“You’ve used up your allotment, but I might dole out an answer for another kiss.”
“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.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
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.
“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 Pete 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.”