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All Grown Up The Right Decision
AudreyOverall, though, I was going to miss her fiercely. I had great friends back in Paris, but none of them were quite like my sister. She understood me like no one else ever could. Not only that, but she was the best listener. Whether I was ranting in frustration about my ankle or gushing enthusiasm over the part that the director wanted me to take on, she was there to listen and support me.Listening to everyone chatting and laughing around the table, I felt torn.This could be my life. I could stay here in Aberdeen. Maybe not here in my mom’s house, but I could find a place of my own and get some sort of job, even if it meant working in an unskilled trade like Annabelle had done, just trying to make ends meet. I could have Jesse as my real boyfriend, and I could be close to my family.If I did that, though, I would be giving up on dance. Oh, maybe I could keep up with training on my own up in the little studio that I was renting. Would that ever really be enough for me? No. I kne
All Grown Up A Realization
JesseI hummed as I mopped the floors on Wednesday afternoon. “You’re in a good mood,” Joe commented from where he was closing out the cash register. As though that wasn’t obvious. He grinned at me and raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged defensively.“Yeah, I am,” I said.Fortunately, he let it be as he continued working. I knew that he was only good for teasing as far as the Audrey thing was concerned. To be honest, his teasing didn’t bother me at this point. In fact, the more time I spent with Audrey, the more I sort of liked his teasing. It made me feel almost like this was going to last. Even though I knew that it couldn’t. I continued mopping the floors, thinking back to the night before. I had gone over to Audrey’s mom’s place for dinner. It had gone well, with lots of talk and laughter. Clayton and I had chatted about some of our favorite fishing spots in the area, and we had made plans to go out together sometime over the summer. I wondered if Audrey would think that was strang
All Grown Up These Three Little Words
Jesse“I love her,” I repeated after taking a sip. “I don’t want her to go back to France without me. Not that I could ask her to stay; that feels really selfish of me, and it’s not like I don’t want her to keep dancing. She’s so amazing, Joe; you wouldn’t believe it.” I paused. “Anyway, I would never ask her to give up dancing. I just feel like there has to be some kind of way where we could have it all.” I paused again, picking at the label on my bottle. “I was thinking that maybe you could manage the shop for a little while if I was going to leave and be with her.”Joe’s eyebrows had risen nearly to his hairline. “Is that what you really want?” he asked.“I want her. I want us. The real deal,” I told him frankly, and again, the words were somehow easy to say. “I can’t for the life of me imagine what I would do in France, but I do know that if Audrey goes back there, there’s just no way that I could let her go alone.”“I can’t picture you in France,” Joe said, shaking his head. “But
All Grown Up Impatient
AudreyI was surprised when Jesse called, not because it was anything out of the ordinary for him to call, or because it was out of the ordinary for him to want to see me that evening. Lately, it seemed like we had been spending nearly every evening together. I liked that. I still hadn’t found a way to tell him that I was going to be leaving so soon. Tonight, I had promised myself, I would.It was surprising to hear the way that he asked the question. He didn’t just want me to come over. He wanted to know if I would stay the night this time.It was something that I had been trying so hard to avoid. Not because I didn’t want to. God knew that I wanted to fall asleep tangled in his arms after sex and wake up next to him the following morning. I wanted to make breakfast with him in his kitchen or have him bring me breakfast in bed maybe. I wanted sweet, soft kisses to start the day and a passion that built to a frenzy before lunchtime.I had been careful, though. I was leaving soon, and
All Grown Up Already?
JesseI hadn’t meant to pull Audrey directly upstairs as soon as I saw her, but it was hard to resist. Especially when she looked so cute in those cut-off jeans and a cropped T-shirt, her hair in long, blonde braids. Now that we were naked in bed together, I wanted to curl around her and never let her go. I was sleepy, warm, and sated, and I never wanted to get up.Of course, then my stomach growled.Audrey laughed and rolled around to face me instead of having her back pressed against my chest. “Hungry?” she asked teasingly.“Yeah,” I sighed. “I already made dinner; it’s just waiting downstairs. I’ll probably need to reheat it by now, though.”“That’s all right,” Audrey said cheerfully. She slipped out of bed and went to my closet to grab one of my flannels, pulling it on and buttoning it. She stopped buttoning dangerously low, where I still got a good view of her cleavage, and I groaned. It would be a little while before I could get hard again, but I could already feel my body tryin
All Grown Up How Long?
Jesse“Oh wow!” I said in surprise. “Audrey, that’s amazing. No wonder you’re being so strict about your diet. It’ll take a lot of training to bring yourself up to that level, won’t it?” I felt relieved. Was that all that she was trying to tell me? That she wasn’t going to have as much time to spend with me in the evenings, or that she was going to be more exhausted when we did spend time together? That was fine.Audrey looked pained, though. “He wants me back soon,” she said. “And I’ve already said yes. This might be the biggest opportunity to ever cross my path. This is the one that dancers wait for. Like, this could make my career. This could get my name all over the world. Get me invitations to dance with whatever company I want to dance with and take all the roles that I want to take. It’s huge.”“It is huge,” I agreed, but I could feel apprehension welling up inside of me. She didn’t seem very excited about this. Somehow, it seemed like she was telling me bad news, but I couldn’
All Grown Up A Distraction
AudreyI should have known that Jesse would realize this wasn’t new info. I should have prepared something better to say when he asked me how long I had known. Of course, I would never lie to him. I could never lie to him. But there had to be something better to respond with than a guilty look and a mumbled, “Couple of weeks.”He looked shocked and then angry. And he had every right to. I should have told him sooner. I just hadn’t wanted to ruin the time that we had left. I didn’t want it to be all about saying goodbye. I just wanted to make the most of the time that we had. Now that I thought about it, it had been pretty selfish of me.It wasn’t like I had any real choice, though. He knew that I was going back to Paris at some point. So that was a little sooner than we had planned on. What else was I supposed to do?The part that killed me was, I wanted him to be happy for me about the lead role. I still could barely believe that I had gotten that lucky, that all my hard work was fin
All Grown Up Role of a Lifetime
Audrey“If you’d just told me about it, maybe you wouldn’t have had to ask,” Jesse snapped. “I was going to talk to you about that. I was thinking of maybe handing over the hardware store to Joe, at least for the time being, and coming with you. I guess that’s just not something that you would want, though.”I stared at him, mouth agape for a moment. He had thought about coming with me to France? I had never even considered that he might want to. Had I screwed everything up by not telling him?The reality was, though, that I just couldn’t picture him fitting into my life in Paris either. With this lead role that the director was granting me, I needed to have 100% of my focus on my dance training. I was going to be exhausted whenever I went home. I didn’t need to argue with Jesse over whether or not I was taking it too hard, putting myself through too much pain for the sake of dance.What would he do while I was off dancing? How would we make ends meet? It was too soon to be talking ab
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