In a Jam (Friendship, RI Book 1)

by Kate Canterbary

I didn’t have to be perfect anymore, and that came as a strange sort of parting gift. A gift I hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. But I’d been fond of perfect. I’d liked that look for me. And I’d played by the rules of perfect. I’d done everything right. And none of it mattered.

“The start of your villain era,” she said. “The ‘no fucks given, ask me if I care, throw out your whole life and start over just because you feel like it’ era.”

“Figure out if I’m marrying you, okay? Good.” I watched as he headed in the direction of the goats with his new body and new personality. And his marriage proposal.

“I know it’s insane to ask this but if you can go along with me for five minutes, I will personally plow and plant your fields whenever you want it. Okay?” I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Not when those words went in one ear and landed right between my legs. “Just follow my lead,” he whispered. “Please.” I had no idea what was happening but Noah was so close and he was holding me so tight that it didn’t matter. And that please had rumbled over his lips in the very best way, like an apology begged a moment before sinning.

“I’m not sure. Is there something you’d share with me?” Only everything in the entire world.

“Bodies are extremely temporary and they’re the least interesting things about us. They carry us around while we’re on this earth and there’s nothing more I can ask from my body than that. I certainly wouldn’t spend any time worrying about the size or shape of anyone else’s body. Not when I could care about their heart and their mind instead.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t have a single clue what you’re trying to do here but I know you need to stop spending all your time wondering what you did wrong when these half-assed people leave you. Stop giving yourself to people who have no hope of ever playing on your level. Stop chasing people who don’t know how to show up for you. It’s a waste of your time and so are they. Let them go. Let the door hit them on the ass on the way out. They’re the ones who fucked up. Not you.”

I closed my hands around the footboard of the bed to keep from taking her into my arms. She’d be flat on the mattress within ten seconds if I did that. Moaning in a minute. Hanging on to that headboard and crying out to the heavens in five.

“Allow me to make myself clear. I don’t give a pickled fuck how or why we came to be married. You are my wife. If you need some fun, you’ll call me. I’ll be the one taking care of you. I’ll give you anything you want, including a properly prepared gin and tonic. If you can’t accept that, you’re welcome to divorce me now.”

“Just because I can plow through by myself doesn’t mean I want to,” I said. “Fuck, Shay. Let me need you, okay?”

I felt like I’d been waiting a very long time for someone who knew how to shatter me and also wanted to pick up all the pieces.

“I love you. I mean, I fucking love you, Shay. I’ve loved you for years upon fucking years and none of the garbage leftover from your ex or your mother or anyone else is going to change that. You will not change that.”