Babe? Did he just babe me? What on earth is happening right now?
Isn’t it a little early to be drinking the Kool-Aid?
“Um, okay.”
I hear his decisive nod. “Tomorrow.”
Sebastian
Oz: You there?
Jameson: Of course ;)
Oz: I charged my phone.
Jameson: I can see that! Who lent you a charger?
Oz: No one. I broke down and bought one at the Walgreens across from the hotel. Dodged traffic to cross the intersection, I’ll have you know. Didn’t realize how fast I could sprint until last night.
Oz: There was one point I thought I was going to be hit by a car. Just sayin.
Jameson: WHAT?! Why would you DO THAT?!
Oz: Because I was sick of waiting.
Jameson: Sick of waiting for…?
Oz: It’s a 9-hour bus ride home—do you really think I wanted to wait any longer to text you?
Oz: James? You there?
Jameson: I’m here.
Oz: Does it bother you to hear that?
Jameson: To hear that you…
Oz: Miss your sarcastic mouth? Yeah. I do. Is that some freaky shit or what?
Jameson: Where is this all coming from?
Oz: It’s a long story, but I think we should talk when I get home.
Jameson: “We should talk.” Cause that always ends well.
Oz: I just pulled a Jameson and rolled my eyes—don’t be so dramatic.
Jameson: Me? DRAMATIC?!
Oz: Me, Oz, you, Dramatic.
Jameson: Cute. Very cute. Where are you right now?
Oz: Seat 12D, driving past some very picturesque cornfields somewhere between Ohio and Iowa. You?
Jameson: You know—the library, at my usual table.
Oz: Shit, that actually makes me jealous.
Jameson: Why?
Oz: I kind of consider the library “our thing” now and you’re there without me.
Jameson: Really? Because you’ve been acting really weird lately.
Oz: I have? lol
Jameson: I just rolled my eyes, are you happy? Yes, you have. Are you finally ready to tell me why?
Oz: Yeah, but I’d rather do it in person.
Jameson: Can you at least give me a hint?
Oz: All right.
Oz: It does have something to do with you.
Jameson: Not THAT kind of hint! Be more specific.
Jameson: Hey Sebastian? Can you actually call me to talk, or would that be weird?
Oz: Yeah, I can call you. Since I haven’t seen you in a few days, how bout FaceTime instead?
Jameson: *blushes* Yes, that works, too. Give me fifteen minutes to pack up and dash home. And fluff my hair. Haha.
Oz: Fifteen minutes. Got it.
Oz: And for the record, I love it when you say shit like ‘dash’. It’s so ducking cute.
Jameson: LOL, ducking.
Oz: Autocorrect won’t let me say ducking.
Oz: Not ducking. Ducking.
Oz: DAMMIT
Jameson: I am laughing so hard right now.
Oz: Lol. Starting the clock. Ready. Set. Dash.
“Are you in bed?” I ask, hunching down in my seat, farther inside my hoodie, grateful to have the entire row to myself.
“Just laying on it.” On cue, I hear her sheets rustle, and I imagine they’re crisp, clean, and smell like fresh air and sunshine.
Heaven.
Jameson looks back at me through the camera on her phone, long hair framing her face, all innocent eyed and sexy.
“When will you be home?” She bites down on her lower lip timidly, like she’s just broken out with a case of nerves, like she’s embarrassed to ask.
Those five little words and the way she’s asking—man, they do some unexpected and weird shit to my stomach, make it flip.
I clear my throat. “They have us scheduled to pull in around eleven.”
“Eleven isn’t so bad, early enough to go out and…or…what?”
“Well.” I drag out the word. “Then I was hoping to see you.”
Her eyes get wide. “Tonight? But it’s Friday.”
“Right.”
“Aren’t you going out? To party?”
“I mean, we can. If that’s what you want to do.”
“We?”
“Yeah. You and me.”
“Together?”
“Unless you don’t want to. I just thought—shit.” I run a hand through my hair then drag it down my face. “Never mind what I thought. I’m an idiot.”
“No! No. Sorry, I just. Gosh, Oz, I just assumed you’d be with your friends.”
“You’re my friend,” I point out, giving her a lopsided grin.
