17. Nessa

Nessa

I hated math.

Always had, from the moment I’d seen my first quadratic equation in ninth grade algebra. Unlike June, who played Sudoku like it was a game of Candyland, math and I had never seen eye to eye. Or should I say, pi to pi? I much preferred the New York Times crossword, though even then, I had never completed a puzzle past Wednesday.

At least not without cheating.

In a surprising turn of events, I had found myself the subject of a different kind of puzzle altogether—a logic puzzle. One of those brain teasers where you had to figure out what each person wore to the wedding and what song they requested from the DJ. So long as it wasn’t white or “The Chicken Dance,” who cared?

My puzzle went a little something like this:

The sexual tension between Nessa and Jared has been mounting for weeks. If she decided to give in to the urge to fuck him—which she wouldn’t, but if she did—where would it happen and in what position would he take her?

I had yet to determine a solution.

Maybe Lindsay Lohan was right; the limit does not exist.

Yet here I was, standing outside his house, ready to take him up on his offer to help with the Buns of Steel bachelor auction. So long as he opened the door.

I fired off a quick text to both him and Dani while I waited. During one of our many phone calls, Jared had told me about his home—the larger of the side-by-side townhomes—but this was my first time seeing it in person.

It was smaller than I might have expected a professional baseball player to have, especially one whose signing bonus alone was more than I would make in a lifetime, but it came with one hell of a view of the Columbia River.

My phone vibrated in my hand.

Dani

Around the back and down the hill. Look for the sunflowers.

Easier said than done. The adjoining houses were surrounded by three hundred and sixty-five degrees of yard. Nonetheless, I rounded the house and started down the hill, treading carefully on the steep slope.

I wandered through the never-ending field of wild grass, stopping only to smell a sprig of lavender, until I reached a clearing. Just ahead, a dozen or so sunflowers taller than most NBA players lined a cobblestone path. It reminded me of something straight out of a children’s book, one where the path led to a portal to another universe or perhaps something even more astounding, a happily ever after.

I had to know what—or who—was waiting at the other end.

I heard him before I saw him, singing along with a Christmas song popularized by my favorite 90s boy band. And why not? There was nobody around to see or hear him. We were at least half a mile away from the next house.

I only hoped he was wearing clothes.

Kind of.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, announcing my presence as I came out of the sunflower tunnel.

I nearly swallowed my tongue when I saw him on his knees, elbows deep in a raised garden bed. The sleeves had been cut off his T-shirt, exposing his intricate tattoos and bare abdomen. A discarded hoodie lay next to his thick thighs, covered in dirt and weeds. Sweat dribbled down his face from beneath his backwards baseball hat.

Fuck. Was there anything sluttier than a backwards baseball hat?

“It’s, um, a little early for Christmas, isn’t it?”

Yes, go with that.

Christmas music was a safe conversation topic. Christmas music didn’t make me want to roll around in a bed of carrots or—

“Only if you’re on the naughty list.”

Damn it.

He climbed to his feet and brushed himself off. I tracked the movement from the corner of my eyes, but otherwise never looked away from his hooded gaze. I physically couldn’t. Jared had bewitched me, body, mind, and backwards baseball hat.

“And you’re not on the naughty list, are you, angel?”

“Of course not,” I stammered.

He clucked his tongue. “Shame.”

I cleared my throat, effectively breaking the spell. “What is all this anyway?”

He held his arms out wide. “Sustainability. Sustenance. Survival when the aliens attack.”

“ That’s what you’re concerned about when the aliens attack? Cucumbers?”

“Duh. I gotta earn the aliens’ favor somehow.” My eyes widened when he held up the biggest cucumber I had ever seen, large enough to stick out of either end of Jared’s massive mitts. “Besides, have you seen the size of my cucumbers?”

“Okay, so you know your way around a cucumber. What about the rest of it?”

“Tomatoes, squash, kale, loofah—”

“Like a shower loofah?”

He nodded while pointing toward some large green pods hanging over a vine-covered trellis. If his cucumbers were big, then his loofahs were enormous.

“Those just need to dry before I peel them. After that, scrub a dub dub, angel.”

I loved that he knew that. I loved that he had hobbies and passions and community, unlike a lot of people—especially men—I had previously dated.

One person could not and should not be your everything.

There was no one magical vagina or penis out there to cure all your ills. It was a tired and, frankly, dangerously misleading trope in romance novels that I absolutely despised. At the end of the day, I was just a girl, standing in front of a boy—or girl or nonbinary babe—asking them to sit with me in comfortable silence. Preferably while eating chips.

“Sorry,” he said. “I know we said three o’clock, but I left my phone inside and sort of lost track of time.”

“That’s okay.” I tilted my head toward his abandoned carrots. “Do you want some help?”

“Are you sure? You might get . . .”

He trailed off, gesturing toward his clothing caked with dirt and sweat.

“I’m not afraid of a little dirt, Jarey-boy.” His eyes glittered with interest when I kicked off my sandals and threw my hair up into a ponytail. “Now, tell me about your eggplant.”

