He made a dismissive male grunt and trailed his lips down my naked chest, working his bare shoulders under the sheets. I smiled.
Jason’s new personal assistant, Zane, had started on Monday. A tough-looking, no-nonsense woman with a pompadour, cuffed jeans, and a naked lady tattooed on her forearm. She spoke Spanish, was experienced, knew her way around LA, and she was amazing.
She drove him to his appointments so he didn’t have to deal with traffic and she made sure he ate and got to places on time. Zane turned out to be exactly what he needed because his schedule had officially become ridiculous.
His soundtrack was being released on Friday, and he had radio and TV interviews and photo shoots every day this week. The theme song for the movie was particularly promising. Next weekend he was even playing Saturday Night Live.
Jason started pulling my underwear down. I wriggled, tapping his shoulder. “No, no, no. Come on, get in the shower.”
His head popped up from under the sheet and he gave me a sad puppy dog look.
I smiled at him. “I won’t contribute to your delinquency. You have that KROQ thing today.”
He let out a sigh and rolled off me onto his back, putting an arm over his face. “You make me insane. I can’t keep my hands off you.”
My cell phone pinged, and I leaned over with a grin and reached for it.
“Who’s that?” he asked. It was barely 6:15 in the morning.
“Your mom.”
“My mom? She doesn’t text.”
“She texts me,” I said, flashing him the screen and then going back to typing a response.
“Unbelievable.”
“Well, she’s not going to call me and read me a recipe over the phone like a crazy person,” I said. “It’s eight fifteen there. She found a recipe in a magazine for sloppy joes she thinks you’ll like. And she wants to know if I know how to make a compote.”
“Do you?”
I snorted. “Well, yeah, of course.”
He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at me and I set the phone down on my chest, smiling. “What?”
“Go on a date with me tonight.”
“You mean go outside?”
We hadn’t spent any time together out of bed since we’d come back from Minnesota. He’d spent the night at my house for the last three nights. I loved it. I loved going to sleep in his arms and waking up to him.
“Let me wine and dine you,” he said. “Walk with you on the beach and hold your hand.”
I put my arms around his neck. “Yes, I’ll go on a date with you, my music man.”
He kissed me deeply and I thought for a second I was going to have to remind him about his call time again. But he broke away and rubbed his nose to mine. “Hey, what do you think about me using that empty bottom drawer in the dresser? Maybe unpack my backpack? Hang it in the closet?”
The request hit me like a bucket of ice water. My response was so knee-jerk I didn’t have time to rein it in. I bit my lip and shook my head. “No. I can’t.”
The light faded a little from his eyes, but he just smiled at me. “Okay.”
He gave me a quick kiss, got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and closed the door.
I sat up and put my hands to my face. Feelings pinged off me, firing in all directions.
Why was he doing this to me? Pretending this relationship was going to be able to progress like any other one? This wasn’t real life. This was just an in-between. He couldn’t put things in drawers.
He was leaving.
I was doing everything in my power to try and enjoy this time. We had so little of it left. The start date of his tour loomed in front of me like a tidal wave. It was coming, and it would be the end. So then why did he want to put me through this? Emptying out a dresser again? I’d already done it once this year and it had been hard enough.
I threw off the sheets, put on my robe, and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the guitar he’d propped on the chair and chewing my lip. The pipes knocked in the wall as Jason turned on the shower and I called Kristen. It was early, but Oliver always got her up at 6:00, and she answered on the second ring.
“Jason wants a drawer,” I whispered.
The baby fussed in the background.
“Uh, then give him a fucking drawer?”
“Kristen, he’s leaving. He should be living out of a backpack. That’s exactly the nature of this situation. This relationship isn’t a house. It’s a tent. Why keep things here and act like it isn’t all going to come to an end in two weeks?”
“Is it coming to an end in two weeks? I mean, have you guys even talked about it?”
I chewed my thumbnail. “No, not really. But it won’t change anything if we do. I’m not doing the long-distance thing for fourteen months.”
“What if he’s planning to ask you to go with him? Why would he make you his girlfriend and take you home to meet his parents if he wasn’t serious about this relationship?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me the tour was extended until we were in Ely, so maybe he just found out? He probably went into all this with the best intentions, but his circumstances have obviously changed. And I’m not going with him even if he does ask. I’ve been his girlfriend for a week. I’m not running off on tour with him, and talking about it is just going to make the bubble pop. I just wanted to be blissfully ignorant for a few more days and then he went and brought up drawers.”
I think Jason and I were both kind of pretending his tour wasn’t happening. Who wanted to be the one to throw a wet blanket on this?
“Well, bubble or no, you need to fucking talk about it. And give the man a damn drawer. He’s had his mouth on every inch of your body. He can’t put socks in a dresser?”
I put my forehead into my palm and pushed back my hair. “I don’t know if I can play house with him, Kristen. It’s going to be too hard when we break up.”
She snorted. “There’s no way you’re letting this dude go. You’re like half in love with him already.”
“Oh, I’m letting him go. I have to.”
She scoffed.
I rolled my eyes. “I can’t wait fourteen months for a man I’ve known three weeks.”
“Why? At three weeks with Josh, I would have tattooed his name across my boob. You’ll hang on to a car that’s barely running just because you had your first kiss in it, but you won’t stick out a long-distance relationship with a man who gives you multiple orgasms and makes you insanely happy?”
I shook my head. “Did you know that I kept a beer bottle in the garage for the last two years because Brandon drank out of it? Like, what kind of crazy is that? I am so tired of being more sentimental about everyone and everything in my life than I am about myself. For once I want to be the rational one, Kristen. I didn’t even like losing Brandon to the fire station for two days in a row. Staying with a man who’s going to be gone for a year will make me miserable—even if I am half in love with him. I’m in an in-between, and if I keep making decisions that bury me there, I’ll never get out of it.”
She made a whistle noise. “Wow. You really are on a self-improvement kick.” The baby giggled in the background. “Look, I’m glad you’re getting your shit together, Sloan. I really am. And if you think you need to end it when he leaves, do what you gotta do. But give the man a fucking drawer in the meantime. If you’re giving him your vagina you can give him a drawer.”