Sweet and Salty (Marshall My Heart #1)

32. Chapter Thirty-Two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

L aura

I sit in front of my computer in the kitchen, wrapped up in my robe and attuned to any possible sounds from upstairs. Whatever happened last night feels like some miraculous fever dream, and I want to preserve the illusion that it isn’t over.

I comb through the photos from the wedding and post the best ones in a gallery on Frosting Monkey’s social media. The comments are mostly great, very supportive, people loving the cake.

Except for a few who all sound suspiciously like Chris. nice hack job, bet you got it from a grocery store. Et cetera.

I don’t scroll away from the hurtful comments. Why is it always so much easier to hear the negatives, to let those in, than the compliments?

Then I find a photo with Jesse and me standing behind the cake table as Daisy and Tanner feed each other, smearing each other’s faces with bright purple and zebra-print frosting. I’m staring at the bride and groom, my gaze far off into the distance, but Jesse is looking right at me. I hadn’t noticed then, but it’s pretty obvious in the photo. I’ve never been ogled like that, like I’m the only thing worth noticing in the entire room.

I zoom in, crop the photo, select a filter, and upload it to a special post with the hashtag #WildInLoveForever. I may add several copies to my personal files. For safekeeping, of course.

My phone rings just as I hit the Post button, and I slide the bar to answer it before the sound can wake Jesse.

“Are you avoiding me?” Daphne says. A ton of background noise bleeds through on her end of the call. She must be at the hospital, because I definitely hear “Paging Dr. Donnelly” over the loudspeaker.

“Of course not.” I pull my robe closed, although we aren’t video chatting. Daphne has an innate ability to figure out when someone has recently had sex. “How are you? How’s life?”

“Fine. Kind of boring. Unlike you.” She says the last phrase in a singsong voice before I hear her bark, “Listen, if you don’t want to pass your internship, then fine, don’t do the rectal exam.” There are so, so many reasons I never went into medicine. “Sorry. My intern’s being a douche. So how are things?”

I roll my eyes. “Why do I feel like you already know?”

“Maybe because you post about it on social media. Spill. Who’s the hottie? He is mountain man fine. Does he own flannel? If he does, he should burn it and invest in suits.”

“Don’t pretend Frannie hasn’t already told you.” Frannie might not be the town gossip, but anything related to me goes directly behind my back to our best friend.

“Okay, yes. She told me all about the new hardware daddy.”

“I really wish people would stop saying that. It feels weird.”

“How about hard-bodied hardware hottie?”

“You need to give up the alliteration, Daph. You sound like you have post-call brain.”

“Whatever. So…have you banged him yet? Jason, seriously. ” Her voice is muffled, like she’s placed her hand over the speaker. “I’ve already been here for thirty hours, and my limit was reached three weeks ago. Please. Keep fucking around and see what happens.” She sighs into the phone. “Anyway. Have you banged him yet?”

I think about Jesse, naked and asleep in my bed. A curl of wicked delight spreads through me. “Come on, you know I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Well, maybe he’s the long-term type. And there is no ‘type of girl.’ That’s an outdated patriarchal concept. You embrace your own sexuality, whatever it looks like. Life should be more about pleasure. It’s short enough as it is.”

“I guess.” I play with the picture of us that’s still open on my computer, Jesse’s expression warm as he watches me. “He isn’t a long-term guy, though. He basically told me outright that he’s keeping secrets and won’t be sharing any time soon.”

“Really?” I can almost hear Daphne’s ears perk up. “I love a good mystery man. It’s so satisfying to finally figure it all out.”

“Maybe, but in the meantime it’s exhausting, wondering what it is he could be hiding.” Because ever since he mentioned, in the world’s most oblique vocabulary, that he might have done something wrong, all I do is catastrophize. Did he kill someone? Embezzle from a mom-and-pop shop? Sleep with the wife of an arms dealer? The only thing I can’t imagine is that he hurt an animal. I’ve seen him around my farm, after all.

