Selfish Love

There was a lump in the base of my throat and I had to swallow a few times to clear it. "I promise, Em."

"I promise, too."

We clinked our beer bottles together and each took a sip. There was another silent moment, but not an awkward one. This one was comfortable, familiar, one of those silences between friends who have transcended friendship. I sipped my beer again, easing into that moment and knowing unequivocally that things were going to be okay between me and Em.

Then she had to go and ruin it.

"I don't know how to ask this so I'm just going to say it," she said. "What the fuck happened with Daniel?"

The mention of his name made my shoulders tense, my muscles almost groaning as any of the tension that had been relieved came roaring back.

"I thought Jimmy told you most of it."

"I mean, keep in mind that he told me most of it in the process of us screaming at each other in the living room while Alex tried to get Leia to go back to bed." Her face went a bit red. "He was pretty upset with me. Rightfully so."

I toyed with my lip ring, not sure what to say to that, then sighed.

"It started with Taylor Swift," I said.

"I fucking knew it was her," she said. "I'm personally blaming Taylor Swift for everything from now on."

I laughed. Or at least, I tried to laugh. The tears were already threatening to start and there was a thick, tight feeling in my throat that made the sound come out choked and watery. Without saying a word, Em got up and grabbed the Kleenex box from the counter, bringing it back just in time for my regularly scheduled pre-dinner breakdown.

Slowly, I took her through everything that had happened. I didn't hold back a thing; everything from my inability to let my pride go for even a moment to the way I'd almost puked all over Mike's shoes when he told me the cost, but still insisted I could do it right up until I knew it was impossible.

From my first call with Daniel to my plan to work and work and work until I'd saved the money up myself. From the car accident to proving how incredibly stupid I could be when I thought I'd won after he transferred me the money.

And when I choked out that Baylee had wanted to go and that she'd been hiding it from me because she didn't want me to be alone on Christmas, she cried with me. She pulled me out of my chair and hugged me, taking part of my heartbreak on so I could try to heal, holding me up when I'd insisted I could hold myself up, and proving to me what a fucking idiot I'd been for not talking to her sooner.

"There has to be something we can do," she said, wiping her eyes as I finished speaking. "He can't get away with this. There's no way."

"He already has, Em," I said, mirroring her actions. "He made sure she wanted to go and that I found out when both he and Baylee were in the room so I couldn't even discuss it with her first. He knows what he can get away with and how far he can push without me being able to retaliate. I can't take him on."

She made some half-hearted suggestions, but there wasn't anything I hadn't already thought of. A short while later, Baylee called for her pre-dinner chat and discussion of the best parts of our day.

"Seeing Santa," she told me boldly. "At the North Pole. And I got to tell him what I wanted for Christmas and he said he was gonna do his best but he couldn't make any promises and I said if anyone could do it, he could, so I expect him to try really, really hard because it's not a present for me."

"It isn't?" I asked, amused. "What'd you ask for?"

"Mom. You know I can't tell you or it won't come true."

"That's wishes, sweetie. Not Christmas presents."

"Yeah, well, this is kinda a wish, too."

God, I hoped it wasn't the type of wish that involved her parents getting back together that all kids with divorced parents seemed to wish at one point.

I heard someone say something in the background and Baylee sighed.

"In a minute," she said, her voice just distant enough that I knew she'd moved the phone away from her ear. "I'm talking to my mom." There was a pause, and then she heaved the kind of heavy, dramatic sigh that only eight-year-old girls seem capable of. "Fine. Just let me finish." There was a rustle, then her voice was clear again. "Mom? I gotta go pretty quick. What was your favourite part of the day?"

I glanced at Em, who was pretending not to listen as she sat at the table.

"You know, sweetie, I think my favourite was getting to visit with Em for a while today," I said, who looked up as I said her name.

"Really? But you visit with Em all the time!"

"That's true, but it can still be my favourite."

"Okay." Another voice in the background and Baylee's voice went high-pitched. "I know! I'm talking to Mom!"

"It's okay," I said. "I'll talk to you tonight before bed."

"You mean you'll sing to me tonight before bed. No talking allowed."

"You bet. Love you, Bay."

"Love you, Mom." And then, just before the line hung up: "Okay, I'm done now, jeez."

