Seconds later, the bathroom door opened, and a dripping wet James Williams strolled out.
“Hey,” I greeted him as I took in the sexy sight.
“Kim left?” he mumbled as he grabbed a pair of boxer briefs and socks. He dried off, not bothering to cover himself.
I tried not to check him out, but I couldn’t help it. “Yeah, she’s gone. She said she’s going to go to the police station before her class.”
“That’s good. If she tells them she saw you,”—he glanced at me— “that’s going to help. It has to.”
“I’m praying for a miracle.”
Wordlessly, he sat on the other side of the bed to put on his socks.
“Jay?”
“Yeah?”
Eyeing his profile, I waited for him to look back at me. He didn’t. “Are we okay?” I asked quietly.
His jaw clenched. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
I cocked my head to the side. “Jay…”
He put on his shirt. “What’s up?”
“Can you look at me, please?”
He turned his body so that he was facing me. He didn’t say anything, but I could see it all over his face.
“We don’t lie to each other.” I moved so that I was within arm’s reach and put my hand on his. “Aiden and I kissed. That’s it.”
He ripped his eyes away from mine and stood. “It is what it is.”
My brows furrowed. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Why?”
“Because you seemed… I don’t know. You didn’t seem okay after Kim said…what she said.” I paused. “Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say? You want me to tell you that I’m happy for you?”
Although I was sensitive to how the situation went down, I had a lot on my plate, and I didn’t plan for anything to happen.
“No, it’s not that. But I don’t know. I feel like we should talk about it.”
He pulled on his sweatpants roughly. “There’s nothing to talk about at this point, right?”
I folded my arms. “Jay—”
“Because I remember asking you what happened with him and you didn’t mention it then.”
My mouth hung open, but words didn’t come out.
I didn’t tell you because of all the other stuff going on, I argued in my mind.
After he put on his sneakers, he looked up at me. “But we don’t lie to each other, right?”
“Jay, it wasn’t like that.”
“I told you, it is what it is.” He grabbed his wallet. “I’m heading to class early.”
“There’s a lot on my plate right now and this thing with you and me just happened last night,” I reasoned as I followed him down the hall. “I didn’t say anything about Aiden because it didn’t matter in the whole grand scheme of the story.”
With his backpack and his duffle bag, he gave me one last look. “Alright, Brooklyn.” His tone was flat and his expression even flatter.
Just before I could respond, there was a knock at the door. Jay looked out the peephole and shook his head.
“Must be for you,” he muttered as he swung the door open.
There was a man with a bouquet of at least two dozen red roses staring at his clipboard. “Hi! Delivery for Brooklyn Cage.”
Jay took a step back and I walked forward.
“I’m Brooklyn Cage,” I stated as I approached him.
“These are for you.” He handed the bouquet to me first and then tried to hand me the clipboard. “And I need you to sign here.”
I couldn’t hold the bouquet and the clipboard and almost dropped them both.
“Here,” Jay sighed, taking the bouquet from my arms.
“Mr. Black says he’s sorry about what happened at Gino’s yesterday,” the delivery man said unnecessarily.
“Wow,” Jay muttered.
I quickly signed the paperwork and shoved it back into his hands. “Thank you,” I told him through clenched teeth.
Closing the door, I looked at Jay who had an unreadable look on his face. “Here are your flowers. I have to go.”
“I don’t know what this is about,” I stammered with my eyes wide.
He shrugged. “It’s about what happened at Gino’s apparently,” he said as he walked out.
I stood in stunned silence, clutching my flowers, staring at the closed door.
I sighed loudly. “Great,” I grumbled, placing the bouquet on the kitchen table. I plucked out the card. “Forgive me. Aiden.”
With an even more dramatic sigh, I showered and then spent the rest of the day in the office completing schoolwork. If I had any chance of getting any of that financial aid loan money, I knew I had to prove that my grades didn’t take a hit during the transition. My head started hurting during the late afternoon and by the evening, it was throbbing. I hadn’t heard from Jay or Kim, but I had two missed calls from Aiden. The entire day stressed me out and I needed to breathe.
I took two pain pills, grabbed my crate, and searched for my journal. As I was digging around, I noticed a bunch of stuff that wasn’t mine.
Did Jay grab the wrong crate?
I went to the other crate and found my journal and started writing. I couldn’t get through a paragraph before I felt like I was having my very first migraine. I turned the light off and got comfortable on the futon. I just needed half an hour in complete silence and darkness to feel better.
Five hours later, I woke up with a blanket draped over me and a bonnet on my head. I didn’t have a bonnet or a blanket with me when I fell asleep, so I knew Jay had returned home and covered me up. I wasn’t sure why