“Then do some digging. That’s why the internet was invented, to stalk potential love interests. Oh, and to figure who that random actress is in that movie from the ’90s.”

I roll my eyes. “That is one hundred percent not why the internet was invented.”

“Yeah, because it was founded by a bunch of white men who thought their shit wouldn’t get dug up. Haha. Spoiler alert. They were wrong.”

I laugh. “I miss you. How’s Chicago?”

“Windy. Pretty, now, in the three weeks before the humidity settles in and it feels like I have to commute through pea soup.” Daphne sighs. “Seriously, the gun violence is getting to me. Every fucking day…I had to buy a damn Taser just to get to work, and I still have nightmares.”

“Rory says the levels of gun violence out here have declined substantially over the last five years.” Am I trying to get my best friend to move home? Abso-darn-lutely. “Just saying.”

“Yeah. I know.” She pauses for a long moment, during which I’m treated to telephonically eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation regarding colon cleanses. “How is, um, everyone?”

My heart aches, knowing exactly what she isn’t asking. “They’re fine. Rory and Davey make single parenting look easy. Frannie’s around for the time being, but it’s only a matter of time before her feet wander again. She wants a new plane, if she can find the cash. I think she’s sleeping with someone, but she’s not talking about it.” I pause. “Mom’s doing great at the office. She says they’re thinking about adding another doc. Um, everyone’s great at the office. They miss you.” I will her to talk to her dad, just once. Since Ma died, I know exactly how fleeting life and opportunity could be.

“That’s great. Tell, um, your mom…that I said hi.” Her talking to her dad is clearly not happening.

“I will.”

Daphne exhales, like she’s cleansing herself of the familial angst. “The comments on your cake post look great, by the way. People love it.”

“Not everyone,” I grumble. Despite my best efforts, I scroll down to look at the hateful comments again.

“Don’t listen to those comments, Laura.” Now Daphne’s voice is soft and reassuring. “It’s just Chris being a dick.”

“You’re right.” I don’t sound convinced. “There’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded white man with a keyboard.”

“Yeah, except one who also has access to firearms.” Daphne’s tone is sharp. “Not that Chris would know which end of one to hold. Sorry. It’s a hazard of the job.” She’s been covering ER shifts for the last few months while one of her colleagues is on maternity leave, and it’s clearly affecting her. Daphne snorts. “I really need more sleep. Come visit me in Chicago. Please? We need to go shopping. I found a new barcade that is the epitome of awesome, and there’s this guy who keeps asking me out, and if I have a friend come visit, I can use that as an excuse not to go out with him.”

“I’d love that. Let me look at my schedule.”

“Okay. Love you, Laura. Go bang Hard-Bodied Hardware Hottie and then please tell me all about it. I’m in a mega dry spell. It’s been, like, three weeks.”

“I’ll get right on that.” We say our goodbyes and I press the red button on my phone screen.

“Good morning,” Jesse says behind me. I nearly leap out of my seat, sending my laptop sliding across the kitchen table. He catches it with one hand.

“Hi.” I attempt standing, but I sit on the tie of my robe, and now it’s caught in the rungs of the back of the chair. My robe accidentally slips open, exposing one of my breasts, still reddened from his beard the night before. “Oops.” I cover my nip slip quickly. “That’s not something you want to see.”

“I beg to differ.” Jesse takes my hand and pulls me to standing, but instead of reaching for my body, he wraps his arms around me and holds me close to him. “You’re beautiful in the morning. You’re beautiful all the time.” He kisses the top of my head, and seriously, the nearness of him is enough to make me wish I’d eaten because I’m definitely going to swoon. “How are you feeling?”

Heavenly. But I’m not supposed to be clingy. I’m supposed to be One Night Stand Girl. “Okay. Great.”

“Okay great? Ouch.” He pulls away slightly to look down at me, then wraps me in his cozy hug again. The man is a world-class champion hugger. He might not have looked like it, but if I could figure out how to mechanize this hug, I’d be a bajillionaire.