It was because of Baylee's call that we realized how late it was. Seeing as Em hadn't had early bird Chinese food at the mall food court and also had a kid and a boyfriend to feed, she grabbed her things and started getting ready to head home.

Before she opened the door to leave, she turned to me.

"So, remember when you said you hadn't fucked my brother 'yet'?" she asked.

"Jesus, Em," I muttered. "I thought that was TMI."

"It's between TMI and Not Enough 'I'," she said.

"So exactly the right amount of 'I'?"

"Are you gonna see where things go with him?"

"I..."

"I'm not saying you have my blessing," she said. "'Cause that's a stupid thing to say. But if you and him are gonna be a thing, I'm not going to be against it. I mean, you said you like him."

I nodded again, swallowing back that lump in my throat. "I still don't know what I want."

"Understood." She slung her purse over her shoulder. "For what it's worth, he's miserable and thinks he doesn't even have a shot with you anymore. And I've never seen Jimmy so down about something like that before."

"Really?"

"Mm-hmm." She gave me a pointed look. "I'm not telling you what to do, but I know not hearing from you is torturing him. He likes you, Kels. He cares, probably more than he knows how to handle."

Long after she left, I let those words tumble through my mind.

The reasons I gave to Jimmy for not being able to be with him were, for all intents and purposes, completely addressed. Our ages didn't quite matter so much anymore, not when we were discussing the things that had forced each of us to grow up a little too early. And Em, well. She might not like the word "blessing," but that's basically what it had been.

Now, all that was left was fear.

After I left Daniel, I'd slept around. I mean, why the fuck wouldn't I? I'd freed myself from a marriage to a monster and for the first time in my adult life, I was single. So yeah, I fucked around, I had some fun and some orgasms and some reminders that sex was amazing when you weren't trapped beneath a guy who had zero concept of female pleasure, and that's where I left it. I had never met anyone I wanted as anything more than a good time.

So Jimmy, young Jimbo, twenty-one-year-old brother of my best friend, would be the first, if that's where things went.

And that was as terrifying as it was somewhat distressing.

Terrifying and exhilarating, in a way, especially because I had been telling the truth. It might have been the first time I said it out loud, but I did really like Jimmy. Up until then, it had been a serious problem with a simple solution: it wasn't possible.

Now, though. Now it was possible, which meant I had to make a choice.

I didn't know if I could ever get over my anger at Daniel for ruining the girl I'd been. I tried to find that girl again after I left him, but she'd been gone for a long time. Sure, she'd been stupid. She'd been a rebel, though at least it was with a cause. She drank and smoked and did stupid shit like most girls her age did, but most girls her age didn't have parents who subscribed so thoroughly and so mindlessly to that horrific level of indoctrination.

So she'd rebelled against that and in the process, trapped herself even further.

He'd taken everything that made me me, bit by bit and piece by piece. Some of it I knew was a sin to begin with; the church was very clear about drinking and smoking and premarital sex. But other bits of it were broken away by Daniel: the love of music, of bright colours, of piercings and tattoos and wild hair. Things that represented any level of independence, of individuality, of the girl I wanted to be.

I rebuilt some of those things when I left him, but I couldn't rebuild it all. I could dye my hair and pierce every flap of skin that was safe to put a needle through, but I couldn't give myself back those years of discovery, those vital times when everyone else was learning who they were.

To be so far removed from those years when the man I wanted was smack dab in the middle of them... Part of me wanted to mourn for what I'd never get back, and part of me was afraid that not having that experience meant there would always be something missing.

Specifically, that something would be missing between me and Jimmy.

So now it was up to me to choose. I didn't have the excuse of "you're my best friend's brother" or "I'm too old for you." All I had was a fucked up life and the question of whether or not it was right for me to drag Jimmy into that.

Especially knowing that it wasn't the life he'd dreamed of.

It wasn't even the life I'd dreamed of.

I told myself I didn't have to choose right away, that Jimmy would understand and so would Em. With everything happening right now, it was perfectly reasonable for me to put off making that choice. I could probably have even texted Jimmy to tell him that.

But I didn't.

Instead, after Baylee called me to sing her goodnights, I hung up the phone and changed into my pajamas with tears in my eyes, miserably missing my daughter and seething at the disembodied voice in the background that probably belonged to my ex-husband, urging her to hurry up and finish so she could go to bed.

