Page 41 of Please, Sir

“Next time you wanna take my girl somewhere and do something that requires a parent’s signature, call me, Miss Rivers. That’s all I ask.”

She nods, nibbling seductively albeit absentmindedly on her bottom lip. “Yes, sir.”

I leave, harder than a ton of bricks, and for the second time today, my mind is stuck on a little silver hoop.

Only this time, it’s Miss Riley’s.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

“I told you.”I don’t need to physically be with Leah to know she’s gloating, with a huge smirk on her face and her feet stacked on her desk.

“I don’t even think you did him justice,” I breathe, recalling every single detail of the last few weeks to her over the phone. After Jake left, I took a cold shower and it had nothing to do with the six miles I ran before he showed up. It also had nothing to do with Michael, and wantingto wash every molecule of his scent off my skin. “He’s…” I go speechless when I reflect on Jake Turner, because that’s what he does to me. Scrambles my brain, reprograms my thoughts, and makes me chase my body’s most carnal urges.

“Exactly,” Leah sighs. “He’s….” and she trails off, too. “Okay, so then what happened?”

I’m grateful she got us back on track, otherwise I’d be happy to sit in a silent dreamy state thinking about Jake. “Oh yeah,” I straighten my spine against the couch, reaching for the remote to muteWhen Harry Met Sally. It’s not like I need the volume or the closed captioning–I’ve seen it so many times, I know every word by heart. “So,” I refocus, remembering the exact place I left off. It was a crucial place, and some of the details are just for me. “He asked a lot of questions about Michael. You know, who he is, why he is here, all that. Then I reminded him that he showed up to yell at me and at that point, Leah, I just wanted to get it over with, you know? I wanted to just… get yelled at so I could take a shower and eat two thousand calories in my bed in peace.”

“Understandable. So, did he? Yell at you?”

I pluck at a loose thread on my college throw blanket. “He firmly told me that, in the future, if I want to take Jo Jo to do something that requires a parent’s signature, that I need to call or text him first.”

Leah sighs. “Oh Jesus, who cares about the belly button—did you guys kiss?”

“What?” I rear back, my voice climbing to a pitch I’ve never reached. “No! Why would we kiss?”

“Uh, gee, Riley, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re absolutely gorgeous, he makes primetime Pitt look like a catcher’s mitt and he showed up at your house asking about your ex.” She sighs. “He likes you, Riley. So, do what the kids do and…tap that ass.”

This, among many reasons, is why I love Leah. “Tap that ass? The kids,” I say, “do not say that. I’m pretty sure no one has said that since 1999.”

“You get my point, wise ass. He likes you.”

While Leah knows about the splinter, and knows that I dropped Jo Jo off and met Jake for the first time, she has no idea about his pendulum, beer can-sized dick—nor does she know that he kind of grinded that thing against me in my kitchen this morning. Or that I basically forced him to touch my boob. Oh god.

Those little bits are just for me.

Because when Jake Turner ends up not asking me out and never looking at me again, I’ll still have those little moments, just for me. In my brain. Privately. For safekeeping.

Part of me wonders if Jake does like me, but what kind of absolute psychopath grinds his big dick against someone if they don’t like them? I mean, I know total womanizing scumbags exist, but I highly doubt Jake is one of those. Especially since Jo Jo has told me that her father doesn’t date.

“No,” I answer flatly as my lips tingle. “We did not kiss. In fact, he just kind of left and I’m not sure what to do next.”

Leah sighs. She’s good at that. “Well first and foremost, for the love of everything holy, please don’t take any more students to tattoo shops and give your consent on behalf of their parents.”

“Noted.”

“Now. I say… sit back. He likes you. You also have a bond with his daughter and if that isn’t the most Hallmark thing I’ve heard, I don’t know what is.”

On screen, Harry and Sally run into Harry’s ex-wife in a department store, shattering Harry’s heart. “Can you believe Michael?” I say, hating that he’s in my mind again. I worked hard to get him out of my mind. In fact, I was just starting tofeel like–even though stuff with my parents is complicated–I could move on. It’s like he can read my mind and isn’t happy that he fucked me up once but needs to weasel his way back in and fuck me up again.

Not happening.

“Fuck Michael. Back to what I was saying,” she says, “because you deserve to talk about and be excited about Jake. You do not deserve one more toilet-circling Michael conversation. Seriously.”

She’s not wrong, and I don’t care about Michael. But now that he showed up, I can’t shake the discomfort of his visit, the emotional cramp in my guts reminding me that he hurt me and my parents took his side.

I chew at the sore spot inside my cheek for a minute before deciding she’s right. Even venting about Michael pays him more than he deserves. “Back to what you were saying,” I agree, relaxing into my couch a bit now that I’ve mentally committed to not discussing the Michael portion of this morning.

---