Time ceased to exist after that. We might have been out there for thirty minutes or maybe three hours. I let him show me everything there was to know about cultivating a home garden; he allowed me to switch up the music selection—because I was one of those grinches who refused to listen to holiday music before Thanksgiving.

It was . . . perfect.

That was, until it started to rain.

And not the demure or cutesy kind of rain. No, this was a torrential downpour, like something straight out of a romance movie. Only, there was nothing romantic about tripping over a fallen branch and eating shit—er, mud.

My sandals went flying out of my hands when I fell.

“Fuck, Nessa.” Jared raced over to offer a hand up. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”

I climbed to my feet and brushed away the mud clinging to my jeans. It would take a lot more than a muddy fall to keep me down. Genetics had blessed me with extra cushioning for a reason.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him, smiling through the pain. My ass was going to be bruised tomorrow, but it was a small price to pay for a beautiful afternoon. “Oregon’s going to Oregon.”

I rubbed my hands against my thighs. The rain-soaked denim did next to nothing for my dirty palms. It did even less for my thighs that had nearly rubbed themselves raw during the short jog from the garden.

The one time I forget my anti-chafing stick.

“Jesus, it’s really coming down now,” Jared griped.

That was another thing. I wasn’t sure when exactly it had happened, but sometime in the last few days, I had stopped referring to him like one of his teammates and started thinking of him as Jared.

Just Jared. My Jared?

I shook off that thought—lest it get me into trouble—along with the raindrops clinging to my curls.

A shiver racked my body. He unzipped his hoodie, which probably cost more than my monthly mortgage payment, and held it out to me. “Come here.”

“It’s a little late for that,” I told him. We were both already soaked. A few more raindrops wouldn’t make a difference at this point. “Besides, it’s not going to fit. You think that hoodie can cover all of this?” I rubbed my hands down my front, over every lump, bump, and roll.

His hooded eyes traced my movements.

“You might be taller than me, baseball boy, but—”

“ Nessa. ”

The dark rasp of his voice did delicious things to my body and warmed me quicker than a roaring fire.

“Turn. Around.”

I didn’t fight him, turning my back to let him drape the hoodie around my shoulders. His hands dwarfed my shoulder blades, but surprisingly, that didn’t intimidate me or make me nervous—not in the way it should have, at least.

In all our physical interactions, Jared had handled me with nothing but care and adoration. In a way that nobody else had for a long time.

I nestled myself into his side, trying my best not to notice the way his shirt had practically molded to his torso. I was no mathematician, but from what I could tell, the man had a freaking eight pack.

“Sorry about this, angel.” I could barely hear him over the wind. My stomach dropped when I looked up at him and saw the disappointment shadowing his eyes—specifically in himself. “I wouldn’t have kept you out there so long if I thought it was going to rain. Let me grab you a towel and then you can go—”

“I’m starving,” I blurted out.

“What?”

I waited until we were safely tucked under the overhang before turning to face him. “C’mon, Jared.” His eyes narrowed when I used his name. “Are you really going to let me leave without feeding me?”

He chewed on my words. We both knew it was the first time I had suggested anything between us that didn’t involve an audience. Aside from our texts and phone calls, of course, though even then, he was usually the one to initiate contact.

But I couldn’t stand him looking so deflated, not when he had shared so much of himself with me these last few weeks and invited me into what was clearly his sanctum. Besides, it was only dinner.

“Fair warning,” he said, wiping the moisture from his face. “I haven’t been to the grocery store since I got back to town. I think we’ve got some canned soup, spaghetti, and an apple or two.”

“Sounds like a gourmet meal.”

He winked, or at least I thought he did. He might very well have just been blinking away the rain.

“You start dinner, and I’ll start a fire,” I managed through chattering teeth.

The man knew his way around the kitchen.

I should have been used to Jared’s surprises by now, but what could I say? The man was an enigma.

A walking, talking, spatula-wielding enigma.

Most people I had dated—not that we were really dating—would have balked at the idea of throwing together dinner on a moment’s notice. Then again, Jared’s kitchen rivaled a top chef’s wet dream. With a space like that, there was no reason to eat out.

The kitchen, however, had nothing on his master bathroom. He hadn’t been kidding about that bubble bath for two; Jared had a tub big enough for an Olympic swim team. Rather than dwell on how many people had most likely shared that tub with him, or the startling fact that against all odds, I had still wound up naked in his room, I opted for the warmth of his rainfall shower.

In the time it took for me to wash my hair, change into the oversized Roasters sweatshirt he’d left out on his bed, and comb out my curls, Jared had prepared a college dorm-worthy three-course meal.

Apple slices with peanut butter for an appetizer, chicken noodle soup doctored with extra noodles and herbs for an entrée, and for dessert—the pièce de resistance—s’mores banana boats prepared in the air fryer. It might not have been tempura-battered squash blossoms, but in a way, it was better.

After dinner, we settled onto opposite ends of the sectional sofa in the living room, close enough to feel the fire.

