Professor Feelgood (Page 52)

However, at the bottom of the pile are a few notebooks I didn’t get around to reading, and they’re the ones I haven’t let anyone else see. During my dark days, I spilled my most private thoughts onto their pages. A lot of those bitter and thorny sentiments were about Jake.

“Be honest,” Jake says. “You’re barring me from your bedroom in case I find the corpses of all of the men you’ve drained after having your way with them, right?”

He couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve never had a man in my bed. All my failed sexual exploits have happened elsewhere.

“Actually, I just want to keep you out of there in case you get the urge to try on my dresses.”

His face drops. “That was one time when I was six, and in case you’ve forgotten, I looked fucking fine in that little white number.” His eyes widen. “Jesus, is that your old bed?”

Before I can stop him, he slips past me into the room. In a flash of panic, I quickly grab my robe and drape it over the pile of notebooks while he takes a seat on my well-loved double.

“I can’t believe you still have this.”

Seeing him there gives me a pain in my head. When I blink, I get a ghost image of a much younger Jake in the same position.

“Huh.” He sits there for a few seconds, a perplexed expression on his face. “It seemed bigger.”

“That’s because you used to be smaller.” Much smaller.

Back then, we could both lie there and still have room left over. Now, it would barely fit him alone.

I swallow as I’m hit by a memory of us hugging in that bed. It was my ninth birthday, and I’d buried my head in his skinny chest and cried so hard, I never thought I’d stop. He didn’t try to shush me or encourage me to ’let it all out’. He just held me. If it hadn’t been for how he’d wrapped me in his arms, I would have fallen apart that night.

“A lot of good memories in this bed,” he says quietly. “Okay, that came out creepy, but you know what I mean.”

I do. Nothing sexual ever happened with Jake there. Not physically, anyway.

“It’s held up well.” He runs his hand across the shelving that makes up the headboard. Nan gave me this bed when I was just a toddler. In the place of a regular headboard, this one has bookshelves. Over the years it’s housed my most prized possessions. Once upon a time it held pictures of Jake and our collection of rescued treasures. Now it’s full of my favorite books, most of them romance novels.

I cringe as Jake peruses the titles, bracing for the barrage of mockery that’s no doubt coming my way. If I thought Devin gave me crap about my preferred genre, then Jake will eviscerate me.

“Big Lainey Bergerac fan, are you?” He touches the spines of my favorite series. “I loved the first two books, but the third made me so frustrated, I wanted to throw it across the room.” He pulls one out and flips through it. “The final book in a trilogy is supposed to wrap everything up, not introduce a bunch of new plot points and characters. It felt like she was setting up an entirely new trilogy rather than concluding an old one.”

When he turns, I have no doubt he can read the shock on my face. “You don’t agree?”

“I do, it’s just … uh … You’ve read Lainey Bergerac?”

He slides the book back into place. “Read her, loved her. Maybe written a few pages of fanfiction here and there.” He says it with zero sarcasm or shame.

My gob is well-and-truly smacked. Right now, Zeus himself could come down from Olympus and dance naked in front of me, and it would be the second most surprising thing I’d witnessed today. Lainey’s books are wildly popular, but due to them having a female protagonist and an epic romance, her audience is primarily women. That Jake has not only read them but loved them, is a massive surprise.

Jake frowns. “Are you having a stroke? Why aren’t you breathing?”

I shake it off. “I’m just weirded out that we have the same taste in books.”

“Why? It’s not the first time. We both binged on Harry Potter when we were ten. Also, Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. I’d be more surprised if we didn’t have books in common.”

“Yes, but unlike all those others, Lainey’s books are romances.”

“So? Most classic literature is about epic love. Great Expectations, Gone with the Wind, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights.” He narrows his eyes. “Wait, are you being sexist and implying men shouldn’t read romance?”

“Not at all. I’d love for men to read romance, but most don’t.”

He lies down on the bed and puts his hands behind his head. His feet hang over the edge. “Maybe we should. There’s a reason women are so drawn to those stories, and if we figure out what it is, we might have a chance at understanding them more.” He glances at me. “Why do you enjoy them so much?”

I struggle for a moment, totally unprepared for this conversation. “I … well …” I take a breath. “It’s how they make true love seem inevitable. Like some people were just born to be together, and no matter what obstacles are thrown in their way, they’ll find a way to overcome them.”

He stares at me, unblinking. “Is that so?” There’s a challenge buried in his tone, but I don’t take the bait. “Is that how things are between you and your Frenchman?”

I wish. My life would be so much easier right now if that was the case.

“I take it from your earlier rant about the hopelessness of love that you don’t believe in destiny.”

He stares up at the ceiling. “I used to. But after everything that went down with Ingrid … I think people who were born to be together can still end up alone.”

If life were a romance novel, Ingrid would realize she couldn’t live without Jake and move heaven and earth to be with him, and the feelings I have for Derek would translate into a sex life so spectacular, it would make the angels weep. But life isn’t like a romance novel, no matter how much we wish it was.

Jake swings off the bed and stands. “So, do you have a favorite genre? Dark? Rom-com? Men in kilts? Vampires?”

I check his expression for mockery, but the only thing I find is curiosity. “Uh …”

He runs his finger along the spines of some of my other titles. “Let’s see what we have here. Masterful, Only His, Blissful Submission, Train Me.” My face is getting redder every second. “So, you like BDSM?”

Again, I wait for the mockery.

He clocks my skepticism. “I’m not judging you, Ash. Your fetishes are nothing to be embarrassed about. Except, of course, if your kink is being humiliated, in which case you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself, you filthy little pervert.”

He says it with so much sincerity, it takes me a second to register the joke. It’s so unexpected, I come dangerously close to snorting. “How long have you been saving that one up, waiting for a chance to use it?”

He fights a smile. “Just thought of it now. Hand to God.” He stands and puts the books back where they came from, then steps forward, close enough that the air between us feels charged. “But seriously, if you ever desire a good, solid spanking, I’m here for you. God knows, you deserve one.”

Out of nowhere, my whole body flushes. I try to keep my face neutral to hide it, but I can feel every inch of skin, from my cleavage to my forehead, go red hot.