CHAPTER 11
I will not snoop. I will not snoop. I will not—
Crap.
Jessa couldn’t stop herself. She snooped.
She scowled at her own behavior and lack of self discipline as she stood in front of the open medicine cabinet in Will’s bathroom.
She’d only wanted to see if there was room in there for her toothbrush. At least that’s what she told herself.
If that were the truth, it didn’t explain why she held her breath as her gaze swept the contents. She was looking for any remaining evidence of Sara because, obviously a masochist, Jessa liked to torture herself.
In spite of her self-destructive searching, she didn’t find anything of her sister’s. Only Will’s stuff occupied the sparsely filled shelves. A razor, some shaving cream, deodorant, aspirin, dental floss, nail clippers. Nothing earth shattering. No surprises.
Not even a box of condoms, for which she was enormously grateful. That would have been TMI.
Still, her pulse raced. Looking for trouble was stressful. But she had to give Will credit. So far it appeared he’d purged the apartment of Sara pretty completely.
Well, except for that pesky door lock code.
She huffed out a breath over the memory of having to punch in her sister’s birthday, as well as at the thought that Will did it every day, maybe more than once.
Closing the mirrored cabinet door, she turned and took in the rest of the space.
It was clean and neat. The towels matched and looked fairly new. And she was happy to see they were in a nice masculine navy blue and not pink or floral or something that would have indicated Sara had been the one to choose them.
Jessa really needed to get over this obsession. Sara was gone and she was here . . . at least for the time being. Until her place was safe or Will returned, whichever came first.
The fact remained, Will had wanted her to stay at his place so she could get some rest and that’s what she should be doing. Sleeping late this morning because she’d been up most of the night. Not getting up at the crack of dawn after barely a few hours of rest and snooping.
She moved from the bathroom, across the living room and into the bedroom.
Inside she was once again reminded how tidy Will kept his place.
When she’d arrived here in the middle of the night, the bed was even made, which was a bit of a surprise since she knew he’d rushed to his grandfather’s hospital bed on a moment’s notice.
The only indication that he’d been in a hurry was the open closet door and the hamper filled with laundry that he hadn’t taken the time to do before leaving.
Jessa briefly entertained the idea of washing the contents of the hamper for him until she saw the boxer shorts half hidden beneath the T-shirt.
Yeah, no. Washing a man’s underwear, a man she wasn’t dating or married to, had to be crossing some sort of line.
Putting that idea out of her head, Jessa turned toward the bed and stared at it.
She’d dozed on the sofa in front of his television for a few uncomfortable hours. Meanwhile there was a perfectly good bed empty and waiting.
Why was she hesitating pulling back the comforter and sheets and climbing in? Why did it feel so strange, so intimate, to slide between the sheets that Will slept between?
Would the bed smell like him? Like that combination of deodorant, soap and pure clean male?
She leaned down and pressed her face against the pillow, drawing in a deep breath and realizing she was crazy and should leave immediately.
A woman gone enough over a man to sniff his pillow should definitely not be spending a night in his bed.
But dammit she couldn’t go home. The only reason she’d even had the nerve to bolt the distance from her apartment door to her car was because she saw a police car cruise through the parking lot.
At least the 9-1-1 operator had taken her call seriously enough to forward the report to the local police. At the site of that cop car, Jessa hadn’t wasted any time.
She’d already thrown what she’d need in her overnight bag so she made a run for it while the coast was clear of black-clad scary men. She certainly wasn’t going back there at this time of night. She’d just have to suck it up and deal with the specter of Will in bed with her.
If only he were in bed with her.
Stop it! She mentally chided herself, climbed into bed and forced her eyes closed. She’d get to sleep tonight if it killed her.
Jessa did eventually drift off only to be woken by the ringing of her cell phone some time later.
Groaning, she saw the sun had risen high in the sky and it was time for her to be rising as well, even if she hadn’t gotten more than a handful of hours sleep.
