So, I should probably grovel a bit *drops to the floor wailing and clinging onto your leg, pleading for you not to go* after my epic fail last week. I'm such an unreliable bitch. S'cool, I'm aware. You got The Deadline as a consolation prize, but that's not the same, and I apologize.
Due to my last minute completion, this chapter aint beta'd yet, but when it is, I'll replace the content. Please excuse any and all mistakes.
Regardless of all that, here it is.
Mile High
Chapter Seven
Blackjacked
Mom rubbed her nose against my ear playfully then started kissing quickly all around my cheeks and forehead, making me laugh and wiggle away from the tickling that caused.
I got the blanket and pulled it up over my head, but her hands burrowed in the sides and started tickling my ribs. I rolled around, trying to get away from her wiggly fingers, but there was nowhere on my single bed. I was stuck. Stuck and laughing so much my tummy hurt.
"Okay, enough," Mom decided gently and stopped her 'attack'.
I flipped the blankets back so I could see her face again, and took in a deep breath of fresh air.
She pushed my hair back and put one more kiss on my forehead. "I love you. Go to sleep. You've got school tomorrow."
"I hate school," I instantly replied.
"But school doesn't hate you so you have to go," she said back and fixed my blankets smoothly.
"What does that mean?" I asked. How could school, a building, hate anyone?
"It means you might hate school, but you're good at it, so it doesn't hate you. Now, go to sleep. No more questions; I know your game plan, buddy," she said firmly as she stood from the bed. Her big, round belly wobbled as she moved and Mom put her hands at the bottom once she was standing.
"Is it annoying being pregnant?" I asked before I could stop myself. She'd said no more questions.
Mom shook her head without pointing out my mistake. "I got you at the end of it. In a few more weeks I'll get your sister and it'll all be worth it." She walked over to the door and turned off the light. "Goodnight, my sweet boy," she said quietly with a smile in her voice before closing the door three quarters of the way.
I rolled onto my side, curled my fist into my blanket to keep it over my shoulder, and then fell asleep soon after.
The burning in my chest woke me up in the dimly lit hotel room. I drew in a few long breaths to try to extinguish the pain a little, but it didn't really work. It never did.
I rolled over and got up from the comfortable bed and walked heavily over to the kitchenette thing at far side of the studio-type room. I ran some water over my forearms and then splashed some up onto my face to cool the aching of the almost shed tears in my eyes.
It was pretty rare that I'd go to bed and wake up with this feeling, but today was the exception to that.
The last few days had been the exception to a few personal rules I had.
I yawned silently, repeated my previous motion with another handful of water, then shook off my hands and stepped away from the sink.
Perhaps it was the lengthy—for me—four hour sleep I'd gotten the night before last that was making me so sluggish today after my usual two hours. I still couldn't figure it out why I'd slept so well with Rosalie.
Chest pain.
I'd tried to rule her out as a contributing factor in a very lengthy internal debate for my extended conscious hours last night, but the two nights on either side of our little slumber party involved sleeping from around three to five a.m. for two hours with a little change in position at around the halfway mark. With her in with me, I'd slept right through for twice as long, no dreams, and woke up almost in the same position beside her with our arms overlapping. I couldn't logically exclude her as a possibility for that. If she hadn't have woken up and screamed, God knows how long we would have stayed there for.
But I didn't like to think about it. It brought back memories of how she'd decided to leave soon after. Just because she didn't make it out the door, didn't mean she didn't want to go on some level.
Mmff. Chest pain.
At around four-thirty I'd finally passed out and slept for two hours before waking from a familiar dream. One that brought with it a familiar feeling. The one of loss and longing.
In an attempt to distract myself, I wandered over to the balcony door and stepped out into the cold morning air. I didn't really enjoy the cold, but I did like fresh air, and that wasn't in abundance inside the hotel room. The scent of rain was already mingled in the air—this day was just going to get worse. Colder, wetter, more depressing.
I scanned the panoramic view thoughtlessly while enjoying the feel of the fairly clean morning air washing out the stale remnants of enclosed hotel room scent from my lungs. Sure, it was nice here, but still, seen one grey concrete building and you've seen the lot. Same with trees.
