A Christmas to Remember

12: Em

"Do you wanna hit Smithies tonight?” Kimmy asked as we packed our stuff together after the introduction to Modern English Literature, the only class I was interested in that didn’t further my journey into law.

“I can’t,” I said, drawing out the words. Smithies was the campus bar, the place where everyone met, and also the preferred place for Kimmy to pick up guys. Sure, neither of us could drink, but it could still be kind of fun.

Kimmy raised one of her brows, looking at me incredulously. “You can’t?” Kimmy and I were often mistaken for sisters, our hair having an almost identical color—hers manufactured—and our blue eyes, but other than that, we didn’t really look that much alike. Neither our personalities nor our behavior matched all that much, but what I appreciated about Kimmy was her honesty. I knew she would lay it out for me the way it was and not bullshit her way around it. “How do you have plans when I don’t?”

I chuckled, a beginning heat starting to reflect on my cheeks as I stuffed my notebook into my bag along with my pencil case and my computer. “I actually have a date,” I drawled out, not really wanting to say it but saying it because I knew she wouldn’t let it go.

Her expression morphed into shock. “What?! You have a date?!” Kimmy immediately started squealing, jumping up and down around me and attracting way too much attention for my liking.

“Jesus, calm down,” I whisper-yelled, trying to smile it off to the other potential classmates who were looking at Kimmy like she was insane, or possessed by something that was.

“You don’t get to say that, girl,” Kimmy grinned, at least stopping the jumping and going into full investigator mode instead. “You haven’t dated once since Robert, so I’m all crazy for it,” she grinned. Kimmy didn’t know about the true nature of my and Robert’s relationship or about our split; all she knew was that I didn’t feel like I had enough time, and Robert didn’t think he had enough time either, so we split up after a year.

“It is about time,” I grinned back at her as she linked our arms and dragged me out of the classroom.

Columbia University had a beautiful campus, where the new additions beautifully accentuated the old. The old columns against the larger windows, the regalness of the library against the new cafeteria—all of them helped to create an invigorating environment where you could muster a thirst for knowledge.

“Tell me who the guy is, then,” she grinned, giving me that look—the look that said, he had better be f*****g hot. Which, to be honest, he was. Jackson Hudson was a perfect example of the male form. His height made it easy for me to wear heels and still be a few inches shorter than him. The broadness of his shoulders and slimness of his waist gave him an incredible shape that would make any woman salivate to get a taste of. His prominent facial features gave him both a daring and ominous expression, but also made looking at him that much more pleasing.

“I don’t think you know who he is,” I grinned at her, knowing that Kimmy would never follow along in politics or even know all the future CEOs of the highest-ranking firms in New York. If Jack didn’t star in People Magazine or wasn’t voted the sexiest man alive—which he should be—he wasn’t on her radar.

“Show me a picture, then,” she prompted, shaking my arm like it was a life-or-death situation. “What’s his name?”

I fished my phone out of my school bag. I kept it on mute and in my bag, so I wouldn’t be distracted by it; I knew myself well enough to know I wouldn’t be able to stay focused in class while it was vibrating in my back pocket.

JACK(11:24 AM): So… my father found out.

I furrowed my brows at his text. Wasn’t that a good thing? That was the whole point of our agreement—that his family and friends would find out about us. Perhaps it didn’t go as well as he had planned it would. I knew from the many texts we had exchanged over the last forty-eight hours that Jack preferred me to meet his sisters before his parents, mostly because he wanted to ease me into it. We would have to be perfect in front of them, while we could still kind of feel it out with his sisters instead.

EM (1:43 PM): And is that a bad thing? Did he react poorly?

“His name is Jackson Hudson,” I answered Kimmy, while I was answering Jack too and then finding a picture of him online afterward. “But I call him Jack,” I smiled, finding a great picture of him at a benefit, where he was seemingly listening to someone talk, while he was standing and holding a glass of champagne in his hands.

“Holy s**t!” Kimmy’s eyes almost dropped straight out of her head as she gawked down at the picture of him. My phone disappeared from my hands as she took it closer to her face, starting to click on different pictures of Jack. I had to navigate her through the masses of students, making sure she wouldn’t walk into a door or straight up bulldoze a first-year student. “I know you don’t date a lot, but when you date, you f*****g date, girl!” She referred to Robert there as well, who was quite the handsome man too, though he had nothing on Jack in my world. “Damn!”

