“Hi.” Jessie walks under my tent and stops, looking around.
“Hey there,” I stand up so she doesn’t feel uncomfortable. There’s only my chair, otherwise I’d offer her a seat. She shifts her weight from one flip-flop wearing foot to the other, and I get the feeling maybe she’s reconsidering her choice to drive out here.
“Everything okay?” I ask, hoping to urge her on.
She glances around the jobsite. “Yeah. You wouldn’t be free for lunch anytime soon, would you?”
I keep my surprise from showing on my face and nod without checking my watch. I don’t know the exact time, but I wouldn’t turn Wes’s little sister down for lunch even if it were midnight.
“I’m free now,” I tell Jessie. A relieved smile stretches her cheeks.
“Good. I’ll follow you into town. You pick the place.”
Before I leave, I ask Scott if he or anyone on the crew would like me to bring something back. He tells me the wife of someone on the crew made everybody sandwiches. I make a mental note to pick up cookies for them.
Jessie climbs into the HCC truck, and follows my car into town.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Jessie says when we’re seated at a Mexican place. I decided on it solely for the chips and salsa.
“Of course,” I respond, dipping a chip in the spicy salsa and popping it into my mouth.
Jessie takes a chip, holding it over her plate and snapping off the corners. “It’s just…” she sighs. “I need someone to talk to.”
“How many people live at your house? Twelve?” My tone is light, joking.
She musters the saddest looking half-smile. “Seven, unless you count Charlie and Peyton, but that’s only every other weekend. And technically it’s only Mom, Dad, Gramps and me at the homestead. Everyone else is in their cabins.”
I take a drink of my water. “That’s still six to eight more people than I live with.”
Her smile grows. “True. But you don’t live with my big brothers.” She stirs the straw around in her drink. “Or my mother.”
“Your grandpa seems like he’d be a good listener. And give some interesting advice too, probably.”
Jessie laughs once. I feel proud for already having made her feel just the tiniest bit better.
Our server comes over, we order, and I lean forward, tucking my cold hands between my thighs. “So, what’s going on?”
Jessie runs her hands through her blonde hair, gathering it in one hand and pulling it over her shoulder. “I’ve been seeing this guy. Eamon. I really like him, like”—she looks at me with intense eyes—“a lot. Like, maybe I love him.”
I smile indulgently, and I hope she doesn’t see it as patronizing. I remember that feeling in high school, and I don’t think there’s anything like it. Heady and overwhelming, it was all-encompassing. Of course, when I felt that way I was forbidden to go near the boy I liked. Which only made me want him more, and drove my dad crazy.
“Okay.” I nod, dropping the smile and adopting a serious expression.
“Well, it’s mid-April. Prom is in two weeks.” She implores me with her eyes, willing me to arrive at her problem using context clues.
And I do. It’s an easy leap.
“He wants you to sleep with him on prom night?”
She nods.
“And you haven’t slept together before?”
She shakes her head.
I absorb her frightened expression and take my guessing one step further. “And you’ve never slept with anybody before?”
“Yes,” she wails. The people sitting two tables over look at us. I offer a small head nod and equally small, reassuring smile.
“Hmm.” I fidget with my earring, thinking of what to say to her. This is Wes’s little sister. There’s a lot of pressure on me to say the right thing, and it’s possible Wes and I might not have the same opinion on what the right thing is in this situation. Something tells me he’d force a chastity belt on Jessie. “Firstly, are you looking for advice, or just someone who will listen to you? Because I hate when I get advice when all I’m trying to do is talk something out.”
Jessie takes another chip and actually eats it this time. “I need advice.”
“You should do what you want. And whatever you do, only do it for you. Not for Eamon. You only get one chance to have a first time. If this is how you want your first time to be, then go ahead.”
She leans closer, her voice dropping lower. “I don’t know how it all works.” She quickly amends her statement. “I mean, I know what goes where,” she makes an ‘o’ with two fingers on her right hand and shoves the pointer finger on her left hand through the hole. It takes everything I can do not to laugh, but given the serious look on her face, I know how poorly received my laughter would be. “I just don’t know how you get from fully clothed at a dance to naked on a bed. It all just seems so awkward.”
“Sometimes it is awkward. That’s just part of sex.”
“Even now? When you’re an adult?”
I shift in my seat, considering how to respond. The most recent person to grace my bed was Jessie’s oldest brother. I don’t want to say too much.
“Yes, even as an adult.”
The server places our lunch on the table and refills our waters. We thank him and he walks away. Jessie picks up her fork. “Is it awkward with Wes?” Her tone is forcibly breezy, like she’s just trying out what it’s like to be two friends chatting nonchalantly about sex. How do I tell her that won’t happen for a while, not until she’s been having sex long enough for it to lose its forbidden quality?
“Not any more awkward than his little sister asking me about it.” I smile around the bite of black beans in my mouth.
She grins sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s just that I’ve never seen Wes…” Her mouth twists as she searches for the word. “Happy. He’s not stomping around as much, and there’s something different about his eyes. They’re lighter. Not in color, I mean, but like whatever’s inside him that hurts doesn't hurt so much anymore. And”—she puts a bite of food in her mouth, then points her fork at me—“I noticed him driving to his cabin almost every morning for the past week.”
I nod slowly, trying not to let on how excited her words have made me. If this was Abby across from me, I’d be squirming in my seat and clapping in celebration. Since it’s Wes’s little sister, I feel there should be a modicum of self-possession. “Wes makes me very happy, too, Jessie. And it’s good to hear I’m having the same effect on him.”
“Well, that’s good,” Jessie snorts, “considering you’re getting married.”
I force a laugh. “True.”
Honestly, it feels like my relationship with Wes is developing alongside our deal, like there are two parallel tracks and we’re riding them both.
Jessie looks a little disappointed, and I can tell she wanted me to gush about my deepest feelings. I get it. When Abby and I were teenagers, we dissected every word our crushes spoke, every action they took if it was in a ten-foot radius of us. We were close as could be, lying in bed in our shared bedroom and gossiping at night until one of us fell asleep. It’s one of our favorite mutual memories, and—