Page 31 of Trip Through Your Wires

Chapter 6

Jenica

I’m wide awake and it sucks because I really want to go downstairs and lay into the person responsible for my not being able to sleep. But with the music still on in Cruz and Ellery’s room, I’ll have to wait a while longer to confront said person, which only irritates me more.

Damn Ellery and those thoughts she put into my head yesterday about Jake. I would have never paid any attention to him talking to a girl at a party. They always talked to him, and he always talked back and I didn’t care. Why would I?

But no, she just had to put that little bug in my ear and now I couldn’t stop thinking about everything she said. Not to mention that redhead at the party. The way she looked at Jake, it was like she knew him, knew him, and the idea made my cheeks burn to the point I turned to the next guy who looked my way.

Matt—or was it Mitch—was everything I loathed. Simple, narcissistic, boring… Just listening to him go on and on as we made our way downstairs took effort. With Jake I never had to pretend. He had this way of making the most mundane seem interesting. Even the night we met his ease was disarming. It’s why I ripped him a new asshole, truth be told. Most guys came at me head on with a confidence that was nauseating. But not Jake. His bright, genuine smile and charm intrigued me.

How dare he start shit with me then flash me that same sexy smile and leave. I mean, I asked him a simple yes or no question. How hard would it have been to say, ‘no, I’m not fucking anyone,’ and leave it at that? I answered him. Why couldn’t he do the same? Unless the answer wasn’t no, and he worried I would close up the all you can eat buffet between my legs.

When the music coming from Cruz and Ellery’s room finally stops, I push the covers off me, and storm toward the door. Pulling it open slowly, I peer down the hall, and when I don’t see any light coming from under their door, start down the hall in the opposite direction.

Once I make it to the stairs, I hurry down to the main level and loop around, taking the next flight to the lower level. When I reach Jake’s door, I don’t bother to knock. I know it’s open.

Slipping through the door, I close it behind me and stand there in my cut-off tank and pajama shorts. He’s right about the cold tonight. At the party I didn’t notice because I was dancing and the frat house packed. But now, even with the carpet in his room and heater on, a chill curls around my toes, sending goosebumps down my arms.

“Are you going to stand there all night shivering or are you going to get into bed?” he asks with a yawn.

I hurry over to the bed and reach for the comforter, yanking it back. “Shut up and scoot over.”

He laughs as I crawl in, and burrow under the covers like a squirrel. Wrapped in his flannel sheets that smell like leather and Irish Spring, my body starts to warm up.

Once the goosebumps fade, I poke my head out of the sheets like Punxsutawney Phil and look at him. “Better?” he asks cheekily.

Light from the moon slices through the egress window above the bed and cuts across his face. Seeing him lying there with one hand behind his head and a smile on his face I almost forget that I’m annoyed with him. Almost.

“No,” I reply with a grumble.

“If you’re so cold, why didn’t you just stay in bed?”

“You know why.”

“Yeah,” he laughs and turns his head up toward the ceiling. “I know why. The question is, do you?”

I push up, keeping the comforter close to me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He exhales and turns his head toward me. “It means that anger you’re feeling, there’s a reason for it, and it’s not the cold.”

“Oh yeah?” I push up more. “And what is it I’m so angry about?”

“You’re jealous.”

“Jealous?” I scoff.

“Yeah,” he pushes back, “jealous.”

“Funny. I seem to recall saying the same thing to you earlier.”

“Yeah,” he nods, “and I’m man enough to admit you were right.”

“What?” I sit up all the way, comforter falling away. “Now you admit you were jealous. What changed between then and now?”

“Everything,” he says matter of fact.

My mouth falls open but no words follow because I don’t know what to say.

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