I accepted my phone back, feeling a slight hit of heat in my cheeks, as I said, “He is quite the charmer.”

“Quite the charmer?!” she exclaimed, looking at me like I was a complete moron. “He’s a god, and you better f*****g tell me that you worship at his altar!”

I laughed, my cheeks rounding as I let a smile overtake my face, my lips parting, and my stomach rolling as I tried to stay alive through that laughter. Of course, I knew Kimmy’s first real question would be about s*x—how good it was, how many times I orgasmed, and of course, how big he was. Kimmy didn’t share my opinion on s*x; she thought it was God’s gift to women that we were able to have multiple orgasms, that it was our job as women to teach men how to help us benefit from that gift. And as one of her best friends, I definitely encouraged her on her journey to teach as many men as possible.

“Okay, fine,” I laughed, “he’s painfully delicious.”

“I could just eat him up, and trust me, I’d be back for seconds too,” she smirked at me, bumping slightly into my shoulder, making us both laugh at our antics. “So, what’s the date then?”

“Some benefit he has to attend for his firm,” I sighed, because I had to sell this completely. Kimmy also had to believe I was in love with Jack; everyone had to believe that. And a woman madly in love with a guy like Jack wouldn’t be thrilled to go to a benefit as a date. “But I’m hoping that’s only the first part of the date,” I winked at her, making her squeal right back at me.

“You have to tell me everything about it! I need to know length, looks, and girth, girl,” she said, her eyes growing a little wider to showcase just how important this was to her.

“You know, every date doesn’t have to end in s*x, Kim,” I tried to lecture her, not because I minded her… extracurriculars, but because that was not the kind of person I was.

“So you’re telling me that you don’t want your brains f****d out by the hot god who’s taking you out tonight?” she asked, with a tone that hinted at her disbelief at my words.

“I’m not saying that either…” It wasn’t a lie. If I had to pick a s****l partner, I definitely wouldn’t mind picking someone like Jack, or someone who looked like him. I had always preferred older men—men who had their lives together, men who knew what they wanted. I found that incredibly satisfying. Jack fit so well into that category. “But I’m trying to take it step by step. Even though the thought of Jack and me together makes me all—”

“Horny?”

I rolled my eyes at that. “Hot and bothered—thank you very much. I still want to make sure it’s the real deal before we go any further. I’m not one for just sleeping with a man because he’s hot.”

“But Jack is hot as sin, and you should f**k him, Em, just because you can and because you want to. There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want and then being bold enough to ask for it.”

This was why I loved Kimmy. She reminded me of how awesome we could be, how we sometimes just needed to lose our inhibitions and do what we wanted to do. Sure, I would someday come back and tell her just how amazing Jack was in bed, without knowing for sure if it was true, because we would never cross that line—Jack had made that incredibly clear.

My phone vibrated in my hand, pulling my focus away from our conversation.

JACK (1:54 PM): He reacted, and now he wants to meet you. I’ll try to hold them off for now, not wanting to push too much on you, but we won’t be able to avoid them all the way until Christmas.

“Is that loverboy?” Kimmy grinned, walking beside me, trying with all her might not to lean in and read the messages. Yes, Kimmy was nosy as hell, but she really did want me to have my privacy. However, if I willingly handed over my phone to her, she would immediately start reading, and she wouldn’t stop until I pried the thing from her hands.

“It is,” I answered, still trying to figure out a way to respond to his text. “Just something about tonight,” I smiled, trying to divert her attention. “But tell me about your plans for tonight.”

Kimmy started going on and on about how she would go to Smithies, who would be there, and how she would look.

EM (1:59 PM): We’ll figure it out. I’m not scared of your parents, Jack. I’m sure they’ll love me, or I’ll make them love me.

JACK (2:01 PM): Oh, it’s not you I’m scared for… they have a way of turning everything into their own accomplishments and not really acknowledging anything me or my sisters do.

An idea formed in my head, and I didn’t know if I should act on it or let it go. Tuning out Kimmy’s chatter, I kept mulling over whether I should just jump. Our text messages could be leaked at some point, and if there wasn’t any flirting or anything like that in them, how would that look, right? I should flirt with him, shouldn’t I? Would he think it was disgusting?

Making my decision, I started typing on my phone. Looking over the message I had typed, I chewed on my nails, not sure if I wanted to press send or not. Puffing out a breath, I quickly pressed send, locked my phone, and tucked it away. I would deal with the consequences later.