hoped you and I weren’t serious. I put him straight.” I dipped a carrot into the hummus and took a loud, noisy bite, relishing Jamie’s obvious annoyance. It made me feel better about mine.
“The tall, gangly moron?”
“He’s not a moron.” I offered him a carrot. “I felt bad for him.”
Jamie impatiently waved off the proffered carrot. “I don’t feel bad for him. He knows you have a boyfriend.” He echoed my words. Then Jamie’s expression turned suspicious. “Are you telling the truth?”
“Yes,” I promised. “He asked me out. I told him I was in love with my boyfriend. Note, however, that he didn’t kiss me. My lips don’t have someone else’s lip print on them.”
Suddenly, Jamie sprung at me, bending into my belly before he threw me over his shoulder. I squealed, dropping my carrot. “Jamie!” The world rushed by upside down as he took the stairs two at a time. My excited laughter filled the halls as he rushed toward his bedroom.
I was promptly thrown onto the queen-sized bed, my giggles swallowed in Jamie’s hungry kisses until they turned to moans. Just like that, our world condensed to just the two of us.
There was a small part of me that heard Skye’s voice in my head as Jamie moved inside me. Perhaps our love was all-consuming. Perhaps it would devour us.
But as Jamie held my gaze in his and murmured how much he loved me over and over, her voice disappeared, along with my worries.
Who cared if it devoured us?
At least we’d die happy.
9
JAMIE
Twenty years old
Around 6.00 a.m. I awoke from a dream I couldn’t shake. It had been like a movie in my head. I was stuck in this apocalyptic world where Jane was missing. I’d been trying to find her and instead kept getting caught up with these strange individuals who had their own problems.
I was spooning Jane, my face buried in her hair as she slept beside me, not making a sound. The only reason I knew she was alive was because of the gentle rise of her body as she breathed. Not wanting to wake her, I eased out of bed and crossed the room to my desk. I wrote on my laptop, pouring the images that had been in my head into what would become a short story. It might work for my sophomore fiction project.
As always when I wrote, time passed without my awareness of it.
Fingers aching a little, I stretched, cracking my upper back.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw my bed was empty.
A little smile prodded my mouth.
Jane never disturbed me when I was writing. She treated those times like they were sacred, making me, and what I loved to do, feel more important than anyone had ever made me feel.
Still, I wished she’d stuck around. I would have been happy diving back into bed and fooling around. Not that I was sure she’d be up for that. Her room, which reverted to Lorna’s room during the holidays, was right across the hall from mine, and Jane hadn’t wanted to have sex since Lorna’s arrival from the East Coast a few days ago.
Just in case Lor overheard or some shit.
I tried to convince Jane we could be quiet.
Or at least I could be quiet. I grinned to myself. For someone who was the quietest person I’d ever met, Jane wasn’t very good at keeping her voice down when we made love. Chuckling to myself, I crossed the hall and got in the shower. She had no idea what that did to my ego.
Afterward, I made my way downstairs. The place was empty.
It wasn’t until I switched on the coffee maker that I saw Jane and Lorna out by the pool. I walked over to the sliding glass door, which was already partially open. The murmur of their conversation met my ears as I leaned against the counter to chug back some caffeine. I couldn’t really make out what they were saying, and I didn’t want to.
It was just nice to see them talking.
While Lorna had been surprisingly nice to me since she got back from school, she’d been giving Skye and Jane the cold shoulder. Skye, I didn’t get. And her attitude was driving my big sister into herself.
They’d given her character in the hospital TV show a huge storyline. Since it was about her character being raped by a colleague, a long, drawn-out, months-long storyline, Skye was emotionally drained. I worried about her. Yeah, I was proud of her because I’d