Kristen Ashley - Jagged

I grabbed it and took a deep pull.

When I dropped it, I noted, “Just to say, I only got a few boxes unpacked so don’t let your head explode. I’ll finish tomorrow.”

“Tell me you unpacked the dishes,” he ordered.

“Seein’ as you got paper plates, a weirdly ample supply of chopsticks, and that’s all, not even mugs, yes. I prioritized unpacking the dishes.”

He grinned. “Then my head won’t explode.”

“Good,” I mumbled and took another pull from my beer. When I dropped it, I asked, “You got a second to talk before Arlene gets here?”

“Jake’s out back, so I do but I do only if no one needs a drink.”

“This’ll be fast.”

His brows went up. “What’s up?”

“We need to talk about rent, utilities, stuff like that.”

“Why?”

I blinked and repeated a perplexed, “Why?”

“Well, seein’ as you’re not payin’ either, nothin’ to talk about.”

I didn’t blink then. I stared, wide-eyed and with lips parted.

I pulled it together to ask, “I’m not payin’?”

“Babe, told you, helpin’ you get on your feet.”

“But—”

“To get on your feet, you need cash.”

“Yes, but—”

“Yo! Barman!” a man’s voice called.

I looked to the right and saw a man holding up a ten spot.

“Be back,” Ham muttered and moved to the man.

I took a pull of beer, thinking about our brief discussion and how I felt about it.

Then I decided how I felt about it.

Luckily, Ham was quick getting beers for the guy, making change, and getting back to me.

“We good?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Zara—”

I leaned in. “Please, listen to me.”

Ham held my eyes. “I’m listenin’.”

“I can’t let you do that. Even if we were together, I couldn’t let you do that. I’ve made my own way since I was eighteen.”

“Darlin’—”

“Please. Listen,” I urged.

Ham shut his mouth.

“We have to work something out. I know what it costs to rent there because I checked it out when I was moving. It was totally out of my range and I wasn’t even looking at two bedrooms with three balconies. I suspect half of your rent is more than my rent on the studio so, it sucks, but I can’t hack that. But I have to do something and you have to let me, Ham. I’m moving right back out if you don’t. Maybelline said I could stay with her and her husband if—”

He cut me off. “Half utilities, a hundred dollars the first month, a hundred fifty the second, two hundred the third, we stick with that for the next three and see where you’re at.”

I took a deep breath and felt the tension ease from my shoulders.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

“So we got a deal?” he asked.

I nodded.

His intelligent eyes moved over my face.

“Easy,” he murmured.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothin’.”

“No, Ham, what?”

He again studied me and then he bent into his forearms in the bar and my stomach muscles contracted at the blow delivered from that memory.

Before we were together, and especially when we were, I couldn’t count the times when I stood outside the bar, Ham stood behind it, leaned into his forearms, leaned into me, while we flirted, chatted, talked deep, teased, joked, whatever.

I missed that, too.

Huge.

And my working there, Ham leaning into me now, I was getting it back.

Just not the way I wanted it.

Oh yes, this was going to be a struggle.

“Hesitate to say this, darlin’”—Ham took my mind from my thoughts—“but we had what we had and the deep part of that where we shared, I want us to get back to, so here it is. I think you got in that shit I spewed at you that, for the most part, I’m not a big fan of women. I’m a man, so basic needs, I’ve had my share, didn’t hide that from you but only two of those women I had were easy. Until that night we had our thing, one of ’em was you. You were goin’ through shit so I get it. But I want you to know, I’m glad you’re back to easy. It’s how I always thought of you and, when I didn’t have you, it was what I remembered of you.” He grinned. “That and your smile, how soft your hair was, and how good you were with your mouth.”

I hid the shiver his words caused and warned, “I’m not out of the woods, Ham. You’re helpin’ a lot but I have a loose hold on easy.”

“We’ll get you there,” he promised.

“Thank you for being cool,” I replied and smiled. “That’s what I remembered of you. You bein’ hot and cool.”

His hand came up and reached out. I braced, hoped, but feared that it would drop away.

It didn’t.

Ham did what he used to do. He tucked my hair behind my ear, his fingertips running the full length of the shell to the lobe, then dropped to my neck. He ran them down the skin there and they fell away.

Depending where we were back in the day, his fingers didn’t stop at my neck.

But I’d take that. As desperate and wrong as it was, it felt good. It made my scalp tingle, my eyelids feel heavy, my skin heat, and I missed that from Ham, too.

And when I could lift my eyelids again and focus on Ham, the look on his face, his eyes aimed at the spot where his fingers last touched, made my breath catch because he looked like he missed it, too.

“Just makin’ you safe? Yeah, right,” Arlene broke the moment by grumbling as she hefted her ass up on the stool beside me. “Coors, now, player,” she ordered, her eyes sharp on Ham.

“Player?” he asked, his eyes on Arlene, and then they moved to me.

Arlene turned to me. “Isn’t that what they call a Lothario these days?”

“Ham’s not a player or a Lothario, Arlene,” I told her firmly.

Arlene ignored me and looked at a displeased-looking Ham.

She also ignored that Ham looked displeased.

“Know her, don’t know you ’cept what I knew of you years ago when you were right where you are now. Like her and have for years. Don’t know if I like you yet. Also want her to get on her feet, and she don’t need no man playin’ with her heart while she’s doin’ it. So, just sayin’, this thing you two got goin’”—she put her fist toward her face, extended her index and middle fingers, pointed to her eyes then to Ham then back again—“I’m watchin’ you.”

Terrific. Now Maybelle, Wanda, and Arlene were all going to be up in Ham’s face.

Instead of getting pissed, the Ham I’d always known came out and his lips twitched.

“You wanna watch me get you a beer?” he asked.

“Yeah. And incidentally, that’ll go a long way to making me like you,” Arlene answered.

“So it doesn’t take much,” Ham noted.

“I don’t have a beer,” Arlene prompted.

Ham smiled flat-out, turned it to me, then got Arlene a Coors, putting it in front of her, murmuring, “Girl time.”

“Damn straight,” Arlene replied.

Ham gave her another smile, shot it to me, reached out and touched my fingers that were curled around the beer, and wandered down the bar.

“Yeesh, didn’t know a bear matin’ with a human could create somethin’ that divine but there it is. Proof,” Arlene remarked and I looked at her to see her checking out Ham.

So I looked back at Ham, who was now down the bar, grabbing the empty glass from in front of a woman he was also grinning at.

She was giving him come-hither eyes.

I looked away.

“Yeah, he’s hot,” I agreed.

“Hot or not, you be careful,” Arlene warned.

My gaze went to her.

Arlene was ornery, nosy, and in your business, but still lovable mostly because she was only nosy and in your business because she cared. She also had short hair permed in tight curls dyed a weird peachy color. Last, she was petite and very round but had tiny, graceful hands and feet. I’d always found that strange, but at the same time beautiful.