Then, I spotted something I had seen before, but still found interesting because of what it represented.
The white, combed-back hair of Charles Hale.
The white, combed-back hair of Charles Hale outside.
White haired Charles Hale was outside, getting into a taxi with a hat-wearing woman that I could only assume was Rose's mother from this less than desirable position looking at the tops of their heads.
The hotel doorman closed the rear taxi door with a soft thump, then the car pulled away—just two people had gotten in.
From what I saw anyway.
Suddenly, I got a little film cut of Rosalie pottering about the hotel room alone in flannel, cloud design pajamas with bunny slippers. As exceedingly weird, slightly perverse, and disturbing as it was, the image was still a heartwarming one. It took a little of the pain away. I wondered, briefly, how old she actually was.
The night we arrived she'd mentioned being over eighteen, so her parents could do nothing but chastize her if she stayed out late. Leah was twenty-one, so probably somewhere around there.
As long as she was sixteen or over, I kind of didn't care. The pull towards her was unexplainably intense, blinding in its own way. It was the only reason I put up with all the reckless shit she did.
That and, for whatever reason, I wanted to do reckless shit as well when I was around her.
She truly did bring out the best and worst in me.
Content with my time outside, I returned to the temperature controlled warmth inside and went to the scene of our first break up. The plain-looking bathroom.
We'd broken up without ever actually going out. Unconventional as always.
I didn't linger for too long after showering. The room held no interest for me.
My life had taught me one unforgettable and immeasurably valuable lesson. In the blink of an eye—the space of time it takes to sleep—you can lose everything. And once it's gone, it rarely comes back.
Rose could be here for the next sixty years, or she might already be gone. But I knew that, regardless of what happened now, tomorrow, or next week, I'd always wonder what might have occurred if I'd used the time I had.
And right now, I wanted to see her, for no apparent reason.
Without being very selective, I threw on a pair of pants, shoes, and a thick t-shirt, and then grabbed my room key and left before I could change my mind fifteen times only to come to the same conclusion.
I missed her, even if she didn't miss me. My finger paused, hovering in front of the elevator button. Do you really want to do this? She might be trying to avoid another run-in, I asked myself seriously.My jaw set a little tighter and I pressed the button—no answer crossing my mind, because I didn't need one. I wanted to see her, and I already knew that even if I tried to seclude myself, we'd somehow run into each other.
It was fucking ridiculous that in a country this size, I couldn't even have one building to retreat to. I couldn't stop her from finding me in public, and we both had a valid reason for being in this hotel.
There was literally no escaping her. It was some humorous twist of fate.
Until we got back to New York, where I'd somehow never ran into her before, I knew this was how it would be. Until we got back to the place where she didn't know where I lived. Where things would go back to normal.
The elevator doors opened and right before I stepped out I heard a gasp that stopped me in my tracks.
Of course, there she was. Flustered. Looking ridiculously adorable with a bizarre little hat on her head.
She drew her bottom lip into her mouth and gnawed on the corner, avoiding making eye contact. I started smiling as I came to the realization that she'd obviously had the same intention as me. My first laugh got her attention and the second made her smile as well.
"C'mon." I leaned forward and pulled her in next to me then quickly pressed the button for my floor. "You were so coming to see me." I smirked.
Rose turned to me and laughed with her mouth in a wide 'o'. "And you were just coming up to my floor before heading down to the lobby."
"No, I was coming to see you," I admitted without hesitation. She went silent for a moment then laughed again and shook her head in defeat.
"Yeah, me too," she said, "My parent's just left."
"I know, why do you think I came now?"
Once again, she laughed. "You are such a stalker!"
"Oh, you love it," I accused.
The elevator doors opened on my floor and Rosalie stepped out then turned around to face me, shuffling backwards slowly.
"That's the defense invoked by rapists. She loved it; she's just too embarrassed to admit it."
"But there's a difference. Stalking you doesn't hurt you," I pointed out, still in the elevator. "I was in Australia a few months back and heard about this guy getting off for rape by saying it was 'surprise sex', and that just because she didn't like it, that was no reason for him to go to jail."
