Keep Me If You Can (If You Can #3)

11. Afternoon Me Is A Different Person And I Hate Her

Chapter eleven

Afternoon Me Is A Different Person And I Hate Her

“I hate you,” I grumbled into the phone.

“I know,” JP said. “But you did agree to this.”

“That was a different me. Afternoon me. And seven a.m. me hates her, too.”

“It’s six-forty-two, actually.”

I groaned. “You’re early ?!”

“If you’d been out of bed at six-thirty like you said you would, it wouldn’t be an issue.” I didn’t respond with words, just muttered vocalizations mocking what he’d said. JP snickered. “Well, rounding up, can seven a.m. Nellie let me in? I have something that might get her out of bed.”

I opened my eyes blearily. “You brought me something?”

“Mm-hmm. And you’re gonna like it.”

“Is it your dick?”

“Are you saying you like my dick?”

“I’m too tired to pretend I don’t.”

“Well, it is something thick and creamy that you’ll want to put in your mouth, but—”

“I don’t take cream in my coffee,” I said.

“It’s not coffee.”

“You didn’t even bring me coffee?”

“No, I—”

But I tapped the screen to end the call and shoved my face into my pillow, closing my eyes for the thirty seconds it took JP to stop laughing enough to dial my number on the intercom again.

“No coffee, no Nellie,” I said when I answered, my voice muffled by the pillow.

“I don’t know how you take it,” he said, still chuckling.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “Frequently and often from behind. Sometimes with a finger in my ass.”

He laughed hard enough that I heard it bounce in the echo-y foyer and pressed my face into the pillow harder, trying to hide my smile. From who, I didn’t know. Myself, I guess.

“What I brought is better than coffee,” he said. “And I fully planned to stop for coffee on the way, to the point that I can tell you where the nearest Starbucks, Tim’s, McDonalds, and two different local coffee shops are. I figured the promise of coffee later was better than getting your coffee order wrong.”

It was a good point. I didn’t tell him that, but JP probably figured it out since I sighed and hit the button to let him upstairs. By the time he knocked, I’d crawled out of bed and brush my teeth, but my hair was still unbrushed, my eyes were protesting the fact that I dared to open them before eight-thirty, and all I had on was the ratty bathrobe I kept in case of fire.

You know. So I could still keep sleeping naked like I preferred, but wouldn’t freeze to death if I had to run outside in the middle of the night.

“Don’t you ever have to get up early for class?” he asked when I opened the door. “Or do they not start at eight at OttawaTech?”

“I went to one eight a.m. class my first year, dropped out, and signed up to take it in the spring semester instead.” I looked at the reusable shopping bag in his hand. “What’d you bring me?”

“No hello, no kiss, nothing?” he teased as he kicked off his shoes. “I guess I should’ve expected nothing less from seven a.m. Nellie.”

“It’s why you love me,” I said.

He flicked an eyebrow up. “You think so?”

“Well, there’s gotta be something wrong with you. You keep coming back even though you know I think you’re stupid and smelly.”

“And hideous,” he said. “Don’t forget that I’m the ugliest person you’ve ever seen in your life.”

“I don’t get nearly enough credit for not puking every time I see you. Now show me what’s in the bag.”

His mouth twisted, but he turned and set the bag on my kitchen counter. Without a word, he pulled out a white bakery box.

My mouth dropped open. “You went to Trou de Beigne?”

“I figured I should do something more than dick you down at a fancy hotel to thank you for helping me out,” he said. “And this was cheaper than getting wine or something.”

“Oh, how you flatter me,” I said, watching as he flipped the lid open and revealed a dozen perfect ring-shaped delicacies, then frowned. “Wait, they’re open this early?”

“This early? No,” he said. “And they weren’t open when I left Montreal two hours ago, either. I got these yesterday.”

“You brought me old donuts?”

“You know damn well they’ll be just as good now as they were last night,” he said, holding the box out to me. “Now go on, take one. They’re your favourite. I got an extra Nutella Banana.”

I did take one, not because he told me to but because he was right. They were my favourite donuts, and the Nutella Banana ones were the donut world’s equivalent of an orgasm. I took an immediate bite and tried not to moan.

The fact that he was right was unsettling. He didn’t know my coffee order, yet somehow knew these were my favourite donuts? I couldn’t think of how, or when, or why he knew that.

And it wasn’t that I was complaining he didn’t know my coffee order. That made sense. For all the times we’d fucked, JP and I had never woken up next to each other, and it wasn’t like there were any other times we would’ve had coffee together.

We weren’t dating. We weren’t even—well. It was getting harder to deny that we weren’t friends, but we weren’t friends -friends. We were buddies. Fuck buddies.

Who didn’t sleep with other people. But only because both of us were too busy with our respective lives to find other people to sleep with and it was easier to mutually masturbate long distance. We were long distance fuck buddies.

Who sometimes texted about other stuff and helped each other out when they needed father-approved dates for galas or fake girlfriends for client meetings. But he’d only agreed to be my date because I promised him anal and I only agreed to be his fake girlfriend because…

Well, I could probably talk him into anal again.

But none of that meant anything. JP knew as well as I did there wasn’t anything more than that between us.

Things started because they were convenient. They continued because they were easy. And they’d end, like all things like this do, when we were tired of each other.

That was just how it was going to be.

“Even if you were packed like I’m assuming you aren’t, we don’t have time before we need to leave,” JP said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I blinked a few times, my eyes focusing on the shit-eating smirk on his face. “What?”

“If you stare any harder, your eyes might actually pop out,” he said. “But I really do need to be there by nine-thirty so I have time to get ready before my meeting. I don’t think I can fuck the remaining three brain cells out of your head before we have to be on the road, no matter how bad you want me right now.”

