Page 33 of Mom-Com
“Okay, so you know. Um, well, the other night I was watchingSleeping Beautybefore bed and I must have had the movie stuck in my head because I dreamed I was in the movie that night. But it wasn’t the Disney version. It was a really dirty, erotic version. And I may have, you know, said Phillip, the prince’s name instead of yours because what you were doing was exactly like my dream and I just kind of lost my head there for a second.” I twisted my hands nervously and found my gaze on one of the missing buttons on the floor from the front of his shirt by the time I got done spitting all that out. I couldn’t look at him, wouldn’t look at him, until my shame melted away enough for eye contact. So, like in maybe twenty years or so.
“Lily-Marie?” Jameson’s voice held all manner of expression in its tone. Intimacy, mixed with humor, coated with relief and what I hoped was still desire. “Look at me.”
I must have still been in the dream, where I would do anything my prince asked of me, because I instantly followed his instruction, finding a blazing smile on his face I’d never been blessed to see before. I was so used to his perpetual frown, the smile took me by surprise. His eyes wrinkled at the corners and the upturn of his lips softened his look, making me want to jump back on him and taste those lips again.
“Thank you for telling me.” He stepped closer, his shirt flaps still open since he had no buttons left. I could feel the heat of him from several inches away.
The list of fifty ways to find a husband was never supposed to be used on Jameson, but I couldn’t help but think of one of the ways I’d written out applied here far more than anything else I’d tried. “You know that’s totally our song now, right?”
“Our song?” He cocked his head to the side.
“Yeah. ‘Once Upon a Dream.’ Don’t worry, I’ll play it on repeat ad nauseum until you know the words by heart.” Then I realized the implication of declaring that our song. Like we were an actual couple. One interrupted make-out session did not a relationship make. “Not that we’re a couple or anything. Just that the song will remind me of that wall over there and how sturdy it is.”
The smile was gone, replaced by the frown, and I wondered what I’d said that irritated him so much.
14
Jameson
Our song.
She said that’s our song now. I couldn’t be more stoked to hear her admit that we had a song. That we had a moment. That we had a connection. I honestly didn’t think the fifty ways would ever work, but it did. Exponentially. Lily-Marie practically confessed her feelings right then.
I couldn’t wait to get back to my journal and document how I was feeling. The energy pumping through my veins while I stood there watching my woman trust me enough to confess her deepest secrets with me was indescribable. I had to document it so I could explain it to Stein. Her hair was a mess from my hands grabbing and pulling. Her lips glowed bright red and there was razor burn on her pale neck. She’d had her legs around my waist, grinding against me without a single inhibition, and she’d been close to coming, I could feel it in the way she trembled.
But then she’d said Phillip and I’d freaked out. I couldn’t have that moment with her and share it with some other man’s memory. When she screamed, I wanted it to bemyname, not some asshole before me. Of course she’d been with other men. She was a thirty-two-year-old mother, for Christ’s sake, but I didn’t want to hear their names when my cock was getting her off and I didn’t think that was too much to ask.
The fact she’d had an erotic dream only made her even more perfect. She’d been so responsive, so out of control for me she’d ripped my shirt and tugged on my hair to the point of pain. I already knew she was sweet and funny and capable, but add in the sex siren and she was every man’s wet dream.
“Not that we’re a couple or anything. Just that the song will remind me of that wall over there and how sturdy it is.”
Oh, hell no. We were most certainly a couple and I wanted to get that straight right freaking now.
I towered over her, needing her close to me, needing her to feel what I felt. To know what I knew. Her hands landed on my bare stomach, beneath the open sides of my shirt. My hands found her hips and pulled her in tight. I wanted her so badly, but I needed to tell her even more.
“Yes, we are a couple.” I gave her a quick tug, like I could shake some sense into her. “I love you.”
Her eyes widened almost comically. Had I not been in the middle of putting my heart on the line, I would have found it funny how quickly the desire faded from her eyes and fear took its place. She looked like a scared animal, looking for the quickest escape route.
My heart, so recently uncovered and cleared of dust from lack of use, took a deep dive, landing with a thud I was sure would leave bruises. She pushed against my stomach and I let her go. If she needed some space to think things through, I could understand that. It came as quite a revelation to me as well.
“Jameson.” She stepped back one foot at a time until she hit the wall. The wall she’d been up against, ravenous for me, just moments before. She shook her head slowly, the scared look morphing into almost terror.
While I thought the reaction was a little over the top, I was too elated to have discovered love to be real to worry too much about what she might be thinking. For my entire thirty-four years of life, I’d operated under the belief that romantic love didn’t exist. Together with Lily-Marie, I’d found out the truth: love did in fact exist and I was a lucky enough bastard to experience it. That kind of discovery was monumental. Not perhaps in science journals or academia, but in my own personal life, it was extraordinary.
“It’s like I’ve just discovered Santa is real,” I said out loud. I wasn’t even sure who I was talking to, but it needed to be said.
“What?” Lily wrinkled her nose at me, which was hard to see since she was all the way across the room now, basically as far away from me as she could be while still being in the same room.
I took one step toward her. “Lil—”
“Oh gosh, look at the time. I gotta go pick up the kids.” Lily-Marie looked at her wrist, which I saw didn’t even have a watch on it, and she hustled around me, giving me a wide berth, chattering a mile a minute. “Don’t want to be late and freak the kids out. I’ll just grab my keys and be right back. Don’t wait for me, I’ll make sure Stein gets into your house all right.”
She practically ran through the house, grabbing her purse and yanking the front door open. I stood there watching her, wondering why she was freaking out. She was clearly in the middle of a full-on freak-out, right? The common response to someone telling you they loved you wasn’t to run away, was it?
“Lily-Marie,” I called out. “You going barefoot?” I looked down at her feet, straddling the threshold like she couldn’t wait any longer to get out of there. To get away from me. The realization of her reaction finally penetrated my glee. And fuck, did that hurt. Like a dagger straight through the chest.
She stared at her feet too, then lifted her head with a huge, plastic smile. “Oh jeez. Nope, need shoes.” She ran back in just long enough to slip into some flip-flops by the breakfast table and then she was back out the door, leaving me alone in her house. Not even a “goodbye” or “hey, don’t forget to lock up.”
