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“What? Fuck no.” In the dim light, he shrank back. “I told you it wasn’t—”
“He’s been in there. So have you. So by association, you two have had sex.”
“That is disgusting.”
I grinned. “What’s disgusting is that you’ve both been up in there and—”
“Can we not talk about this?”
My smile went up a notch. There was a good chance tomorrow morning I wouldn’t find any of this funny, but right now, I loved how he squirmed. “Perhaps you’ll think twice about doing what you aren’t quite proud of.”
He arched a brow and then fixed his gaze on the empty bed across from us. “I was telling the truth, Tess. I’ve known Steph for years, and, yeah, we’ve fooled around a couple of times, but nothing since the end of last semester. And I . . .” He tipped his head to the side and sighed. “And I haven’t ever kissed her. That was the truth, too. I hadn’t kissed a girl since . . .”
My heart thumped heavily. “Since when?”
Jase shook his head and then let out a short, dry laugh. “Since a really long time.”
I watched him in silence. A change came over him. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but a distant, almost sad look crept into his features, tightening the lines of his face that would drive an artist crazy to sketch.
I knew he was talking about Jack’s mother, and he’d been hurt, nursing a broken heart for all these years.
God, maybe I was drunk, because I had no idea if he had even been in love with her. Jase was a dude. Dudes didn’t harbor old love wounds. They either drank or screwed them away.
My eyes became too hard to keep open. “I wish I had that cupcake now.”
He laughed as he slowly shook his head. “You would have loved it. I got another Snickers one. I guess you’re just not meant to eat that one.”
“I guess not.” A moment passed. “You staying?”
There was a pause, and then I felt his finger drift over my cheek, scooping up a strand of hair and tucking it back. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
“That won’t be very long.” I willed my eyes open, but they wouldn’t. “And we need to talk . . .”
“Sleep, Tess. I promise”—the bed shifted and I felt his lips press against my forehead—“we’ll talk tomorrow . . . if your brother doesn’t kill me first.”
There was a small person living inside my head and it was banging on my skull with a sledgehammer. Moaning pitifully, I rolled onto my side and blinked my eyes open.
The small window by Debbie’s bed let way too much light in and I winced, pressing the heel of my palm against my throbbing forehead.
“Ow,” I moaned, sitting up. The quilt slipped down to my waist, revealing the clothes I’d slept in last night.
A soft laugh floated through the room. “I was wondering when you were going to wake up.”
My tortured gaze swung to the doorway. Debbie leaned against the frame, grinning. Mouth tasting like I made a series of bad decisions last night, I glanced at the clock. “Holy crapola.”
It was almost one in the afternoon.
She laughed again. “Did you overindulge last night?”
“Yeah,” I croaked.
Debbie pushed out of the doorway and headed to the small fridge. Digging out a small bottle of orange juice, she then grabbed another bottle off the desk. She walked them over to me and sat down on my bed.
My brain felt fuzzy, like it had grown tiny hairs during the night, as I watched her pop out two aspirins.
“Take them.” She handed over the OJ and aspirins. “It will help.”
I would take a shotgun blast to the head if it helped. Swallowing the pills, I followed it up with a healthy gulp of OJ.
