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Aubree: You don’t owe me food just because we had sex :)
I mean it as a joke, but no new dots come up on the screen.
Jackson doesn’t say anything.
Not right away. And not in the next hour. Or the hour after that.
The afternoon crawls by. It’s the slowest day I’ve ever lived through. I leave my phone in the kitchen and force myself to work on my projects. This is not a good productivity hack, but it does mean my list gets smaller and smaller as the minutes pass. I answer emails I should have responded to a month ago and put in a couple bids for new projects.
I even cold email a handful of companies I think would like my work that have been on my to-do list forever. Sending cold emails is basically a new record for me. I put it off as long as possible because I hate writing those emails—they seem salesy and weird. I know putting myself out there is a big part of my job, but I still don’t like it. I’m supposed to bring in a certain number of clients so I have to. But cold emailing ahead of the deadline … I am … desperate for a distraction.
All this to avoid deciding what to do about Jackson’s text.
Do I say something? Ask for clarification?
Send him a message talking up last night as a joke?
That probably wouldn’t play very well. Or—I don’t know, maybe it would. He’s always been laid back and funny. We’ve never had this much pressure between us.
In the afternoon, I give up trying to work and check his socials. He hasn’t unfriended me. Hasn’t posted anything there, either.
“Oh, God, Aubree.” I bury my face in my hands. He’s probably working. It’s Monday. Jackson works in finance and it’s always busy, even when it’s not the craziest part of tax season. He’s busy, that’s all it is. This isn’t a disaster.
We’ve avoided disaster lots of times. When I first moved back to town, I had a boyfriend. We were going to do the whole long-distance thing and stick it out together. It didn’t last longer than three months. My feelings for him cooled once we weren’t in the same town. And … my feelings for someone else were heating up.
Jackson.
I felt myself falling for him every Sunday at the football games. I waited for his calls and blushed when I got texts. When Cheryl and I would hang out with him, I tried to be the best, shiniest version of myself, all while I told myself I was being casual. The real me. At some point, those two people got mixed together. I got more comfortable with Jackson.
Too comfortable, to the point that I broke up with my boyfriend, intending to tell Jackson how I felt.
I was too late. He was already seeing someone else.
What’s a girl to do? I told myself it was a crush. You don’t bring up a crush to your best friend’s brother when he’s dating someone else. It was a reasonable crush too. Jackson had treated me well. He’d been kind to me instead of brushing me off as one of his sister’s friends, and it would be hard for anyone not to feel something.
And he was sweet. And funny. And he liked flirting with me. But it wasn’t … real.
Defeated, I sit back farther in my chair, pulling my legs up and letting the swivel rock me back and forth.
I still feel him all over me from last night. It doesn’t matter that I’ve showered. Doesn’t matter that I have fresh clothes and a day of work behind me. The imprints of his kisses are still on my skin. The places where our bodies met are still buzzing from the contact.
When I glance at the clock next, it’s five fifteen.
I take my teacup to the sink and wash it. It’s probably the most thorough bath the teacup has ever gotten in its life. Work’s over. There are no new messages from Jackson on my phone. Nothing laughing off the text I sent him, or asking for a reply.
If he hasn’t messaged by six, I’ll text him and put myself out of my misery. I can’t let this hang over my head all night. Or for the rest of my life. I can’t go to the game next weekend feeling all twisted up inside, like I’ve ruined something.
I haven’t, really. The way to think about this is as a nice, onetime thing. We both enjoyed each other, and that’s enough. It’s a choice to make it awkward with him. I can choose to make it normal instead.
Right?
Although that doesn’t explain why I feel this sense of loss inside my chest. This ache for something more.
A knock at the door makes me jump.
I can’t deny that it causes a flood of feelings. Embarrassment, because I’ve been waiting for this knock. Fear, because what if it’s not him? And hope—hope that it’s Jackson standing on the other side. Who the hell else could it possibly be, though?
