I got another moment of study before a slow, attractive grin spread on Jake’s face and he moved so he could wrap his arms around me.
“Deal with her shit?” he asked.
“Indeed,” I answered.
His grin got bigger and his arms got tighter. “As much as this pisses me off, wish like f**k I was at Wayfarer’s watchin’ you give her the honesty.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I replied. “It was most irksome.”
“Irksome,” he murmured, still grinning but now doing it looking at my lips.
My belly fluttered, but my lips said, “Yes. Irksome.”
His arms got tighter as his face got closer. “Irksome,” he repeated in a whisper, his word sounding on my lips since his were that close.
“Yes,” I breathed right before he kissed me.
Delightfully, he did this thoroughly and I melted into him as he did it, wrapping my arms around his neck, gliding my fingers over his hair to hold him to me and kissing him back.
We did this for some time before we were forced to break the kiss when a loud knock sounded at the door right before Ethan shouted through it, “Jeez! What’s the deal? Hello? Hot fudge sundaes?”
I smiled up into Jake’s smiling eyes just as Ethan went on, still shouting (albeit no longer through the door), and he did it sounding like he was telling on us.
“Con! Dad and Josie are makin’ out in the garage!”
I didn’t hear Conner’s reply but did hear Ethan’s shouted one.
“I don’t care! But I want a sundae!” He knocked on the door again and his next comment was directed through it. “Hurry up!”
“Gotta get a sundae in my kid,” Jake said softly.
“You do,” I replied.
“Soften him up before I let him know his ass is in church in about an hour and a half,” he went on.
“Good plan,” I approved.
His eyes warmed, his neck bent, he touched his forehead to mine then lifted his lips to kiss it.
After that, he let me go but grabbed my hand and we went in to finish the sundaes. Ethan was not in the kitchen but he was the first one I went to where he was sitting on the couch in the family room and I handed him a bowl.
He tucked in immediately and was lifting the spoon to his mouth but doing it with his mouth moving in order to declare, “When I get a girlfriend, we’re just holding hands. None of that kissing stuff.”
I pressed my lips together in an effort not to laugh.
The Taylors and Amber didn’t bother.
It was Conner who spoke. “You are so full of it.”
Ethan swallowed an enormous bite of sundae and turned his eyes to his brother, “I’m not.”
Conner’s eyes were twinkling when he replied, “Bud, trust me. You so are.”
“Am not,” Ethan returned.
Conner grinned at his brother, turned his attention to me and winked, then looked back to the game.
I gave the other bowl I had to girl Taylor before I went back into the kitchen to get more bowls that Jake was assembling.
I did it smiling.
I also did it feeling sad for Donna.
She was very much missing out.
But even sad for her, I was delighted for me.
For I was absolutely not.
* * * * *
“At this very minute, the Colts are playing,” Ethan, sitting in the pew on the other side of his dad, groused.
“Shut it, bud,” Jake, sitting in the pew next to me, muttered.
Ethan didn’t “shut it.”
He declared, “We’re missing it.”
“Eath, it’s taping,” Conner, on the other side of Ethan, pointed out.
“I better not find out the score before we get home,” Ethan warned.
“Ohmigod,” boy Taylor, sitting next to Amber who was sitting on my other side, whispered excitedly. “There’s Kieran Wentworth.”
“Where?” girl Taylor’s fabulous sheath of shining black hair flew this way and that as she looked around.
“Four pews back, on the other side,” boy Taylor told her and went on to note, “He must be home from school for the weekend or something.”
I leaned into Amber and murmured, “Who’s Kieran Wentworth?”
She leaned into me and murmured in reply, “He was a junior when we were freshman. He’s so hot, he’s a legend. He’s at Boston College now. Taylor has been in love with him since forever.”
I looked over my shoulder and four pews back on the other side I spied a highly attractive young man with short-clipped dark sandy blond hair, an exceptionally square jaw and cheekbones that would be immensely photogenic.
He also had very broad shoulders.
Further, he was wearing a rather stylish dark blue tailored shirt and wearing it quite well.
I turned back and leaned back into Amber. “He’s most attractive.”
“Yep,” she agreed.
“I cannot imagine he hasn’t noted Taylor’s charms,” I remarked.
“Uh…Josie, he’s nineteen and in college. She’s sixteen. That’s not gonna happen.”
Hmm.
“Give it two years,” I stated.
“He’ll be snapped up in two years,” Amber returned.
“Not if he has something to wait for,” I told her and felt her eyes turn to me so I turned mine to her.
She was smiling.
I winked.
Her smile got bigger.
I felt Jake lean into me and I turned my attention to him when he said, “I know Taylor’s father. Don’t go there.”
I looked into his eyes then looked away and murmured, ‘Hmm.”
“Babe, the kid’s nineteen,” Jake stated something Amber had just told me.
“And?” I asked.
“He’s also in college.”
“Yes?”
He stared at me.
The choir started singing so I grinned to myself and stood with the rest of the congregation.
I did not miss it when, several minutes later, Reverend Fletcher came out, looked amongst his flock, saw me with the Spear family in our pew and he smiled at me.
Further, I absolutely did not miss it when, some time after that, Reverend Fletcher asked us all to pray for Arnold Weaver and his family as they had, just hours earlier, lost their beloved Elizabeth.
And I completely did not miss it when this was announced and Jake’s arm, already extended behind me to rest on the back of the pew, curled around me to pull me tight to his side at the same time Amber reached out and grabbed my hand.
I was devastated for Arnie and his family.
Even so, I couldn’t help but be happy for me as I’d finally found one.