“Vivian. You both have met Jess,” I said, nodding toward Jess as she suddenly looked like she would rather be anywhere else.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were still together. I thought . . .” Vivian was elbowed by Jamieson and they both put on those fake smiles I hated.
“You thought what?” I asked her, annoyed now. Because I made it very clear I was with Jess and brought her up regularly.
She waved it off like it was nothing. “I just haven’t seen you around outside of classes, and I assumed you were in a serious relationship.”
Scowling, I reminded myself that she was just a bitch. “I am in a serious relationship. I’m engaged,” I told her, and reached for Jess’s hand and covered it with mine. “To Jess.”
Vivian acted shocked as she looked at Jess, then turned her head. “Oh, well, I’m sure your mother is thrilled,” she said. “I’ll see you later, Jason.” Then she walked off.
Jamieson shrugged. “That’s just Viv. You know how she is,” he said, making an excuse for her.
“Yeah, I know,” I replied.
When he walked off, I looked over at Jess, who was staring down at her lap. I squeezed her hand. “Hey, don’t get upset over that. Vivian is a grade-A bitch. She’s uptight and likes to say things that make her feel better about herself.”
Jess only nodded. Then I saw her take a deep breath as she lifted her head to look at me. “It’s okay. I’m used to this by now.” The small smile she was forcing didn’t fool me.
“Is that what is bothering you? The elitist ass**les around here? Because none of them matter. Nothing they do or say matters.”
She sighed and glanced away, looking out over the dining room. “I know. It’s okay.”
No, it wasn’t okay. “Jess,” I started, but then the server walked up.
I let Jess place her order. She only ordered the lasagna. So I ordered what I wanted, and her other two choices boxed up to go. I wasn’t letting Vivian freaking Northrop ruin Jess’s dinner.
Jess
When lunchtime came the next day, I was really thankful that Jason had ordered my other two favorite dishes the night before. I put a little of both on a plate and heated them up. I had a hard time going to sleep last night. Once I had finally fallen asleep I slept so hard that I hadn’t woken up when Jason left this morning. He had gotten up and made his own coffee, and left without even a kiss from me.
It had ruined my morning. I worried over not being what he needed. What I thought would make him happy. Last night he’d been determined to go eat at my favorite restaurant and, in the end, I had wished so hard we were eating Thai. Running into those uppity people who saw me as less than them had taken away my appetite. I hadn’t wanted to eat.
Under Jason’s watchful and concerned eyes, I had forced it down. Or at least half of it. I couldn’t do more than that.
At some point Jason would realize what he’s done. I was just sitting here, waiting on him to figure it out. He is brilliant and going to do big things. What could I do? Make clothes? Who wants me to make them clothes? No one. That’s who.
I sank down on the sofa with my plate of food and rubbed my stomach. We were going to be parents while Jason still went to his Ivy League college. Soon there would be diapers and sleepless nights and hardly any time for sex. How soon would it be before some girl in one of his classes took away all his stress and met his needs?
My appetite vanished again. I set my plate down and stood back up. I shouldn’t have been eating all those carbs. I was going to get fat. I needed to go for a walk instead. I had to have my perfect body so that when our baby was sleeping, I could keep Jason interested in me.
Would we be married then? Jason hadn’t talked about setting a date. When he proposed to me, I hadn’t been pregnant. Now that I was, he didn’t seem really excited about making a wedding happen. Which was not helping me feel safe in this relationship. I wanted to go see my momma. Talk to her about all this. She’d make me feel better. Being around people who didn’t look down their noses at me would be a nice change.
My cell phone rang just as I was lacing up my tennis shoes. It was Jason. I pressed it to my ear. “Hey, you,” I said, trying to sound happy.
“Hey, baby. You slept good. I liked seeing you all curled up in bed like an angel this morning.” His voice made me smile.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wake up to tell you bye.”
