KICK IT | JENLISA

87

Lisa

Wet dreams haunted me into sleep deprivation. I woke up, soaked in sweat, my thighs locked up, and my boxer briefs stretched with a mammoth-sized erection. I spent every night after being with Jennie with my hand fisting myself back to flaccid, only to wake up in the same miserable position or tangled up in a sticky mess of sheets. Every time, I achieved only relief, not satisfaction.

After a week and prodding Jackson for Jennie's favourite flower, I sent her white daisies daily until she responded. Leaving no room for interpretation, the messages were short and direct: I wanted her presence back. Her response was a thank you via a Jackson text, along with him requesting that I remain patient.

The reminder that I slept with my agent's, no, my friend's sister, slammed a sledgehammer in my chest. I stared at Jackson's words: be patient. Tingles spread down my ankles and into my toes dangling over a kitchen island barstool.

We were adults though. Jackson was a reasonable, and level-headed person who wasn't licensed to carry any weapons. And I cared about Jennie. The last thing I wanted was miscommunication, so with no idea what to say, I dialled his number.

"Yes, Lisa?"

"Uhh, hey..." I raked my fingers over my scalp while the other palm sweated on my phone. On their own agenda, my feet made circular passes around the kitchen island. "Jackson, I need to talk to you?"

His doubts echoed mine. "Are you telling me or asking?"

"Telling." The wavering in my voice said otherwise. I dragged a hand over my beard. "Jackson, I want to... uhh... it's about Jennie."

A loud sigh crackled in my ear. "Lisa, I've told you..."

"I'm not bugging her. I want you to know, I..." Fuck, this was more difficult than it played out in my head. "I need to know if she regrets... me."

"No." He sighed, crackling more static. "But she feels guilty that she doesn't."

She what? How was that a feeling? Women's guilt levels were in their own stratosphere.

"Look..." I took a deep breath. "I like her a lot, Jackson. If she feels the same, then I want to be more than friends."

His deafening silence drowned my heart racing in my ears. Thud thud thud. It echoed in my ear drums. "You think I don't know that?"

A laugh released tension in my shoulders. I scratched the back of my neck. "You know."

"More like I hoped." His laugh was quiet. "So, why are you telling me then?"

His reaction rushed an exhale out of me, slowing my steps. "Because I don't want to make things weird between us."

"Lisa?" Jackson's tone shifted, tightening to his stern, 'you should have known better' lecture. "I got Jennie the job at YG Accounting."

My feet tripped over themselves. The kitchen blurred and I pitched forward, stopped only when I palmed the counter and almost dropped my phone. A grasping sensation seized my chest, as if an invisible hand clutched my heart. "You knew about the numbers shit that they were hiding?"

"I suspected." Fuck, I hated that vague answer of his. "And my sister couldn't have stayed quiet about something wrong in the books no matter how much they paid her."

His words about her conviction weren't surprising but his angle of planting his own sister was. "You... used her?"

The thought sickened my stomach. I didn't have a sister but couldn't imagine...

"If you mean I gave my sister a job opportunity that pulled her out from..." His voice trailed off and he sighed. "Yes. Jennie's YG Accounting job was supposed to be temporary. In hindsight, I was surprised she lasted that long. From a purely practical standpoint, teaching yoga doesn't pay her enough to sustain herself."

As if I was a child, he held back information. The honesty in his admission overshadowed his real reasons, the impractical side, for putting Jennie not on my team but in my life. Not knowing why he wasn't telling me the full truth was a vice clamped in my chest.

"Fuck practicality. Why me, Jackson?"

"The alternative rehab idea started with Bam's recommendations that plyo was increasing your strength and stamina levels but not your shoulder's mobility. But, for you to take it seriously, it had to be someone..." My ear crackled with another sigh. "... personal."

"Personal!" I spat out the word.

The irony that Jackson knew I'd fall for Jennie hit me like a punch in the groin. Stupidly, I called to make sure he was okay with me having feelings for her, only for him to admit that he had set me up. My professional life's puppet master knew that when he pulled personal strings. And now they were entangled with no ends to unravel.

I didn't know whether to fire his ass or thank him.