Page 85 of Flipping the Script

He nodded. “Exactly.”

We stood there for a few beats, staring at each other as a dozen unspoken questions hovered in the air around us.

Dropping his gaze to the floor, Jesse skirted around me and left the room, theclickof the door latching as loud as a whip as it closed behind him, leaving me alone.

Woodenly, I went to search out the tissues so I could clean up the mess, and myself, before things got any more uncomfortable or harder to scrub off.

I’d fucked Jesse in his childhood bedroom while his entire family and a good chunk of their friends enjoyed a birthday party downstairs.

That hadn’t been on my radar of things that would ever happen, but it had. And like he’d said, it was bound to happen at some point. It was best that we got it over with before things got any weirder between us.

Now the real trick was going to be avoiding Jesse for the foreseeable future.

Not forever, but at least until I sorted out the jumble of emotions and thoughts crowding my already busy head.

12

JESSE

“Why areyou here and not at your new place?” I asked my brother, who was sprawled on my couch, his thumbs tapping on his phone screen as he texted with someone.

“Huh?” He rolled his head to look at me.

“I asked why you’re here and not enjoying your new apartment.”

“Because I’m spending quality time with my big bro.” He shot me a big, cheeky grin.

“Quality time with your phone is more like it,” I said dryly. “Who are you texting? Hannah? You could just go home and talk to her in person.”

“It’s like you don’t want me here or something.” He made exaggerated sad eyes at me.

“Yeah, those don’t work on me,” I reminded him. “I’m immune to your charms.”

“You say that, but here I am, texting on your couch after eating all your food.” He pointed to the mess of empty containers littering the coffee table.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

It wasn’t unusual for Adam to come over when Hannah was out or working late. My brother wasn’t good at being alone, and I’d noticed an uptick in his visits in the last month or so. Ever since Pops’ party.

An entire month had passed since I’d let Sebastian fuck me in my childhood bedroom, and I hadn’t seen him since.

It was a good thing. It gave us a chance to cool off and forget all about whatever was going on between us.

But it was still weird. It was the middle of summer and our mutual friends were hosting parties every weekend, but Sebastian was nowhere to be seen.

I’d done my best to not ask after him but had heard from both my brother and Hannah that he was really busy with work, and that was why he wasn’t being social.

That was bullshit, though. I talked to Ben on the regular and we’d met up last weekend. He’d said things at work were calm and steady, just the way he liked.

He hadn’t mentioned Sebastian explicitly, but he mentioned they hardly got any fans or lookie-looks at the shop now, and the atmosphere was way better for everyone.

I didn’t even know why I was so bent out of shape over any of this. It was exactly what we’d agreed needed to happen. What I’d wanted after our last hookup. We’d fucked whatever that was out of our systems and had gone back to the status quo.

So why couldn’t I forget about it? Why did I keep thinking about it? About him?

The sex had been amazing. Hands down the best I’d ever had.

I’d rather slide down a banister covered in broken glass than admit this, but Sebastian had been right. The reason it was so good was because it was the first time I’d surrendered control to someone else and just let myself be in the moment.

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