I’m not.
“So, do you keep everything personal in your room?” I point down a hallway, wondering if I can head in that direction.
“Yeah, I have the master since I’m here the most.”
She leads me to the end of the hall and into a room that I pray has some kind of resemblance of a home and not what she keeps referring to as a crash pad.
The door swings open after she unlocks it with a key from her pocket. The walls are also white, but pops of color spring out from her bedspread, and the bureau is a grayish-blue—a welcome contrast to the rest of the place. Necklaces hang from the dresser mirror, and there’s a framed poster with a Bob Marley quote—Love the life you live. Live the life you love—on the wall next to a hook, which has her sweatshirts hanging from it. There are no photos of her with friends or her family. Nothing that says this is Jolene Davies’s bedroom.
She pulls her suitcase behind her, flipping it up to a luggage rack that sits by the window. Yes, a luggage rack. Like the kind you see in a hotel room.
For a woman who is so full of life, I’m surprised how lifeless her one personal space is. Just thinking of my own office-slash-bedroom, I can easily name ten things in there that would let anyone know what I’m about—pictures of my parents, pictures of Zack, Men’s Health magazines, a wooden bat signed by Barry Bonds, a San Francisco 49ers throw blanket, a plaque from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for fundraising, an old tin street sign from the street I grew up on in Dixon, a miniature ’69 Camaro that Austin Sexton gave me, a begonia plant Stella brought in because she said my soul needed it … hell, I even have a bottle of booze on my desk at all times.
If this is what Jolene calls home, I understand more so now why she’s so tied to Nonna. That dilapidated apartment resembled more of her childhood home than what she has here.
Jolene takes her iPad out of her suitcase and hands it to me. “I’m going to hop in the shower. You’re welcome to watch Netflix or anything on this.” She steps up close to me, rubbing her body against mine. “Unless you want to join me. Though, to be honest, it’s a small stand-up shower that I have a hard enough time shaving my legs in, let alone getting frisky.”
I softly kiss her and then smack her ass. “Go ahead. I’ll hop in after you, and then we can have some fun.”
She kisses me again before grabbing a container on the floor. I eye it closer and see it’s a shower caddy with shampoo and stuff in it.
“Why do you have that in here?”
She lifts it in the air and twists it, showing it off. “It’s just easier this way. I’ve had people get confused and grab my stuff when they take off for flights. What can I say? I’m picky about my products, and I hate going without.”
She shuffles off to the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and I take a seat on the bed. The nightstand has a small brass lamp and a book lying beside it. It’s a historical romance. I pick it up and flip through it. She seems to be about halfway through, and the heroine is about to lose her maidenhead. I laugh to myself and put it down.
Her closet is partially open. I stretch my leg out and toe the door open all the way. It’s filled with flight attendant uniforms and about ten dresses. She’s been traveling all over the world for a week with a carry-on suitcase, so I’ve seen firsthand that she doesn’t need much by way of clothing.
I open the iPad and scroll through her apps. I know travel is her life. Hell, it’s the reason she left me all those years ago. What I didn’t realize was it is her life. She has multiple travel guide apps, all to a different country on every continent. Lonely Planet, Rick Steves, Eurostar Trains, Rosetta Stone, Google Translate, and Tripwolf are just a few of the other apps she has in neatly categorized folders. There are no games. Only the Instagram account I knew she had but could never access. I open it and am not surprised her feed is full of beautiful pictures taken from the places she’s visited.
This might not be the life for me. Fuck, it kind of depresses me, to be honest. But it’s easy to see she’s comfortable in this lifestyle.
So, why do I feel the strong desire to throw her over my shoulder and bring her home with me to give her a proper home?
I run my hand over my face and cup my jaw.
Because you’ve fallen back in love with her, you idiot.
It would take a fool to not see this one coming. I never fell out of love with Jolene Davies. She might have changed in ways I wasn’t prepared for, yet she’s still as dynamic as she was a decade ago. And smarter, sexier, sassier, and every damn good S-word in the English language. I’m crazy about her, and now, I have to figure out what to say because, while she might be all those good S-words, she’s also skittish as hell. One wrong word, and she’ll run like a frightened cat.
Jolene enters the room, wearing only a towel, and immediately drops it to her feet, leaving her wet, naked, and with a look of desire written all over her face.
I lay the tablet to the bedside table. I’m still a guy. No matter how confused I might be about her living situation and what my feelings about her mean, she’s still an unbelievably gorgeous goddess of a woman. I can worry about all the mental shit later. Right now, I want to be inside her as quickly as possible.
We fell asleep fast in each other’s arms, the flight and time change really screwing with us.
It’s pitch-black outside when we start to stir, wide-awake with stomachs growling.
“Was that you or me?” I ask when I hear the rumble within the quiet space. I lift my phone and see it’s three in the morning.
She curls up into my side and lays a leg over my stomach. “Must be you. I’m not too hungry.” Another rumble sounds off, this one definitely coming from her, and we both laugh. “Okay, that was me.” She chuckles under her breath. “Let’s see what we have.”
We hop out of bed, clothing our naked bodies, and head to the kitchen. I notice keys on the counter that weren’t there when we arrived earlier.
“Did someone else come home?” I ask, pointing at them.
She waves me off as she opens the cupboard. “Yeah, I thought I heard someone come in.”
“Which roommate?”
She closes it, taking out a box of cereal. “Not sure. We’ll see if or when she comes out. Does cereal sound good? It’s pretty much all that’s in here.”
I nod, looking down the hall, feeling weird, knowing someone else is here, and even odder, knowing that she doesn’t really know who it is.
She grabs two bowls and then opens the fridge, grabbing the milk and turning back to the counter. After pouring the cereal, she opens the milk.
When it comes out in thick white chunks, she yelps, “Oh my God!” Quickly stopping, she throws the sour milk container in the sink. “Ugh, that’s so gross.” She runs the water, pushing the rest of the milk chunks down the drain, and then tosses the cereal with milk included in the trashcan. “Okay, no cereal. Let’s go out.”
“Baby, you do realize it’s three in the morning, right?”
“Yes, and we’re in New York City, not Dixon, my friend.” She playfully slaps my chest as she heads back to her room to grab her phone. “What sounds good?”
I tilt my head with a deadpan stare. My dad always said nothing good happens after midnight, and I’m here to say, he’s absolutely right. I’ll only add that the people you see most likely aren’t good as well.