The doors began to shut and I quickly put my hand in the way to stop it, then stepped out and walked slowly next to her.
The whole time Rosalie had been silent, mouth slightly open. "That's atrocious," she eventually said. "Imagine if some guy just strolled on up to a girl at the beach and started fucking her, "Surprise!" I'd gouge his eyes out or something equally damaging. At least then it wouldn't take the cops long to find him. It's the guy running around with no eyes, officer. Oh, and here they are." She mimed handing eyes to an invisible police man then scoffed and shook her head.
"Good thing I'm not into surprise sex..." I mumbled, purposefully loud enough for her to hear. Her face turned amused again almost instantly.
"If it were you, it wouldn't be a surprise. You always look like you're gonna jump me at any second." She laughed.
My left eyebrow rose automatically. "Oh really?" I asked. Apparently my poker face wasn't as good as I though.
"Yup." She grinned.
I smiled a little. "How about now?"
"Especially now," she said, nodding her head slowly with the teasing smirk I almost liked.
When she was just a few inches from the door—and I was just a few inches from her—we both stopped moving.
Her lip twitched a tiny bit; she knew what I was gonna do, but I did it anyway.
I jumped her. Right there in the hallway.
My hands attached to her hips, I yanked her hard against me and held her there. She collided with a gasp, but didn't struggle or resist at all. I slipped my hands down from her hips and grabbed the bottom of her ass in my palms with my fingers gripping the inside of her thighs. I loved touching her legs and ass. The muscles were so smooth and toned—luxuriantly firm.
For a moment her eyes caught mine and I could see the playfulness spark up in her. Her hands went for my face quickly, but not to gouge my eyes out. She pressed her warm palms against the back of my jaw with her fingertips digging into my scalp as she pulled me down and stretched up to meet me at the same time.
We kissed once for a moment, firm and purposefully, but not rough. I felt her lips part and opened mine with hers just a fraction before she pulled back and sucked in a quick breath.
"Be careful who you go around attacking," she whispered and then quickly kissed me again before catching my bottom lip between hers. Her hands got a little tighter and her teeth grazed over the sensitive flesh as she slowly let it slide out. "They might bite back," she finished. Her lips found mine again for just a few moments, then her hands loosened and she pushed me back a little. "C'mon, let's go inside," she said, tapping the lock suggestively.
I took the card from my pocket and swiped it, unlocking it first try thankfully. I didn't need to be schooled again like yesterday. Having one nut figuratively chopped off by a combination of a swipe lock, and a girl who took way too much pleasure in the incident, was embarrassing enough.
Rose stepped back into the room then turned and headed towards the living room. I stood there for a long moment, watching her ass as she walked. The dark blue denim held tight to her skin from the low position where they began on her hips to about midway down her thighs before they got a tiny bit looser on the rest of her legs. I ran my fingers through the front of my hair and sighed quietly as I followed her in and shut the door.
Those pants were going to get me in trouble.
:-:-:-:
My ass was in the air. Waving from side to side like a burlesque dancer.
"Jake, for God's sake, it's not that important!" Rose shouted light-heartedly from behind me. Another series of giggles sung out while I shoved my hand further back into the cavity beside the kitchen draws and fished around for the pack of cards I knew every hotel room inevitably had.
I swiped my hand sideway down the three inch wide, two foot deep crevice and shoved all the garbage bags and rubber gloves out of the way.
"I know they're around here somewhere," I replied in a croaky voice from the awkward position I was in that was squishing my lungs. "I want them," I continued.
"We can find something else to do," she offered, laughing yet again at the way I was grunting, bent over, with my hand in a tight spot.
Urg, my mind's completely gone to the gutter.
As soon as that thought finished, my hand came in contact with a promisingly sized box. I yanked it free and grinned with excessive happiness at my insignificant victory. I'd found the cards; I wouldn't maul Rosalie from sheer lack of other entertainment.
"Ready to learn how to play Blackjack?" I asked, still beaming.
