“Oh, my fucking god,” Syd swore under her breath.
She slid into her soaking wet panties even though they were cold AF and grabbed up the sweats Jesse loaned her. She should never have put them on. It was getting out of the shower and finding his clothes neatly folded outside the bathroom door that had done her in. Wearing his clothes was sexy. It was like a sexual caress all on its own, a strangely intimate and possessive thing.
Jesse mumbled something to his mom and hung up. “Sorry,” he said before he turned around. “I think sometimes that my mom is on drugs….”
His voice faded away when he stopped and took in the fact that she was fully dressed. Her eyes dropped to his boxers, which were still currently tented. Like, really tented. By a really impressive tent pole.
“I can’t believe you still have a hard-on after talking to your mom,” she muttered. “Gross.”
He shook his head, running his hand over his face so hard that it made a rasping sound. “Good god, don’t say things like that. It’s disgusting. I had to talk to her, yes, but I had the taste of your come on my lips, in my mouth, down my throat, the whole time, so also yes, it’s pretty much impossible not to have a boner right now.”
Panic tightened her insides and crept up her throat. It was the same kind of panic that she felt after she’d woken up the next morning and found herself in bed wrapped up in her best friend’s warm, heavy limbs. Sore and achy in all the right places after four amazing orgasms.
“Jesse… seriously. I- I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
“What?” His eyes widened. “Are you freaking serious right now?”
“Y- yes. This is- this is exactly why I left before. I had to. Because I knew what would happen if I stayed. Your parents want this. Your mom always wanted us to fall in love with each other. I knew she’d be thrilled. My mom would be too. She would have wanted me to wait a little while. Make sure it was what I wanted and all that. We were too young for all those expectations.”
“We’re not young anymore.”
“No, but we barely know each other, and our parents are still over the moon. This- this isn’t going to work. I can’t stick around with everyone wanting it so bad. I can’t deal with all that pressure. I know it will make us fail and then everyone will hate me. Everyone will hate me, because I’ve always been the wild one. I’ve always been the restless one. I’ve always been the exact opposite of you. I act first and think later. I’m like a wrecking ball most of the time. I don’t even know if I could be tied down with a person for the rest of my life and we’re like strangers now. I’m sure as heck not ready for kids. I’m not ready for any of this. I really was just drunk and I- I didn’t mean it. I can’t do this. I can’t do any of this.”
“Really, Sydney? You had to let me eat your pussy first before you had the freak-out? Why not before? It would have saved me a lot of work.”
He was goading her, and she knew it. “Fuck you,” she said as she flipped him the bird.
He grinned. “That’s more like the Syd I know. Seriously. You’re just having a freak out just like you did then. I knew you were scared. I freaking knew it. You let that fear rule your life. You let all the stupid what ifs and the unknowns take over what could have been. We could have been happy. We could have had a beautiful family by now, or spent years doing whatever it is you wanted to do. We could have started the company together, spent all our time working on helping make other people’s lives better. We could have been that unstoppable power couple. We still can be, or whatever you want. Whatever. The couple that lives in the middle of nowhere like creepy cavemen recluse style people. The average couple with a nice car and two point two kids and a cat and a dog. That couple that travels the world together and never has kids. It doesn’t matter to me. I just seriously want you to calm down and think about this. We might have been young before, but this time, we’re old enough to know better and if you’re going to let fear rule your life a second time, then you’re not the Syd that I thought I knew.”
She stared at him. He stared right back. Her chest heaved with her harsh, frantic breaths, and so did his, even though he was the one trying to be calm and rational.