Chapter 5

chapter

five

Chelsea

It's a Friday and already quarter to six. Work day is over, yet I find myself still at my desk. JD is still behind his as well. We often stay later on Fridays. Have a drink from the stash JD keeps in a locked cabinet.

My email pings and it's something from one of my professors. JD and Hayes have been amazing with me and my class schedule. Enabling me to take more than just one evening class at a time. I'm actually on track to finish my MBA in Finance in the next couple of months.

I open the email and squeal!

"Mike coming in early from his trip?" JD asks. He's annoyed. Why does he sound so annoyed. He's been in a good mood all day.

"No, I got the highest grade on that huge assignment I've been working on. The professor just emailed me to let me know."

I glance over my shoulder and find JD smiling at me. It's genuine and wrinkles the corners at his eyes and gah, he is so beautiful.

"Drink to celebrate?" he asks.

"Definitely."

"Somewhere or just here?"

"Just here." I rise from my desk, toe off my Chucks and pad over to the leather sofa that sits beneath a wall of windows overlooking the Capitol building. I settle myself on the comfortable cushions, tucking one leg beneath me.

JD steps over and hands me a glass of amber liquid. He's got his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the dusting of hair and cords of muscles in his right forearm. They're in his left too, but that arm has a full sleeve. I've never seen all of it, but he's told me about it before.

The part of the tattoo on his forearm looks like a Terminator arm when they're in full machine mode. There are still "strips" of skin covering part of it though, making it look eerily realistic. He sits on the sofa and follows my gaze to his arm.

"You said a guy in your hometown did that?"

He nods. "Zane. Kind of his specialty. Doing stuff like this."

"It's amazing."

He extends his arm towards me so I can get a better look and I can't help but run a fingertip over the images of sinew and metal. "It looks so real."

"My arm is real," he says.

I roll my eyes at him. "You know what I mean."

He takes a sip of his whiskey, then nods towards my right arm. Where my own Terminator tattoo sits. "You want me to talk to Zane? See if he can come up with something this cool for you?"

I give him the side-eye. "Absolutely not!"

"What?" He almost looks offended.

"Because your sleeve is a dude tattoo."

He quirks an eyebrow. "A dude tattoo? What does that even mean?"

"It's a tattoo that looks great on a guy but would look…" I trail off, trying to think of a not-sexist way to say this. "Just not great on a straight woman."

He laughs. "You're saying tattoos have a sexual identity."

"No! I'm just saying that some tattoos look great on men and…" I scrunch up my nose, imagining the hard "metal" lines of his tattoo on my skin. "…not great on a woman." He looks about to protest, but I hold up a hand to cut him off. "Trust me on this. I looked long and hard for a Terminator themed tattoo that would look good on me and the best I could come up with was a quote."

"Long and hard, huh?"

His voice is pitched low and those words take on an intimacy that just about lights my panties on fire. Thank God they're damp enough to put out a fire.

I suppress a shiver and try to steer the conversation back to neutral territory. "Do you ever wonder what starts the cycle?" I blurt. "Of Terminator , I mean. Obviously, there's the whole John Connor sends Kyle Reese back to save Sarah Connor. And then Kyle and Sarah fall in love. So that's a loop. But how did it start?"

He seems to consider my question, nodding. "Because there are multiple timelines? So, there must have been a point of origin? Before the timelines branch off? Before the knowledge of Judgement Day starts changing how Judgement Day goes down?"

"Yes, exactly! I mean there must have been an original timeline where John isn't Kyle's son. Where Kyle and Sarah just fall in love completely on their own, right?"

I glance over at JD, partly to see if he's even following my train of thought. Because when I start going down these rabbit holes, sometimes people start spacing out. Not JD though, he's watching me with that same intensity that always makes my breath catch and my heart race.

I clear my throat. "I think that timeline is the most sad."

"Why?" he asks, totally serious, treating this like it's a real discussion and not me chasing down fan theories.

"Because without Sarah's foreknowledge of Judgement Day, John—the John who was fathered by someone other than Kyle—wouldn't have had the knowledge and training to give the humans a fighting chance. Not a real one. In all the other timelines, the ones that come after, at least humanity has hope."

He nods slowly, considering my words. "But all they have is the timeline they're in. They don't know any different."

"True."

"Would you want to know?" he asks. "If there was some other timeline where things were different in your life, would you want to know about it?"

I consider for a second and then laugh. "Would I want to know about a parallel universe where Skynet destroyed civilization back in 1997?No, thank you."

He chuckles. "That's not what I meant. Just a slightly different timeline. For example, one where you and I met before you met Mike."

I nearly choke on the sip I just took, but manage to swallow it, then set the glass down on the window sill next to me. I force a laugh. "Thank God that didn't happen."

JD's features shutter and his scowl slides into place. "Would that have been so terrible a fate?"

The seriousness in his tone makes my heart pound. JD is always flirty with me. It's his way. I'm certain he's like this with all the woman at the company, though I've never really seen it firsthand. That could be because he rarely interacts with anyone else other than me and Hayes and Helen.

