Seaside Sunsets (31 page)

“Are all men this easy?” She kissed him then, and in one quick move he rolled her onto her back and braced himself above her.

“I don’t date men, so I can’t answer that question.”

As he lowered his lips to hers, she whispered, “I think Mark was wrong. You’re not a warrior at all. You are my knight in comfy armor.”

OVER THE NEXT two weeks their lives fell into sync, feeling less like a frantic gigue and more like a romantic rhapsody. Jamie worked around Jessica’s schedule, and she around his. And for those times when they felt as though they’d gone too many hours without seeing each other, Jamie taught Jessica how to use FaceTime, and they connected that way. It was a strange feeling to know that the man she loved was only an icon away from her at all times. They’d FaceTimed twice this week. Once when she was scheduled to play in an evening concert and he’d had a late meeting, and once when he’d gone for a run and missed her in the forty minutes he was gone. He’d stopped running and FaceTimed her, sweaty and panting from an uphill sprint. Technology, it turned out, wasn’t such a bad thing after all. 

Finding time together wasn’t as crazy as Jessica had imagined. Jamie really did enjoy working at night, and on the nights she wasn’t playing with the orchestra, she often waited to practice until he was working. To a large degree, Jamie had been right. Jessica had so little experience with relationships and life outside of the orchestra that creating a life for themselves wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d anticipated it would be. It took some coordinating, but they were even able to finagle two nights up at the Cape.

The flames of the bonfire danced in the center of their circle of benches and chairs on the quad at Seaside. Everyone had been so happy to see them together that they’d made a big show of preparing a barbecue, complete with margaritas—of which Jessica knew to have only one, so she could focus on her hunky man later in the evening. And focus on him she did. Before the girls came to get her to go chunky-dunking, Jamie lay beside her in the bed where they’d first made love. Their bodies glistened with sweat, each sated and spent.

“I never want to leave the bedroom again,” he’d said sleepily.

“Unless they make beds with twenty-seven-inch monitors, I’m pretty sure your geeky side will need to be satisfied at some point,” she’d said. It was a joke of theirs. His life was as ensconced with technology as hers was depleted of it.

She’d turned to kiss him and he’d already fallen asleep. She’d slipped out of the house when Amy, Bella, and Jenna had come to get her, after Caden and Peter had fallen asleep, too.

“We have to get Leanna,” Amy whispered.

Dressed only in towels and flip-flops, they held on to each other as they headed for Leanna’s house.

“Kurt…Right there.”

Jessica grabbed Amy’s arm and froze as Leanna’s voice filtered out the open window of their cottage.

“Is that…?” she whispered.

“Yes. She forgets to close her window,” Amy explained.

Jessica wondered how much they’d heard of her and Jamie making love. She wasn’t exactly quiet as a mouse.

Bella dragged Jenna toward the pool. “We’ll go without her.”

They hurried down the gravel road. Jessica’s heart beat so fast with anticipation she couldn’t stop smiling. “I’ve never broken rules like this before.”

“Yes, you have,” Amy reminded her. “Thong Thursday, remember?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t
know
I was breaking the rule. It’s different.”

Bella slung an arm over her shoulder. “Well, get used to it. You’re a Seaside sister now, and this is what we do.”

A Seaside sister
. She wondered if she’d ever get tired of hearing that, or if it would always carry the same thrill it did now. It was almost as good as hearing someone call her Jamie’s
girlfriend
.

Jenna wrestled with the lock on the fence. The thick metal chain clanked and rattled.

“Shh!” Bella grabbed the chain, glaring at Jenna.

“I’m trying. It’s stuck.” Jenna tried shoving the key in again.

“You need to caress it, not jam it,” Amy instructed.

“How would you know? The last time you caressed or jammed a long thing into a hole was a long time ago.” Jenna laughed.

Amy swatted her arm. “You’re a pig, and you have no idea how long it’s been.”

“Well, I know you and Jake didn’t do the dirty because you never came back from a date smiling like a Cheshire cat.” Jenna gritted her teeth and gave one more quick turn of the key. The lock sprang open and she bounced on her toes and beckoned them in. “Hurry. Hurry!” She closed the gate quietly behind them.

“We usually put our towels by the stairs,” Amy said as she guided Jessica toward the far end of the pool.

