Page 6 of Jesse

And even though I understand that the winners were not decided that night of the ceremony, I somehow always felt like the reason we won was because we were playing the game of ‘fake it till you make it’.

I feel like I’m playing that game again tonight.

I get that it’s maybe a little bit ironic that I’m one-fourth owner of the fifth biggest cosmetics company in the entire world and I don’t even wear makeup. But that’s how life rolls for me most of the time.

Irony is always laughing in my face.

I always get things I’m not really interested in. Big things. Like cosmetics companies. Or cars. Because I don't actually drive. I know how to drive. I have a license. But this is the city. There’s nowhere to park. And two years ago a very high-end luxury car company came and asked me to be their spokesperson. I said yes, because why the fuck not?

And they gave me a car.

I paid an ungodly amount of money to park that car in the city for an entire year before I finally came to my senses and had someone drive it out to the country estate we bought for company retreats. So that’s where it lives now.

Or the time that tennis racket company called and wanted me to do a commercial for them. Because you know, cosmetics and tennis rackets totally go together.

I don’t play tennis but now they send me three new rackets a year.

And somehow I got on a golf club company’s list and I get my picture taken with a brand-new set of clubs every spring too.

All that stuff is up at the country estate.

And I just want to say, “What the fuck, people? I don’t need a new car, I don’t need a tennis racket, and I don’t need golf clubs. Why can’t someone—for once in my life— send me something I want?”

Like Jesse Boston.

Because yeah. I’m just gonna admit it.

I fell for that asshole while on spring break thirteen years ago.

Hard.

Like jumped off a building and crashed my head into the cement kind of hard.

And even though I did find solace in the company of the three women who would become my best friends and business partners, I never got over him.

I stalk him. I do.

I stalk him. I read about him every time he pops up in the tabloids. And that was pretty frequent for many years. All the way up until I was nearly twenty-six he was regular in my life.

But then his father died and I don’t know what happened. Jesse… went underground or something. Supposedly cleaned up his act.

His brothers still make the society blogs. But not the tabloids. Mostly Joey. He’s Mr. City Bachelor almost every year. Which was why he was invited to be in this charity auction. But Johnny is the one everyone wants to hear about now. He’s all dark and broody and mysterious. And no one has seen him in public for like a million years or something.

Or at least since their father died. Whichever came first.

Johnny lives up in that building doing… whatever he does.

He’s too dark for me. And Joey is too enthusiastic about his personal life.

But Jesse… Jesus Christ. He’s always been the one who floated my boat.

Which is a little inside joke, since he was on the yacht-racing circuit when we met all those years ago.

I’ve missed my Jesse fix these past few years since he went quiet. So when I found out that Joey cancelled and Jesse was taking his place in the auction, I rallied.

Now the other girls—Nat, and Mila, and Hannah—they’re not into the Baby Boston anymore. Their interest waned long time ago. Right around the time we won that million-dollar opportunity award, in fact. Their obsession with him just disappeared. They simply stopped caring. And every time I brought him up they said things like, “Fuck him,” and, “I’m so over that asshole!” and, “If I never have to speak his name again it will be too soon.”

But that’s not how I felt.