I want You Deeper

When she emerged, Emily and Jeremy were already seated, arguing over whether or not pineapple was a legitimate pizza topping. It was Alyssa’s job to settle it for them.

“Pineapples, taco meat, bananas…I’ve seen it all.”

Now they were both staring at her. “Where did you have bananas on pizza?” Emily asked.

Alyssa slid into the seat at the center of the table since brother and sister occupied the end spots. “One of my employees swore by it. There’s a place here in town that does dessert pizzas.”

“Dessert pizzas don’t count.” Jeremy reached for a big slice of pizza and took a generous bite, not even bothering to set it on his plate first. “You can put anything on a dessert pizza.”

Emily jumped in to name some. “Chocolate chips. Peanut butter. Cool whip.”

“Cool whip?” Alyssa laughed. “I’m not sure you understand the concept of dessert pizza.”

Jeremy looked from Alyssa to Emily. “So…catch me up on the cafe.

How did it go after I left?”

Alyssa and Emily looked at each other. How did they describe how exhausting it was?

“You saw how hard it was to wake Alyssa up,” Emily added. “That was why. We were both zapped.”

“The reporter being there didn’t help.” Alyssa reached for another slice.

“She added to the stress.”

“She was the stress.” Emily shuddered.

Yeah, Alyssa knew that shudder. She felt it through her body. Having cameras on them when things were chaotic had put tension in the air that was gone the instant the reporter left. In the meantime, they’d been forced to try to keep up with a line that seemed to grow longer with every moment without making it look on camera like they didn’t know what they were doing.

“We had a lunchtime crowd, too,” Alyssa told Jeremy. “Even more of one than yesterday’s. It was out the door.”

“It will normalize, I’m sure,” Jeremy said, always the calming force.

“I’m not sure I want it to slow down.” Emily smiled at both of them. She took a final bite of pizza and sat back in her chair. “The money we’re making will allow me to hire some extra help. But I can’t hire extra help if this is temporary.”

“It won’t be. I’ll make sure of that.”

Alyssa hoped her voice showed more confidence than she felt. Her years of experience had taught her that interest in something always came in spurts. Then people were on to the next big thing. The attention the cafe was getting would wane, and it was up to her as the person charged with their marketing to make sure people still came back after all the attention died down.

“I’m going to bed early.”

Emily’s comment came out of the blue. Alyssa was stunned, and judging by Jeremy’s reaction, she wasn’t alone in that.

“It’s six-thirty!” Jeremy said. He looked over at Alyssa as if to say, Can you believe this?

Emily shrugged. “I didn’t take a nap like some people.”

“And she’s not an insomniac like us.” Jeremy winked at Alyssa, and her heart skipped a beat. “Go ahead. I’ll entertain Alyssa.”

Wait…the two of them were being left alone out here? She relied on Emily to be the buffer between them. Alone…

What? The more she thought about it, the more she realized there was nothing to be afraid of here. This was her best friend’s brother. Nothing more. They’d just hang out, and watch some TV, and he’d go home at some point. She just wasn’t used to being alone with him since they’d always spent time as a trio when they were younger. Until he’d returned to town recently, she couldn’t remember a single instance of them being alone together in all the time she’d known him.

“Play nice,” Emily said. She got up and headed straight to her bedroom, not even pausing to clean up her part of the mess. Alyssa knew that was a sure indication Emily was exhausted.

“She deserves it.” Jeremy stood and picked up every paper plate on the table, including Alyssa’s. “You both do. Why don’t you go have a seat and I’ll bring you dessert?”

“Dessert?”

They never had dessert. Occasionally, one or both of them would pull out one of the pints of ice cream in the freezer and splurge, but there was never any type of formal dessert.

“I don’t know if we have anything in there,” Alyssa warned. She picked up the box with the remaining pizza in it and headed for the kitchen. She couldn’t just go sit down while he worked.

He paused in the doorway to the kitchen, facing her as she approached with the pizza box in hand. “What did I tell you? Sit. Stay.”

He pointed toward the sofa. But he said the words with a smile on his face, and she knew he was teasing. Well, half-teasing, half-serious. She smiled back and headed over to her spot on the sofa, pulling her blanket up over her and picking up the remote.