And as I wiped those tears from my eyes, I made my choice.

Sixteen

"I'm only going to say this once, so listen carefully."

"I will. I am."

"Okay. You will always be too young. You--"

"We already talked about--"

"Jimmy, shut the fuck up. I said listen."

"Fine."

I took a deep breath. "You will always be too young. You will always be my best friend's brother. That's never going to change. And I'm always going to be too fucked up. I'm never going to be able to understand what these things are supposed to be like.

"I've never had a normal relationship. Never. I don't know how and I'm past the point where I think I can learn. And dealing with that wouldn't be fair to anyone, least of all to you. Not when you can do so much better."

"Okay, hold up, that's not--"

"Let me finish."

"I'm not going to sit here while you say--"

"For fuck's sake, let me fucking finish. This is hard enough, okay?"

He sighed miserably. "Fine."

"I'm not telling you all this because it's fun, okay? I need you to know all the shitty things about me. I need you to know that I'm scared of hospitals. And that it took sleeping with probably three different guys after I left Daniel for me to realize I was having problems getting off because I was so used to being hurt during sex that it felt like something was missing. And that there's a pretty good chance there's more things I just don't fucking know because my frame of reference includes a goddamn monster.

"I'm going to cry. I'm going to fall back into my bad habits and let my pride get the best of me. I'm going to try not to, but I know I'm going to fail. I'm going to get scared and I'm going to bring up the same things again and again, even when I know better. There's going to be days when I get paranoid and I'm going to make choices that don't seem to make sense, even if they make sense to me.

"The best thing for you would be to find someone else. Someone your age who can give you more of themself than I can. Someone who doesn't have a psycho fucking ex-husband to deal with. Someone who can put you first. I have a daughter. She is always my priority. With me, you can't come first. You just can't.

"I'm telling you all this because I need you to know I'm selfish, Jimbo. Because even having said all that, I want this. I want you. I'm telling you all this because if we do this, if you decide you still want me, you deserve to know about all of this first. And if you still want--"

"Yes."

"I'm not done."

"Doesn't matter. There's not a single fucking thing you can say to make me change my answer."

I sighed. "This isn't a joke. If this is seriously something you want, then--"

"Come here."

I frowned. "What?"

He laughed. "I said come here."

"To... where? To the studio?"

"Nah. To your door."

I turned on my heel, eyes wide as I glanced towards my front door. "What... are you... seriously? I thought you were working."

"I left when I got your text," he said. "Em told Alex he had to be on call tonight in case you decided to smarten up after you talked with her earlier. Now would you come let me in? It's fucking cold out here."

I stormed to the front door, my phone still pressed to my ear as my face turned red. Flinging it open, I saw Jimmy standing on my front walk, a shit-eating grin on his face as he took his phone away from his ear and slipped it casually in his jacket pocket.

"Hey," he said.

"You're a presumptuous little jackass," I said.

His grin widened. "Yeah, but you like me."

Well, he wasn't wrong.

I'd done what I had to do. What I needed to do to absolve myself from all the reasons I shouldn't want him. I'd warned him. He knew my deepest secrets and my biggest fears and even still, even with all that knowledge, he was standing in front of my door, wanting to come in.

Wanting to be part of my life.

Wanting to be with me.

And I wanted to be with him.

I barely had time to put my phone in my pocket before he was in front of me, taking me into his arms as I reached for him. His body guided me back into the house as he dipped his head, making me melt with his warm lips and squeal as his ice-cold nose pressed against mine.

"You're frozen," I gasped, and he laughed as he let the door swing shut behind us.

"Completely," he said. "Warm me up?"

Before I could answer, he boldly moved his hands to my hips and slipped them beneath the hem of my shirt. I shrieked, writhing as icy fingers met skin that had been the perfect temperature seconds earlier.

"Jackass!" I said as he tried to hold his hands against my stomach.

"Yeah, but you still like me," he said.

"True." I shoved his hands out of my shirt. "I like you so much that I won't even insist you get undressed like I was going to. You know, since you're so cold. I wouldn't want you to get any colder."

He smirked and grabbed at me again. "Oh, don't worry about that. I can brave the cold if you want to see me naked."

