She sets her hands in her lap, fingers twisting the edge of her skirt, her head turned toward the stretch of beach that’s swallowed up by the black inky night. We’re fifteen minutes on the other side of town when I turn down a dirt road and stop at a house set back against a rocky outcropping by the edge of the ocean.
“Really?” She turns toward me. “If you wanted to pick afight, we could have done that at my house. Not somewhere in the middle of the woods.”
I really had no intention of ever showing her. Hell, I haven’t even told my family. But after tonight, I think it’s important she knows.
“Where are we anyway?”
I scratch my jaw and glance over. Maybe I had too much coffee with dessert. “I was lucky. Landed a dream contract a few years back when I came to Boston. I’ve done a lot of dumb shit along the way but somehow had the good sense to invest in real estate. So that’s what I do now. I buy property.”
“Like the hockey rink?”
“That’s a little different, but yeah. I try not to think about it too much,” I admit. “But I can’t stop lately. Hockey isn’t going to be forever for me.”
Confusion sets between Izzy’s brows. That’s on me. I’ve never trusted anyone enough to say this out loud.
“I bought this place a year ago.” I nod toward the dark outline of the cedar-shingled house. “It still has a few months to go before the last of the contractors are out. But it’s mine.”
She nods slowly, fidgeting with the edge of her sleeve until she turns to face me fully. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because I need you to know.” My voice is rough. “I’m staying.”
Chapter 20
Izzy
I’m staying.
The words loop in my head the entire drive home. Jack doesn’t say much. He keeps one hand on the wheel, the other holding mine like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Even if we’re not pretending anymore, we haven’t named what it is between us either. And even if we did, what would that change?
I know what this is. A footnote. A story he’ll laugh about someday with teammates or friends or whoever fills his life once I’m no longer in it. That time he fake-dated that girl from the charity bachelor auction. Cute. Easy to forget.
But he just told me he’s staying. And it sounded like… I don’t know. A promise?
He was joking. Obviously. He has to be.
Even Peyton saw through us tonight—how flimsy this whole thing is, how ridiculous to imagine someone like Jack Murphy choosing someone like me.
And I know that because he’s not choosing me. This was only ever a deal between us.
“Thanks,” I whisper when he pulls into my driveway. “For spending Thanksgiving with my family and me. That’s a big ask, and you didn’t…”
He shuts off the car, and in the sudden quiet, my heart thuds against my ribs.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
I grab my purse from the floor. “You need to head back to the city.”
He’s already unbuckling, opening his door. “Not right now.”
I blink. And as cliché as it sounds, I swear my heart skips a beat. “Jack, you don’t have to?—”
He jumps out and opens my door before I can finish, bracing an arm against the frame of his beloved G-Wagon. His eyes find mine in the dark. I’ve fallen in love with so many versions of this man, but Jack in a pea coat? Might very well be my favorite.
Then his mouth kicks up with that crooked grin, those dimples…
“I know I don’t,” he says quietly. “I want to, sweetheart.”
