19. Nessa

Nessa

Roasters 101–61

I was drowning in satin and tulle.

“The yellow one is still my favorite,” June said.

“I like the black sequins, though.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Girl, you have too much personality for black sequin. Even if it makes your tits looks great.”

That made no difference. My tits looked great in everything. Like all Gibbs women who had come before me, I had been blessed with perfect breasts.

It was the night of the charity benefit, and I was still scrambling for something to wear, even after spending a fortune at four separate plus-size boutiques. I hadn’t worn a gown since my senior prom, and even then, Granny Gibbs had ended up sewing my dress herself. Plus the matching elbow-length gloves I’d insisted on having to complete the look.

Spoiler alert, they had not.

June and I had been at this since after breakfast. She’d offered to lend a helping hand—quite literally because there was no way I could zip myself in and out of some of these bad boys—and then sat back while I modeled dress after dress.

Not quite the Pretty Woman dressing room montage I had envisioned—too much sweat and not enough boob tape—but still.

“I don’t know.” I stripped off the mermaid style dress, careful not to catch my hair on the sequined bodice. Seven of these dresses were getting returned first thing Monday morning, and I expected a full refund.

I tossed it onto my bed with the others.

“Maybe you should just go dressed like that. ”

I didn’t have to look down to know what she was talking about. The gowns weren’t the only thing I had splurged on for tonight’s gala. The lacy black lingerie set had cost almost as much as my first car.

And it was worth every penny.

The strapless corset hugged my curves better than any tummy control shapewear I had ever worn, and it looked ten times better. The matching panties, barely held together by a few straps of ribbon on either hip, did next to nothing for coverage. But they sure did make me feel delicious.

Dangerous, naughty. A gift waiting to be unwrapped.

“I think Pink would appreciate it,” she said around a wink.

Oh, I had no doubt he would love it.

Especially the stockings—a silky pair of opaque thigh-highs that made me feel like liquid sex. A black-and-silver, floral pattern adorned the tops of each stocking, and the garter belt resting just above my hips held them in place.

But I had no intention of letting Jared Pink beneath my skirt.

Again.

Our conversations had been limited at best and awkward at worst since last week’s couch session—talk about sectional tension—but I chalked that up to our busy schedules more than anything else. To his credit, Jared had never brought up what had happened between us, and I was thankful for that. Mostly because even after a week, I still didn’t know what to say about it myself.

While he was busy leading his team to victory and, in turn, clinching the top seed in the playoffs, I’d had my best sales week in over a year. Though, if I was being honest with myself, Jared might have had something to do with that, too.

Smutty Buddies wasn’t the only business that had seen an uptick in sales. Brock Heller’s full interview with him had dropped earlier this week, and as a lifelong Rose City resident, it was safe to say that the town had decided to adopt Jared Pink as their own. He had talked more about his favorite local haunts than himself or his Cy Young nomination.

That was a pattern of his: shedding a light on others’ talents and passions and then stepping in to help actualize them. He didn’t freely offer details about his passions or accomplishments—in fact, he often downplayed them—and aside from a few of our conversations, he never talked about his family.

“Have you talked since . . .”

June trailed off, lifting her brows up and down.

“Since I dry-fucked the shit out of him?” I finished for her. “We’ve texted, but that’s about it.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It was a mistake, a momentary lapse in judgment.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” she muttered under her breath.

“I heard that.”

“Good, I wanted you to.”

I spun away from her, reaching for the final dress option—a spaghetti-strap, satin ball gown that matched my emerald eyes and had a leg slit high enough to raise some eyebrows. Especially amongst the bigwig law firm putting on the shindig and their rich bitch donors.

“Look this way for a second, would you?”

“Hm?”

With the gown still in hand, I turned back around, freezing when I saw the phone pointed at me. My phone, no less. I should have known my passcode was too easy to crack.

“What are you doing?”

“Girl, trust me.” She pulled the phone away from her face. “Someday when we’re old and wrinkly, you are going to want to look back on how hot you were. Now, strike a pose.”