“Oh, I meant to tell you,” I said, my words slightly muffled by my blanket cocoon. “That interview you did definitely brought in some new business.”

He finished sipping his tea before responding, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Every romance reader in Oregon wants to shop where Jared Pink shops.”

He rolled his eyes.

At some point during my shower, Jared had changed into a fresh T-shirt and Costco-brand sweatpants. With the way they hugged his butt, he may as well have been wearing a lace teddy and thong.

“I’m sorry if it’s caused any kind of problems. I didn’t mention the store to draw attention to me.”

I nodded. “I know that.”

It had to be hard to be a celebrity, especially at such a young age. To not have the freedom to go wherever you wanted with whoever you wanted, free from scrutiny or harassment—the guy could barely pick up a book without hordes of women taking his picture.

A part of me knew that so long as Jared and I kept up our ruse, there were bound to be some pictures of me, too, but that didn’t faze me. Well, maybe a little. There were always consequences to consider.

Like what might happen when Jared and I called things off. Would his fans be delighted or outraged? Would my business suffer? Would our friends think differently of us if they found out about our deceit?

This is what you get for acting on emotions, not logic.

“Did you read it?”

“Hm?”

“Heller’s profile,” he clarified. “I know it was only a snippet and the full thing comes out next week, but did you read it?”

My cheeks flushed. “Yeah, I read it.”

I left out the part about printing out the photo of him reading in the dugout and pinning it on the corkboard above my desk.

“I’m surprised you didn’t mention your family at all.”

His smile soured. “I try not to talk much about my personal life. Too many parasocial weirdos out there, you know?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Besides, nobody really cares about the poor little rich boy with daddy issues.” I nodded, even though the crack in his voice said otherwise. “Not very original.”

“I don’t know about that,” I told him. “Most books follow a certain kind of plot formula or structure, especially romance. That doesn’t stop us from reading them. It’s the individual characters that make them unique. Every person’s story matters.”

“And what’s your story.”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Deadbeat dad, raised by a team of independent woman, doomed to die alone.”

An ember from the fireplace crackled in time with his laugh. “Don’t be so sure about that, angel.”

When he switched our clothes over to the dryer, I couldn’t help but think about how natural this all felt. Not romantic or sexy—because there was nothing sexy about chafed thighs and canned soup—but domestic, comfortable even.

I paused with my cup poised halfway to my lips. That was exactly how Kaylani had described her relationship with Ryan.

Comfortable.

“By the way,” he called from down the hall, interrupting my intrusive thoughts. “Clarke talked Soren into doing the auction.”

I clapped my hands together. “Excellent!” I jotted his name down on my list and read it back to him. “. . . Roman, Bennett, Matty, Soren.” I double-checked the list of names we had gone over. “Am I forgetting anybody?”

“Wu is a maybe.”

He sat back down on the couch, a few feet closer than before. Close enough for me to smell the Earl Grey wafting off his breath.

“That’s Nathaniel, right?”

He smiled at me from behind his mug. “Only on paper. To the rest of us, he’s Wu.”

“Okay, well, Nathaniel makes an even dozen. Not bad.”

He snatched the notebook and pen out of my hands and gently tossed them to the side. “And that seems like a good place to end it.”

“What are you doing?”

“Let’s take a break, watch an episode of The Bachelorette or something.”

I narrowed my eyes. “ You watch The Bachelorette. ”

“No, but I believe in trying new things.”

“That’s okay. I don’t watch it either.” The clock above the fireplace told me we had already been at this for over two hours, and that wasn’t including the time we had spent in the garden. “I probably should get going.”

“What’s the rush, angel?”

My fingers twisted in my lap. “I don’t know. Don’t you want to enjoy your night off in peace?”

He arched a brow. “Are you kidding? Dani is gone for the night, probably with her secret boyfriend—”

“Her what?!”

“—plus, it’s raining cats and dogs out there, so there’s not much to do besides kick back with a show.” He picked up the TV remote. “Besides, your clothes still have another half an hour in the dryer.”

Oh, he didn’t have to remind me. I was fully aware of the fact that there was nothing between me and his couch cushion besides the blanket I had set down. Borrowing a sweatshirt was one thing; going full, open vagina on his furniture was another.

I turned away, picking at a speck of lint on the cushion between us. “Only if you’re sure.”

“Nessa.” His hand clamped down on mine. “Please stay.”

Look, here comes a consequence, consequence, consequence.

The viral Tiktok refrain repeated over and over through my brain like soapy water circling the drain, and Jared’s soap smelled like cinnamon and sin. My heart pounded rapidly, keeping pace with the tune.

I peeked up at him through my curtain of wet curls and nodded. After a few minutes of silent scrolling, my eyes caught on an ad for a movie I had been dying to watch.

“Oo, that one,” I said, pointing toward the screen.

“I don’t know, angel. That looks a little scary.”

“I love scary.”

“I meant for me.”

I snatched the remote from his hands and curled up in the seat next to him, making sure all my bits and bobs were still tucked safely beneath the sweatshirt. “Don’t worry, baseball boy. I’ve got you.”