“What? The idea of leaving me after prom?”

“No, the image of the evil shooting from your mother’s eyes when she finds out that someone is ditching her little girl.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “I have no defense against that kind of pure angry woman power.”

“You have no defense against anywoman power.” I grinned.

“Hey,” Jake said as Frankford came into view. “Today started out pretty awesome. Let’s skip, I’ll take you to the new Christian Bale movie so you can squeal over him and then I’ll take you back to my place and you can calm my bruised ego. Eh? Eh?” His gray eyes were crinkled up with his smile.

Who could say no to that? My heart felt big and warm and blooming. “Let’s do it.”

Christian Bale was delicious. Almost as delicious as the mozzarella and tomato sub with extra oil and vinegar I ate after. Then we did go back to Jake’s house. We’d been taking it reasonably slow since we got back together. Part of the whole reconciliation thing involved me getting over the fact that Jake’s wrongs would just have to be more extreme than mine. I was furious that he slept with another girl, but we were completely broken up at the time. I had gone as far as I’d gone with anyone with Saxon. I didn’t love it, but I understood that making peace meant I had to let it go as best I could.

But the giddiness of the whole afternoon made us even giddier in bed. Jake stripped down to his boxers. “C’mon. Skivvies time,” he added, shaking his hips in what I know he thought was an alluring way. It made me laugh so hard, I almost couldn’t breathe.

“I hate that word,” I gasped out when he finally stopped gyrating in front of me.

Winded, he fell on the bed next to a fully-clothed me. “What word?” he panted.

“Skivvies. Doesn’t it just sound kind of gross?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think it was an old-fashioned word for men’s underwear.”

“Well, that makes sense then. There’s nothing grosser than men’s underwear.”

“Do you want me to take them off?” Jake asked, grabbing at his waistband.

“No!” I laughed again.

Not that we hadn’t been naked before, but it was always a gradual kind of thing.

“Come under the covers with me,” he coaxed. “I’m freezing.”

“You’re the moron who just took off all of your clothes,” I pointed out.

“So I’m dumb and cold. Take some pity on me.” He wiggled under the covers like a little kid. “I’ll beg,” he said agreeably. I don’t think he had any idea how adorable he was, his handsome, clean-shaven face, his shiny brown hair and smoothly muscled arms and chest.

“You love begging.” I giggled.

“Only you, baby. C’mon, Bren. I sat through that traumatically crappy movie.”

“It was a good movie!” I protested.

“I fell asleep twice and mostly all I could think about was this itch on my a…”

And he stopped because I had my shirt off.

“New bra?” he croaked a little.

It was. Pink polka dots, very scantily cut with just a little lace. The underwear matched. Once I was down to them, Jake was sitting up straight.

“Wow. I’m really glad I picked today to seduce you back to my house,” he said lowly, and pulled me down onto the bed next to him. Then his mouth was on mine, and I felt the scrape of his watch band, the watch I bought him, as he slid his hand up my stomach and cupped my breast. “Brenna,” he breathed, his mouth moving down along my collar bone and to the tops of my breasts, pushed up and out by my excellent bra. Then my excellent bra was off and on the floor and Jake’s hands and mouth were everywhere it had been.

He kissed down my ribs and along the line of my stomach, then concentrated on my belly button, and my hips. He stopped kissing me for a minute and lifted his head.

“Do you mind if I go further?” he asked, his voice quiet in the cool of his room.

I wasn’t sure. Jake’s fingers played at the lacy waist of my underwear, tracing a finger under the elastic band carefully. He waited patiently.

“I don’t know.” Part of me wanted it so much I was squirming for him to continue; another part of me shied away from something that intimate.

“Then I won’t.” He said it evenly, in that sweet Jake voice that he always used with me when we were fooling around. He wasn’t about to force anything. We kissed and touched until I was warm and exhausted.

He took a long piece of my hair and held it out.

“You have great hair.” He put it to his nose and inhaled.

“Yeah? I was thinking of dyeing it. Black.” I looked at him from the corner of my eye.

He smiled and shook his head.

“What, you don’t have anything to say?” I taunted.

“No way. If I say what I think, you’ll have black hair tomorrow just to spite me.”

“So you think I’d look ugly with black hair?” I hooted.

“I didn’t say that. Stop putting words in my mouth!” he ordered. “I’m just saying, if I say, Don’t do it, Brenna, you’ll do it just to show me you can.”

“I don’t do things like that.”

“That’s exactly how you do things.” He ran his hand over my hair. “I like that about you. That you’ll take a challenge to the extreme.”

“Rebel, rebel,” I muttered, remembering Saxon’s descriptions of me.

“So, about prom,” Jake said, his voice a little nervous again. “I bought the bids already, but I have to pick a corsage. Right? So when you know what color dress you’re wearing, let me know and I’ll go get something. That matches.” It sounded like he was asking me.

“Okay.” I kissed his nose and wiggled with excitement. “I will. Where are you getting your tux?”

He looked confused. “Do I have to wear a tux?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But most people do. Do you want to wear a suit?”

“I don’t know if my old suit will fit,” he said, and I didn’t have to see it to know that it was a short, gawky, poorly-cut polyester mess.

“Maybe, if you don’t want to rent a tux, you can go and buy a new suit.” I was desperate to keep him from what I was positive was his awful mess of a suit.

“Don’t you want to see my suit?” he asked, his mouth curved into a smile.

“No, I don’t.” I grimaced.

He jumped up anyway and left his room. He came back with a suit in a crinkly plastic bag. I got up and looked while he pulled the bag away.

You could tell on sight that it was an expensive suit. It was chocolate brown, three buttons, and a fabric so fine and soft it looked like it had to be made with silk. But I didn’t know for sure.

Jake pulled the pants on. They were a perfect fit. He put the jacket on, no shirt underneath, and he looked amazing. Just like that. His body was suit-perfect. And the suit was great on him; much better than any boring black tux. He would look awesome. I had underestimated Jake’s judgment again.

“Wow.” I smoothed my hands over the lapels and along the arms. “I really like it.”

“It was my grandpa’s. Apparently he was pretty loaded. Anyway, I’m supposed to be the spitting image of him. I guess. No one has any pictures or anything.”

“Your mom’s father.” I felt a little weird knowing what I did about his father when he was in the dark.

“No. My dad’s. That’s what she said, anyway, Mom. It’s weird, though, because my dad is supposed to look just like his father, too. And I know that must seem weird, because I don’t look anything like him.” He looked down at his body in its suit. “And there’s no way he would have fit this suit.”

I felt a cold quake in my stomach. Jake’s mother had told him things about his real father without him realizing it. Maybe she planned to tell him all along. I was sure she never thought she’d get cancer and die young. She probably thought she’d have plenty of time to tell him everything. There was no way to know what she had planned.

“Bren? You okay?” He was next to me in a second. Since my run-in with pneumonia Jake had been as insane about my health as Mom.

“I’m fine.” I smiled a forced smile. “I’m just shocked that a suit that old can still look so great. I’ll get a dress that goes with it, and we can go shopping for a good dress shirt and a tie. And socks.” I shuddered a little to think of Jake dressed to the nines with white tube socks on. “And shoes,” I added, when the mental image of his boots finished everything off.