Chapter Six
Jake
For the second time in my life, I had to sit Brenna down and tell her what an asshole fuckup I had been, and this time I told her face-to-face, so I had to actually watch all of her happiness crumble away and see her eyes get teary and blink hard.
I had to tell her about how I drank even though I didn’t want to, and how one drink turned into more than I could count faster than I could control. I had to figure out how to tell her about Caroline and skinny-dipping and my idiotic rescue, and I tried to make it sound less damning than it was, but also tell it fast, like ripping a tooth out by root instead of wiggling it slowly when you were a kid. When even the painful things were pretty simple.
When she finally opened her mouth to say something back to me, her voice was cracked and scratchy, the way I hated to hear it. Because I really did love her more than I could say, more than I could get a handle on. And that meant that seeing her sad or upset for any reason tore into me, and I hated it.
And when I was the cause of her pain? I hated myself.
“So, are you and Caroline a thing? Were you a thing?” She was holding her eyes open too wide, a trick she used to keep from crying. My heart seized and stuttered.
“Never. Not for one second.” I tried to make her hear the truth of it in my voice. “Listen to me, Brenna. I saw her totally naked, and I didn’t feel a thing. Not one fucking thing, okay?” I looked at her eyes. They shone kind of blue, kind of green, clear and pretty. Usually all I could focus on was how gorgeous they were. Now they just shifted and darted away from my gaze, frantic with all that hurt.
“She’s pretty. I mean, it’s stupid to lie and say that you didn’t feel anything. Any guy would have been turned on by her.” Brenna grabbed her hands in her lap and twisted them.
I knelt in front of her, laid my head on her lap and took her hands in mine. “I’m not any guy, Brenna. I’m your boyfriend. I’d be crazy to want another girl. It was a mistake. A big mistake.”
“Do you think you have a drinking problem?” she said slowly. “Like maybe you have, I don’t know, like, some kind of alcoholism and that’s why you drink so much when you don’t want to?” She rushed the words, like she wanted to push them out of her mouth before they left a permanently bad taste in it.
“Bren, I was just stupid. Once. I don’t want to drink anymore, and I won’t. Okay?” I was trying like hell to reassure her. I’d worried about telling her this for weeks, and now here I was, doing it and hating it, but at least it was getting done.
“Okay.” She swallowed hard, then looked at the door. I turned and looked too, but there was no one there.
“What is it, Bren?” I rubbed my thumbs over the soft skin on her knuckles. This girl even had great knuckles.
“I just haven’t seen my mom since your grandmother took her. It’s weird.” She pulled in a long, shaky breath, and I realized she needed comfort, needed to get away from what had made her so sad. From me.
Brenna’s mother was kind of a constant worrier. She hovered over Brenna all the time. Not that I was complaining; if I had a daughter like Brenna, I’d guard her with a shotgun.
But I’d witnessed first-hand how the rules changed at Mama D’s house. Everyone lived in this responsibility-less, plastic happy bubble, and anything bad that happened, like a girl almost drowning, just got resolved as quickly as it could and was appreciated for all the drama it created.
“This place is like a casino.” I smiled at her, slow and cautious to let her know I wasn’t trying to cop out for being a dick earlier. “You can get sucked in and lose track of time. You want to go find her?”
“Do you think everyone’s being nice to her?” Brenna’s voice coasted out, small and muted.
I rubbed her hands again, loving how soft they were. “Yeah, Bren, as nice as they’re capable of being. They’ve been waiting for three weeks for your mom to show up, so they’re all going to be bugging her. You know she’s probably giving a lecture in front of some old oil painting of ugly kids somewhere.” This time when I put a smile out there, Brenna returned it. Then a laugh tripped out before she could hold it back, and my heart felt fuller than it had since I had said good-bye to her before she went to Ireland.
She pulled me on the bed with a gentle tug and we snuggled close in the block of afternoon sun on the bedspread. Her shiny, good-smelling hair was tumbled all over the pillows. It looked like dark honey.
There was something powerful about Brenna. When I was around her, it was like life suddenly got smoother, cleaner, more focused, and generally better. I’ve never been good with words, and talking about Brenna was basically impossible for me. It was always tricky for me to describe the way I felt about her.
All of that was going through my head, and the fact that her skin looked so soft, and her mouth was so pink, and she was smiling this smile that walked between the lines of being innocently sweet and dangerously sexy. Her eyes were wide open and looking right at me, and she blinked slowly, letting her lashes flutter a little. I have no clue why her lashes would have turned me on so much, but they were like a hot button that she knew just how to push.
So I rolled over and kissed her, letting my body press down on hers. She was all soft curves, dips, and creamy skin. I kissed her as slowly as I could, because if I didn’t wrap my head around being slow and precise, I sometimes got scared that I would just bust out and maul her. Even now, my hands were everywhere on her, unsnapping her bra, rubbing her neck and holding her head, moving down her back, and then down her stomach. The pace was based partially on pure giddiness at seeing her again after weeks apart, and partially on total relief that she was willing to let me hold her and kiss her after my colossal screw-up with Caroline.
“Jake.” The whisper of her voice made my brain crash. I had never felt like I wanted anything as badly as I wanted her. But, of course, I couldn’t give in to that.
Brenna’s virginity was really important to me.
It sounded ridiculous when I thought it out, but that was the absolute truth. I had been so stupid about sex and girls, and had been with so many it was insane. She wanted to have sex with me, but I didn’t know if I could do all the right things for her. If I’d ever been with a virgin before Brenna, I didn’t know it. And even if I’d known, I could guarantee I wouldn’t have cared too much. Probably wouldn’t even have remembered her name. Because then I was doing it for simple animal comfort. It meant nothing.
I didn’t want to have any trace of that with Brenna.
That didn’t stop me from doing other things. Hey, no one ever called me a saint, and nothing on this earth could make me happier than making Brenna happy.
I let myself kiss her down her body, along the smooth column of her neck, down under her loosened bra. I loved how she sucked her breath in hard. I loved her boobs, soft and full and perfect. My girlfriend had a lot of great qualities, and I wasn’t about to gloss over the physical ones.
I sucked on her skin until she was squirming under me. She had on this great short skirt, so short there was nothing for me to push up when my hand moved along the inside of her thigh. My fingers reached under her panties, and I could feel how wet she was. It was exciting, to the point where I had to close my eyes and take a couple of deep breaths to keep from turning into a horny beast on her.
All of this might seem kind of elementary for a guy with my past, but it was actually pretty much the opposite. There was never any foreplay before. Even my idiot move this winter, sleeping with that dumb girl from my math class, Nikki, hadn’t involved any of this.
I didn’t know if Brenna realized that in some ways, I was ten times the virgin she was.
I found the little bead of her clit and rubbed at it, my fingers slick from her. I loved seeing how fast and hard she breathed. I loved how she curved her spine up off of the bed and pushed her hips at me so fast. Then her eyes opened and she grabbed at me and moaned and kissed me, and I could feel that she was coming.