"There is no fate, remember? But for argument's sake, if you had met me when I didn't have a boyfriend, I wouldn't be here today. We wouldn't be friends and I wouldn't work for H & J Funds."

"How do you figure all of that?"

"Well, even if we would have first met here, just like we did that day in the bullpen, eventually you would've hit on me and I would've caved. We'd have slept together, and then I would've been fired and forced to find a new job that wouldn't have paid for my master's degree. Then my entire life would've gone off the rails."

"Having sex with me would have caused all of that?"

I laugh. "Not the sex per se, just the effects of it. A chain of events, if you will."

"That's not at all what would've happened," he says, his tone ominous.

I stare at his tense jaw and narrowed gaze. Then it hits me. The heat in my cheeks is instant and I know the blush is crawling up my neck into my face. Awesome. Nothing like being a splotchy red mess. I clear my throat.

"I get it. You mean you wouldn't have hit on me? You're probably right." If a meteor could hit the Earth right now, that would be awesome. Or even just me, just take me out of this embarrassing situation. He probably thinks I think I'm all that.

"That's not what I meant either. Who's to say it would've been a one and done? Why do you assume I would've broken your heart? And why the fuck would you have been fired?"

I exhale slowly, completely thrown off by his intensity. What is he trying to say?

"JD, you have a reputation as a player. You and Hayes both do."

He shakes his head. "Hayes got married and moved home. He's a dad now."

"Yes, I realize. But that doesn't change your reputation."

He releases some sort of growly noise.

"I'm just saying that I was told, in no uncertain terms, the first day on this job, that the two of y'all were players and flirts and I shouldn't even go there. I would've been just as disposable to you as every other woman you've dated since I started working here."

"What if I told you there haven't been any women since I met you?"

I snort out a laugh. "Then I would call you on your bullshit. There's no way you haven't been with any other women since you met me. It's been more than two years."

"So?"

"There's no way you've been celibate. I mean, why? You look like that." I make a ta-da motion with my hand, indicating the sheer hotness that is my boss.

"We're getting off course," he says.

"What about Brenda?"

"Who the fuck is Brenda?" he barks.

"The woman who worked here once. You and her had a thing, one night or whatever, and then she got fired."

His eyes close and he squeezes the bridge of his nose. "Fucking rumors." He sets his glass down and shifts closer to me on the couch. "Brenda did work here. She and I did hook up. Once and I regretted it immediately. And she did get fired. But not because I slept with her. For fuck's sake, Chelsea, I would have thought you knew me a little better than that."

His words sting and I wince. He's not wrong. That story and the man before me have never aligned for me. "I'm sorry."

He shakes his head. "You want to know what really happened? Brenda and I hooked up after the Christmas party. I went to her place, I told her it was just sex. She said that's all she wanted. I left shortly after we… uh, finished." His hand scrapes against his scalp and I've always thought that was the sexiest move.

"I take it things didn't end like you thought."

"No. She fucking stalked me. Broke into my personnel file to get my address and would show up at my house at all hours of the night. I had to file a restraining order. She claimed she was pregnant and that it was mine. Even after the court-ordered pregnancy test proved she was never pregnant, she still wouldn't go away."

I put my hand on his arm, right over that tattoo. "Oh my God, JD, that's terrible."

"After she was arrested for breaking into my house and crawling into my bed, everything ended. I believe someone in her family came and got her and brought her home. Wherever that was. I'm not sure what happened other than her family reached out to assure me they were caring for her, and there would be no future issues."

"Shit on a shingle, that is terrifying," I say with a shudder that pulses through my body.

"You think I'm a pussy because I had to have a woman arrested for assaulting me?" he asks, his words so quiet, I barely hear his question.

I scoot closer to him and cup his face. I stare into his eyes. "Absolutely not. That's nothing more than toxic masculinity speaking. You had a stalker. That shit is scary and real. Of course you're not a pussy."

My eyes fall to his mouth. The sensual curve of his lips. The softness of his beard beneath my palms. I feel myself leaning in.

When did we get this close to each other? So close I can feel the warmth from his breath. Scent the whiskey on his lips.

I really want to kiss him.

My brain finally engages, and I realize what's about to happen. Kissing JD would, no doubt, be amazing. But it would also be a colossally bad idea. So instead, I stand up. "Wow, it's getting late."

He doesn't say anything and I try not to look at his eyes, but I can tell he's watching me closely.

"Thanks for the celebration drink. And well, for all your mentoring because it has been so helpful in my classes. I mean, I really feel like I have a leg up on my classmates."

Leg up? What am I even saying right now.

He grabs my hand. "Chelsea. Stay."

I do look at him then. His expression is heated, but earnest. He looks like a mafia boss sitting there. Something in his casual but confident demeanor. With his sleeves rolled up, his gritty tattoo and the look of—holy shit—lust on his face.

Panic spreads through me like wildfire and I know I have a fraction of a breath before I climb in his lap and ride him like the stud he is.

"I have to get home and feed Mike."

" Feed him?"

I roll my eyes at my slip. "You know, I told him I'd bring takeout home tonight."

He drops my hands and nods, but doesn't say anything else.

So I just turn and leave.