Jenna ran by them naked, her butt cheeks bouncing, arms crossed over her enormous breasts. “Brr.”

“Why did she run from back there?” Jessica whispered.

“She always does. It’s a Jenna thing.” Amy slipped out of her towel and walked straight past Jenna, who was shivering on the first step, and into waist-deep water, then ducked down until she was covered up to her shoulders. “It is cold, so you have to get right in.”

Jessica dropped her towel and followed Amy. Jenna grabbed Jessica’s arm as she stepped into the water.

“Let’s go in together,” Jenna whispered.

They walked down the steps, holding hands, and submerged themselves up to their shoulders, as Amy had.

“Look, I’ll never drown.” Jenna looked down at her boobs bobbing at the surface and laughed.

Amy and Bella shushed her in unison.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Doesn’t it feel good to be naked in the water?”

“Yeah. I never knew it would feel different.” Jessica looked up at the apartment, thinking about how good it would feel to make love to Jamie in the water.

Bella dove under the water from the deep end and broke through the surface in the middle of the pool. Moonlight reflected off the water as they doggie paddled around the deep end, each taking hold of a noodle or a raft.

“Vera was so happy to see you and Jamie together again.” Bella hung with her arms over the foam noodle.

“Yes, she was,” Jessica said. “When Jamie asked her if she’d mind if we spent the night at the apartment, since I’ve paid through the end of the summer, she said we could sleep anywhere we wanted as long as we were together. Wasn’t that sweet?”

“Really sweet,” Amy said. “While you guys were gone, she kept talking about how you were meant to be together. I heard her tell Jamie that she was glad the air had carried him in the right direction. I’m not sure what that meant, but he hugged her really tight, so he must have understood.”

“Air? I have no idea either, but I’m glad we’re together. You guys don’t know this about me, but I haven’t had many relationships, and I swear to you, the sadness felt like it could drown me at any second. And getting through every minute was like wading through concrete.”

“We’ve all been there way too many times,” Bella said in a quiet voice. “You’re lucky you haven’t had to go through it much.”

“Well, I don’t know how you survived it more than once.” Jessica shifted the noodle beneath her arms. “Hey, what do you do if Theresa shows up? I mean, we’re naked.”

“She’s fast asleep. She caught us last summer, and Jenna told her we were cleaning up around the pool or something,” Amy explained. “Then the dingdong asked her if she wanted to go skinny-dipping.”

“Well, you left the cookie dough wrappers down here, remember?” Jenna swam over to the side of the pool. “Speaking of cookie dough…”

“I don’t have any,” Amy whispered.

“Me, either.” Bella swam to Jenna’s side. “Some person under five foot tall ate all of mine.”

“I was having a meltdown.” Jenna feigned a frown.

“Why?” Jessica asked.

“Petey reorganized my rocks on the deck. It totally threw me off.”

Amy mouthed
OCD
to Jessica.

“I have cookie dough. Jamie and I bought some to make cookies for the barbecue but then forgot.” She let go of the noodle and kicked her feet to stay afloat.

“Want me to go get it?”

“Yes!” the others whispered.

Jessica laughed and swam to the shallow end of the pool. Eating cookie dough after midnight, swimming in a pool naked…She never would have imagined herself doing these things. Ever. And now she couldn’t imagine ever not doing them, with these friends. She climbed from the pool and Bella whistled.

“Hottie on deck,” Bella said quietly.

“Yeah, right.” Jessica wrapped her towel around herself, slipped on her flip-flops, and hurried toward the gate. “I’ll be right back.”

She passed Tony’s cottage and ran across the gravel road, then took the steps to the apartment as quietly as she could. Inside, the apartment smelled like Jamie. She turned to close the door as quietly as she could.

“Hey, babe.”

“Ack!” She spun around and found Jamie sitting on the couch in his boxer briefs. “Holy cow, you scared me.”

He arched a brow and smiled. “Because robbers often address you as babe?”

She sat beside him in her towel. “No, because you’re supposed to be asleep.”

“So you can play naked without me? I like to play naked with you.” He tugged teasingly at her towel.

She turned away with a soft laugh. “I need to get the cookie dough.”

He arched a brow.

“We’re chunky-dunking.”