This pleases her and a smile brightens her face, one that makes me want to kiss her through the damn phone.
“I am, aren’t I?”
“You are,” I enthuse quietly into my phone. “Am I yours?”
“Yes.”
“I love it when you say yes like that and do it with an eye roll. So sexy.”
Jameson laughs, tipping her head back until it hits the white pillow propped against her headboard. “I know you do.”
“Know what else I love?”
“What?”
“I love your hair,” I blurt out.
Her eyebrows shoot up, surprised, and she touches the long gleaming locks self-consciously while holding her phone with the other. “You do?”
“Every time I see you, I want to touch it, run my fingers through it.”
“You do?” She looks back at me apprehensively.
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”
“I can see that.” Jameson fidgets on the bed. “What else are you hiding from me?”
I wanted to wait, tell her all this in person, but since she’s asking—and so fucking adorably—I reluctantly say, “Those dreams I was telling you about the other day?”
“The nightmares? Yes, I remember.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said they were about you.”
“Oh?” Her mouth forms a tiny circle.
Clearing my throat, I glance around, checking the bus for anyone who’s awake, making sure my teammates are otherwise occupied before I continue pouring my damn black heart out into the small screen on my phone.
“What was so horrible about them then?” she teases, attempting to make light of this tension-filled conversation.
“I dreamed that you…” I exhale. “It was really fucked up.”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me Sebastian. I’m sensing it makes you uncomfortable, but it obviously changed how you’re seeing me.” Does her voice sound throatier than usual? “We’ve been off the past few days, and…if there’s something we can do to fix it, I’d like you to tell me.”
“No, we’re fine—that’s just it. Maybe I don’t want us to be fine any more.”
Jameson juts out her bottom lip, pouting. “I’m not sure what you mean. Are you breaking up with me?”
“See? That’s just it. This is why I need to see you in person.”
She furrows her brow. “Oz, you’re kind of weirding me out.”
“It’s just not something we should be talking about over the phone.”
“Right. That does me no good, because for the next few hours I’m going to be freaking out,” she says.
“Don’t. It’s nothing horrible.”
Jameson sticks out her tongue. “Says the only one of us who has a clue what the hell is going on.”
“Can you come over later?”
“To your place?” She tucks an errant hair behind her ear.
“Yeah, my place.”
“Um, yes. Of course.”
Pretty sure a goofy grin crosses my face. “Great. I’ll text you my address.”
“Okay.”
“It’s two blocks from campus, a barf pink color—you can’t miss it.”
She giggles. “Okay.”
“I’ll be back around eleven thirty. We have to unload and shit when we get back to school, then I can take off. Give me a few to get home and change. How does eleven forty-five sound?”
“Uh, sure.”
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“Unless you want me to come to your place?”
Is that crossing a line with her? The last time I showed up at her house, it didn’t work out so well.
“No, your place is better. My roommates are nosy, and… I’m not sure what they’re doing tonight. Plus, Sydney was planning on staying home, so...I mean… Unless you want to see her.”
Sydney.
Right.
Best to avoid that shit.
“I don’t want to see her. I just want to see you.”
Sebastian
Jameson is in my house.
In my room.
On my bed.
Planted near the headboard of my king size bed, she’s wearing a fitted white tee and a pretty pink cardigan. Tight skinny jeans. Her heels? Those are on the floor by the door.
Heels from those sexy, petite little feet of hers.
I watch her dangle them over the side of my bed, toes painted a neon purple, then tuck them under her legs when she curls up, moving closer to the center.
She looks fantastic.
She beams up at me from the bed, urging me to, “Sit down, would you? Your pacing is making me nervous.”
“Sorry, I can’t help it.” I lower myself to the edge of the bed and wipe my sweaty palms across my jeans. The impulse to bounce my knee is strong. I crack my knuckles instead. “I have all this pent up energy from sitting on the bus all night.”
“Do you want to go for a run?”
“Do you?”
Her nose wrinkles. “Um no—I was just trying to be supportive.”
“You would go running with me to be supportive?”
“Um…no, but I would hold the stopwatch while you ran around the block, throw a cup of water on you when you ran past?”