Page 13 of Forced to Share
We continued to sit there—the snow falling from the sky—casting the world in a pale glow. It was so strange that it had a way of doing that. It could be the dead of night, but all the white frost on the ground made everything feel just a little brighter.
Warm puffs of breath continued to escape our lips, and right as I was about to give up and go inside, Jeremy finally spoke up.
“I’ve never—I’ve never had sex with a woman before.”
I was partially standing, but that admittance had me sitting again. How did I handle that admission? While we’d fooled around plenty in the weeks we’d been together back in San Francisco, we’d technically never gone all the way either. We’d frotted, exchanged hand jobs and blowies, but there’d been no penetration. Not that it was an issue. Not everyone was into that, and it didn’t make it any less of a valid experience.
“Never?”
His head shook, the strawberry blond strands of his hair falling into his eyes, covering them as he chewed at his bottom lip.
I covered my mouth with my hand as I thought that over. Jeremy hadn’t slept with my sister. Or any woman. So why was he trying to marry Leah?
“What the hell am I going to do? I messed up everything. It would have been fine had I never proposed, and we’d never come on this trip, but here we are.” Jeremy’s long fingers pushed his hair back as he looked to the sky. He stood from his seat and walked out under the falling snow. He seemed to have adjusted to the cold as he wasn’t shivering anymore, or maybe he’d just become numb to it all.
Chapter 8
Jeremy
By the time Austin got me back inside, I couldn’t feel my face. It took more than a little coaxing to get me back in the door since I was so terrified that the second I stepped foot in the Bennett house again, Leah would throw something at me.
She wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Not that I would have blamed her anger. I’d strung her along for years. She wasn’t a bad person, and I’d taken advantage of the comfort she’d provided when I’d uprooted my entire life.
Mr. Bennett was sitting on the couch with a bottle of beer in hand. He looked up at us and he didn’t seemall that excited to see me either. I’d broken his daughter’s heart. He had a right to be upset.
“So, what’s the plan?”
My lungs froze at the abrupt question, but I could see where he was coming from. I was a guest in their family home, and I could see why I wouldn’t be welcome after what had happened earlier. My throat fought against me as I tried to swallow. There we were, two days before Christmas, and I had to see if I could exchange my ticket to go home earlier. It probably wouldn’t happen because traveling over the holidays is always chaotic. There was always the possibility of looking into a hotel, but money was already thin. I couldn’t afford to pay to stay at one for the rest of my trip. Not to mention that Chicago was expensive as hell.
“I don’t—”
“He needs to leave.” Leah appeared at the bottom of the stairs before I could finish speaking.
“Now, let’s not rush into anything. Can he even do that? Are your tickets transferable? Is there anywhere with availability, and can he even afford it?” My eyes widened at how calm Austin seemed as he talked to his sister.
She threw her arms into the air, marching toward me before pushing me in the chest. “I don’t care. Looking at his face just makes me so... so... UGH!” She stompedback up the stairs, and we all jumped at the sound of the bedroom door slamming.
“I can check the tickets...” I mumbled, pulling out my phone to research. There was that feeling in the back of my mind that, thanks to the snow blowing in, I was already fucked and stuck here. It didn’t take long to find that all incoming and outgoing flights from Chicago O’Hare were either delayed or canceled. The same was to be said about Chicago Midway. Sometimes you got lucky and one hadn’t been as affected as badly yet. This was not my lucky day.
But if the airports were delaying and canceling flights, that also meant that even if I’d had any hope of getting a hotel room, that idea was also out the window. They’d be overflowing with stranded airline passengers.
Mr. Bennett must have realized the same thing I had when he let out a curse from the couch.
My chest tightened as my heart rate spiked. They wouldn’t just leave me to figure it out on my own, would they? I sure fucking hoped not. They seemed like good people, and looking over at Austin, it was enough to make me relax a little. His phone was still clutched in his hand, but he wasn’t frantically looking through it like the rest of us.
“Stay here.”
“What?” Both Mr. Bennett and I said at the same time.
“This is dumb. It’s Christmas. I get that there’s some hard feelings, but isn’t it a little silly to make Jeremy spend the holiday by himself?” His cheeks turned pink as he spoke, and I wanted to jump at him, give him the biggest hug, and thank him. But maybe it was all a little too early for that.
Mr. Bennett stood up from the couch and approached his son. My throat constricted again because this would be the final decision. The nail in the coffin, so to speak.
“Fine. You want him to stay. He can stay with you.”
I didn’t miss Austin’s eyes widening in panic.
