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He sat down next to me and slumped back into the couch cushions. “She said that I need to tell Cassie what’s going on. She said that for all she knows, Chrystle won’t ever sign the papers, and I’m making Cassie suffer for it.” He cringed when he said the last part.
“Why don’t you just tell Cassie you’re on your way? You’re working on getting to her, to just hang tight or something. Anything is better than the nothing she’s had. It’s been months, Jack,” I reminded him, as if he needed the reminder.
“I can’t do that, little brother. I can’t tell her that when I have no idea how long this is going to take. Then what? She’s just supposed to be in limbo, waiting for me while I sit here and do exactly what I’m trying to do right now? I feel so powerless, and it frustrates the hell out of me and pisses me off. I don’t want Cassie to feel like that, and if I go to her right now, that’s all she’ll end up feeling. And it will be my fault.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Jack was stubborn. His mind was made up, and there was no changing it. Lord knew I’d been down that path before.
“What else did Melissa say?”
“That I had until I left for spring training to talk to Cassie, or she was going to tell her everything.”
“She’s brutal,” I said.
“Then she told me all about this guy who keeps asking Cassie out. And she said that she was going to encourage her to go out with him and forget all about me,” he said, his tone bitter and pained.
“Do you really think she’d do that?”
I wasn’t entirely sure that Melissa had it in her to do something like that, knowing everything that she knew. But then again, when it came down to it, her loyalty lay with Cassie the same way that mine lay with Jack.
Jack gave me a grim look. “Yeah. I do.”
• • •
The semester started, and I was slammed already with classes that were more challenging and required more of my time. Because of the heavy class load, my hours at Marc and Ryan’s agency had dwindled.
“I have to report for spring training in a week,” Jack said as he poked his head into my bedroom.
I frowned at him. “I know that.”
“So let’s go get dinner. Just me and you.” He smiled, and I couldn’t get dressed fast enough.
We drove to our favorite restaurant where we used to eat all the time as kids with Gran and Gramps. It was basically a diner that hadn’t been updated for as long as I could remember. The red vinyl booths were still red, and still torn in small sections that pinched your skin if you sat down wrong.
I think Gran brought us because of the menu diversity—the four of us could be craving something different for dinner and we could get it here. There was no arguing when we came to the diner.
Jack and I placed our orders, and when I asked for a double serving of their famous mashed potatoes, he started laughing.
“Remember that month when you refused to eat anything except these mashed potatoes? And Gran would get them for you and you’d eat them until you got sick?”
I nodded. “Of course I remember.” They were my favorite, and I would gorge myself on them and then have a stomachache later that night every single time. “And you begged for a chocolate shake with extra whipped cream every time we came here. Gran always gave in.”
He grinned. “I knew she would. That’s why I begged.”
When the waitress placed a chocolate shake in front of him, Jack dipped his straw into the whipped cream and balanced a giant dollop on it before shoving it in his mouth. I always wondered how he managed to do that without dropping it, but he never did.
He took another jab at the white stuff with his straw before putting it in his mouth again. “Seriously. Best whipped cream ever. Nothing ever tastes like this.”
The waitress came back with my mashed potatoes, and my mouth watered as I inhaled the steam rising from them, buttery-smelling and delicious.
“The rest of your food will be up shortly,” she said with a curt nod.
Jack watched her walk away. “She hates us.”
“Probably just you,” I said with a grin before sticking my fork into the potato mountain. Blowing on the forkful for a few seconds, I moved it to my mouth and moaned. “So good.”
Once I’d worked the mountain down by half, I asked, “Are you excited for baseball to start?”
“Definitely. I need to get my mind in order. All this time off is too much time to think. I like being busy.”