There had to be something they could both enjoy. He wasn’t into reality shows-he’d made that much clear. She didn’t want to put on a romantic movie out of fear it would make things awkward between them. Something safe, like a comedy or action movie.

As it turned out, she had plenty of time to decide. Whatever Jeremy was doing in there was taking a while. She settled for catching up on the news while he worked. Finally, he emerged empty-handed.

“There’s some ice cream in the freezer.” Her goal was to make him feel a little better about his failure.

He paused in his walk toward her and frowned. “Dessert is in the oven.” He shrugged, then headed toward the other sofa. “Let’s play a game.”

What? A game? Like Monopoly or Truth or Dare or something? She was almost afraid to ask.

But she didn’t have to ask. Jeremy had grabbed the remote and was pressing buttons. The TV screen went dark, then a menu popped up. He was going through the various options on a gaming console she didn’t even know Emily owned. As far as she knew, Emily didn’t even play video games.

He stood up and walked over to the TV, pulling a box from inside the entertainment center. She hadn’t even known that was in there. He withdrew two steering wheels and held them up.

“Racing game?”

He was looking over at her, waiting for an answer. She looked over at the screen. Somehow, he’d managed to pull up a game without downloading anything. All she could think was that the game had to have been pre-loaded or something.

“I don’t really-”

He was walking toward the sofa. He pointed to the area where he’d previously been sitting.

“You’ll have to come over here, though,” he said. “This console may as well be the first generation.”

“I don’t know what that sentence means.”

Maybe, from that, he’d get the message. She knew nothing about playing video games. Sure, she’d played a few times when she was a kid, but when compared to just about anyone else her age, she had to be pretty far behind. She assumed “racing game” meant racing in a pretend car, although it could be running a marathon or horses or even dogs. Didn’t they have dog races somewhere?

“I’ll show you.”

His offer drew her attention back to him. He wanted her to come over to sit next to him, and he was going to show her how to play the game. All of this was completely platonic, she was sure, but she couldn’t seem to stay on her sofa when the alternative was to sit next to him.

“Okay, but I’m not the world’s best driver.” She got up and moved over to sit next to him, pulling her blanket along with her. She could pretend she was cold but really, she felt like it provided some sort of comfort.

“Here.” He handed her a steering wheel.

She looked up at the TV, wondering why she’d had to come over here.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Maybe the gadget didn’t work unless it was stationed directly in front of the TV. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d wanted her seated next to him and this had provided an excuse.

“Ready?”

“No.”

Her honest answer brought a smile of amusement to his lips. She liked making him smile.

He looked over at her. “The winner gets the corner brownie.”

There were four corners, but she didn’t have time to point that out. He’d turned back to the TV and the game was going.

“Hey! No fair.”

She bumped into him teasingly as he ran her off the road onscreen. She’d gotten so caught up in the game, she forgot for a moment it was Jeremy Owens next to her. But by just bumping into him, she’d become all too aware of the muscles beneath that thin T-shirt he wore. Muscles she’d paid far too much attention to over the past few days.

If her move bothered him in any way, he didn’t react. Instead, he kept his focus on the screen, continuing to enthusiastically maneuver around obstacles to beat her to the finish line. She’d lost all focus in those few seconds. It was impossible to even come close to beating him this time. But she knew she had to give it a good try to keep him from seeing she was rattled.

“Victory!” he shouted, obviously forgetting his sister was asleep in the next room.

Alyssa looked at him, eyes wide, as they both waited a second to see if Emily got up. Jeremy was looking directly at Alyssa, but she was avoiding his gaze.

Finally, though, curiosity won out. She couldn’t continue to stare off to the side, not with his stare so intently focused on her face.

When their eyes finally met, her breath caught in her throat. He was looking at her like…like…

Slowly, he moved toward her. His movement was tentative at first as if testing to see if she was okay with this. If she’d looked away and returned her attention to the screen, it would have given him an easy out at that point. But she didn’t do that.

Instead, she began moving toward him. He reached up with his right hand and gently stroked her cheek with his thumb, but as his lips brushed against hers, that hand moved to her jawline, then her neck. An involuntary sigh escaped her as she gave in to the kiss.

And gave up all hope of denying she’d fallen for him.