I rolled my eyes but nonetheless complied with her demands. It wasn’t the first time I had posed for pictures in a state of undress either. One of my book club regulars, a boudoir photographer based out of Portland, had coaxed me into a witchy-themed photo shoot last October. The album wasn’t my only souvenir from the experience; she had also taught me all the best ways to arch my body and emphasize my natural curves.

“Okay, that’s enough,” I told her after a few dozen poses.

I had just barely finished slipping the dress over my hips when a familiar noise sounded from behind me.

I whipped around. “What did you just do?”

“Nothing.”

“That beep boop was not the sound of nothing.” I held my hand out to her, silently demanding she return my phone. Jeez, I felt like a parent scolding their teenager. “June, who did you beep boop that picture to?”

Her shoulders shook. “More like beep boob .”

“ June .”

She smacked the phone into the palm of my hand. I flipped it around and nearly fainted when I saw the recently sent text.

“Oh god.”

The small label indicating the message had been sent switched to seen .

“Oh my fucking god.”

“He saw it, didn’t he?”

She bit down on her bottom lip. It was a little disturbing how much she was enjoying my distress. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“C’mon, Ness.” She dragged me down into the empty spot next to her. “You let him pretend to be your boyfriend. You spent an afternoon in the man’s garden. You rode his monster cock—”

“I never should have told you that.”

She took my hands in hers. Now I felt like a disobedient teenager. “Just admit it. You’re falling for him.”

“Fine,” I said begrudgingly. “I . . . might have . . . feelings for him.”

“There! You did it.” All the air whooshed out of me when she hugged me to her chest. “I’m so proud of you.”

My feigned protest devolved into laughter when she wouldn’t let up, then screams when one of my tits popped out of the corset. We both fell backwards, crashing onto the layer of dresses strewn across my comforter.

When we both caught our breaths, June asked the question every single person over the age of twenty-five dreaded hearing.

“What are you so afraid of, Ness?”

I counted the wooden slats in the ceiling, taking my time to formulate a response. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Us.” I swiveled my head to face her. “Him and me. We don’t make sense.”

“So?”

“So, it’s better to cut things off before they start.”

Think ahead and account for the consequences.

“It can’t go anywhere.”

“It can go to dinner,” she countered. In another time and multiverse, June could have been a top-notch attorney. “It can go to bed, or—”

“June, he’s a twenty-four-year-old pro-athlete who spends half the year on the road,” I told her. “Plus, don’t baseball players get traded to other teams?”

Her shrug was all the confirmation needed.

“He’s too young to want to settle down, and when he does, is he really going to do it with a thirtysomething, grumpy bitch who still lives at home with her brother and can’t have children?”

I buried my face in tulle, too embarrassed to face her response. June was my best friend, and as such, I told her everything, but that didn’t mean I was immune to her judging glance. Not that I needed it. I was and had always been my harshest critic.

“Ness.” I nuzzled deeper into the fabric. “Nessa Mallory Gibbs.”

That was code for “I’m serious.” Other than my mom and GG, June was the only person who ever used my full name.

I uncovered my face and sat back up on my side.

“Babe, I’m saying this with love, but you sort of have a tendency to write people off.”

Only the ones I thought could hurt me.

“And I get it,” she added quickly. There was no judgment in her eyes, just love. “It’s a safety mechanism. We all have them.”

“Oh yeah? What’s yours?”

She pursed her lips. “We’re not talking about me , you ho bag. All I’m saying is you can't grieve how things could have gone without letting them happen in the first place.”

How dare she spit bumper sticker worthy bars like that while I was half-naked.

And she was right. I had spent years guarding my heart, avoiding the consequences of what might happen in the eventuality that I let someone in. Especially when that someone went against everything I had ever envisioned for myself.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Maybe I should give him—”

“Shut up, shut up. He’s texting you back.”

My stomach roiled with each flash of those three little dots. For fuck’s sake. He was twenty-four. Why did it take him so long to type?

Pink

I knew it.

June and I recoiled in tandem.

“Knew what?” I asked aloud even as I typed it out. This time he responded almost immediately.

Pink

That you were an angel.

“Marry him.” June flicked at the material of the dress scrunched up around my waist. “And please , wear this one. Trust me, your baseball boy will eat it up.”

I didn’t correct her when she called him mine.