She rolled her eyes, smiling widely too, and nodded. "Since you went to so much trouble."
I shook my head—smiling despite myself—when Rose quite literally bounced over to the bed and positioned herself cross-legged on the furthest side.
"What are you, twelve?" I asked as I walked over and sat on the bed in a much more reserved manner.
She shook her head wordlessly.
Huh, maybe I can find out.
"Thirteen to fifteen?" I asked, knowing she wouldn't say yes.
She shook her head as I knew she would.
"Sixteen to eighteen?" I tried again; this time a little worried that when she said she was over eighteen that she just meant she'd had her eighteenth birthday.
But, her head shook again. A slightly relieved feeling hit me.
"Nineteen to twenty-one?"
A moment later, she winked quickly.
Fuck, that's so hot, I thought. My breathing just barely jumped when my heart did a weird clenchy thing, but I did my best to ignore it. No matter how innocently seductive she tried to be, or just was by nature, I wasn't going to do anything except teacher her how to play poker.
I nodded in acknowledgement of her silent answer and started opening the pack of cards.
"The cards from two to ten are worth whatever is on them, face cards are ten points each, and the ace is either one or eleven. The aim of the game is to beat the deal, which in this case would be me. You beat them by getting the closest the twenty-one without going over. If you go over, you bust, if the dealer goes over, they bust. The player always goes first, so even if the dealer would have gone bust too, you still lose," I explained, all the while fanning then shuffling the cards.
"So a queen and an ace is a guaranteed win?" she checked.
"There are fifty two cards in a deck. Four are aces, twelve are face cards, and thirty-six are two through ten. There's much more of a chance of you getting some annoyingly numbered card that completely fucks your game than there is of you getting anything close to twenty. But yes, that's a guaranteed win, unless I get twenty-one too. The king and ace of spades is actually Blackjack, what the games named after."
Rose nodded, watching when I dealt us each two cards.
I looked at my cards, a queen and a nine, and then looked over to her. She looked at her cards too but didn't seem overly surprised, so I guessed she had something in the mid teens area.
"Now, there are two types of hands. Soft hands and hard hands. As I said before, the ace can count for one or eleven. If counting the ace as an eleven would put you over twenty one then it becomes a hard hand and the ace is counted as eleven. If it could put you under or right on twenty-one then it's a soft hand and you can do with it what you please."
"So, can you draw another card if you only have, like, thirteen? Take a chance that it'll be an eight," she asked.
I nodded. "Sure. But if you get over then you lose. Wanna draw another card?"
She slowly shook her head then looked back to me. "This isn't very hard."
"Playing's not hard at all. Winning is. Card counting's illegal, if you get caught, but if you don't, then you can play knowing exactly what the odds are of you getting a good card. Knowing what's still in the deck, calculating the odds, that's what makes a winner."
"What about luck? You can just luckily get the right cards," she pointed out.
I nodded again and flipped over my cards. "Yeah, but luck's not a guaranteed win. It doesn't increase your odds."
She looked at my cards then picked up her own. "I think I get it," she decided, then laid down the cards. "Blackjack, right?"
My eyes shot down to her cards, an ace and king of spades. "Motherfucker…" I whispered and my face dropped to a blank, open-mouthed gaping.
Rose giggled and shrugged innocently. "I must be lucky," she surmised.
"Extremely," I agreed.
"But then again, luck doesn't increase your odds," she teased.
I rolled my eyes and gathered up the cards again. "Yeah, yeah, don't gloat," I mumbled, now shuffling again—extra long this time, making sure the cards were well spread out. "Should've taken her to Vegas," I continued in a theatrical grumbling tone.
"Shoulda, woulda, coulda," she sang, happily triumphant.
"Well, congratulations. You've learnt the basics of Blackjack, and won your first hand. You're a natural," I complimented without any kind of sarcastic teasing. When I glanced up just prior to dealing a second hand, she was wearing one of the sweet, gentle smiles I'd seen at the park. Not a smirk, not a grin, not any kind of smug or arrogant expression. She was just happy, and even more beautiful because of it.
Oh shit… I groaned mentally when the realization hit me.
