Page 33 of Thick & Thin

“No. I’m not going to forgive you because you didn’t do anything wrong. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me. I don’t know what came over me, but I had no right to take advantage of you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not an innocent in this. Stop treating me like I’m helpless female. That’s not what’s happening here.”

He nodded. Then he pulled out a bag of gummy bears and tossed them at my chest. “Forgive and forget?”

I smiled, hugging the bag to my chest. “Forgive and forget.”

Except I wasn’t sure I wanted to forget anything.

10

Josh

I wasn’t sure I wantedto forget kissing Jenny.

I didn’t want to forget the way she begged me to touch her. The way she felt wrapped around my fingers, warm and wet. And when she came. Fuck. I had jerked off every night since to the expression on her face.

The relief.

The shock of something feeling so good.

This wouldn’t do. I couldn’t keep this shit up. I had kept myself busy, working until I was showering and passing out at night, but I would be leaving soon, and I wasn’t about to leave Jenny feeling the things I was feeling without saying anything to her.

It was time.

Sure, the timing was terrible since we were leaving each other soon, but before she took off to Texas and surrounded herself with guys who I was sure were going to be all over her, I wanted her to know I was hers.

Always.

We went inside and ate lunch together at Momma’s kitchen table, and when Genie and Jimmy got home, Jenny left and went back to her place. Things were okay between us again, but I wasn’t sure I wanted just okay.

I wanted the fire of that night at JJ’s lake house.

I wanted her begging me and the feel of her holding me close.

That night when I went to bed, I jerked off again with my eyes closed and her expression as she came on repeat in my mind. And when I unloaded in my palm, I imagined I was coming deep inside Jenny and her legs were wrapped around my hips.

Afterward, I lay there, staring at the ceiling and thinking about her and our lives together until I fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke, sure of what I was doing. I was leaving for basic in a week. A week was plenty of time to get adjusted to more than friendship. I was in love with Jenny. Hell, I had loved Jenny almost all my life, but I had fallen in love with her over the past two years.

Mom cooked pancakes for breakfast, and I shoveled them in, ready to get over to Jenny’s place and tell her everything. I was done being afraid. I was going to put it out there and see where the wind scattered it. And if by some chance it didn’t work out the way I hoped, we had weeks of me being at basic to move past it.

I was pumped and ready to spill my heart to Jenny, except when I pulled up to her house, her entire family was there. Devin’s truck was outside. Janice’s, her dad’s new girlfriend, car was there. I could hear laughter coming from inside the small house.

It was a terrible time to confess my love to Jenny. I would do it before I left for basic, but not at that moment.

Instead of getting out of my truck, I put it in reverse and backed out, knowing that I might never have the courage to tell her about my feelings again. By the time I got back to my house, I found myself relieved that I hadn’t had a chance to speak to her.

What was I thinking?

I could confess later. Not days before I was leaving for basic training. It had been a terrible idea.

Later.

Another day.

Before she left for Texas, for sure.

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