Page 72 of The Way We Fell

“You’re insane.” I try to tell myself that lying by omission doesn’t count, that if I don’t say anything at all, no one can accuse me of being untruthful, but Jay might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and keeping that from my best friends hurts more than I ever imagined.

We turn around to survey the room.

“Maybe. What’s stopping you, though? You’re young, single and gorgeous. He’s—well, he’s single and gorgeous, at least. Not so much of the young. But would you look at that ass.” She holds up her glass in a toast as Jay stretches over the kitchen counter in front of us, giving us a top-tier view of the way he fills out his jeans to perfection.

“Ruth would kill me. Remember what she said? No vaginas near her brother?”

Amie snorts. “He’s a grown man, Katy. I bet he’s seen plenty of vaginas in his life.”

“Who’s seen vaginas?” Paloma returns, shoving her freshly-refilled glass at me and clinking it against mine. “Whose vaginas are we seeing?”

“Might have known you’d come running at the mention of vaginas.” Amie tips her head to rest on Paloma’s shoulder.

“What can I say? I prefer pretty kitties to hot dogs.”

The mouthful of wine I’ve just taken threatens to make a reappearance through my nose as Amie slaps between my shoulder blades. Paloma raises an eyebrow and takes another drink.

“Little bitch,” I growl with feigned malice once I finally regain my composure.

“Why are you on the boring bubbles, anyway?” Paloma clinks her glass against Amie’s before her eyes widen comically. “You’re not—are you—”

“No!” Amie flaps a hand at Paloma, hissing quietly. “No. But I promised Cam I’d drive tonight so he can have a drink with his buddy for his birthday… if he promises to do this thing with his tongue—”

“I love you, but I don’t need to hear this.” I stretch on my tiptoes and kiss her cheek before doing the same to Paloma—who has to bend at the waist and lean in before I can reach—and crossing the room. I find Cam and Jay leaning against the breakfast bar, deep in conversation, with Ruth and her parents on the other side of the counter, inspecting a small jar of something.

“Surely not—tell me you’re not serious.”

“Oh, I’m serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”

Jay guffaws at Cam’s apparent joke—which makes absolutely no sense to me—and claps him on the shoulder. I shake my head as I sidle up to them.

“How’s it going, boys? Happy birthday, Jay.”

I watch his throat bob as he swallows, eyes roaming the room and avoiding me entirely as he fights to feign indifference. It’s not quite his birthday yet, but I’ve already wished him a happy one twice—once, when I sent my favourite of my boudoir pictures to him at lunchtime, and again when I arrived at Ruth’s and he opened the door to let me in. But I’ll say it a hundred times more if it means this yearwillbe a happy one for him.

“Thanks,” he says, not quite looking me in the eye. Cam watches him with curious suspicion.

“Hey, Katy.” Cam grins. I try really hard not to think about what Amie just told me as he stoops to press a quick kiss to my cheek. “How’s school going?”

“Good!” I say, relaxing a little as he tugs me into a sideways hug. I beam up at him with his arm slung across my shoulders. “I have a ton of reading and essays on my to do list, but I love it.”

“I’m glad.” He grins down at me. “I always knew you’d find what you love. Speaking of which, I’m gonna go find my girl.” With one pointed glance at Jay, Cam drains the bottle in his hand and leaves it on the counter before pushing off in search of Amie, leaving me with a quiet Jay.

“Hey Princess,” he whispers softly, glancing at his parents across the kitchen and keeping his voice deliberately low so they can’t hear over Ruth’s ever-present Taylor Swift soundtrack. “That dress is nice. You look hot as fuck.” He keeps his eyes on the rest of the room as we talk, to all the world casual and unaffected by my proximity. But I see the way his fingers flex and grip the neck of his beer bottle tighter. The way his shoulders straighten as his posture stiffens. The way his nostrils flare slightly and his eyes shimmer, darkening as he tries to act casual.

“You look gorgeous.” I return his compliment, training my eyes on my wine glass. I’m not so good at pretending to be unaffected—not when Jay’s cologne surrounds me and my second glass of wine is stoking a nice warm fire in my belly.

He does look fucking gorgeous. His hair is artfully styled with a little of the wax he’s taken to using recently. His usual scruffy stubble has been neatly trimmed. He’s dressed in black from head to toe: a long-sleeved tee with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, showing muscled forearms and the usual watch and handful of leather and rope bracelets on his wrists, and black jeans which hug his strong thighs to perfection. They’re better than the Wranglers on the cowboys that used to live in my imagination. I don’t dream of those men anymore. I have my own now, although he’s less cowboy and more hero. But he’s all mine.

Several hours later, after a few more glasses of wine and plenty of gourmet chicken nuggets, Jay and I leave Ruth’s flat separately, only to reconvene around the corner and share a cab to my house. By the time we stumble through the door, laughing at the memory of one of his dad’s awful jokes, it’s after midnight.

“Happy birthday, love,” I whisper, grabbing the back of his head and pulling his face down to meet mine. His tongue darts out against the seam of my lips and I open for him, enjoying the way the flavour of the wine I drank earlier mixes with the beer on Jay’s tongue. He moans as I suck his tongue into my mouth, nipping at his lower lip and sliding my hands down to cup the back of his neck.

“Have I told you how pretty you look tonight?”

I hum as his lips find their favourite spot on the underside of my jaw.

“Because you look so fucking beautiful, Katy. Always so fucking pretty, but today—tonight—fuck.” He backs me against the wall, steadying himself with one hand against the wall beside my head and the other on my throat. He applies gentle pressure as he uses his thumb on my chin to adjust the angle of my head to kiss me again, and it’s enough to leave me breathless. The way this man kisses me is beyond every erotic fantasy I’ve ever had. I return his kiss fervently, all the words I can’t say on the tip of my tongue as he slides his own against it.

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