The Will(98)

Not only for comfort but for connection, I was sliding my arm around his waist when it happened.

I knew they were there but I was so affected by what just happened, in a fog, I didn’t really notice all the people milling about the hall until the clapping started, the hooting began and then someone close by shouted, “Fuck yeah! Class plowed by The Truck!”

We stopped so abruptly I swayed and I dazedly watched Jake’s hand slice up, long finger pointed at something.

I looked to where he was pointing and I saw a man in an unbecoming tracksuit (Jake’s was much better), his face paling as Jake clipped out supremely irately, “Shut your f*ckin’ mouth.”

His mouth was partly open when Jake made this command but it clamped shut and his lips thinned, such was his intent to clamp it very shut.

Jake moved us again and it was when we were about to hit the door to the outside that it penetrated that the applause, hooting and that comment were not about congratulating Jake on winning his fight.

It was congratulating Jake on doing what it was clear many had heard us doing in the locker room.

Good God.

“Jake,” I whispered yet again and it was trembling even more this time.

He pushed out the door and ordered quietly, “Josie, stick with me.”

I said nothing but I stuck with him mostly because he was holding me so close and he was so determined to get us where we were going I had no choice.

We made it to his truck. He beeped the locks and had me in before I could blink.

With shaking hands, I buckled in as he tossed his bag in the back and pulled himself behind the wheel.

“My car is here,” I told him something he had to know.

He looked to me even as he turned the key in the ignition. “We’ll come get it tomorrow, honey.”

Tomorrow?

I didn’t ask. He was engaged in backing out of his parking spot and with that behemoth of a vehicle, I thought his attention should be focused on this endeavor.

I looked back out the windshield when we started moving forward.

It wasn’t until we were on our way, headed back to Magdalene when I noticed he had his mobile in his hand. And I noticed this only when I heard Jake talking into it and I looked to him to see he had it to his ear.

“Con?” A pause then, “Yeah, son.” Another pause then, “Yeah, I won. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Listen, I’m not gonna be home tonight.”

I drew in a sharp breath and saw Jake’s eyes flash to me then back to the road and he kept speaking.

“Curfew’s still solid, bud. You’re on the honor system tonight. Don’t disappoint me.” He was silent a moment and then, “Okay, Con. See you tomorrow.”

I heard him disconnect and the instant he did, I stated, “Jake, we need to talk.”

“We’ll talk when we get you home, Josie.”

“I think we should talk now.”

His mobile hit the console; he grabbed my hand and pulled it so it was resting on his hard thigh.

He then repeated, but did it changing one word and doing it in a tender voice, “We’ll talk when we get you home, baby.”

I said nothing.

He held my hand tighter.

I blanked my mind.

We’d talk when I was home.

Home.

In silence, he drove us to Lavender House.

Jake collected his bag and then he collected me, even though I had my belt off, the door open and was nearly out of his truck by the time he made it to my side. He still lifted me down right before I was about to jump.

He walked us to the house, opened the door with his key and then he walked us in.

As in in.

After locking the door behind us, he walked us straight to my bedroom.

It was then a strange, wondrous, frightening, confusing night got more of all of that.

But mostly the wondrous part.

This was because after he turned on the bedside light, he dropped his bag, took my purse and let it fall to the floor and slid my coat off my arms to join them. He then hooked me about the waist and walked backwards to my bed, taking me with him. He fell and landed on his back, I landed on him and he immediately rolled so he was on top.

Only when he had us arranged did he declare, “Now you’re in a safe place, we’ll talk.”

I was in a safe place.

I was in the only safe place I had.

And Jake brought me here.

“We had sex,” I told him something he could not have forgotten.

“Yeah, we did,” he agreed, his eyes holding mine, his assessing, warm, but also guarded.

“In a locker room,” I went on.

“Yeah,” he again agreed.

All right, there wasn’t much more to explore with that except, well…everything and I didn’t have it in me to explore that everything just yet.

“You were angry with me before the fight,” I stated, though it was a question.

“No, babe, I was pissed,” he answered.

Oddly, I completely understood this distinction.

“Are you angry now?” I inquired.

He stared at me.

Then he inquired in return, “Do I look angry?”

“No,” I answered.

“Fuckin’ my woman who’s wearin’ the sexiest f*ckin’ dress that’s ever been in that arena, doin’ that for the first time in the arena’s locker room, it bein’ hot as f*ck, all that shit tends to make a man get over bein’ seriously f*ckin’ pissed and it does it fast.”