sixteen: in which she labels it with an imaginary sticky tag

Just imagine an off-key rendition of this song by a guy you know and substitute that for Jake –Florence + The Machine, Cosmic Love

********************************

I went back to Jake's house instead of returning to the Phantoms. I wasn't stupid and the beefy biker who'd followed me from the clubhouse wasn't making any attempt to be inconspicuous. I wasn't in any danger with him around, that was for sure.

After taking a hot shower and throwing my scrubs in the machine, I decided to do a little cleaning because I felt like keeping myself busy would blessedly empty my mind. I did the few dishes in the sink and dried them. I swept, vacuumed and mopped where applicable. I went into the fridge and threw out the old stuff, which just happened to be most of the food out of my refrigerator.

My phone rang and I dutifully answered it, once I saw who was calling.

"You're back home? After going to your friend's place?" The way he said that last part made it crystal clear that Beefy Biker had reported back to him about my meeting with Max.

I decided to ignore his tone. "Yep. Just cleaning, and my friend is doing okay."

"I thought you'd come back here."

"Then you thought wrong."

My response was met with dead air. I stared at my phone as if it was telling me lies. Jake did not just hang up on me.

Rude prick, I thought, then retracted that sentiment from my thought process because Jake had been really good to me thus far.

He came through the front door fifteen minutes after he hung up on me. I was sitting on the couch engaged in back-and-forth texts with Kira. I couldn't read the expression on his face but I didn't have to wonder anymore when he grunted out, "Meeting strange men and lying to me about it is not fuсking kosher."

"Kosher? Jake, do you actually speak Hebrew?" I was genuinely interested. He never said much about his dual heritage, even when we'd sit and talk sometimes.

"Maya, don't change the subject. Who was that guy?"

"No one." I wasn't being deliberately difficult; it was just that Jake would possibly go after Max to find Sebastian and I didn't want that. Max didn't know anything.

"Maya," Jake said as a warning, looming over the couch.

"Jacob."

"I asked you a question. Who. Was. He."

I studied him, realizing that this little interrogation was not borne out of fear for my safety, but out of something else. Something I just couldn't wrap my head around.

"Uh-uh," I said, jumping to my feet. I felt like shoving this man. "You don't get to do this."

"Do what?"

"Be...jealous. Don't start that crap, Jacob. Just don't."

He returned my glare with one of his own. "Don't tell me what the fuck I can and can't feel."

"That's exactly the point. You're not supposed to feel," I reminded him. "You wanna know something? Any other woman would've been crazy jealous seeing you kiss someone else – but me? I really didn't care. Aside from the possibility of catching something from you, it isn't any of my damn business. Because we're just hooking up and we're not doing the rainbows-and-roses thing, remember?"

I'd hardly taken a breath to say all of that, and when I was done, I felt like I'd finally identified and labeled what exactly we were. "Friends with benefits" seemed too cliché, something out of a rom-com in which the hero and heroine eventually realize what was in front of their eyes the whole time. Bleh. "Fuсk buddies" just seemed too crass for my taste. "Casually hooking up" was appropriate terminology, in my opinion.

"We don't lie to each other, Maya," said Jake, his voice even, "so next time, don't say one thing and do something completely different. It's for your own goddamn safety."

"I thought you talked" – I used my fingers to make quotation marks – "to the McNally brothers."

"Yeah, but people say one thing and do another. Just like you."

"God, Jake, just let this go," I muttered, turning to leave. I was done with this conversation.

Jake's harsh voice stopped me. "No one else."

I felt my brow furrow. "What?"

"While we're fuсking, there's no one else," he elaborated, approaching me. "No kissing anyone else, no touching anyone else, no coming for anyone else...and no making those sexy fuсking sounds you make when I'm inside you, unless it's for me."

I took a deep breath, which was becoming increasingly difficult to do. "Why don't you just call me Miss Fire Hydrant and pee all over me?"

Jake gave me a heated look. "How about I come all over you instead? I've been told my cum has a distinct scent."

"My God, you're serious." I stepped away from him, my eyes coasting down to the front of his jeans.

"Only if you're willing," he said, one corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile. It quickly disappeared. "So I don't have to apologize for kissing Puѕsy?"

I shivered, remembering just how Jacob Ford liked to apologize to a woman. "No."

"I've never screwed her. We're friends and she's batshit crazy for Ghost."

"I like her, OK? And I don't care that you kissed her. I'm sorry if that bothers you."

"It doesn't," he bit out, but I knew it did. Men were so confusing. He wanted me to care? And yet he kept reassuring me that the kiss had meant nothing? I didn't get it.

"Then great," I said, "because yes, it would be practical not to screw other people while we're hooking up. I mean, we wouldn't want to infect each other with something. Most people don't realize that oral herpes is so easy to contract."

"Well, fuсk. There goes my hard-on," Jake muttered, stepping past me to stomp upstairs.

"I have a pamphlet, if you're interested!" I called after him.

***

For the next few days, Jake stayed at home – which made me wonder when exactly his house had started to feel like home. This simply reminded me that I was lagging on the apartment search. I mean, I knew where Jake kept his toolbox. When you know where someone keeps their screwdrivers, you know you've overstayed your welcome.

That morning after breakfast, I borrowed Jake's laptop, sat at the kitchen island, and went online to see if there were any available apartments close to work. I didn't even mind sharing; I was that desperate. Luke was still messaging me, saying that I was welcome to stay with him, rent free. I knew my friends would never in a million years accept money from me and I didn't want that.

