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“Even better if she’s an old crush. Maybe the one that got away. Nothing turns the head like nostalgia.”
“I’ll pass that along to the team,” Jack says in amusement. “Shannon will love playing matchmaker.”
“How’s the rest of the Campbell clan?” I ask. “Last week, you were saying your brother Oliver’s got that surfing tournament, right?”
“Yeah. He was worried he wouldn’t come up with the entrance fee, and then, uh”—Jack focuses on a car up ahead— “some sponsor hit him up out of nowhere and gave him the rest of the money to enter. They’re going to cover travel and hotel too. Mum was relieved. She always feels like shit when she can’t afford to help out.”
“Aw, that sucks.”
“Yeah.” His voice roughens. “We aren’t exactly swimming in cash. Money was always tight when I was growing up. Even when Dad was alive, there wasn’t much to go around.”
“I imagine it wouldn’t be easy with five kids.”
“No, not easy. But they tried. And Mum’s still doing her best.”
The rest of the drive isn’t at all awkward. We chat about his family and my dad. My classes and his rugby schedule. Being with Jack comes so naturally. We just vibe.
About ninety minutes south of London, he pulls the beat-up old car over on a dirt shoulder in the middle of nowhere to let me get behind the wheel. Out here, it’s nothing but two-lane country roads covered in fallen leaves. Miles of brown hills and stone walls.
Now in the passenger seat, he watches me as I adjust the mirrors. “Remember,” he says. “The red sign with the wordstopon it— ”
“Accelerate to eighty-eight miles per hour and ram it.”
Jack tightens his seat belt. “Just try to keep it between the lines and don’t run into anything.”
Truth is I’m a little nervous, so I keep my speed under the limit while I get the hang of feeling like I’m driving in reverse. To distract himself from the creeping terror evident on his face, Jackhums to the radio. Until there’s a slight miscommunication at the four-way stop.
“The one to the right goes first,” he says. But it’s too late. My foot is already pressing the gas. “No, to the right! The right.”
I mash the brakes, sending us both jolting forward. We end up nose-to-nose with another car in the middle of the intersection. The other guy starts laying on his adorable English horn.
“I’m sorry,” I say breathlessly. “I thought we got there first.”
“Oh, Christ. This was a bad idea.” Jack covers his eyes and sinks into the seat until we’ve cleared the intersection.
“Come on. Aren’t you going to tell me this isn’t half as scary as the time you bare-knuckle boxed a kangaroo when you were seven?”
He shoots me a disapproving scowl. “I regret this already.”
If he didn’t then, he certainly does when I nearly kill us attempting to navigate my first roundabout.
“For fuck’s sake, woman.” Jack braces his hands against the dash, slamming his foot into the floorboard like he could take control from the passenger seat. “Are you aiming for the other cars?”
Nervous laughter jumps from my chest when we narrowly escape unscathed. “Whoops.”
“Fucking Americans.” The lives that have flashed before his eyes are stripped from his soul and expelled in one relieved exhale. “You’re bloody fucked in the head.”
“What? I’m not doing it on purpose. They’re the ones driving on the wrong side of the road.”
After a while, he’s clearly resigned himself to his fate, because the near misses barely faze him. He even relaxes enough to tell me a story about the time his brothers left him adrift at sea for nearly an hour because Jack had told their mom about their secret stash of cigarettes.
“How old were you?”
“Twelve, I think,” he answers, as if it’s a normal part of growing up. Abandoned at sea, learning to ride a bike, just the usual.
“And they left you to tread water in the middle of the ocean?” I’m gaping at him.
“No, I had my boogie board. Noah’s friend took their parents’ boat out, and we were all swimming, hanging out. I was floating on my board with a line tied to the stern. Before I know what’s happening, they throw the line and take off. Do a few laps around me, right? Expecting me to beg or cry. I was like,fuck off, I’ll paddle home. So they left me.”
