Page 7 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“Oh, shoot!” The chirping of my cell phone had me jumping.
“See? He’s got you so worked up, you’re spooked at your own phone!” Jessa cried.
“I think I accidentally flipped it off silent,” I said. “When do you ever hear my phone ring?”
Jessa sighed, conceding.
I shuffled the last few feet to my car and wrestled my phone out of my bag’s front pocket. Seeing that text splashed across the screen after the afternoon I’d had…well, it was a bit like getting a juicy, extra chocolate-y cake at the end of a subpar dinner.
I grinned.
Jackson(my longtime boyfriend): How was your day? Mine was C.R.A.Z.Y. But I can’t wait ‘til I get home. Or until you get home…I’ll race ya! Because I’ve got a surprise for you, babe. A big ‘un.
“Oh, goodness babe…thathair…”Jackson’s warm laugh greeted me as I shoved open the creaky old door to our rancher.
I winced and peered down the hall, where he waited for me in the kitchen, beaming as he held a delicate crystal wine glass—one of my better thrift store finds—in each hand. Looking like every woman’s wet dream fantasy: tall and strapping, with soft dirty blond hair brushing the tops of his ears, and big sparkling cyan blue eyes.
“Is it that bad?” I asked, my skin prickling with unease as I imagined the worst. My red curls were boisterous on agoodday, when they gave me a Julia Roberts inPretty Womankinda style. On average, they had Merida fromBravevibes. At worst…Medusa. Today, after running clammy hands over my curls one too many times and baking them with the heat radiating off my sweaty and stressed body, this was probably a Medusa day.
“Eh, it’s poofing, that’s for sure.” A smile curved Jackson’s lips. “Might be closeto the shaggy mane you had when we first met, but I don’t think it tops it.”
I sighed a little, dreamily.
We’d met at a club three years ago. Jessa had dragged me there for a country line dancing night, and I’d seen him after I’d spent a solid hour sweating it up on the dance floor.
He’d looked so achingly lovely, sitting at the bar with his prim and fitted jeans and button-up shirt, both ruffled just enough to make him appear less cosmic, and more human. He’d been suckling a beer—one of the local IPAs—and staring around the bar with his lazy, half-lidded eyes.
I had neverseen a man so breathtaking.
But it was his mournfulness that’d called to my heart, setting me across the room toward him. It radiated off him in big plumes—like an old heater coughing out ripples of warm air.
A striking, sorrowful angel. That thought had crossed my mind when I’d sidled up to the bar next to him, feeling grungy in my ruffled rainbow blouse and black jeans, knowing my curls were likely poofed into a bouncy frizz halo. He hadn’t looked at me. Not until I’d leaned over, unstuck my tongue from where it’d glued itself to the roof of my mouth, and muttered, “You doing okay?”
His eyes had flown to mine.
“That’s not a pickup line,” I’d said hastily, burning with embarrassment. “I swear. It’d be a pretty dang boring one if it was, huh? But that wasn’t my intent. Honest. It’s just…you looked sad, is all. I thought maybe there was something I could do to cheer you up. But I’ll leave if…y’know…”
He had smiled at me then.
And stars above, that smile haddonethings to me.
Glee and awe and disbelief had cow-kicked me, stealing my next words. Those feelings still gave my gut a daily walloping every time I looked at him. Like now, even though his radiant smile was fading a bit.
“Judging by the wild mane, I’m guessing it was a rough day?” he asked as I kicked my shoes off at the door, chucked my keys into the bowl on the side table we kept in the foyer (the “shit table,” we lovingly called it, since we dumped our shit on it when we came in), and walked down the hall into the kitchen.
“You can say that again.” I slung my purse onto the sleek granite top of our little kitchen island, and took the glass of wine he held toward me. It was a chilled white—not my favorite (I was an oaky, dry-bodied red kinda gal), but it was crisp and refreshing and offered enough kick to burn some of the stress away. I took two deep sips and then sighed again. “Thank you.”
“But of course.” He took a gulping swig of his wine, draining nearly half the glass in one go.
I cringed.
Jackson was a champion chugger. He gulped most things down. Water. Beer. Soda. Piping hot tea and coffee—I still didn’t understand how he hadn’t scalded his throat. The habit was left over from the time he’d been in the military, where he’d had to race the clock at mealtimes.
I always worried he’d choke himself or get indigestion. But he never did. He didn’t even have a belly pouch—his stomach was flat. Flat, flat,flat.Deliciously so.
If I ate and drank the way he did, I’d look pregnant. Such was the unfairness of being a woman.
“So…” Jackson reached over and ruffled my hair, beaming when the frazzled strands fluffed up under his hand. “Your rough day?”
