Save Me, Sinners

Jake has z

ero compunctions about being hungry either, and barely talks while he eats breakfast. When we’re both done, he sets the plates aside and pulls me to him, so that I’m between his legs, leaning back against his body while we watch the morning sun climb over the great blue. In the daylight, the water here is sapphire blue, and still enough that I can see fish and crabs darting around beneath the surface.

“That’s the first you’ve said about your mom,” I tell him. “Earlier, that she taught you how to make crepes. Are you two close?”

“We used to be,” Jake says, a ghost of old sadness in his voice. “She left a while back. Didn’t fight to take me with her—she never would have won. My father doesn’t like losing, you know? She didn’t get a dime. She’s on the other coast now. I think she remarried a few years ago. We… don’t really talk much.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s ah… probably a housewife again,” he says. “She didn’t really have any skills when she married Reginald, so…”

“That’s sad,” I say. “I mean… if it works for her it works, you know? But there’s nothing quite as freeing as being self-made. I think I only really started to live when I opened up Red Hall.”

“It would be nice,” he sighs. “Not to be so tied to Reginald. He’s threatened to disinherit me if I open a gym.”

“So?” I ask. “Don’t get me wrong, a billion dollars is probably good to have in your pocket but… it’s not your dream to just be rich forever, right? In the end, money’s only worth money. Dreams are worth the time and life it takes to make them come true.”

“You make it sound easy,” Jake laughs.

“It’s not,” I tell him. “It’s the hardest thing in the world. You have to keep innovating, keep coming up with the next thing. But it’s unbelievably satisfying in a way you just have to experience for yourself. Lately we’re planning this…” Maybe it’s not a good idea to go talking about the hot sauce line. But, maybe if he’s inspired, he might actually do something on his own. Why do I care about that?

“Lately…?” he wonders.

“Ah… well, I worked with my chef, Lacey Ming, to develop this hot sauce line. Six different sauces that we’re going to roll out over the next few weeks into the fall. I’m thinking we’ll develop a different line each year, and then maybe do some seasonal stuff. I’ve been wanting to do something that’ll really make us stand out, you know?” I squirm against him a little bit, and then move so that I can face him. “It’s a good feeling. Knowing that you’re taking risks, making choices… building something.”

He meets my eyes, smiling at me but… something is different. Guarded. Did I make a mistake? And if I did, which one was it?

I try to err on the side of optimism—maybe it’s just hard for Jake to really open up. With a father like his, it wouldn’t surprise me. We’re at the beach just a little longer before finally we return to the house.

“I’m gonna shower,” I tell him, loosening the sheet from around my body suggestively.

“Sounds good,” Jake says. He smiles, and then hands me a box. “I ah… made sure you had a change of clothes.”

“You just think of everything, don’t you?” I wonder as I take the box from him.

I ascend the stairs slowly, suggestively—or at least, I’m trying to. Jake doesn’t seem to take the hint, though, occupying himself instead with cleaning up his cooking mess in the kitchen. It’s disappointing, but I suppose I’m a little sore anyway. A break isn’t a bad idea, right?

But the seed of it festers, and by the time I come back downstairs wearing the gorgeous little strapless sundress he got me I can’t help wondering if maybe his interest just evaporated after we had sex. It’s not like he’d be the only guy who operated that way.

He kisses me when he sees me, and he’s dressed as well, having showered before I even got up. But it’s not the same kind of passionate kiss as before.

“I should probably get home,” I tell him softly. “Long day ahead and all.”

He nods. He does smile, but his eyes are shadowed. Something’s bothering him. I’m not sure I want to know, so when he picks up his keys and says he’d be happy to drop me off at work, I just follow him to the car.

All the way there, I remind myself: it was just a hookup. I’m not invested. So if we did this once and then never speak again, it’s no big deal.

Right?

Chapter 64

Jake

“Is it weird I can still smell you?” I text Janie a few days after our un-fucking-believable encounter.

I wanted to see her again the next day, but I’m trying to follow “the plan.” The whole method behind making a woman fall head over heels to the point that she craves my presence. I hate doing it to Janie; it makes me sick. Reginald expects me to reintroduce the idea of a PR relationship again, though, and he wants it soon.

So for three days, all we have is an ongoing text exchange to remind us both of what we had together at the beach house.