Page 32 of American Sweethearts

“Wow that’s pretty tired.” She didn’t sound mad though. “You could just say you want a repeat of the other night.” Something in her voice told me there was a lot more to it than that. She was looking for something and if I didn’t get this right, I’d put us back where we’d been before the wedding.

I closed my eyes and struggled with what to say. I didn’t want to play games with Priscilla. “I have a feeling that if I say something out of pocket, I’m going to get iced.”

Her face got serious then, and my heart thumped hard against my chest. “Damn you really have changed, J.” Her tone wasn’t exactly friendly, but it was definitely not salty either. It was as if she was still trying to process what had happened with me.

“I just don’t want to play around, and also don’t want you to think I just want you to come over so we can jump into bed.” I lifted a shoulder, feeling decidedly out of my depth. “I want to spend time with you.” I raised both hands up in a gesture that was pretty close to supplication. “I’m up for whatever you’re up to, Priscilla. No strings, no catch. I miss you.” To my utter fucking humiliation, I choked up on that last part. But I didn’t look away. I wanted her to know I meant it.

She dipped her head in a hard nod, as she fiddled with her phone case. “Let’s do it. It sounds like just what I need, actually.” She almost flinched at whatever she remembered. “I’m too hyped to sleep.” I thought she was done, but then she looked up again and her smile was real and big. “Thank you, J.”

She leaned into me and gave me a chaste kiss on the lips, but she lingered there just a moment longer than I expected and my dumb heart was beating so fast I was sure she’d heard it.

When she pulled back, she still looked mad happy. I didn’t punch the air, but shit, I wanted to. “Okay, let me lock up and I’ll see you at mine.”

I was going to let Priscilla set the tone and the pace, but I was not going to waste a chance to let her know her being back in my life was my foremost desire. Never again would I let her walk around not being certain that she was everything I wanted.

chapter twenty-two

priscilla

I was on the elevator going up to J’s house, and even though I would nevereversay it out loud, it hadn’t taken very long for me to feel right at home in his building. He’d given me the entry code, so I’d made my way up without having to get buzzed up. I wasn’t going to make a thing out of the fact that I was looking forward to hanging out with J. I didn’t want to ruin it by telling myself we would only end up hurting each other, or worse—that this would be the time we wouldn’t be able to come back from. No, I’d needed this ease and I was going to enjoy the fact that I’d been able to turn my evening around after a shitty end of the day at work. I was tired of handling everything on my own.

Juan Pablo and his new zen thing had gone a long way to put me at ease tonight and I was not going to question it. I didn’t want to go back to my place, which was comfortable and had what I needed, but didn’t exactly feel homey, even after being there for almost a year. It wasn’t like me to not make a space my own, but lately I didn’t seem to feel settled anywhere. Tonight, doing the workshop, being in a space where I could help people feel more in tune with themselves and their sex lives had refilled my very empty well. I loved it, and it was getting harder to ignore that recently, a few stolen moments working on my side hustle was what got me through most weeks.

As I pondered that very unpleasant reality, my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket, right as I got to J’s floor. I stepped onto the hallway as I read a message from my mother.

Call me, m’ija. Just wanted to know when you’re going to be home for Christmas.

I sighed and immediately felt guilty. Lately, speaking to my mother was something I dreaded, and I felt shitty about it. About all of it. I didn’t have to wonder why. I knew. It was because half the time she wanted to hear about the job. How the promotion prospects were going. How I was putting away the bad guys. Honestly, I didn’t have the energy. The other one, of course, was the fact that she’d ask where I was and I’d have to either lie to her or tell her I was at J’s and that wasnothappening. Instead of answering, I put my phone on vibrate and rang J’s doorbell.

If anything came up from the job, my work phone always had the ringer on.

As soon as J opened the door, my shoulders loosened. If I’d been a more reasonable person, or at least the me from a year ago—who seemed somewhat better equipped in not actively looking to fuck myself over—I’d have taken it as a warning and taken my brown ass home. But that Pris seemed to be out to lunch and the one in her place had her nose wide open and was not shying from the almost certain mess in her future. At this point, the only thing keeping me from doing something incredibly dumb with Juan Pablo was the bloating and all-around PMS discomfort. Basically I was back to my teenage years levels of self-control.

“Hey, come in.” He’d had a bit of a head start. I’d gone by my place to drop off my stuff and change out of my work clothes, so he was leaning on the doorway wearing a tight long sleeve Henley and sweats that were ridingverylow. I could see the jut of his hipbones, which alerted me to the fact that my eyes had made it further south than was advisable.

“Hey,” I said, as I walked past him, doing everything I could to avoid eye contact. Still without looking at him, I handed over the bottle of wine I’d brought from home. “I picked up some of that Garnache we discovered on that trip to Ithaca.” Reminiscing about trips to see my parents was the opposite of sensible, and yet here we were.

He gripped the bottle and as he pulled away, his long fingers flickered over mine, and no that was not a fucking shiver.

“Thanks.” His voice was low, like he could tell I was mad skittish and didn’t want to scare me off. “Let me go open it. I don’t know what you want to watch, but I’m up for pretty much anything. Other than horror, you know I don’t fuck with scary movies.”

I rolled my eyes as I sank down on the long end of his sectional and grabbed the remote. “Holy shit, Juan Pablo, how many buttons does this thing have?” I asked, baffled.

He laughed and got busy pulling glasses out of the cabinets and opening the wine. “You’ll figure it out.” He actually wagged his finger at me like the big cornball he was.

I scooted up so I was sitting closer to the lamp and tried to figure out how to turn the TV on. “Please tell me you sawGet Out,” I said, while I finally got the giant flat screen on the wall to turn on.

“Hell, no. I couldn’t sleep just from the trailer.” I turned to see him walking in with two glasses in hand. He looked genuinely freaked out just from talking about the movie, and it was so fucking adorable. I wanted to forget the wine and the movie and kiss him silly. I teased him instead.

“J, that’s like mandatory. Milo didn’t make you watch it?”

He sucked his teeth and carefully handed me the glass before sitting down next to me on the couch. I was not going to get all in my feelings about how this was like the old days, because that would not get us anywhere productive.

He took a long sip of the wine and made a big show of turning on the gas fireplace before he responded. He had his index finger in the air.

“First of all, Camilo is not the boss of me. His ass is blessedly too busy running Tom’s life to be all up in my business.” His thumb popped up and I was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “Second of all, he knows those movies give me nightmares, and unlike some people—” this time he raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips right in my direction “—hetakes people’s triggers seriously.”

Wow, this therapist was not messing around.