hour drive to make me realize that, but I was such a dickhead I’d waited three more days to tell her. Seeing another man’s hand on her was even stronger proof that whatever had been going through my head four days ago was, in fact, a crock of shit. What I’d had with Melody had been different. We’d been younger and she’d been my first love, so it was only natural to grieve for her in the way I had. This with Millie was just as good, it was intense and deep, but it didn’t take away from what I’d had before.
Millie’s bottom lip trembled and she echoed my own thoughts. “Leaving me is your way of telling me that I’m yours. You’re joking right?”
“Nope, never been more serious in my life.”
“You fucking pig headed idiot,” she cried and slapped my face. “I absolutely hate you.”
With that, she turned on her heels and stormed out, leaving me with a smarting cheek.
“I did tell her to slap you next time,” Zak laughed. “What did you do this time?”
“Shut up, Zak,” Sarah chastised, slapping at his arm. “You need to go after her, Jesse.”
“Yeah I know, Sarah. I don’t need telling.”
“Well, maybe you do, you great big lug. Leaving her here while you go and contemplate your asshole is not the way to show her how you feel. If you don’t want her, tell her, and if you do want her, then tell her, because she won’t wait forever, Jesse.”
“I know that too, Sarah.”
I rubbed my cheek and moved towards the door, stopping in my tracks and turning back when Sarah started to talk again.
“You know, some people are not always how they appear,” she said, taking hold of Zak’s arm and wrapping it around her waist. “But Millie, well she is. She’s an open book, Jesse, and what you see is what you get. She loves you, and if she didn’t, you’d know it because she’d be honest about it.”
Thinking on her words, I gave Sarah and Zak a chin lift, pushed open the door, and went to find what was mine.