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Damn my nervousness!
I can barely see my hand in front of my face, but I can feel the presence of someone coming closer and instead of running in the other direction, I again yell out, “Go away!”
A voice responds with, “Settle down, Lu.” His accent catching in my ears on the first syllable and I slap at his chest and shove him when he stops in front of me.
“What the fuck are you doing out here so late?” I demand, angry with him for scaring the shit out of me.
“I could ask you the same question,” he responds back casually.
“Um, I live here.”
I walk around him, making my way back to my house, but as I slip past him, he shines a flashlight right in my face, my eyes blinking rapidly to try and recover from the shock. I push my palms into my eyes, rubbing gently.
“You okay?” Jack asks. “You look sad.”
“I’m fine, but shouldn’t you be in bed?”
He doesn’t need to know why I’m out here or that I am feeling a little shitty. Nothing I do is his business, as I pry into his life.
“I fell asleep earlier, but the time change is fucking with me.”
He’s following me as I walk back to my house and I stop, letting him catch up so we’re now walking next to each other.
“How about you have a drink with me,” he says, shrugging one shoulder, and he’s not asking me, but rather indicating that I should.
“I’m not having a drink with you, Jack.” I shake my head, my lips set in a firm line. He’s really pushing hard at this friends thing.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m your boss,” I quip back, but realizing how stupid I sound. I’m just looking for an excuse not to get close to him.
“What, you worried you’ll fall for me?”
“Definitely not,” I say, a small condescending laugh falling from my lips. “I’m worried I’ll have to fire you for sexual harassment.”
“It’s not harassment if both people are enjoying themselves, Lu” he adds, winking at me. “Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy this love/hate thing we’ve got going on.”
I blow a hard breath out my mouth and hold back from starting an unnecessary argument with him. It leans way more toward the hate end than anything, but a part of me shivers in response to his words, my stomach suddenly fluttering.
“You sure you don’t want to have a drink with me? I brought a bottle of Shiraz from home,” he says trying to sweeten the deal.
We got drunk off a bottle of Shiraz when we were kids. Jack stole it from the wine rack in the cottage and we drank it together one night under the stars. It was a cool evening, much like tonight, and we sat taking swigs straight from the bottle until the whole thing was gone.
I smile a little at the memory, and Jack catches the look on my face immediately and says, “What do you say?” Trying his hand at using our walk down memory lane to convince me, and if I’m being honest, he’s almost there.
“Go to bed, Jack.”
“One drink, I swear that’s all.” He holds up one finger and gives me that cheeky smile. He’s strangely hard to say no to. Either that or my sudden loneliness is pushing me in his direction.
“Fine,” I say, finally conceding and I watch Jack’s face light up in a way that I’ve never seen before. “But you owe me a package of Tim Tams.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Five
Jack
She follows me inside, a strange silence settling between us now, as though neither of us expected our night to end up like this. Truth be told, when I’d woken up twenty minutes ago, the remnants of a dream about her lingering, I’d been overcome with a sudden urge to just hang out with her, like we’d sometimes been able to do when I stopped teasing her for five minutes back when we were kids.
