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“A what?” Jack grabs the chair from my vanity and pulls it over beside the tub.
“Like, some men prefer breasts, some prefer asses…” I take a sip, waiting for his answer.
“Rachel.” He shakes his head with a wistful smile. “Whatever color your hair is this week, however you wear your makeup, your freckles, and how you wrinkle your nose. How you snore when you fall asleep drunk. I’m an every-part-of-youman.”
He leans over and kisses my cheek softly as the tears that spring to my eyes catch me off guard. I sit up quickly, hoping to wipe them away before he sees, and slosh my wine into the water. The red billows out—just a small amount, but it spreads quickly.
“I mean, you could still drink it,” he jokes, taking the glass from my hand and setting it on my side table.
I haven’t responded to what he said, but the words are now burned into my mind. I shoot him a dirty look before releasing the drain and standing. He moves to his feet, grabbing a towel from the vanity and wrapping it around me.
“Allow me.” He offers me his hand, and I take it, letting him assist me out of the tub.
Not that I need the help, but I’m not turning down an excuse to touch him.
I pull on my pajamas and get to work combing my hair. I glance at him in the mirror, and he’s just watching me while I detangle my hot mess. He comes up behind me, eyes on mine in the mirror, and takes the comb from my hand without another word. He gently begins running the comb through my tresses again, and my hands fall to my sides uselessly.
“So are we going to talk about it?” he murmurs as he works.
“Talk about what?” Fuck, my voice is trembling.
“My big declaration. The wholeI’m an every part of you manthing. Kinda cheesy, I guess.”
I grab the comb, my hand covering his, and we stare at each other in the mirror for a moment before I turn on my heel. The comb slips through our fingers and hits the tile with a clatter that echoes around the room.
“Jack, it wasn’t cheesy at all. Your words seeped into my soul. It’s like they’re a part of me now, and that scares the hell out of me because earlier today, we said this is only a one-more-time thing. But then you say these big romantic things.”
My fingers ache to fidget together, to wrap around one another, and even the idea of it soothes me. But I refrain, inhaling deeply and intertwining them with Jack’s instead.
“It scares me too. I just… I know we haven’t really even resolved everything from our past, and jumping into this is probably a dangerous idea, but I’m willing to try to work through it together. If you want.” He squeezes my hands reassuringly, touching his forehead to mine.
Our breaths are in sync, and for a moment, everything in the world is quiet. My mind is quiet. And then I nod. “I want. I want to try.”
He kisses my lips softly. “Well, good. Because I brought my pajamas just in case.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. And more.” He releases one of my hands, dragging me out of the bathroom by the other to the kitchen. The counter is covered in grocery bags. He had to have planned this earlier.
“What is this?”
“My mom is obsessed with charcuterie boards right now.”
“Oh, so she probably got that from—”
“Amber,” we say in unison.
“She found this idea online, and I thought it would be a really cute first date for us.”
“First date?” I nudge him before heading over to the bags.
“Well, first date part two.” He goes around the counter and stands on the other side and we unpack. Three different kinds of apples, caramel, nuts, chocolate sauce, marshmallows, and the list goes on. Once we’ve unpacked everything, he grabs a knife from the stand on my counter and hands it to me. “You slice the apples. We don’t have time to wait on a Crock-Pot to heat up, so I’m gonna do the caramel on the stove.”
We fall into work easily, me slicing and washing the apples in water with a touch of salt so they don’t brown, and he finds two pots to heat up the chocolate and caramel.
“So, how is your mom?” I make conversation while we work.
Jack stirs the caramel, making a face at my question “Surprisingly, she’s doing really well. Which is fine, but she wasn’t before. It’s like something in her snapped and she’s pretending nothing ever happened.”
