The Life of Esther Jameson

Chapter Twenty

"Esther?" Jackson's jaw dropped. "Wow, you look - what are you doing here?"

Jasper looked down at his phone and his eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, no. I have to go, guys. Something's come up at home and now I have to cancel everything that I planned for tonight. I'm so sorry." He turned to Jackson and gave his apologies. "I'm really sorry, guys."

"Go," Jackson said. "We'll work something out."

As Jasper left, my phone pinged with a text from Cora.

I totally flunked and forgot that I had promised my Dad that I would stay home with him tonight. Sorry, Esther. Have fun with Jasper.

Jackson looked at me. "So, I'm just going to assume that you were supposed to be chaperone for Cora and Jasper."

"Yeah," I nodded. "So, are you... hungry?"

"You know me so well," He smiled before walked around and pulling out the chair beside me. "May I?"

"I never thought I would live to see the day when Jackson Wayne was courteous."

"Don't kill the mood, Snips." He snickered as he sat down across from me. "You look beautiful by the way."

"You're not doing so bad yourself," It was almost impossible to fight the blush that attacked my face when he said that. I took a sip of wine to try to take my mind off of his presence, but then I remembered that I hated wine. I hacked on the dark liquid and made a very unattractively sour face before pushing the glass away from me.

"I would laugh, but that wouldn't really be polite to the staff." Jackson's smile was so stupid I wanted to smack it off his face. But at the same time, I wanted so hard to hug him so tightly that my arms would wear out. This was happening a lot lately and I hated it.

"I would compliment your haircut but that would be insulting to your barber." I replied with a straight face. But then I couldn't help it and smiled back at him. Then the rest of the night kind of just...fell into a comfortable setting.

Jackson and I ordered food and then we talked. A lot more than we used to. He caught me up on all of the trouble he had gotten into in the last year of his college life. I told him about how his mom had been torturing me to try new things. Those new things being makeup and dresses and going out to just "try stuff on." We laughed together, made fun of the other customers, and shamelessly teased each other on each other's eating habits.

"So, are you getting the same feeling I am?" Jackson asked as we finished off the last of our meal.

"What feeling?" I frowned.

"That they ditched us on purpose?" He implied, quirking one of his eyebrows and making a gesture with his hands. "So that you and I could do this?"

I put my fork down. "I didn't want to think it, but I think that's what happened. I've had a bad feeling this whole day and I think this is what I was worried about."

"You felt that, too?" Jackson looked surprised. "That feeling in your stomach like you swallowed a chunk of peanut butter and it's stuck there?"

"I will never get that picture out of my head, but yeah. That feeling." My own stomach clenched in remembrance. "It was weird. Like I knew it before it happened."

"I'm not one to complain, though." He showed off that infamous million dollar smile. "This is nice, I think we needed this."

I held up my glass full of water. "To what we need."

"To Esther Rain Jameson." Jackson clinked his glass against mine and took a long drink of his club soda.

My hand froze midair but then I restarted and took a drink of my water. The way everything felt was so different than everything that I ever did with Logan. The jokes were funnier, the air was breathable, and I felt more. This was what I had been missing all this time. Him.