Page 41 of Jesse's Girl

“It’s okay, Ada, you don’t have to show me. I was just curious.” His reassuring words belie his obvious confusion. He searches my face, like he’s trying to figure out why I reacted so strongly to an innocent question.

Well, that makes two of us.

“It’s just personal, I guess. Whatever.” I shrug, flipping my hair over to one side and rolling my eyes, trying my best to act aloof.

Maybe if I make every nonchalant gesture at the same time, I’ll actually feel it.

I wait for the aloof to kick in. It doesn’t.

“Okay,” he chuckles. “I guess… once a weird art kid, always a weird art kid, right?” He throws a light punch at my shoulder as he passes me on his way to the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I reply, cringing internally.

Brilliant response.

“You working tonight?” he asks, his back to me as he stares into the fridge.

“Not tonight. But Katie’s coming over for a bit to watch a movie.”

“Cool,” he says, turning to face me with a soda can in his hand. He holds my gaze as he shuts the fridge door behind him and pulls the tab. The schick-hiss sound echoes off the nearly bare walls in the otherwise silent apartment.

“So, uh… when do you think you’ll be home?” I pause for a moment, then think better of the question. “I mean, if you even come home, right? Hot date and all.” I pump my eyebrows, instantly regretting it. The thought of Jesse staying out all night with some woman he just met sits heavily in my chest.

“Uh,” he says slowly, like he’s thinking carefully about what I just implied. “No.”

I give him a questioning look. “No?”

“That’s not really my style.” He shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink.

“What isn’t your style?”

“Fucking on the first date, I mean.”

I push down a flood of mental images suddenly fighting to the forefront of my mind—for God’s sake do not look at his body right now—though I can feel my skin flushing as he watches me. Despite my burning cheeks, I relax a bit at his reassurance. “Alright. I just thought?—”

“I’ll be home tonight,” he says, cutting me off. His expression is serious, like he’s making me a promise.

“Okay,” I say quietly.

He seems to give himself a mental shake and heads for the door. “Catch you if you’re still up?”

Katie and I are a bottle and a half deep in cheap rosé with the credits of The Princess Bride rolling in the background. She’s sprawled across the loveseat and I’m slumped in one of the folding chairs, balancing a mug of wine on my bare knee.

“Does it feel weird living here now?” she asks, shifting to sit up a bit, her drink held aloft as she rearranges a throw blanket over her bare legs.

“What do you mean? Like, without you?”

“I mean, yeah. I guess it’s just kind of… empty.” She glances around the room. “Without my stuff.”

“Yeah. Jesse doesn’t really have much since he’s not staying.” I shrug.

“Right.”

“So, what’s it like living with Jesse?”

“Yeah, what’s it like living with Jesse?” His deep voice comes from behind me.

I nearly jump out of my skin and almost fall off my chair as I spin to face him, the wine in my system not helping me steady myself. “Fucking hell, Jess!” My heart thunders in my chest. Clearly, neither of us heard him come in.

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