I thought she was beautiful. Not pretty, not hot, not just mildly attractive enough that I didn't require a grocery bag to be with her. I thought she was fucking beautiful, which meant I liked her for more than just her sex appeal, or even her friendship.
And that I was royally fucked.
Blackjacked if you will.
She had me fucking beat like only one girl had remotely come close to before. But that one would never pick up my chips and leave.
I couldn't say the same about Rose.
So I dealt her another hand and kept playing the game.
After all, what else could I do?
:-:-:-:
"Jake, Jake, Jake…" Rose sighed, shaking her head condescendingly. "There are so many things you're good at. Flying giant machines, teaching Blackjack—"
"Fucking," I offered humorlessly.
"That too," she agreed in the same tone. "But holding ten cards in one hand is not one of them."
Right as I was about to argue with that declaration yet again, the cards practically burst from my hand and scattered all over the bed. I growled out loud.
Somehow, at some point, we'd switched from playing Blackjack to playing Go-Fucking-Fish! Perhaps it was just many years of only holding a couple of cards, but whatever the reason, they were jumping out of my hand like wild field mice.
Rosalie laughed, of course. "We can do something else. I'm really over cards; my hands are getting cramps."
I narrowed my eyes at the cards as I picked them up, not responding like an irritated two year old to her offer.
"Hey, Jacob," she beaconed for my attention again, so I looked up without lifting my head and watched as she rolled onto her knees.
"What's up?" I asked, watching as she put her cards off onto the footlocker at the end of the bed.
"Why don't we do something you're good at?" she asked, smiling with her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from laughing. I didn't resist as she took the cards off me.
"Teaching Blackjack?" I asked.
She shuffled closer then reached forward and firmly smacked her hand against the side of my jaw—her thumb curved under my chin and lifted it up so we were looking each other in the face.
"No, the other thing."
The sting from her little tap went away by the time her legs were against mine. Her left hand pressed into my shoulder, then the both of them pushed me back until I was looking at the ceiling. Still, I didn't resist at all.
"Flying a giant machine?" I tried again, now fighting off a smile.
Rose climbed up onto my thighs then started undoing my pants. "The other thing," she muttered distractedly.
"Ohhh, riiight." I nodded. She rolled her eyes and pulled down my zipper at the same time, then tapped my sides so I'd lift up. Quick as a flash, I grabbed her waist and rolled over closer to the pillows. "Surprise, sex!" I announced in an excited tone.
Laughing, she shook her head. "I knew it was coming."
I tried again, "Good sex?"
"Well I certainly hope so."
"I'm getting the strangest sense of déjà vu," I told her seriously, remembering the yesterday morning in the same position. "Don't give me a time limit."
"You could have kept going for as long as you wanted yesterday," she confessed in a softer, but still serious voice.
"I know," I admitted as well, then quickly kissed her lips. "I'm just an asshole and I chose to annoy you."
The second time, she pushed up and initiated a quick kiss before speaking herself. "I'm just a bitch and I chose to annoy you first."
I chucked and smiled wryly. "Fuck, we rebound so far off each other."
"And so hard we come ricocheting back with twice the crash of the last time," she agreed, running her fingernails in long lines across my shoulders. I bit back a moan as the action ignited small trails on my skin, but couldn't stop the goosebumps that appeared. The thin, sharp nails tickled through my shirt, but I knew directly on my back it would sting like a bitch.
My forearms were resting under her shoulders in the position we'd ended up in and my hands were right by her head. I tentatively started brushing my fingertips from her hairline back—a little more confidently when she didn't tense up. "Don't pull back and we won't keep colliding." I pointed out.
A few seconds passed without a response and it was in the silence that I realized I really did mean it as a question of sorts. A will you kind of thing.
It seemed like an hour had gone by when she finally nodded just perceptibly and whispered, "Okay."
:-:-:-:
Ahhh, and now the real fun begins. Questions, anyone? Reviews—if you will—everyone. As per usual, pics and whatnot are on the blog. Link on my profile. Come chat with me on Twitter or Facebook—links also on my profile.
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