“Nope, nor do I care to.”
“What is it Noah said you tell him?” She taps the side of her cheek, thinking. “You have to try foods before you decide you don’t like them. Practice what you preach, Fox.”
Nausea turns in my stomach when she slides the pizza box closer to me.
I push it back. “Nasty-ass pizza. Hard pass.”
“Cohen, try the damn pizza.”
“Look, I don’t want to be a dick and make you clean up my vomit after I eat this garbage. Plus, I don’t want my house to smell.”
“For a guy, you’re dramatic as fuck.”
I chuckle. “Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“It’s weird, hearing you cuss.”
The Jamie I knew was shy, timid, definitely not this outspoken.
This Jamie is confident, funny, and a fucking smart-ass.
She scrunches up that cute nose of hers. “Why?”
“You hardly muttered a curse word in high school.”
“Well, I didn’t think you were dramatic as fuck then.” A smirk plays at her lips, her dimples slightly making an appearance. “Had I, I would’ve told you the same.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “There’s always been a little rebel inside you.”
She rolls a hairband off her wrist, smooths her hair into a ponytail, and ties it back, stray strands framing her face. “Puh-lease. The most rebellious thing I did in high school was go to that stupid party.” Her cheeks redden before she buries her face in her hands, speaking through them, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I brought that up.”
Our conversation is about to grow more interesting than a damn pineapple pizza debate.
I straighten my shoulders, a cocky smile crossing my face. “I was your first kiss, wasn’t I?”
When she uncovers her face, she’s glaring at me. “You don’t know that.”
“I was,” I state, matter-of-factly.
“Oh, piss off.” Her hand waves through the air. “It sucked, by the way.”
Leaning back in the chair, I’m already enjoying every word of this, knowing it’ll just get better. “I don’t doubt that. You cornered me in a bathroom and drunkenly stuck your tongue down my throat.”
My breathing slows at the memory. Heather lost her shit when she spotted Jamie at that party, but I made her chill out. Jamie didn’t have much of a social life, and I was happy that she was finally enjoying her teenage years. I plowed through the crowd and made it clear that she could only take drinks from me. Later, when I went to take a piss, Jamie shoved herself into the bathroom behind me and locked the door. Before I could stop her and ask when she’d lost her mind, she pushed me against the door and attempted to suck my face off.
It was bad.
She was so inexperienced.
I turned her down, she cried, and then I drove her home.
We never brought up that night … until now.
“That’s why I don’t drink cheap vodka anymore,” she says.
“Oh, really?” I lean back in my chair. “What’s your drink of choice now? Pineapple juice to match your pineapple pizza?”
“Wine, thank you very much. It’s never convinced me to stick my tongue down someone’s throat where it doesn’t belong.” The blush on her cheeks hasn’t disappeared.
“Does it make you stick your tongue down throats you should?”
She bites into the edge of her lip. “Can we stop talking about me, and you eat the damn pizza?”
I’d much rather talk about her sticking her tongue down throats.
And other places.
Well, not anyone’s throat.
Maybe talk about her sticking her tongue down my throat.
Or vice versa.
I shake my head, mentally slapping my forehead. “If it’s gross, you owe me fifteen mushroom pizzas.”
“Ew.” A fake gagging sound falls from her mouth. “I don’t trust people who eat fungus on their pizza.”
“Fruit on it is better?”
“Quit delaying and eat the damn pizza.”
My stomach growls, but not because I’m hungry. It’s tightening, gearing itself up to ingest something disgusting. Jamie’s eyes are pinned to me, and she’s nearly bouncing in her chair. My upper lip snarls when I pick up a slice, bite off the corner, and chew it as slow as Noah does his broccoli.
I’m making the same disgusted face.
“So?” she asks eagerly when I swallow it.
“Just as I suspected.” I clasp my fingers together in a fist, hold it over my mouth, and make a choking noise. “Nasty as hell.”
She rips off an edge of crust from a slice and tosses it at me. “You suck.”
We’re in need of a subject change. I can’t have her asking me to try any more nasty shit.
“You know,” I say, “I never told Heather about that night.”
9
Jamie
I pull in a breath.
Whoa.
He said her name.
Not once in the six years they’ve been broken up has Heather said his name.
If it wasn’t for Noah, you’d think their relationship never existed.
A few years ago, when Heather was in town, I asked if she regretted leaving them.
She answered with a friendly, “Fuck off,” and stormed out of the room.
Her pig of a husband, the man she’d stupidly ditched Cohen for, grunted and muttered something along the lines of, “Fuck kids.”
A real winner there, sis.
I told him to, “Fuck off,” next, and the day was filled with everyone wanting the other to fuck themselves.
My eyes meet Cohen’s, and a tingle sweeps up my spine. Even though this is an embarrassing moment, I have no compulsion to flee.
We’re having a good time.
“I figured you hadn’t tattled, given I wasn’t strangled in my sleep,” I say, cracking a smile. “Thank you for that. It’s nice to be alive and breathing.”
He shrugs. “We all do stupid shit the first time we’re drunk.”
“Fun fact: not everyone attempts to make out with their sister’s boyfriend. Total slut move on my part, which I take full accountability for.” I pause, holding up a finger. “To you, I take responsibility. With Heather, I’m taking that shit to the grave.”
He’s right about it being the first time I got drunk. For someone with a 4.0 GPA, I was clueless about how potent vodka was and how stupid it could make you. I chugged that shit down like it was Kool-Aid, trying to fit in, and then threw myself at a man who wasn’t mine.
After our incident, I didn’t drink for three years.
In college was when I realized that not all alcohol was cheap vodka that would have you puking up your guts and kissing guys.
“You were what”—Cohen scrunches his brows together—“sixteen?”
“Sixteen, stupid, and slutty.”
I couldn’t look at him for weeks. Anytime he came over, I left the room. I was ashamed and terrified he’d tell Heather. She would’ve tattled to my parents, and all hell would’ve broken loose. But Cohen pretended it never happened, and at times, I wondered if he even remembered.