Page 30 of Jump

“Uh-huh.” I stop by the door and glance back, though she’s still facing her friend. “And a dark lake that someone who just drank six coolers of nasty alcohol might drown in. It’s not safe, kiddo, and Axe would be the one responsible for pulling your stupid ass out of that water. Do you think that’s something he’d like to do?”

“Inspiration strikes.” Slowly, seductively, she spins on her stool, and grins when our eyes meet. “If I cry out for help, you’re saying my man and I can take a midnight swim, he’ll be paid for it, and I still get my happily ever after?”

“No.” I knock my knuckles against the doorframe and continue into the hall. “But thanks for pointing out the flaw in my plan. I’ll send Ivy for you instead. Then you get to stand on the grass, sopping wet, freezing cold, and all alone.”

I head into my bedroom with Vivian’s perfect blue eyes burned to the backs of my eyelids.

“Two drinks each,” I call out. “Not six. And if you’re flirting with some dude named Jase and his buddy, I’m telling Axel.”

“I’m not the one who’ll be flirting!” she shouts back. “It’s called a blind date, dummy, and it was supposed to be a surprise for Viv. Thanks for ruining it.”

My fucking pleasure.

I drop onto my bed so the springs squeak and my book bounces, and pounding my pillow into some semblance of a comfortable shape, I exhale a heavy sigh and look up at my ceiling.

Why do I care if Vivian’s out on a date tomorrow night? Dressed up, buzzed on booze and live music, with calm water at her back.

That band is a notorious aphrodisiac for the women in this town, making them swoon, and fuck me, we’re both screwed if Jase’s friend turns out to be a soldier. On Veteran’s Day.

She’d practically owe him a sultry smile and kind words.

Hannah’s laughter from the kitchen is like a thousand tiny stab wounds to my chest and torso. Paper cuts. Mere annoyances, but I yank my pillow from beneath my head and, instead, crush it to my face.

If I smother myself to death, I never have to worry about who Vivian is smiling for. If I asphyxiate, I never again have to wonder why looking at Vivian makes me think Ainsley would be mad at me.

Guilt is like mold. Silent and deadly. Creeping through the foundations of what was once strong, weakening the structure until eventually, the place becomes uninhabitable.

The more I breathe in this mold, the less I can breathe at all. The harder I try for fresh air, the more potent the guilt, until I’m in my room, hiding under a pillow and crushing my eyes shut, because in one beat of my heart, I see Vivian’s striking blue eyes, but in the next, I see Ainsley.

Vivian. Ainsley. Vivian. Ainsley.

Two completely different women, with different lives, different looks, different personalities, and different fates. But both have wreaked havoc on the foundations I once considered unbreakable.

Ainsley was loud, confident, and strong. And Vivian… is planning to ‘slut up’ and go out drinking tomorrow night while I’m on shift.

“Fuckkkkk.” My voice is muffled by my pillow, thankfully not carrying along the hall and alerting the girls to my pathetic mental episode. “Goddammit.”

I can’t take on a second woman to worry about. Not now. Not after the last.

I can’t do it a second time.

But I’ll be damned if I stick to the firehouse tomorrow night and not go see firsthand that she’s safe and not floating in the lake that was, at one time, the backdrop to our intimacy.

* * *

Hannah leaves the apartment sometime around eight. I don’t say goodbye, and she doesn’t come to my room to torment me.

The living room television flickers to life around ten past, and the soft exhale of a woman exhausted flitters along the hall until it reaches my ears and somehow touches the tips of my fingers.

I want to get up. Go hang out. Pretend we can somehow be friends—though fuck knows, I’m incapable after our history, short as it was.

Knowing this about myself, I change position on my bed instead. Set my hands beneath my cheek and close my eyes. Focus on me. Stop imagining what Vivian’s version of ‘slutted up’ looks like.

Is it a short skirt? Tiny shorts?

It’s not a golden gown and high heels, I’m sure of it.

So maybe jeans and a tight shirt. A crop top. A bodysuit that hugs her perfect curves and shows off exactly who she is beneath the fabric.

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