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His lips curled at the memory of her words last night. “Yeah, I think she does.” And wasn’t that making him feel all heated up and needy?
“Well man, I guess it’s up to you. Usually I’d say take it slow, see where it goes, but you don’t have that luxury. If she’s leaving soon, there’s no time to waste.”
“So what do I do?” Jackson asked, more to himself than Lucas. “And how the heck is Griff going to feel when he finds out I’ve been hanging with Autumn’s sister.”
Lucas laughed out loud. “You’re scared of Griff?”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Jackson admitted. “He’s our friend after all.”
“Yeah, he is,” Lucas agreed. “And like me he wants you to be happy. I guess if he knew you had feelings for her…”
“I didn’t say I had feelings.”
“You said you liked her,” Lucas pointed out. Arthur slithered down the edge of the sidewalk to the sand, sitting and drawing circles with his finger.
“I do.”
“Well that’s a feeling.”
Jackson froze. He didn’t like that thought at all. Because if you had feelings, you could get hurt. “Yeah, but it’s a like-like, you know? We have fun together. She makes me smile.” He chuckled. “She’s kind of wild, and that’s really damn attractive.”
Lucas said nothing. He was looking at Jackson with narrowed eyes, as though he was trying to figure something out.
“What?” Jackson asked.
“I didn’t say anything. I was just thinking.” Lucas ran his finger along his jaw. “I’m wondering whether regretting what you never had is worse than losing what you did.” He smiled as he watched Arthur dig his hands into the sand. “If I lost Ember tomorrow, I’d be devastated,” he murmured. “But I’d never regret meeting her. Never regret falling in love and having Arthur. Because it’s made me who I am.”
“But that’s different. You two are married.”
Lucas nodded. “Yeah, but even if we’d only ever had one date, I wouldn’t have regretted that either. She changed me with one kiss.”
“Kiss?” Arthur said, standing and lifting his face. Lucas jumped off the boardwalk and kissed his son, hugging him tight. Arthur hooked his arms around Lucas’ neck, leaning his head on his shoulder.
“I should get this guy home. It’s his bedtime.”
“Not tired,” Arthur said sleepily as Lucas lifted him into his arms and stepped onto the boardwalk, putting his son in his stroller.
“Yeah, I need to get Eddie home.” Jackson nodded, trying not to smile at the fact he had his own responsibilities now. For so long he’d been different to his friends, as they paired off one by one. Having relationships, buying houses together, making families.
And that still wasn’t in his future, but maybe something was. Lydia was here for a few days, not a lifetime, but that didn’t mean he had to ignore the crazy attraction between them.
If she got on that plane without him spending time with her, he’d regret it. That he knew for sure.
They could have a good time while she was here, and then say their goodbyes. All they had to do was go into it with open eyes. That way nobody would get hurt.
“We should play spin the bottle,” Ally said, carrying a tray full of cocktails into her spacious living room. Lydia was sitting between Autumn and her friend, Ember, on the cream leather couches, facing the floor-to-ceiling glass doors overlooking the ocean. Ally passed the cocktails out, and sat down on the ottoman opposite.
There were seven of them there altogether. Lydia, Autumn, and Ally, along with Ember and Brooke – Ally’s best friends – and Caitie, Ember’s sister-in-law, and her friend, Harper.
The girls had spent the evening gossiping about their partners. All of them apart from Lydia were in relationships, and nearly all of them had children. Ally had put them all in fits of giggles telling them about her stepdaughter, Riley, who brought a boyfriend home from college to meet her dad the previous week, and how Nate almost had a heart attack when she asked if they could share a bedroom.
“I mean, she’s twenty. Almost twenty-one. I asked Nate if he remembered being that age,” Ally said. “But that made him go beet red and tell Riley she wasn’t allowed to date until she was thirty.”
Lydia took a sip of her margarita. The lime stung her tongue in the best way. It was funny how the cocktails were affecting them all in different ways. Autumn was already slurring a little. Harper was half-asleep and Ally was hyperactive, talking non-stop.
Ally put an empty champagne bottle on its side and twirled it on the coffee table. “Okay, who’s going first?” she asked them.
“Don’t we need guys here to play spin the bottle?” Ember asked in response to Ally’s suggestion. “I love you all, but I don’t want to kiss any of you.”
