Part of Me (Jessa & Paxton #1) Read Free Page A

a Friday night? He came over in fricking sweatpants the other day. Sweatpants . And not the sexy kind that some guys wear that hang low on their hips and make you want to find out what’s under all that baggy fabric, but stained ones with a hole in the knee. Jesus .
    As far as relationships go, I’ve always preferred the kind that were loosely defined by the sex I was getting. Those kinds of relationships don’t require dates and can’t take issue with you talking to another guy. That kind of relationship is about having fun and experimenting with each other’s bodies. In those relationships it’s mostly easy to get out. And I always know when it’s time to get out. It’s like a switch is being thrown and suddenly I cannot stand being kissed by the guy. It happens every time. And when it does it’s time to go. And I go. Maybe they protest, but hell, you’re not my damn boyfriend .
    I’ve hit that point with Dylan. I can’t stand his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth makes me want to vomit, his groping hands make me want to knee him in the balls. The problem is that I can’t just go. It’s not that easy. Which is why…. I don’t do this shit.
    Lesson learned. Won’t happen again. But that doesn’t solve my current problem.
    “Whatcha thinking about over there?” my roommate, Taylor, asks me from her bed, which is four feet away from my own.
    “Dylan,” I tell her.
    “Oh, yeah? I bet I know what you’re thinking of,” she giggles.
    “I bet you don’t,” I say, unintentionally mocking her high-pitched tone.
    Taylor is a sweet girl. She’s from a small town like me. Hers is in Wisconsin. She moved here to be with her boyfriend, Will. They met in Mexico on spring break and it was love at first site. They are deliriously happy and they are our new ‘couple friends’ – Will lives on Dylan’s floor in the dorm next to ours. It’s all so sweet and perfect and it makes me feel claustrophobic and miserable and like a complete phony.
    And, Taylor has appointed herself the official welcoming committee and friend to all. Therefore, there is a fun little dorm party in my room just about every night. And on the nights when I’m not interacting with my floor mates, by no choice of my own, I am on a double date, or just a regular date. None of this is me. None of this is what I want to be doing. I can’t even pretend anymo re that I’m having fun. I just want out.
    “Well tell me, what were you thinking?” Taylor asks.
    “I wasn’t thinking anything really… just about tonight.”
    “Tonight is going to be so fun. What are you going to wear?”
    I look at Taylor and force myself to smile. “Um… I don’t know. I have to make a phone call,” I tell her, getting out of my bed. “I’ll be back in a little while and we can figure it out.”
    “Oh. Okay,” she tells me with a puzzled look on her face.
    I take the back stairway out of the dorm and walk to the edge of the tiny patch of trees that is behind it. I’m planning on calling Emily, but I end up pulling Paxton’s number up.
    I haven’t talked to him for a few days. He’s in Venice, California with his dad. Apparently Venice is where he spent most of his summers growing up and it’s the place he considers home. Not that he ever mentioned the place, or his dad and the rest of his California family, until six months after I met him. I realize now that he never really talked about his life at all – not the one in Venice and not the one here, in Chicago. We spent so much time together during his year in River Bluff and I feel like I know him so well, yet if I had to make a list of facts about his life I couldn’t even fill a page.
    “Beso… it’s you,” he says, calling me by the, oh so funny , nickname he has recently bestowed upon me. Beso means kiss in Spanish and he will never let me forget about that first night we met. Ever since Paxton’s been back home he tends to throw a Spanish word in every once in a while. I guess