Dirty Thoughts (13 page)

This time, when he closed his eyes, he kept them closed. And he didn’t open them until he heard his front door open and close. Until he heard Jenna start her car and back out of his driveway.

And even then, when he opened his eyes, he didn’t really see anything. All his reasons for keeping Jenna away were crumbling. And all the reasons for keeping her remained, like an unshakeable foundation.

For the first time, Cal wasn’t sure which he preferred.

Chapter Nineteen

J
ENNA SLIPPED HER
feet out of her heels under the table, groaning as the pressure eased from her cramped toes.

Delilah raised her eyebrows at her from the other side of the table. “You going to take your bra off in here too? I mean, make yourself at home.”

Jenna balled up a napkin and tossed it at her. “Shut it. I had a long day. You?”

“Long, but I don’t feel the need to undress in the restaurant.”

The waiter’s appearance saved Jenna from having to think of a witty comeback. He took their drink orders, and Jenna flipped open the menu. Delilah had picked her up after work for a dinner date, which was a deviation of Jenna’s regular routine of somehow finding her way to Cal’s house every night this week.

Not that she intended to go there, but Asher would call her, or he and Cal would stop by her place on their way running errands. Asher would talk excitedly while Cal maintained a stoic expression.

Well, he tried to be stoic, but Jenna caught his eyes lingering on her when he didn’t think she was looking. He wasn’t as sneaky as he thought. The whole thing messed with her head because in her heart, there was still hope—just a little bit of hope—that this Cal would take a chance and give them a try.

Stupid hope.

“So let me get this straight,” Delilah said after they ordered their food. Today, Delilah wore her hair in a tight bun, her eyeliner in a perfect wingtip, and her lips rosy red. “The Paytons have a half-brother they never knew about?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

Delilah whistled. “That’s going to go around the Tory rumor mill faster than when Cindy Edgar slept with those twin professional football players.”

“How is Cindy?” Jenna asked.

Delilah shrugged. “Good, I guess. She’s married now to some insurance agent in town and has two kids. She came in recently and bought a dress for their anniversary.”

“Good for Cindy.”

“So, the kid?”

Jenna took a sip of her wine. “Asher’s a good kid. Sweet. Really cute. He dropped his phone in the toilet the other day, and you should have seen his face when I told him to shove it in rice. It worked, though. Phone is functional now.”

Delilah was staring at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Delilah kept her expression blank, but Jenna wasn’t buying it. “Go on. Tell me more about him,” Delilah prodded.

“Um, he’s gay and has a crush on Gabe’s little brother. Do you know Gabe? Works at the garage?”

Delilah nodded and twirled her wine glass.

“Okay, so Asher came home with a hickey, and there was a whole thing with Cal losing his mind over it, but it’s all right now. I talked to Asher, and Cal apologized, so that’s that.”

Delilah sat silently.

“Oh, come on, Delilah. What?”

Her friend shrugged. “I just think it’s hilarious that you said Cal wants to avoid the whole relationship and family thing, yet he’s doing exactly that with you and his brother without getting the benefit of you in his bed.”

Jenna opened her mouth, then closed it, and then opened it again. “But this is temporary. It’s not the same thing.”

Delilah cocked her head. “I guess it’s not, but if the idea of a family makes him break out in hives, then he sure has a funny way of showing it. Since he’s pretty much shacking up with you.”

“We’re not shacking up. I don’t sleep there.”

“Which is my point. If he’d quit acting like a brick wall, he’d at least get laid out of it.”

Jenna narrowed her eyes. “Look, it’s not that simple. I don’t know if I’m willing to do this either, you know. I thought maybe . . . but there’s so much history there. That breakup nearly broke me. You know that. So thinking of doing all that again . . . ”

Jenna knew her friend understood. Delilah had been on the receiving end of Jenna’s phone calls during freshman year in the college. The year Jenna didn’t eat. She didn’t socialize. She almost dropped out of school and came home because the ache of missing Cal was a constant hunger in her gut.

The only reason she pulled through was because she didn’t want to go home with her tail between her legs.

