Actually Love - Jessie & Zach (22 page)

“Got it.” His mom continued writing.

“Then there’s Jason, who is married to Katie. Katie’s a lawyer, and Jason took over my uncle Bob’s construction business when his dad had to retire for health issues. Jason had been in love with Katie since the day he met her in kindergarten. I’m glad they finally got together.

“Then Alex is married to Jamie, who had a son from a previous relationship—”

“Joey,” his mom interrupted. “Zach told me all about him. He sounds adorable.”

“He is,” Jessie smiled happily. He felt her body getting more and more relaxed by the minute. “Alex is a firefighter and Jamie is a nurse. They met when Alex ended up in the hospital after a beam fell on his head during an evacuation. He woke up, saw Jamie for the first time, and asked her to marry him. It was honestly one of the most romantic things I’ve ever seen.”

“Aww,” his mom gushed as she held her hands clutched to her heart.

“And last is Bobby. He is married to Sophie. He’s a lot like Seth. Quiet and reserved. Sophie is a firecracker. From what I can tell, they prove the theory that opposites attract.”

Zach remembered that that was exactly what Margie and Mabel had said about him and Jessie. That they were the epitome of opposites attracting. He hadn’t given it much thought since that day, but now he definitely was.

“Those are my cousins. The other people who will probably be there are Sophie’s grandfather, who the boys call The Colonel and the girls call Grandpa J. He’s actually sort of everyone’s adopted Grandpa. And her parents Mike, who is the fire chief, and Grace, who is a nurse. Katie’s mom Pam, who is one of the nicest people in the world, and Aunt Wendy, who is quite a character; bold does not even begin to describe her. Then there’s Jamie’s aunt Hazel, who is also spitfire. My sister’s fiancé Eddie and his little girl Emily, who is best friends with Joey. Then Chase Malone, who is my sister Krista’s fiancé, and his mom Abby will be there, and that should be it.”

“I still can’t believe I’m going to meet
Chase Malone.
” His mom said Chase’s voice with reverence.

“My mom’s a huge Chase Malone fan,” Zach explained.

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. He is a good guy.” Jessie smiled warmly.

Zach sat back against the cushion and listened as Jessie told his mom several ‘Chase Malone’ stories she had from when they had grown up together. It was obvious that she cared about her sister’s fiancé. He had no right to be jealous—even if he did, he knew that he had no reason to be—but none of that mattered. Zach couldn’t help the fact that he didn’t like hearing Jessie talk about a man who wasn’t her family. He didn’t like it at all.

As his mom and Jessie talked and laughed, Zach sat quietly beside the girl who, in such a short time, had become a huge part of his life. His thumb still made lazy circles around her shoulder, which felt like the most natural thing in the world.

And
that,
more than anything, scared the hell out of him.

J
essie tapped her pen on her desk as she reread an email for probably the eighteenth time. She knew the words would make sense if she put all of them together, but sadly, her brain was not cooperating with that game plan. She was absolutely fine reading each word individually, so her sight was still on the job. Her comprehension, however, had definitely left the building.

Focus,
Jessie told herself. All she needed to do was focus. Since this whole thing with Zach and the brownstone had started, her focus had flown right out the window.

Every day, when she woke up, she’d tell herself that
this
was the day that she was going to get a handle on it. That this would be the day she would stop obsessively thinking about Zach. Zach’s
body
. Zach’s
voice
. Zach’s
touch
. And every day, she failed. Miserably.

Sleep,
her inner voice piped in. All she really needed was sleep. That was a great plan, but it was close to impossible to execute in her current living situation. Being right down the hall from Zach was about as conducive to getting a peaceful night’s sleep as having a newborn baby was.

Jessie’s nights were spent restlessly tossing and turning in bed. It had been bad enough that, when she was finally able to drift off to slumberland, she had begun
dreaming
of Zach. But now, she didn’t even have to be asleep before she had X-rated fantasies playing out in her mind while she was lying in her bed, desperately wishing that her dreams (sleeping or awake) would become reality.

Her favorite was the one where Zach knocks on her door, opens it, standing in the doorway in black boxer briefs, and says that he heard a noise so he is checking on her. She says that she’s fine, but he doesn’t take her word for it, so stalks in her room and climbs in her bed just to make sure…and oh boy, his ‘body check’ is
thorough
.

Sex
. She knew that, if she were being honest with herself, the real issue here was not that she was lacking in the sleep and focus departments (although she abso-freaking-lutely was). Those were just symptoms of a much bigger, much more difficult problem to solve—sexual frustration.

In and of itself, being sexually frustrated would not be an insurmountable issue for someone like Jessie. The way she saw it, there were several options at her disposal to remedy that situation. One, take care of things herself. Two, expend excess energy by exercising, which also released endorphins to combat the dopamine that her body was flooded with every time she thought of Zach (not to mention what happened when she saw him). Or three, have actual sex with someone other than herself.

Giving up on the email, Jessie turned in her chair to look out over the river. Over the past few weeks, Jessie had tried options one and two on a regular basis. They were
not
cutting the mustard—or any other condiment for that matter. Which left good ol’ option number three. Bang it out. There was a snag in her otherwise smooth-as-silk plan. Jessie had no problem hooking up with men when she wanted to. When she decided that that’s what was going to happen, usually the men fell into line.
Eagerly
. The snag came from the frustrating fact that the only person she wanted to have anything
sexual
with was Zach.

The thought of someone else touching her was not just unappealing, it almost made her skin crawl. The thought of Zach touching her made her skin break out in goose bumps and come alive with tingles and desire. He’d been touching her (in purely innocent ways…unfortunately!) a lot more since Thursday night when they had gone to meet Anna and then volunteered at the shelter.