“Don’t be. I liked leaving you tucked in and resting. I was just heading to lunch, and I know you have Italian food in the fridge, but I thought you might want to come to the campus and eat with me.”
I looked down at my leggings and off-the-shoulder shirt I was wearing. No makeup and my hair was in a ponytail. “Right now?” I asked, hoping he’d say, No, in half an hour.
“Yeah, sorry it’s late notice, but a meeting with a professor was canceled and I realized I’d have time to eat today.”
I wanted to see him. And I didn’t want to turn him down. “I don’t look great. I was about to go walking. I’m in my workout clothes.”
Jason chuckled. “Noted. But, baby, you look gorgeous no matter what you’re wearing. Come eat with me. Please.”
The Vivians of Harvard were going to love this. I was going to give them something to make fun of for weeks. Maybe months. “Okay, I’ll head that way now.”
“I’ll wait for you in the courtyard outside the main cafeteria.”
Great.
***
The whole way there I prepared myself for all the preppy, skinny girls who’d look at me like I was a bug that needed to be squashed.
But seeing Jason’s smiling face when I rounded the corner to the courtyard made it all not matter. He beamed at me and started walking toward me with purpose. When we reached each other, he grabbed my face and kissed me hard. It was a claiming kind of kiss he liked to do in public. It made me feel special and loved.
When he pulled back, I heard a catcall and a whistle. Someone else told us to get a room. Jason was oblivious to all of them. “Hey, baby,” he whispered, then pressed one more kiss to my mouth. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”
His arm slid around my back as we walked to the cafeteria. I felt eyes on me as we stepped inside. But I didn’t focus on any of them.
“They have lasagna today, but I don’t think it will compare to last night’s. But the chicken parmesan is good. I think you’ll like that.”
“Sounds good. I trust you,” I told him.
He led me over to a table and pulled out a chair for me. “Wait here. I’ll go get the food. They don’t have your soda, but they have Sprite. You want that?”
I nodded and smiled up at him.
He winked, then headed to get in line.
I was the only pregnant girl here. I didn’t have to look around to know. The girls who got into school here didn’t get knocked up.
The chair beside me moved, and a guy sat down with his gaze directed at my chest. “This seat taken?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
This one actually had a sweater tied around his neck. Seriously?
“I’ve not seen you around here. What classes are you taking?”
Had I not just told him that seat was taken?
“I don’t go here. And that seat is taken.”
He grinned and leaned forward. “That explains it. You don’t look like the girls here. But I do like the way you fill out a shirt. Who you here with? Boyfriend?”
“Me. Move, Devin,” Jason snarled, slamming down the tray in his hands, making me and Devin jump.
Devin stood up. “Damn, Jason, get a grip. I was just making your friend feel welcome. It was obvious she was an outsider.”
Jason took a step toward him, and the angry clench in his jaw told me Devin needed to run. “She’s my fiancée, dickhead. And the fact that she doesn’t fit in here is one of the many reasons I love her.”
Devin shrugged. “Got it.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Leaving now.”
Jason stood there glaring at him until he was happy with how far away Devin had moved. Then he swung his gaze to mine. “I’m going to go get you a drink, but I’m trying to decide if I need to take you with me.”
I started to say something when he grinned. “I’m kidding. I’ll be right back, and I’m sorry about him. He’s a jackass.”
Jason
By the time the weekend arrived, I was exhausted. Between keeping up with my studies and assignments and making sure Jess was happy, all I wanted to do was sleep.
When my eyes opened on Saturday morning and I focused on the alarm clock beside the bed, it was after eleven. I hadn’t slept that late all semester. I heard the shower going, and the smell of coffee and pancakes filled the apartment. Smelled like Jess had been up for a while.
Tossing the covers back, I stood up and stretched. I was still na**d from the last round of sex we’d had the night before. After getting off for the third time in one night, I don’t think I came back from the last one. All I could remember was holding on to Jess as pleasure coursed through me.
