Read Actually Love - Jessie & Zach Online

Authors: Melanie Shawn

Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary

Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (12 page)

BOOK: Actually Love - Jessie & Zach
3.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

After she patted his back twice and released him from the bear hug, her blue eyes sparkled as a cheery smile pushed her rounded cheeks. “You’ll be seeing us a lot of us because…” Holding her hands out like she was saying,
Ta-da
, she announced, “We live right upstairs.”

What the fuck?

“What?” he heard Jessie’s voice squeak from behind him.

Uh oh.

Chapter Eight

“O
kay, show of hands. I know we are all madly in love with our men,
but
who here has a small crush on Mr. Zach Courtland?” Krista asked as she raised her hand high above her head.

Jessie walked out of her bathroom, where she was finishing unpacking all of her toiletries, and found that Jason’s wife Katie, Riley’s wife Chelle, and Alex’s wife Jamie all had their hands up as well. The lone holdouts in the group of girls were herself and her oldest sister Haley.

“Really, Hales?” Krista asked suspiciously. “The man does nothing for you?”

“No comment,” Haley responded as she sat on Jessie’s bed and folded clothes.

Chelle and Jamie smiled as they turned back to finish hanging the last of Jessie’s artwork.

Katie, who was folding clothes on the bed with Haley, said, “In my experience, and I think the PR queen can back me up on this, ‘no comment’ means that it’s true.”

Haley playfully threw a sock at their cousin-in-law.

“Just FYI.” Katie threw it back at her.

Jessie had to admit that, as freaked out as she had been this morning when half of Harper’s Crossing had shown up in her kitchen, she was actually glad that they had come. Here it was it only one p.m. and almost all of her unpacking was done,
and they’d
been there to talk her off the ledge when she’d found out that her landlord, who thought she and Zach were a couple, lived upstairs.

Although giving in to dramatics was not really Jessie’s style, she had come dangerously close to a nervous breakdown. If she thought about it too much, then she still felt like she couldn’t breathe, but she was just trying to focus on the fact that she no longer had a commute. That was worth ten fake boyfriends in her book.

“Thanks for being here today,” Jessie said to the room in general.

“Does that mean you don’t want to kill me anymore for spilling the beans to Eddie?” Haley asked hopefully, raising her hands to show that her fingers were crossed.

“No, it’s fine,” she said, and to her surprise, she meant it. Seeing Zach around her family had not been as horrifying as she had feared.

Jessie actually couldn’t believe how well Zach fit in with the guys. He seemed more comfortable around her family than she did. All of her cousins and her soon-to-be brother-in-law had not simply picked up on the fact that Mabel and Margie thought they were a couple, they’d even played along with it.

After she’d been rendered speechless by Mabel’s big reveal, her cousin Jason had gotten a huge grin on his face and asked when Zach was going to make an honest woman out of her. Then Alex had said that the family had a pool of how long it was going to take for the two of them to get engaged. Eddie had said that he was going to give Zach pointers on the perfect proposal. Eddie’s proposal
had
been pretty spectacular, especially since had it included a hot air balloon ride.

Alex, of course, had joked that his proposal would go down in Sloan-family history as the best proposal ever. To which Jamie had smiled up at him sweetly and asked, “Which one? The one when you were drugged in the hospital or the one when we were in the kitchen during Joey’s birthday party?”

Alex had grinned from ear to ear and told her, “Both
.”

The only one who had been quiet was Riley. Even though Jessie
generally
didn’t care what anyone thought, her family was different. Sure, she might act as if their opinions didn’t matter to her. Mainly, it was because, no matter what they thought, she was going to live her own life. But deep down, what her family thought
did
matter.

During breakfast, which Mabel and Margie had invited themselves to, Jessie had kept slicing looks over to Riley to try and read his unreadable expression. His jaw was set. He wasn’t making small talk or laughing at anyone’s stories. She did get a little worried when she noticed his nostrils starting to flare, but luckily, his wife was like the Riley-whisperer. Chelle had leaned over and spoke softly, saying something in his ear that had miraculously done the trick. Riley immediately relaxed and joined in the conversation.

Jessie had no idea what Chelle had said to cause the one-eighty in Riley’s attitude, but she was so glad she had.

Once breakfast was over, the moving van arrived and it was a flurry of activity for a couple of hours. Jessie had forgotten just how much stuff she had in her storage unit. Having the extra manpower had come in very handy. Between Riley, Jason, Alex, Eddie, and Zach, the truck was unloaded in an eighth of the time that it would have taken the movers.

After everything was inside, the boys got busy assembling all the furniture and the girls went through the boxes. Less than four hours later, her kitchen table, dressers, bed, shelving units, and chairs were all ready to go. Jessie
loved
marking things off her to-do list and considered today a great success.

“Well…” Krista plopped down on the bed and crossed her legs crisscross applesauce. “Since you’re in a forgiving mood, I think there is something I need to tell you.”

Oh no. Jessie’s blood always ran cold whenever any of her sisters started a conversation like that. She had always equated it to how a guy must feel when a girl says, ‘We need to talk.’

“What did you do?” Jessie asked, her voice deadly serious.

“Okay, before you get mad… It wasn’t my fault.” Krista raised her hands defensively and scooted closer to Haley.

This was getting worse with every word that came out of her sister’s mouth. And the booty-scoot towards their older sister certainly wasn’t a good sign.

“Krista. What did you do?” Jessie said calmly. She never allowed herself to get upset until she had all of the information. Which she didn’t.