Even though she was ten years older now and much more secure in who she was, it scared the hell out of her to think what Cal could do to her heart again. She took a sip of her wine and shook her head, unwilling to talk about this further.

Delilah, like the good friend she was, sensed that Jenna wanted a change in subject. “So how’s work?”

Now that was something Jenna did want to talk about. “Oh, I’m glad you asked. I’m getting a company party set up—kind of an employee appreciation thing—and we’re going to have a raffle for prizes for charity. I wanted to know if you’d donate a gift card or something from your store.”

“Of course! I can put a little gift basket together, maybe with some accessories, along with a gift card.”

“That would be perfect.”

Delilah leaned back in her seat with her drink. “Other than that, how are things?”

Jenna had an odd pang in her right shoulder, probably from sitting hunched over her keyboard and holding her phone in the crook of her neck. “Good but exhausting. It’s a lot of work to plan an event and set things in motion for publicity. It’s a difficult job because a lot of what I do doesn’t yield immediate results, you know? I can’t point to a specific line item and say, ‘I brought in X amount of money.’ So, it’s hard, because people don’t always think we actually do anything. Which is the point, really. If everyone could easily pinpoint all the little things I did to improve the reputation of the company, I probably wouldn’t be doing my job.” By the time Jenna finished speaking, her back was aching, and now her head hurt.

Delilah’s eyes were wide over the rim of her cup. “You need a vacation.”

“I’ve only been there a week and a half,” Jenna said with a laugh.

“Then you need a nice bath and some wine and a dirty book.”

Jenna smiled. “Now, that I agree with.”

“And a man who gives you orgasms.”

Jenna scowled.

Delilah smirked.

C
AL AND
J
ENNA
fell into a routine that next week.

Cal wasn’t even sure how it happened, but it did. Jenna was just there, all the time. He thought maybe it should bug him, that he should feel pressured. But all she ever did was spend time with Asher, and instead of it bugging him, it made his chest tight, his eyes hot.

Cal’s new normal was Jenna’s notes on his kitchen table, letting him know dinner was in the refrigerator. It was finding a shirt of hers mixed in with his laundry. It was her bright smile in his kitchen and her laughter in his living room.

Cal’s new normal was feeling the stretch of his own rusty smile on his face, the ragged sound of his laughter in his ears.

The tension around him and Jenna eased a little, but it was always there, this low simmer that sometimes sparked if their skin met or they had to make eye contact.

Asher asked Cal one day if he and Jenna would ever date.

“We tried that already,” he’d said in response.

Asher’s eyes were big. “You did?”

“Long time ago. About when we were your age. We’re just . . . friends now, okay?” The word
friends
felt odd and bitter in his mouth, but what other word was there for what he and Jenna had?

Asher looked like he was going to ask more questions, but instead, he frowned and turned away.

It was Friday now, and Cal was on his way home from work. When he pulled up in front of his house, Jenna’s car was there. He smiled to himself. Because he could imagine what this conversation was going to be like after what he’d done yesterday.

When he walked inside, he heard music from Asher’s bedroom and the sound of dishes in his kitchen. He headed toward the latter.

Jenna stood at his counter, sprinkling something over a bowl of popcorn. She wore an oversized T-shirt, and a pair of cutoff shorts peeked out from under it. Her feet were bare, the toes of one foot scratching her other calf.

“Hey.”

She looked up, her face clear of makeup, her hair piled on top of her head. “Hey.”

He waited, knowing what was next.

“My car?”

There it was. He walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. He popped the top off and took a gulp. “Yeah, what about it?”

“I can change my own oil, you know.”

He smiled. She’d been out with Delilah, and he’d snuck over to her place and checked out her car. He was worried since that asshole who’d sold it to her had screwed her over with the nonexistent spare tire. Cal had left her a note so she’d know it was him messing with her car. “I know that.”

“Okay, so then why did you do that?”

He braced a hand on the counter and leaned toward her. “I didn’t do it because you can’t do it. I did it because you’re working your ass off, and then you still come over here and spend time with Asher. Plus, he’s in the car with you sometimes. I wanted you both to be safe.”

