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Chapter 5
It had taken a hot second, but Jazz finally calmed Winter down and they were about ready to head back to the party.
“Everything good?” she asked, holding her breath as she waited for her bestie’s answer.
If it wasn’t, she was more than ready to go back down and rumble with the bitches that fucked up her best friend’s party. They were lucky she hadn’t been there to witness their vile behavior. The fatphobic insults they’d unloaded on Winter would have had Jazz throwing hands immediately, fancy party or not.
Winter nodded, giving her a wobbly smile. The bride-to-be had spent a good amount of time crying, but with her makeup fixed, it was barely noticeable.
“They’re just jealous, remember that.” Jazz gave her a hug with the reminder. “Your man loves you.”
“I know,” Winter sniffed. “Let’s get back to my party.”
By the time the women made it to the hall, it was luckily time to eat. Winter’s reappearance was seamless, mostly because the crowd was more concerned about finding their places for dinner than wondering where the bride-to-be had been.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I moved your place card next to mine.” Leo stood and pulled out a chair next to where he had been sitting as she approached. “I didn’t want to have to yell at you from across the table.”
She smiled, “I don’t mind at all. I wanted to catch up some more too.”
“I plan to do more than just catch up,” Leo drawled as she slid into her chair.
Jazz’s mouth dropped open. The last thing that she had expected tonight was to be hit on by the Leonard from her past, but there was no way she could deny she liked it.
There was just one problem. She was looking for Mr. Nine-to-Five with a boring office job. Someone that would be home in time for dinner with her and the theoretical kids she already had started naming. It wasn’t in her plans to have her libido swept away by a firefighter who risked his life daily being a real-life hero. She wanted stable and boring, not hot and heroic. She had to remember that, despite the tingles he inspired. If her vagina could make decisions for her, it would have been waving the white flag of surrender at the first glimpse of his muscled arms.
“Yo, Leo!” Mack clapped his hand down hard on Leo’s shoulder, the sound itself as heavy and hard as the action looked. “I just saw Jimmy loading up your bike. What happened, man?”
Jazz listened in on the exchange and realized Leo’s bike must have been the one that was hit in the parking lot.
“A hotel shuttle backed into her and fucked up the front-end. I called Jimmy to come get her since he owed me a favor,” Leo answered, his expression grim. “It didn’t look good.”
“That sucks, man.” Mack dropped into his assigned seat at the table. “You going to take it to Iron Seeds?”
“Yeah. I know a couple guys that work there and already gave them a heads up.” Leo rubbed a hand along his bearded jaw. “You should’ve seen the hotel manager. He was about to piss himself when he saw the damage.”
“I’m sure he was. You need a ride home? I brought the truck tonight since Sal needed a ride,” Mack offered, tilting his head to Sally, the only female EMT at the station.
“I’ll give you a ride,” Jazz said quickly, jumping into the conversation.
Leo turned and raised his eyebrow in her direction. The dark twinkle in his eye letting her know that he had interpreted her words differently than she had intended.
Or maybe not, considering the flood of wetness that dampened her panties.
“Well, it looks like you’re taken care of.” Mack reached into the middle of the table and grabbed a piece of bread from the basket. “How’ve you been doin’, Jazz?”
“Is everyone calling me Jazz now?” she asked curiously. She didn’t mind it, but it was catching her off guard. Leo may have shortened her name when they were kids, but he’d been the only one to call her that other than Winter and now Will. Everyone else around her had been fuddy duddy’s like Reginald and Victoria. They still called her by her full name most of the time.
“You don’t like Jazz?” Leo tipped his head to the side as he asked the question. “You didn’t seem to mind it before.”
“No, I do like it,” she reassured the table quickly. “I’m just not used to it. Nobody but Winter has called me that since I was a kid.”
“That’s what Will calls you,” Mack said with a big shrug of his gigantic shoulders. “I guess we all just followed along. Do you want us to stop?”
“No, I really do like it,” Jazz argued, now regretting she said something in the first place. It was nice, it had just caught her off guard to hear it coming from so many people.
“Your parents still call you Jasmine Jane?” Leo asked with a knowing smile on his lips. “They do, don’t they?”
She nodded, rolling her eyes. “They’re still as formal as ever. In fact, I’m surprised it doesn’t come out with a British accent.”
