Arrogant Devil

My infatuation is screwing with my head. The fact that all day I actively try to push Jack out of my thoughts means at night, my desire comes back stronger and more demanding than ever. Night after night, my sleeping hours are filled with raunchy sex-filled dreams. I wake up with my hands on different body parts (boob, thigh, stomach, halfway down my Fruit of the Looms), or I wake up sweating and so turned on I have no choice but to finish what my incorrigible subconscious has started.

It’s a real problem. Night after night of bad sleep means I have less energy to stand up to my crush on him come morning. I’m jittery and self-conscious and worried my true feelings are becoming too obvious to ignore. All these harbored fantasies have to be manifesting somehow. I bet I’m leaching pheromones like a farm animal in heat.

Without a doubt, Jack knows I have a crush on him. There’s no way he doesn’t know. I’m just not sure what he’s going to do about it.

25

Jack

Meredith has been here for almost seven weeks now, and I’m officially stuck between a rock and hard place. It’s a dingy hellhole I like to call the friend zone. I can’t act on the feelings I’m developing for her. She opened up to me about her marriage, I’m newly single, she’s only been single for a month and a half, and technically, that’s not even true considering she’s still legally married. I know she’s in a fragile place. She’s probably glad to be free of her crazy husband and on her own; the last thing she wants is another guy sniffing around. I need to keep my distance and help her get back on her own two feet, at least that’s what I tell myself while I stand under the shower stream and wrap my hand around my dick.

What? I’m trying to be a gentleman, not a saint.

I close my eyes and prop my hand against the wall, remembering how hot Meredith looked the other day while she was bathing Alfred in the backyard. She was wetter than he was, her t-shirt clinging to her curves. It was spring break in South Beach. She kept saying things like, “Okay, big guy, you’re gonna get it!” and “Stay still, I’m about to finish! I just need to get your face.” It was pornographic, and if any of the ranch hands had seen it, I’d have needed to put them down like a rabid dog.

“Jack!” Her voice sounds from the other side of the bathroom door. “You in there?”

I jerk my eyes open, tilt my head back, and stare up at the ceiling. Wow, is my imagination this good?

“Jack?” Meredith calls again, all sweet and naive. Her voice is honey, and my dick hardens even more.

I grit my teeth. “Yup. What’s up?”

“I just realized you don’t have any clean towels! I bleached them earlier and forgot to put one in here before your shower.”

“Just leave one by the door!” Or better yet, turn around and walk about a thousand yards the other way. I don’t need a towel—I’ll just shake myself dry like Alfred.

“You sure?” she asks. “I can close my eyes. No big deal!”

No big deal? NO BIG DEAL? If she comes into this bathroom to bring me a towel, there’s a 100% chance I will fling open this shower door and drag her in here with me. I’ll haul her up against the tiled wall and cover her body with mine and roll my hips against her ass and give her the employee review I so badly want to.

“I just know I hate getting out of the shower without a towel nearby,” she continues.

Oh good, now I’m thinking about her in the shower with me…suds running down her stomach, slipping down between her legs. I think the majority of the blood in my brain has left, headed south for greener pastures.

“Meredith, just leave the towel outside, okay?”

My voice is gruff and she calls me on it.

“Sheesh okay, sor-ry. I didn’t know I was interrupting some private ‘ranch hand’ time.”

“What? I’m just showering, nothing else.”

“Uh-huh. The lady doth protest too much.”

After she leaves, I’m left there, staring down at my hand, frozen. I can’t finish, not because I’m not horny as hell, but because I feel like a disgusting perv lusting after Meredith like that, not to mention she obviously guessed what I was doing. I cut the water and pad out to get the towel she left on the other side of the bathroom door.

She’s incapable of meeting my eyes when I walk down into the kitchen a few minutes later.

“Feeling better?” she asks with a high-pitched, helpless voice.

“From my shower?” I ask, fooling no one.

She clears her throat a half-dozen times. It’s like she’s got a whole pond’s worth of frogs stuck in there.

I try to catch her eye, but she looks everywhere but me—ceiling, wall, cutting board.

I sigh. “I wasn’t masturbating.”

“I know that,” she answers quickly, pale eyes going wide. “Don’t you think I know that? Ha, obviously.”

“But just to be clear, even if I was, it’s perfectly normal,” I point out, walking over to pluck a slice of the apple she’s chopping. Between you and me, I don’t really want the apple. I want to get a closer look at that pink flush on her cheeks.

“Of course it’s normal,” she says defensively. “Everyone does it.”

“Everyone?” I taunt.

“Jack.”

“What?” I tease. “Now we’re even. We both know what the other is doing when they’re in the shower.”

“I don’t do it in the shower,” she mumbles, almost as if she doesn’t realize she’s saying the words out loud.

“Interesting.”

She catches herself and shakes her head, chopping at double speed now. She’s entered some kind of apple-chopping competition with herself.

“This is inappropriate.”

Chop, chop, chop. She’s about to lose a finger.

“You’re the one who tried to come into the bathroom while I was showering.”

“To give you a towel!”

She’s getting hysterical.

I turn to head up to my office. “Uh-huh.”

A piece of apple hits me smack-dab in the back of the head as I walk away. Alfred snatches it up before I can.

A week later, Meredith convinces me to watch a chick flick with her. Edith is out with her friends, so it’s just Meredith, me, and Alfred. He’s up on the couch between us, taking up more space than the both of us combined. Meredith is wearing a tank top and pajama shorts. Her legs are hidden under a blanket, and her attention is focused squarely on the TV.

On her lap is a bowl of popcorn she just made for us. I’m watching her bring each kernel to her lips, and I have a pillow strategically placed on my lap.

Alfred is scowling at me like, Really, dude? Can’t the girl just eat her popcorn in peace?

Meredith smiles. “I love this part.”

I make a noncommittal sound and it sounds a lot like someone just kneed me in the groin, but she doesn’t notice. She holds the bowl of popcorn out for me.

“Want some?”

I hold up my hand. “No thanks.”

She sets it down on the table and stands. “I gotta go wash my hands. You want a beer?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” And while you’re at it, would you mind grabbing a weapon and putting me out of my misery?

She drops an ice-cold bottle of Blue Moon over my shoulder a few minutes later.

“Here, I put an orange slice in there for you.”

My favorite.

She saunters around the couch and scoots Alfred to the floor. “Ah,” she sighs, stretching out with a content little smile on her face. “Much better.”

Her legs are stretched out toward me now, and her toes hit my thighs.

“Whoops,” she says, scooting them back a little.

“It’s fine.”

I reach out and tug them back where they were. It’s nothing—or it should be. I’m touching her ankle, and yet it’s erotic. The pillow’s fabric is straining.

The movie continues, and I sip my beer, all the while trying to reason with myself about why it’d be a good idea to turn and kiss her. Maybe she wants to move on from her ex? Maybe she’s just as sex-deprived as I am? Maybe you’re an opportunistic asshole. Leave her alone.