She stared at him with wide eyes, her full lips parted. She didn’t say a word, just blinked.

He took another sip of beer and turned to walk out of the kitchen. “I need to shower—”

“Thank you.”

Her voice was soft, so soft he barely heard it. He looked at her over his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

“That was nice. That you noticed. And that you care.”

He chose his words carefully. “I’ll always notice when it comes to you, and I’ll always care.”

When he got out of the shower and threw on a pair of old jeans, he walked into the living room to find Jenna and Asher on the couch.

“We’re having a John Hughes night,” Jenna said. “You want a vote on which one to watch first?”

Both of them were looking at him expectantly. All he wanted to do was drink a beer and fall asleep watching baseball. “I don’t know what movies he’s in.”

There was a gasp, and Asher clapped his hand over his mouth. Jenna covered his ears with her hands and hissed, “Don’t say things like that in front of the children!”

Had they both been at the sauce while he was in the shower? What the—

Jenna’s hands dropped from Asher’s ears, and he turned to her, clasping her hands. “It’s okay, Jenna. It’s going to be hard, but I think I can overcome this.”

Cal threw up his hands. “For God’s sake—”

“John Hughes is not an actor.” Jenna’s voice wobbled, like she was speaking at his funeral. “He’s only one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.”

“Breakfast Club
. . .
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
. . .
Weird Science!”
Asher’s voice cracked at the end.

They were both still clutching each other, staring at him like he had leprosy. He rolled his eyes and stalked into the kitchen for another beer. “You guys are ridiculous.”

“We’ll pray for your Hughes-less soul!” Asher shouted.

B
Y THE TIME
the credits to
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
rolled down the screen hours later, Asher was asleep between them on the couch. His head lolled on Cal’s shoulder, his legs stretched out in front of him on the floor.

Cal leaned his head back on the couch and turned it to face Jenna. “Okay, so consider me educated on the body of John Hughes’s work.”

Jenna laughed, the hair on top of her head bobbing. “And what do you think?”

“I really liked that last one.”
Pretty in Pink
had not been his favorite, but that Ferris guy was cool as shit. “Remember our Senior Skip Day?”

Jenna smiled but looked at her hands in her lap. “You were such a bad influence.”

He reached across the sleeping teenager and tugged a piece of hair that had escaped from her bun. “That day was worth it.” They’d been eighteen, so close to graduation they could taste it. And in love. They’d spent the whole morning at River’s Edge, hanging with friends, and then spent the rest of the day in Cal’s bed, wrapped up in each other until Jenna had to go home.

They’d talked about the future then. How Jenna was going to go to college and come back when she graduated. He’d wanted to propose then, claim her, keep her from leaving him for some smart, rich guy. But she’d assured him she’d come back, that they’d get married and buy a house and have those kids they’d always talked about.

And then, two weeks later, those dreams were gone with one punch to her brother’s face.

Cal rubbed his eyes, wishing he didn’t remember all of it. But he did. He looked at Jenna again. She wasn’t smiling anymore; now she was watching him, her lips parted, her eyes a little wet. “That day
was
worth it.”

His arms still rested along the back of the couch, his fingers brushing her shoulder. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want this moment to end, because in a minute, Jenna was going to get up and go home. She was going to shatter this brief illusion of family, this glimpse at what Cal’s life could have been like.

Could it still be like that?

Jenna blew a breath out and lowered her feet to the floor. “I should go—”

“You could stay.” The words were out before he could stop them.

She froze and stared. “What?”

“You could stay. It’s late and . . . I can sleep on the couch. You can sleep in my bed.” And wasn’t that just a trip down memory lane? Last time she’d been in his bed, they’d had sex.

Her eyes widened. “I . . . don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Shit. Shit. No, it wasn’t. So he watched as she stood up, as she fixed her hair, as she slipped her feet into her flip-flops.

When she walked behind the couch, her fingers brushed the back of his head, the touch prickling his scalp. “Good night, Cal.”

Then his front door opened and shut. Asher grumbled in his sleep, snorted, and then quieted.

Cal’s heart ached.