I slipped out of his grasp, blinking innocently. "It'd be irresponsible of me to let you do that, Jimbo. I'll have to find you some mittens. Maybe a parka. And one of those full ski masks that goes over your whole head."

"You wouldn't," he said.

"Wouldn't I?"

He reached for me again and that time, somehow, he managed to catch me. Probably because I very, very much wanted him to catch me. He pressed me against the wall, his hips holding me in place as he captured my lips again.

"You wouldn't," he repeated. "And besides, it's just my hands that are cold. The rest of me is nice and warm. Too warm, actually. Might need to lose a few layers."

"Mmm, well don't let me stop you from getting that jacket off."

He nipped at my lip. "Maybe I'm hoping you'll help me jacket off instead."

"Really? You went with that instead of 'I'm hoping you'll get me off instead'?"

His laugh vibrated against my lips. "Cut me some slack. I'm a little, uh, distracted."

He punctuated his statement by moving his hips forward, letting me feel how distracted he was. I made a soft noise as he pressed his bulge against me and he took that opportunity to slip his tongue into my mouth, flicking it against mine as he deepened our kiss.

That was it for jokes, at least for a while. I was distracted by his distraction, lost against his body as I imagined where we'd be in another heartbeat, and another, and on. He rubbed against me, little movements that made my body tingle, and when his hands slipped beneath my shirt again, I didn't shriek, even though they weren't much warmer than they had been the first time.

They warmed up quickly as he traced little patterns along my waist, bringing his hands up to my breasts. When he realized I didn't have a bra on under the baggy sweater he'd caught me wearing, he groaned and gripped my breasts, squeezing lightly as his hips moved forward again.

"Want you," he murmured. "Kels, I want you so fucking much."

"Already?" I teased.

"The fuck you mean, already?" he grumbled. "I've wanted you for fucking ever." He let go of one of my breasts, withdrawing his hand from my shirt so he could move it to my neck, cradling my head as he kissed me harder. "You have no idea how much I've wanted this."

And as much as I'd worried, as much as I'd spent the whole night trying to figure out if I was doing the right thing by telling Jimmy I wanted to be with him, I knew it was true.

I knew it was true in the way his lips moved, in the way he clutched at me. And in the way he breathed, in the very taste of his mouth and the warmth of the air brushing against me.

He wanted me.

It was my turn to guide him. I eased him away from me, just slightly, just enough that I could plant a final, searing kiss on his mouth before taking his hand. There would be time for the bedroom later; for now, the living room was right there, cozy and warm and glittering with lights from my stupid, ugly little Christmas tree. I led him to the couch, intending to make him sit so I could straddle his lap and pick up where we'd left off before Alex and Em had interrupted us the night before, but Jimmy stopped me before I could.

He kissed me lightly, then set to work undressing me. Piece by piece and bit by bit, he unwrapped me, taking his time and admiring each part of me that I didn't feel was worthy of admiration. It was hard to understand why I didn't like those parts as he looked at me, his eyes feasting fervently as they glided across my body. It was harder still when he touched me, using his fingers to map out every inch of me that he could, the piercings in my nipples and belly button his waypoints as he explored my torso.

I loved the way his hands felt, the slight roughness of his fingertips and the controlled yet eager way he worshipped my body. My body responded to him, electricity dancing across my skin as my nipples hardened and wetness started to pool in my panties. His hands kept learning every inch of me as he kissed me again, lips lingering enticingly before he pulled away and dropped to his knees.

It was unexpected and I watched, entranced, as he peeled my pajama pants down my hips. He didn't look up at me, just took in each new patch of skin he revealed, until I was left in my panties. That was when he glanced up, letting me see the stupid little smirk on his face before he pushed it against my mound.

"Oh," I breathed as he teased me through my panties, his tongue moving against the spot I knew had to be damp. The corners of his eyes crinkled and I knew he was smiling even as he kissed my pussy deeply.

My panties were clinging to my lips and he traced his tongue along them, confidently in control and not letting so much as a hint of his mouth to touch my bare skin. I whimpered, toying with my lip ring as need washed over me, too nervous to grab his head and push him against me like I wanted to but barely able to keep my knees from shaking as he played his little game.