Forcing her weary brain and her sleepy eyes to focus, she rolled toward the nightstand and grabbed the cell.
Lo and behold Sara’s name was on the display.
That woke Jessa up.
Eyes wide now, she answered, “Hello?”
“Hey. I wanted to get you before you left for work. I think I left my quilted jacket in the closet of the apartment. Can you look and send it to me?”
As if Jessa didn’t have enough to worry about, didn’t it figure that Sara would decide to call now while Jessa was camped out at Will’s place?
She shouldn’t feel guilty about being in his apartment. Nothing was going on. He was just helping her out because her apartment wasn’t feeling all that safe at the moment.
“Um, yeah. I’ll look when I get home.”
“Where are you now?”
Crap. Jessa realized her mistake immediately. She was too tired for this conversation. “I’m, uh, not home right now.”
“Where could you be? It’s like the crack of dawn.”
It was not the crack of dawn. Jessa had already seen the crack of dawn while trying to fall asleep in Will’s bed.
By the look of things, it was currently full morning. Daylight filtered through the blinds. She heard morning traffic out in the street.
The world was awake and moving—and that’s what she should be doing. Moving. Getting out of Will’s apartment before she got comfortable there.
Jessa took a shot, hoping Sara’s inability to reason eastern versus central time still held. “No, it’s not that early here. Remember, you’re in a different time zone now.”
“Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting.”
“I know. It’s okay.” Phew. Breathing out in relief that had worked, Jessa decided it was time to get off the phone before Sara could come up with more questions to trip her up. But then something struck her. “But wait. I don’t remember seeing your jacket and I just cleaned all the closets in the apartment.”
Nervous energy—not to mention pent up sexual frustration—made for a very organized space. Was that why Will’s place was so neat? Jessa drove that thought out of her mind and focused back on the call.
“Oh, no. Did I leave it at Will’s?” Sara asked.
Lips compressed tightly, Jessa hauled herself out of Will’s bed and stalked to the closet by the front door—the one closet she didn’t peek in last night.
Not feeling at all bad about it, she yanked open the closet door. There was nothing in there but some manly looking coats. Definitely not Sara’s bright orange quilted jacket. That Jessa would have spotted.
Will had said everything of Sara’s was out of his apartment and in the bag he’d brought over.
It was probably in there. But how could Jessa tell her sister that not only were all her belongings currently in a trash bag stashed in the bottom of her closet, but that Jessa hadn’t bothered to send it to her because she was feeling pissy and petty and refused to spend the money for shipping?
She couldn’t, so she decided to lie, which she realized she was doing far too often lately. “Actually, you know what? I remember now. I didn’t get through the one closet. I bet it’s in there. I’ll check and if it’s there, I’ll mail it to you right away.”
“Okay. Thank you so much.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Sara said.
Jessa didn’t believe that was true. Not one little bit.
Phone calls with Sara were few and far between and always initiated by Jessa, except for when Sara needed something, as evidenced by this call. But while Jessa’s life—and feelings—were so complicated right now, it was probably better that way.
“All right. Bye.” Jessa disconnected the call and felt the overwhelming relief.
Why she’d felt the need to lie about where she was she didn’t know. It wasn’t like there was anything going on between her and Will.
Yet.
The word flew unbidden into her brain and she realized exactly how much she wanted there to be more between her and Will. And how bad it would be if there were.
She didn’t want to be the rebound girl. Nor did she want to be that girl—the one who swooped in and scooped up her sister’s ex the moment they broke up.
But what she wanted or didn’t want didn’t matter anyway because so far, even though Will had been incredibly sweet and helpful and generous, that was where it ended.
As far as Jessa could tell, he had no interest in her as anything other than a friend.
She sighed. His lack of interest sucked but that at least would save her from herself. Because apparently when it came to Will Weber self control was futile.
Jessa flopped back onto the pillow, turned her head and drew in the scent of him one more time.