I felt Jake's presence behind me so I didn't bother to turn around. He peeked over my shoulder at the laptop screen.

"Milton Heights, huh?" he said, his voice casual. He strode around the island and went to the coffee machine.

When I looked up from the screen, it was to the sight of his bare back. I was compelled to stare, damn my eyes.

"Uh, yes. It's relatively close to the Haven, so I don't have to drive a long distance," I managed to say. Had Jake ever said why he'd had angel wings inked into his skin when he was the exact opposite of a heavenly being?

Well, his body is heavenly...

"But I would," Jake was saying as he turned around.

My brow creased in confusion.

"It's too damn far from my place," he went on, giving me what could only be described as a devilish smile. "You expect me to drive all that way to get my diсk wet?"

Actually, I hadn't even thought about what would happen between us once I moved out. As great as the sex was – believe me, it was stellar – it was only happening because we were under the same roof. I'd been in his bed every evening this week, learning that yes, it was possible to pass out from multiple orgasms. But the one thing I refused to do was wake up in his bed. I knew how much it pissed him off that I slipped out of his bed each night, and sometimes I honestly did feel used and dirty doing it, but sharing Jake's bed? Too fast and too much for me.

"I've got way too much pride to be your booty call, Jacob," I replied matter-of-factly, browsing through a portfolio of images of the empty apartment in Milton Heights. The master bedroom was the size of a matchbox but the living room was huge.

"But babe," he said, placing a cup of coffee in front of me, "doesn't pride come before the fall?"

I looked at him, frowning. "Are you insinuating that I'm going to fall for you, Jacob Ford? Wow, your ego just might be the only thing bigger than your peniѕ."

I clapped a hand over my mouth, completely horrified that I'd just said that. I'd spoken without thinking, said something spontaneous and instantly regretted it. A slow smile crept onto Jake's face. He leaned over the laptop, cupped my chin in his hand, and kissed me. My eyes fell shut and my fingers slid into his tousled hair. He coaxed my lips apart, and with a sigh, I tasted the coffee on his breath.

"Fuсk, sweetheart," he said with a groan. "I have to go to work."

"Where?" I murmured, biting his lower lip.

His answer was to bite mine in return. "Tattoo shop."

I pulled away from him, breathing deeply. "Okay." Putting the mug to my lips, I took a small sip, wincing as the hot liquid burned my tongue. Kind of the same effect Jake had on me whenever he touched me.

Jake's gaze burned me as he drank his coffee. I tried to ignore it, keeping my eyes fixed on the screen, pretending that I found a dingy apartment in a complex called Sunny Solace appealing. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore; his stare that seemed to send heat straight to the place between my thighs.

"What is it, Jake?" I muttered, snapping my head up to look at him. I found myself staring at the small silver hoops in his nipples, wondering what exactly would possess someone to do that to themselves. I'd wondered it before.

"Nothing, Maya. I'm gonna go upstairs." He put his cup in the sink before turning to leave.

Something compelled me to make him stop, so I put my hand under the laptop for the envelope and called, "Jake?"

He paused. "Yeah?"

I spun around on the bar stool so I could face him. "That day I went to meet that guy? I went to get this." I handed him the letter. "You can read it. How's that for transparency between us?"

He took it from me.

"Or...I can read it to you?" I offered, and his eyes snapped up to meet mine.

"Why?"

"No reason. I don't know why I said that."

I watched him read. I was instantly transported back to the day I'd gone to see him in prison to tell him that his mother had died. His brow was creased, his lips slightly parted. I'd never really watched someone read something before, but there was just...something about the way his eyes flickered back and forth the paper.

"So," he muttered, "this is from your dumbass ex."

"The one and only," I said, wringing my hands together.

"What does the last part mean?"

I kept quiet. Jake's eyes narrowed.

"You're not thinking of actually going to see the stupid fuck, are you?" he snapped.

"Jake –"

"You've gotta be shitting me."

"Do not interrupt me, Jacob. I was going to say that I haven't made up my mind yet, and it's possible I don't even know what the heck he even meant," I said, angrily swiping a tendril of hair out of my face. "Why do you think I've sat on this for four freaking days?"

"I don't know, Maya. I don't know what the hell goes on in your head."

"Well, you can rest assured that I won't do anything without your permission slip."

He shot me a glare. "You know what? I swore I'd do anything to protect you and I fuсking meant it. I'll chain you up in my goddamn basement if I have to."

"You think you have to protect me from Sebastian?" I had to laugh. "God, Jake. Tell me another joke."

"No, I don't think that prick's a threat," he said in a quiet voice, "but you sure as ѕhit don't need to die from a bullet intended for his skull."

He had a point. My silence told him that.

"I'll be back soon," he went on, folding the letter and sticking it into the pocket of his sweatpants. "What'll you do all day?"

I cleared my throat. "House-hunting online."

His eyebrows were slashed into a frown, but he simply nodded and went back upstairs. I was glad when he left the house half an hour later. I didn't know what had just changed in the past hour but I wasn't about to hurt my brain trying to figure it out.

Maya, the memory of Jake's words came to me as clear as day, for someone incredibly intelligent, you can be so...

"Clueless," I said, filling in the blank.

I guess I had to admit that I didn't know the first thing about how to handle Jacob Ford.