I had to have passed out on her after that.
I went to the bathroom, and the glass shower was steamed up but I could still see my gorgeous fiancée rinsing the shampoo from her hair. She had her eyes closed and her head tilted back. Opening the shower door, I stepped inside and she snapped her eyes open.
Her surprised gasp turned into a smile.
“Morning,” I said, sliding my hands around her slick body and pulling her to me. “It was cold in bed alone.”
She laughed. “Some of us can’t sleep all morning. We get hungry,” she teased.
“Smelled that. You make me any?”
“Of course.”
I moved my hand down to gently touch her between the legs. “Are you sore? Because I am, and I’m thinking if I’m sore, then you gotta be.”
Jess opened her legs for me and rocked on my hand. “A little,” she whispered. “But if you’re sore, I can kiss it and make it better.”
I caught her under the arms just as she started to go down on those knees again. “No,” I said, stopping her. The frown that puckered her brow made me smile. “Sit,” I said, pushing her to the bench behind us. “And open,” I commanded. Then I went down on my knees.
“Jason, I’m . . . fine . . .”
“I’m not. I’m hungry,” I replied, opening her legs wide with my hands.
With the first lick, she shuddered. With the second one, her hands made it to my hair. I began teasing her and pleasuring every spot but the one place I knew she needed my tongue.
When she started pulling on my hair and begging, I gave in and flicked her swollen cl*t with my tongue, then pulled it into my mouth and sucked. It was a good thing I had plenty of hair because she pulled so hard I was sure she tore some out.
“JAAASON!” she cried, trembling as her body convulsed and her thighs held my head in a firm grip while she rode the wave.
When her legs went lax and she fell back against the wall, I pressed a kiss to her stomach, then a couple to the inside of her thighs before standing back up and sitting beside her. “That’s my favorite breakfast.”
She giggled and laid her hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, well then, I’m really lucky. I was going to kiss yours and make it better, though.”
“This morning I needed it to be about you. As much as I love it when you’re between my legs, I like being the one to make my girl cry out in pleasure.”
She smiled up at me, then kissed my chin. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, but are you thanking me for the awesome way I eat breakfast, or for wanting to?”
“Both and neither. For loving me.”
I reached over and pulled Jess into my lap. Then I cupped her face in my hands. “Don’t ever, ever, thank me for loving you. You are my every dream, crazy woman.”
Jess wrapped her arms around me and sighed happily. Maybe this was it. Maybe whatever she was dealing with was gone now. God, I hoped so.
Jess
The next week was easier. I wasn’t filled with the fear of losing Jason as much. We had spent the weekend watching movies, curled up on the sofa together and eating Chinese takeout and pizza. Having a lazy weekend had helped my emotions.
Even though this week Jason had stayed out late twice with study groups, I had managed not to panic or get needy. He seemed happier too. He wasn’t always asking me what was wrong.
Tonight, however, we were going to an event. His friend Finn’s birthday was tonight, and Finn loved to have parties. He threw the most parties of any human I knew. Because he had more money than God, it was an event instead of just a party. Finn and Hensley were Jason’s only two friends I liked. They were nice to me, and I felt comfortable around them.
I chose a dress I had recently made, and went without panties or a bra. The dress hid my baby bump but accentuated my boobs so that a bra was impossible. The pretty blue was a color I had recently developed a thing for. And the fabric had a creamy, soft feel to it. My hair was down, and I had on the heels Jason had bought me a couple of months ago when I had been drooling over them.
The look on Jason’s face when I had walked out of the bedroom had given me the extra self-esteem I had needed to face this crowd. He had followed it with a “Goddamn, you’re hot.”
We pulled up to the country club that I had only been to once and had never wanted to return to. It had been a family meal that ended badly. Sadie had basically told off Jason and Jax’s mother.
Before I walked in, I needed to know who would be there. Or if one person would be there. “Will Johanna be here?” I asked.