Page 49 of Always Been You

"Ethan and I hooked up," Jess whispered and then held her breath waiting for Ali's reaction, but her friend didn't have one.

For a moment she was disappointed, but then she remembered the instructions she'd given her less than five seconds earlier. This sex brain she was running on was no joke.

"Okay, you can have a little reaction," she modified.

"I mean..." Ali's eyes darted up to hers before returning to her beanie. "I kind of figured that you would."

Crap. Jess had forgotten that she'd never told Ali this was a fake relationship. At least that's how it started. Jess wasn't sure where they stood now.

After the first night of debauchery she'd gone to the convention and returned around midnight. Ethan ordered her up food, they ate, talked, and then made sweet love until the sun came up. They sat on the balcony of the room and watched the freaking sunrise. All of her life she'd wanted to live in a John Hughes movie, and that's exactly what she'd felt like she'd done last weekend.

They'd caught a few hours of sleep, or at least she had. Ethan had been awake when she passed out and had woken her up in time to shower, they'd checked out of the hotel, grabbed breakfast, and then drove back to Whisper Lake. When he dropped her off, he told her he was on call for the next forty-eight hours. He'd texted a few times with updates of where he was, but she hadn't seen or talked to him since.

And she missed him. Her body ached for him. And she had to talk to someone about it. About all of it.

"Remember how I told you not to have any reaction or make any sudden movements?"

Ali's brow wrinkled as she slowly said, "Yeah..."

"That's back in effect."

"K." Ali nodded in agreement.

"Ethan and I aren't a real couple."

"What?" Ali looked up at her. "You just said you guys-"

"I know." Jess nodded, and she spoke at a very low volume as she continued doing a double stitch. "We did. But the whole us being together was a show. He proposed that we pretend to be a couple to get the matchmakers to back off. He didn't want to spend his entire summer having random run-ins with Laura or Kennedy or whoever else they threw at him."

"Okay, I get why he would want that arrangement, but what are you getting out of the deal? Wait." She grabbed Jess's arm. "You said that you two hooked up. Is that what you're getting out of it? Was your proposal the indecent one?"

Jess looked at her friend like she'd lost her ever-loving mind. "No. I didn't tell him that I would pretend to be his girlfriend to get him into bed. I can't believe you thought that."

Ali just stared at her.

"Okay, that does sound like something that I would do, but no, that's not what I’m getting out of this."

Well, it kind of was, but that wasn’t all she was getting out of it.

Ali looked at her expectantly.

Jess figured if she knew it was a fake romance, then she might as well tell her about the dance. Mrs. Weathersby knew about it. Why not Ali?

Jess felt her lips turn up. "He's doing the nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner dance with me for the talent show."

Ali's eyes widened, she gasped audibly, and then her hand flew over her mouth catching the attention of several women in the room.

"Seriously?" Jess said flatly, as she turned her attention back to her knitting to hopefully project a move-along-nothing-to-see-here vibe. "That's what gets the big reaction?"

"Sorry," Ali said quietly, and Jess could hear the smile in her friend's apology. "I've just never seen him dance."

"He's not bad." Jess had been impressed with his moves. So was Miss Penelope.

Thinking of the way his body had moved against hers on the dance floor had her thinking about how his body moved against (and in) hers in the hotel room. Even though she’d heard the theory that hotel sex was hotter than regular sex, she had a feeling that it would be just as hot with Ethan no matter where they were.

And she was anxious to find out. But she wasn't sure if that was going to happen. Was Chicago a one-time, or five-time thing? Would they continue hooking up as long as they were pretending to be together? Or would it go back to business as usual?

She liked to have answers in her life, not questions. Control was a big deal to her. It was something that she hadn't had over her health, and as a result, she didn't like to relinquish it in any other areas of her life. And when she was with Ethan, the last thing she felt was in control.

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