“There’s nothing chunky about your sweet little body, but uh…I’ve got a little something chubby in my drawers that would like to do a little dunking.” He nuzzled against her neck.

“Oh my God, you feel good.” Goose bumps raced up her arms. “That’s not fair.”

“Why?” he whispered against her ear.

“Because they’re waiting for me, and…oh God, I love when you kiss my neck.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Wait. Stop.” She pressed her hands to his chest and pushed him away. “This is bad, bad, bad. What kind of a friend am I if I promise to bring them cookie dough and fall into bed with you instead? They need cookie dough.”

Jamie sat back. “Blown off for cookie dough. That’s a new low.”

She pressed her lips to his. “I promise to make it up to you after we’re done.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He drew her into an embrace. “That’s not really why I was out here.”

“Oh. Why were you?”

“Because I thought you were coming in for the night, and I wanted to surprise you with something.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t you have cookie dough to deliver?” His lips curved into a teasing smile, and he pulled her into his lap. “Are we still having dinner with your parents when we get back to Boston?”

“Yes, Monday night. Why?” Her father had been overwhelmingly happy for them, while her mother had said she was happy, with no change in the inflection of her voice. She’d followed that statement with a question about how their relationship would impact Jessica’s career. Her mother’s reaction had been a harder pill to swallow than she’d anticipated, but Jessica had drawn upon the advice she’d given Jamie about not blaming Mark for his wanting to protect him. She’d taken that advice and bitten her tongue.

“Remember the day we met?”

“Of course. How could I forget? You walked up to the deck and stole my heart with your smile.”

He rolled his eyes. “Before that.”

“When I pegged you with my phone?” She rubbed his head. “I’m so sorry about that…sort of. If I hadn’t, we’d never have met.”

He smiled. “Right. Totally worth it.”

He reached behind him and handed her a clear glass box. She peered inside. It was hard to see in the dark apartment, but there was no mistaking the shape of the baseball, or Mickey Mantle’s autograph colored in with red Magic Marker.

“Jamie,” she whispered. She squinted, turned the glass in her hands so she could see each side. “How on earth…?”

“Let’s just say that that little boy likes Mickey Mantle’s clear signature a whole lot more than he liked the colored-in one.”

She couldn’t believe it. She’d given up so easily, and not only had he not given up, but he’d kept it a secret this whole time.

“I can’t believe you did this. Do you know how happy my father will be?” Her eyes welled with tears.

“I knew how happy it would make you to give it to him.” He brushed her wet hair from her shoulder.

“We’ll both give it to him. Thank you, Jamie. This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Jessica? Are you in there?” Jenna’s whisper came through the front window.

Jessica covered her mouth with her hand, feeling guilty for taking so long and still reeling from Jamie’s thoughtful gift.

“Of course she is,” Bella said. “Where else would she be?”

“She probably went back to bed with Jamie,” Amy added.

Jamie gathered her in his arms and whispered,  “I’m about to do something even nicer for you and pretend I’m asleep so you can go eat cookie dough naked with the girls, when what I really want to do is put that cookie dough all over you and nibble it off.”

He took her in his arms and crashed his mouth over hers, pressing her back to the couch. Her body went hot and soft all over, while his went hard above her.

“I think she’s sleeping,” Jenna whispered. “I see the edge of the couch. I see her feet. I think.”

Jamie tore his lips from hers and pressed his finger over her lips. Jessica opened her mouth and twirled her tongue around his finger, earning her a heated stare and a press of his hips to hers.

“Let me see,” Bella whispered. “Those aren’t feet. Oh wait, yes, they are. Wait.”

“Oh God! It’s her and Jamie!” Jenna laughed. “Guess there’s no cookie dough for us tonight. Go, go, go.”

As their feet scampered down the steps, Jessica pushed out from beneath Jamie and grabbed the cookie dough, then flung open the front door and hurled it over the deck, pegging Bella in the back.

“Ow! What the…?” Bella said. She and Jenna bent over and searched the ground, finally spotting the cookie dough.

Jenna snagged it and waved it over her head at Jessica. “Thanks, babe!” she yelled. “Go, go, go.” She shooed Jessica back inside.

Jessica shut the door feeling like she’d come home to the friends and the man she was meant to be with. Jamie closed the distance between them, sealing his lips over hers again.