I blush, because of course I do. “Last night was amazing. But I know we said it was only the one time.”

“Three, but who’s counting?”

Oh, right. He did wake me up around four in the morning and ravish me in a way that could only be described as holy-fuck-I-didn’t-think-this-really-existed-and-now-you-have-ruined-me-for-other-men. Not to be dramatic or anything. But he did bring me a bowl of caramel fudge frozen custard afterward, and I nearly came again when the ice cream melted in my mouth.

My entire body blushes harder, if that’s even possible. “Right. But it’s the morning. Things are different now.”

“I guess.” He glances down. “I shouldn’t have hugged you. I should have asked first. I’m sorry.”

“No! Please don’t stop. It feels incredible.”

And he doesn’t. So I don’t, either. We stay locked together, just holding one another in my kitchen while the morning rays slant through the windows. I want to stay this way forever. But how can I when I don’t know what kind of bad boy he is? There’s a very wide gap between serial killer and occasional litterer.

“Tell me something true,” I say, and instantly regret it from the way he stiffens.

But he doesn’t let go. “I really like you.”

Despite all the warning bells clanging in my head, it feels way too good to hear him say that. Like waking up to the smell of fresh cinnamon buns and bacon. “Something about you.”

“I don’t have any siblings.” He kisses the top of my head again. “I lived with my grandmother after my parents died. She raised me. She was an incredible woman, like you.”

“How did they die?” Seriously, I wish I could have cut out my own tongue. Way to make the mood sexy. There will never be a reprise of last night now.

He swallows and holds me tighter. “Overdose. Oxy. My dad got into it after he got hurt on a neighbor’s farm and then a football injury that didn’t heal right, and he got my mom hooked.”

“That’s awful.” I thought Ma’s death had been traumatic, but for Jesse to go through something like that at such a young age? Not to mention the stigma that must have followed him, despite it not being his fault. “You were so young. What an awful thing to go through.”

“I’m not going to lie, it sucked. But my grandma was great. She made me keep my head down, getting my schoolwork done so I could get a good job. I just regret she didn’t live long enough for me to pay her back. I had this whole plan, where I was going to surprise her and pay off her mortgage and all her husband’s old credit card debts.” He shudders against me. “She died the week before I was going to send in the final payments.”

I don’t know what to do. Grief is something I manage, but not like this. Not where I feel his pain in the way he moves, the way he holds me, the way he breathes. It’s more intimate than getting railed simultaneously by his cock and the vibrator.

So I kiss him on the cheek, soft and light.“I’m sure she loved you, and I’m positive they are all so proud of the man you’ve become.”

Pulling away, he stares at me, his head tilted, as if assessing how genuine I’m being.

Because I can never keep my foot away from my mouth, I continue talking. “I like to think that our loved ones never really leave us, and maybe that’s why there’s no on/off switch for grief. I see Ma all the time, in little things that Frannie and Rory do. Even in Bobby, when we see him on TV. And I try to hold on to the memories, because the biggest injustice is when we forget who these people were apart from their deaths. They lived whole lives. They loved. They fought. We should honor their memories.”

As I say it, a little of the hurt I always have over losing Ma ebbs. “Ma always told me that we write grief into the stories of our lives, but we should never give it the pen.”

He has a soft smile on his face. “I like that. We can’t let it control or define us. Grandma used to say something similar.”

It’s an intimate moment, slow and long and sensual.

Then, because my body never reacts quite the way I want it to, my stomach rumbles.

Jesse laughs and kisses me on the cheek. “I’ll make you breakfast. Have a seat.”

He makes me French toast with fresh whipped cream. Afterward, he lays me back on the kitchen table and licks whipped cream off me until I’m shaking with need so badly, the table legs rattle on the floor. The orgasm shatters me when he finally slides into my body.

I’m not done with him. I don’t know how to ever be done with someone like him.