I left my, his, our bedroom and walked up another flight of stairs to the guest bedroom. Right now, I was more agitated with myself than with the situation. Why was I acting so foolishly about Max and Jane? It wasn’t as though they were getting married tomorrow. They hadn’t even started dating. Plus, it was none of my business that my ex-boyfriend might like my future sister-in-law. Ugh. I was still annoyed.
Jake’s run up the stairs forced me to close my eyes and pretend to sleep. The fact that I pulled the comforter over my head didn’t stop him from picking me up off the bed, flinging me over his shoulder, and flopping me onto our bed. He didn’t mock, he didn’t laugh. He did what he does best. His mouth pounced on mine and rummaged all he wanted. His lips, his tongue, ran over my body as if it were a map he needed to read. I shivered in delight, but shuddered at the thought of reigning in my self-control to stop him. Self-control waned as the wedding date got closer.
“Jake?” My voice was weak.
“Hmm?” His voice, suggestive.
“If you are planning on sleeping here tonight with me, you need to behave,” I spoke, unconvincingly.
“Can I sleep here?” His face lit up.
“You can if you promise to behave. My wall of defense is crumbling by the day. You need to help me at this point. OK?”
“OK,” he said casually, knowing that he had the upper hand now. He stopped his adventure quest on my body, content just to hold me close. I fell asleep in his arms, but woke up to find Jake’s lips and hands grazing liberally. I softly moaned and went back to sleep.
Sunday was glorious for many reasons. Finally, I had slept soundly with Jake lying right next to me for the first time since we got back home. My eyes didn’t automatically open at 4:00 a.m., and I wasn’t cold at any point in the night. Also, Jake had the entire day off. We didn’t get out of bed till it was almost lunchtime. We had both slept the morning away. When we finally awoke, Jake went downstairs to fix us something to eat and brought it up to our room. We ate, watched TV, checked e-mail and happily spent a lazy morning in our room.
The front doorbell finally coerced me out of the bedroom. Sarah and Charlie came by to drop off the suitcases that were left in her car last night. I invited them upstairs and we hung out for a while.
“Wow, this house is huge,” was Charlie’s first comment upon entering.
“Wait till you see Emily and Jake’s bedroom,” Sarah commented.
We walked into our room and immediately Charlie and Jake started playing video games on the giant TV. Sarah and I sat next to the boys.
“Hey, where’s Jane?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we take her to the airport?
“Jane left already,” Jake answered with his eyes glued to the game. “Mom said her boss called last night and wanted her to come in to work today. She left this morning.”
“How’d she get to the airport? I feel bad. I would’ve taken her.”
Jake cautiously answered, “Um…maybe she had a car service pick her up.”
“And maybe they have a driver named Max,” Charlie added, and all three busted up laughing.
They immediately stopped laughing once they saw that I found no humor in his comment.
“Lighten up, Emily,” Charlie quipped. “You broke the guy’s heart. Let him mend it with someone else. Who better than your future sister-in-law? Maybe you two will finally end up as family, though I’m sure this is not the way you or Max envisioned it to be.”
Jake only exacerbated the situation by adding, “Emi, will you be upset if you see Max and Jane coming down to breakfast together once she moves back home?”
“Ugh!” I stared at Jake dumbfounded. “Are you kidding me?” was all I could ask as they broke into a guffaw at my expense again. Annoyed, I walked out of the room to grab some drinks. When I got back, Charlie and Jake were having another disturbing conversation.
“So, Jake, have you and Emily started living together?”
“Seriously? Have Sarah and Max never told you about my fiancée?”
“I know the deal, but I thought maybe since you’re almost married, and since she’s living in your house, she might…”
“Charlie. Let’s not go there,” I warned.
Jake complained to both my friends. “I sleep in Nick’s room while she stays here. I’m counting down the days till I don’t get kicked out of my own bed.”
This conversation made me uncomfortable so I looked over to Sarah for a little help. She jumped in and asked if we wanted to join them for a movie and dinner.
I answered, “We would love to,” and kicked them out of the house.
After they left, I turned to Jake and said, “I can’t believe you and Charlie today.”
“He asked,” Jake said defensively. “Are you mad? I didn’t tell him about last night.” His face was too smug. I had created a monster.
“Well since Nick is back at his apartment, you can go back to his room till we get married.”
“Aw come on, Emily. Last night was fantastic, wasn’t it? Didn’t I behave?” Jake’s face was pleading for another hall pass for tonight.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice your hands and lips all over me in the middle of the night.”
Jake shot back at me. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you enjoying my hands and lips all over you in the middle of the night.”