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“I’m not sure,” I say softly. “But what I do know is you can’t shut down anymore whenever it starts to feel serious or overwhelming or uncomfortable. We’re friends first, right?”
“Right.”
“That means you have to make an effort to talk to me.” I twist my head to offer a teasing smile. “Use your words, okay?”
“I will,” he promises.
“Good. Now, what about me?”
“What about you?”
“It’s a two-way street. What can I do better? Other than not forgetting to do the dishes and the shopping.”
Jack chuckles. “There’s nothing to do better. I like everything about you.”
“Come on. Pick a complaint. Give me something to work on.”
He pauses. “I don’t know… Patience, maybe?”
As someone capable of sitting in a library for eight hours straight without so much as a pee break, I think patience is a skill I’ve nearly mastered. But I wait for him to elaborate.
“Don’t write me off if I can’t say the right thing at the right moment. I won’t shut down, but give me more than five seconds to collect my thoughts, ay?”
“Deal.”
“Anything else we need to discuss?” Jack teases.
“Yes, actually.” As awkward as it is, I force myself to bring it up. “I’m not going to stop seeing Nate.”
He pauses again, then says, “Okay.”
“Really?”
“I’ve pushed you away too many times. Of course you don’t trust me yet. You don’t trust this.” He tightens his arms around me. “Reckon I’ve my work cut out for me. I’m up to task, though.”
I smile in the darkness. I think I like this new, candid Jack.
A lot.
33
IHAVEN’T FELT MY OWN BUTT CHEEKS SINCE HALFTIME ASISIT INthe stands clinging to a cup of hot coffee. After nearly an hour, I’m still not sure I understand any more about rugby than I did when I sat down. With that said, I do enjoy watching Jack run around throwing guys to the ground. Something about hearing the other team’s groans of agony every time he muscles their faces into the dirt gets me kind of excited. I didn’t know I could like sports so much.
So far, I’ve gathered that rugby is an amalgamation of soccer and football rules. Although every time I think I’ve gotten the gist of the game, some guy goes off and does something ridiculous like kicking the ball through the uprights in the middle of play or puts a guy on his shoulders to snatch a ball out of the air, and I’m entirely lost again. There have been almost a dozen offside calls in this match, and for the life of me, I still can’t discern what that is. To me, it still looks like a bunch of beefy dudes running around in a free-for-all.
Fortunately, Jack’s team is winning. He has a tendency to be a grump otherwise.
After last night’s illicit activities, Jack was up early this morning, as usual. Which is probably for the best—it would have caused the house to activate DEFCON 1 if he’d been spotted creeping out of my room. The only thing that could’ve given us away to Lee or Jamie occurred during breakfast, when Jack was eager that I catch his gametoday. But I’d been promising to attend a game for months now and had rescheduled numerous times, so other than a smirk from Lee, I don’t think any suspicions were raised.
It’s fascinating to witness this other side of Jack. The feral, violent side. It’s easy to see why every time the opposing team picks up the ball, they run anywhere but toward Jack. He’s got the eyes of a carnivorous animal. Ready to chew throats and snap bones. Even among other rugby players, he’s a big guy. He has at least ten pounds and three inches on most of them.
He’s got a generous amount of inches other places too…
Head out of the gutter, Abbey.
Right. The occasional X-rated flash of memory from last night tickles my mind, and I adjust in my seat and wash it back down with another scalding sip of coffee.
In the dying seconds of the game, Jack’s team wrestles the ball out of a dogpile of bodies and charges up the field, passing the ball backward to one player, then the next as they run forward. One guy is about to be tackled when he launches the ball into the air, and it happens to fall to Jack, who tucks it to his chest and bashes through one tackle and another, never leaving his feet. He’s surprisingly fast for such a tall guy and manages to stay just out of reach of the last blockers as he dives forward to score.
