was thick with sleep. “I put them in my car. But most of your frames were fucked.” He kissed my temple. “It’s all okay.”
“You saved my pictures?” I looked over my shoulder, but Jasper’s face was turned away. I waited for a moment, listening. He was asleep.
He’d saved my pictures. I put my hands on his, tracing each long, strong finger. I’d had these fingers inside me, pleasuring me, and I’d had them gentle and healing on me. He was so many things I’d never expected. How had I not seen this side of him before?
I pushed away all of the confusing thoughts that were threatening to crowd in and ruin this. I wasn’t going to read too much into things, wasn’t going to start wondering what this meant. I didn’t need to analyze whatever this was. If Jasper wasn’t asking me to define what we were, I didn’t need to press the issue myself. I needed to just let things be right now. No pressure. I needed one thing in my life that wasn’t complex, wasn’t complicated. I needed something easy and reassuring.
Jasper was that. He didn’t try to make me think about things. He just made me feel. Feel something other than anger and hurt. He made me feel alive and made me forget everything else. He was here for me, and I never wanted to lose that. I never wanted to lose him.
I swallowed hard at the realization. I’d never expected him to mean so much to me, but there it was. It was probably crazy and way too soon. It was probably a horrible idea.
But it was too late. We could slow things down, but what had happened between us over the last two days changed everything.
I just hoped it would be for the better.
Chapter 4
It was a strange thing, going from friends to lovers, or at least it should’ve been. With Jasper though, it felt natural. He woke up next to me on Sunday morning and it wasn’t weird. Maybe it was because he didn’t let it get that way. He didn’t rush out or try to snuggle closer. Instead, he climbed out of bed, pulled on the clothes he’d discarded at some point during the night and went into the bathroom.
After that, he made me breakfast. Like a for-real breakfast of pancakes and bacon and scrambled eggs. After breakfast, he helped me bring in the pictures from his car and salvage what frames I could. We talked, but not about what us having slept together – again – meant, but I didn’t feel like we needed to talk about it. Whatever this was between us was good, and if not defining it meant it stayed good, then I was going to let things be.
Then it was Sunday evening and we both knew that he had to go home. It had been nice having him at the house, but he didn’t live here and asking him to stay another night would lead to a place I wasn’t sure either of us were ready to go. So I didn’t ask him to stay. And he didn’t offer. What he did do was remind me that if I needed anything, he was there for me to call.
When I went back in to work on Monday morning, I actually felt better than I had in a while. Now, when I thought about Allen’s letter, I could almost see why he’d done it. It still hurt, of course, but there was something different when I thought about it now. I could see what Jasper meant about Allen not wanting me to see him like that. I could understand it on an intellectual level, and for now, that was enough to keep me sane.
It was a typical day at school and I hoped that meant things were going to be typical, normal, from here on out. Sure, there was still the hearing about Allen’s trust and figuring out what I was going to do about the insurance money, but I hoped this was the point where things would turn around and my life would start getting back on track.
I didn’t know how I could be so stupid.
It took all of an hour after getting home from school for me to see that things weren’t going to be normal, maybe not ever again.
Mixed in with the rest of my mail was a plain white envelope with my last name scribbled on it. No address, nothing