I snorted and ate another bite. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was just appreciating how delicious this donut is and your face happened to be in the way of my wistful gaze into the distance.”

His smirk widened into a grin. “Good to know your ‘This is damn delicious’ face is the same as your ‘Damn, I’d sure love JP’s delicious cock right now.’”

“I don’t believe for one second that I, or anyone else, has ever called your cock delicious ,” I said.

“In words, no,” he said. “But the way you suck it makes it pretty clear you can’t get enough.”

“It does not,” I grumbled, taking another bite of my donut.

“Sure it doesn’t, babe.”

I swallowed, but before I could tell him not to call me that for the eighty bazillionth time, JP took a step forward and notched his fingers under my chin, tilted my head up, and kissed me.

And I hated that I’d expected it.

I hated that I’d swallowed my bite of donut a little faster than I should’ve because I was waiting for it.

I hated that there was always a quip ready on his tongue for everything I said, and yet my response wasn’t to tell him to fuck off but to crave that tongue against mine. I hated the way he challenged me and I hated—absolutely fucking despised —when he got the best of me.

Like when he pulled back and before my mind even caught up with his whirlwind, he grabbed my wrist and lifted it to his lips, then took a large bite of the half-eaten donut I forgot I was holding.

“You fucking bastard,” I gasped.

He let go of my wrist so he could cover his mouth as he laughed through his bite of my donut. “If you didn’t want me to help you eat it, you should’ve eaten it faster. You can eat the rest of them in the car. Now come on, how much packing do we need to do?”

“I am packed, asshole,” I muttered, popping the rest of the donut into my mouth because there was maybe an eighth of it left. “I just need to get dressed and grab my bag from my room. And put a couple more things in it.”

“See? This is why I had to leave at five.”

“You’re this fucking perky and you’ve been up since five ?” I said, groaning. “You’re a monster.”

“I left at five,” he said. “I’ve been up since four-thirty.”

I gagged as I walked into my bedroom to change and he laughed.

“Trust me, if I didn’t have to work late, I would’ve picked you up last night,” he said. “Instead, I decided four hours of driving before my meeting was a good idea.”

“I said I’d meet you there,” I said, grabbing the outfit I’d set out the night before and shrugging my bathrobe off so I could pull on a thong and leggings.

“Except then I’d have questions about why my ‘girlfriend’ was driving there separately,” he said. “So instead, I get to do this all over again tomorrow when I drop you off.”

I wasn’t entirely sure about that. I had a feeling JP would end up “unexpectedly” staying the night in Ottawa. “Seems like a lot of driving for one stupid meeting. It couldn’t have been an email?”

He chuckled as I grabbed the tank top I’d set out, only then realizing I hadn’t set out a bra. “Not really. I need this client to see how dedicated I am.”

I opened my underwear drawer, but it was empty. And there were no bras sitting in my usual pile of clothes on the floor. “It’s that important?”

“It’s a big deal, yeah,” he said. “Probably the biggest thing I’ve ever tried to do, actually.”

I frowned, putting my hands on my hips and turning in place, trying to figure out how every bra I owned had vanished. “And your dad sent you on your own?”

“Well, no.” There was a hesitant pause. “He’s not fully aware of this.”

“Oh,” I said knowingly. “Trying to lock it in before you tell him so he’s more impressed?”

“Sort of. And he’d be annoyed I brought you.”

The laundry. That was where all my bras were. On the other side of my apartment. I started towards the door, then stopped and frowned.

“Annoyed you faked having a girlfriend? Or annoyed that you brought me specifically?”

There was a hesitant pause. “Uh… mostly the first one.”

I picked at my thumbnail. “But some of the second one. Because your dad doesn’t like me.”

“I don’t think he knows what to make of you a lot of the time. He’s got specific expectations for how people should act and you deviate from that.”

“So, in simple terms, he doesn’t like me.”

“He doesn’t know you well.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I can be your shameful secret girlfriend.”

“Trust me, if you were my actual girlfriend, it wouldn’t matter. You’re not someone to be ashamed of.”

Maybe he hadn’t meant them to, but those words hung between us, filtering through the air in my apartment. I pressed my fingernail into my thumb, not quite sure what the feeling in my stomach was, not quite sure if I liked the fact that JP didn’t see me as someone he’d be ashamed of.

Or the fact that he seemed to have considered it before.

“Are you sewing the clothes yourself in there?” JP asked suddenly. “Or are you dressed yet?”

“Yeah,” I lied, springing into motion and frantically pushing clothes to the side hoping a bra would appear.

“Awesome.” His voice got closer. “Let me grab your bag.”

Fuck .

Well, I guess it was a no-bra day.

I grabbed the tank top and yanked it on just before JP entered my room. While he grabbed my bag, I ran a brush through my hair. I followed him to the kitchen, then remembered I needed a coat or a sweater or something and darted back to my room to get my volleyball hoodie.

Then I was physically halfway through the door when I remembered I didn’t grab my backpack, which I needed so I could study while JP was in his meeting because I had a Forensic Science and Law midterm the following week. And after I’d grabbed it and tried to leave again, I had the key in the lock before I remembered I hadn’t put on deodorant.

“Fuck off,” I muttered as JP laughed. “I haven’t had coffee yet.”

“Are you sure you have everything now?” he asked as we walked to the elevator.

“I have everything,” I insisted. “And if I realize I don’t after the coffee kicks in, I’ll buy it there. It’s not like we’re going to get halfway to Mont Tremblant and I’m gonna make you turn around.”

Which I regretted saying when the coffee kicked in halfway to Mont Tremblant and I realized I’d left the donuts from Trou de Beigne sitting on the counter, so JP had to convince me they’d still taste good when we got back the next day.