That entire night, he’d touched her. His hand on the small of her back, which she
loved
, or his thumb drawing lazy circles on her shoulder, which she
double loved
, or his rough fingertips brushing a long bang out of her eyes, which she
triple loved
.

A loud ringing caused Jessie to practically jump out of her seat. Looking down, she saw the red light blinking on the phone sitting on her desk. At two in the afternoon on a Sunday, Jessie was not expecting to get any phone calls.

Picking up the phone, she said, “Jessie Sloan.”

“I knew it!” her assistant Martin’s accusatory voice loudly sounded in her ear.

“What?” she snapped back harshly. Jessie did not like to be yelled at, even if it was from someone she adored like her oh-so-fabulous assistant.

“You are a big, clucking chicken,” Martin stated with flair and emphasis, as if that declaration alone would make perfect sense to Jessie.

“Excuse me?” she asked. She was tempted to say, “
You are a big, crowing rooster
,” but she was so tired that she didn’t trust her witty-comeback gauge. And if she missed the mark, Martin would be more than happy to point her verbal
faux pas
out.

“It is Sunday afternoon, darlin’, and
you
are at the office.”

Jessie could picture the exaggerated expression of disapproval on Martin’s face as he said those words to her. Ignoring his tone, she replied, “And you, sir, are a true master of the obvious.”

She heard several tsking sounds before Martin spoke again. “And you, Honey Boo Boo, are scared. You’ve been scared since you met Mr. Sexy Playboy Boxing Man.”

“Is that what we’re calling him now?” Jessie tried to lighten the mood, which felt a little too judgmental for her taste.

“Don’t try and be cute, miss thing. You’ve been avoiding that man like you have the I’m-gonna-jump-your-bones plague and he is the only antidote”—his voice went up a few registers and he began speaking with an exaggerated Southern drawl—“but you must resist him at all costs to preserve your womanly honor.” He paused, she assumed for the effect, and then continued in his own voice. “Ummmm, drama queen much?”

“Yep. That’s me. I’m a drama queen,” Jessie said flatly.

“
That
is not the fierce Jessie Sloan I know. The oh-so-fierce Jessie Sloan I know doesn’t let some man make her run to her office and hide like Little Red Riding Hood hiding from the Big Bad Wolf. Oh no, the Jessie Sloan I know would go home and grab the bull by its horn. And by bull, I mean Boxer Boy, and by horn, I mean
penis
.”

“Thanks for clarifying that, Martin.” Jessie couldn’t help but smile…just a little; Martin did have a flair for descriptions. But this was not a road she wanted to travel down with Martin since he would steer her straight into Zach. “I need to get back to work.”

“Go home and get you some good lovin’. Girl, you need to own that puss—”

“Goodbye, Martin.” Jessie hung up the phone because once Martin got graphic, he got
really
graphic.

Turning her attention back to her screen, Jessie tried to mentally erase what Martin had said. Because it was
totally
ridiculous. She shook her head back and forth, but her memory was not an Etch A Sketch, so it didn’t do much good. She closed her eyes and blinked hard, trying to wipe her mind clear, but it seemed that her closed eyelids were not the eraser to her mental chalkboard.

All she could think about now was that
this
behavior was
not
like her. Martin was right. Jessie was behaving in a way she’d never expected herself to behave. She was acting like…a girl. This whole living-situation-slash-fake boyfriend-situation had turned Jessie’s life into some kind of romantic comedy where she was cast as the loveable, bumbling-her-way-through-things lead actress.

Well, it was definitely time to flip the script. Now all she had to do was figure out what new pages to write in the story of her life and she would be all set.

Thinking back over the past few weeks, she realized that she had fallen victim to the ultimate twist in this
rom-com
tale that she knew as her life. Because it wasn’t just her hormones that were responding to Zach. Nope, she was starting to like him. Really
like
him.

It had been bad enough that he was always doing considerate things and making sure that Jessie was taken care of.
But
she had been able to write off the way he treated her in her admittedly cynical mind, as just rollover charm that he used to get women into bed.

Not that she imagined that Zach really had to work all that hard—or at
all
—to sleep with his pick of women. It was probably more difficult to keep women out of his bed than in it. Still, that’s how she dealt with that and maintained her protective shell of indifference.

Seeing Zach with his mom and all the other residents at Avalon had made her feel something she would have sworn was physically impossible for her to feel—gooey inside. She could feel the bond between Anna and Zach. They had the kind of shorthand with each other that was sweet and, because she now knew the details of their past, also heartbreaking.

After reading up on Zach, she knew that, once Anna’s parents had passed away, she and Zach had been on their own. Raising a son as a single mom without the help of family would have been bad enough, but then when Zach was just fourteen, Anna had experienced her first heart attack and spent the next few years being misdiagnosed by doctor after doctor while her condition deteriorated. Jessie couldn’t even begin to imagine how difficult that must have been—for the both of them.

She had still been feeling all soft and mushy inside when they’d arrived at the mission, and seeing Zach there had caused every single one her defensive walls—which she would have sworn had been firmly in place—to crumble like a cookie. Her heart had melted like an ice cube on a hot sidewalk. It was one thing to volunteer your time, put gloves and a hairnet on, take your place in line, and serve food while being friendly to the people who were standing on the other side of that counter. She would have been fine if that would have been the case. But it hadn’t been.

Leaning back in her chair, she felt her eyes fill with moisture as she remembered the way Zach had not only talked for a moment with each person who had passed by his station, but actually
listened
to them. He’d offered encouragements, cracked jokes, and when it was necessary, commiserated with them. The compassion and respect that he treated every person with was staggering to Jessie.