“Well, Chase called while Mabel and I were doing the dishes. I answered on FaceTime and she started screaming. Like
seriously
flipping out.” Krista was telling the entire bedroom of women, who were all glued to her every word. None more so than Jessie. “It was actually really cute. She was so excited to get to talk to him, and she told him that she hadn’t loved anyone as much as she’d loved Elvis until the first time she’d seen him perfor—”

“Krista.” Jessie interrupted her. She knew that going down Krista’s rambling rabbit trail was pointless.

“Right.” Krista took in a deep breath and shook her head, her red hair fanning out as she did. Then her sister bit the side of her mouth, which was what she always did when she was stalling because she didn’t know how to say something.

“Spit it out!” Jessie exclaimed.

“Margie and Mabel are coming for Thanksgiving,” Krista said quickly. Really quickly. Like, in under half a second.

“What?” Jessie had no idea what she’d thought was going to come out of her sister’s mouth, but that certainly hadn’t been it.

“I don’t know how it happened.” Krista’s eyes widened and her hands flew up in the air. “I hung up with Chase, who says ‘hi’ to everyone, by the way. He really wishes he could be here. I told him about the “
arrangement
” last night and he thinks this whole situation is hilarious—”

“Krista.” Jessie really wished her sister could stay on subject. But ever since Chase had come back into the picture, she’d turned into a lovesick teen. Which Jessie guessed made sense considering Chase and Krista had been together when they were teens, then apart for ten years, and now together again.

“Sorry.” Krista shook her head. “Anyway, I got off the phone and Mabel started asking me if it was hard with Chase being on the road, yada-yada-yada, and somehow the subject came up about when I was going to see him next. I said Thanksgiving. She asked if we had any special plans. I said that Alex and Jamie were hosting this year. And then before I knew it, bam, she had invited herself and Margie. I didn’t know what to say.”

Jessie slowly sat down on her favorite brown leather chair. The one that had been in storage for six months. The one she wanted to crawl inside of and hide.

What was she going to do? It wasn’t that she cared that the two ladies were coming to her family holiday. Well, she didn’t love the idea, but it was fine, she guessed. The issue was that they would expect Zach to be there.

First, she’d found out the M sisters live upstairs.
Now
they were coming to Thanksgiving dinner! This was getting out of control. If there was one thing Jessie absolutely did not allow in her life, it was situations that she couldn’t control. She had to put a stop to this.

“I have to tell them the truth.” Jessie stared down at her hands, which were placed flat on her thighs. She honestly saw no other way to rectify the runaway train o’ lies that had now jumped the tracks of sanity.

There were several audible hisses from the women who were all seated around the room on the bed and the floor. Jessie looked up, and if she weren’t teetering on the edge of completely losing it, she would have laughed. It was a comical sight. All five women stared back at her with different degrees of that-is-a-colossally-bad-idea expressions on their faces as they shook their heads back and forth.

Facts. She needed to base this decision on facts. Not emotions.

Luckily, she knew just the person to ask. The lawyer, of course.

Turning her attention to Katie, Jessie asked, “Legally, where do I stand if I tell them the truth? I mean, they can’t evict me over that, right?”

Katie’s face immediately switched from friend-slash-cousin to attorney. It was so funny to see that transformation in her.

Sitting up a little straighter on the bed, Katie answered, “No. I don’t believe that they have grounds to evict you over that.”

Whew. That’s a relief. Letting out a little sigh that she might be able to put the brakes on the whole thing, Jessie leaned back against the soft cotton cushion behind her.

“But…”

Of course there’s a ‘but.’

“If you were my client, I would advise against rocking the boat for at least a few months. Once a landlord decides they want you out of their property, they can make life pretty miserable for a tenant. I’m not saying that would be what Margie or Mabel would do. Still, why upset the apple cart if you don’t have to? Especially when the apples live right upstairs from your cart.”

“Okay, let’s take a vote,” Haley announced grandly. “Show of hands. Who thinks Jessie should come clean and tell Margie and Mabel the truth?”

“You can’t vote on my life,” Jessie objected.

“Of course we can.” Haley’s face displayed a ‘what are you talking about?’ expression.

Jessie looked around the room and saw that not one single hand was up. Before she could stop herself, her own arm shot up in the air. It was her life, after all.

Haley pointed at her. “Okay. One for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now, show of hands. Who thinks Jessie should play this out for a while, keep living in this
gorgeous
brownstone, and keep her well-meaning landlords in the dark?”

Every hand in the room shot up.

“Seriously?!” Jessie said with frustration brimming in her voice, her eyes darting between Jamie and Chelle. “Aren’t you two always saying that honesty is the best policy, the truth shall set you free, blah, blah, blah?!”

Both of the brunette beauties shrugged their shoulders but kept their hands raised.

“Okay. You can put your hands down. I get it,” Jessie snapped. She did not need to see the visual reminder of what everyone’s opinion on the path she should take for her own life was.

The ladies lowered their hands, and for a moment, there was an awkward silence. Then Krista said, “Okay, show of hands. Who thinks Jessie needs to take advantage of this living situation and get her freak on with Hottie McTottie Zach Courtland?”

Jessie couldn’t help but laugh. Every hand in the room flew up, except Jessie’s of course. But…they were itching to.

Chapter Nine

BOOK: Actually Love - Jessie & Zach
3.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Sleeping Dogs by Ed Gorman
arbitrate (daynight) by Thomason, Megan
Winter of Secrets by Vicki Delany
Barely a Lady by Dreyer, Eileen
Darling obstacles by Boswell, Barbara, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress) DLC
Retief Unbound by Keith Laumer
Paths Not Taken by Simon R. Green
Nobody's Secret by MacColl, Michaela