I shake my head. No, it’s more than just a lot of lube. If I do this, I’m buying into my future. I’m buying into a business and into a schedule that lets me write and follow my dreams.
Last night I got the tiniest taste of that future life. I hadn’t been able to sleep so I stayed up and wrote a little. I intended to work on my novel, but when I sat down that story didn’t feel like me anymore. Instead I dashed off a few hopeful lines about Penchant. Writing felt good, like the first day of lifting weights after a month off. I went to bed tired but happy. And if I can have that feeling every day, if I can have a life where I’m carving out time to be creative, then that’s what I’m here for. If I send this order, I’m gambling on myself.
“Okay,” I tell Jackson, and I send the purchase order.
“Okay,” he tells me and squeezes my hand.
I push my chair back with elation. I really did it. Natalie Bloom and Delilah Overbrook are both badasses. I can’t keep the smile off my face.
“You know,” Jackson says, watching me pack up my computer, “I’m working tonight. But you should come to Hooligans. Let me buy you a drink.”
If I go, it will be the first time I’ll be out in public with Jackson on purpose. I look up at his face. Am I ready to go there, to fall back into this easy friendship with him? It feels like nothing can ever go back to being as simple as it was before I kissed him, before I ran away.
He seems to sense my hesitation. “Bring Abigail if you want,” he suggests. “Today deserves a celebration.” If he’s offering to have my best friend join us, he must really want me to come.
“Okay,” I tell him.
He breaks into a golden, dangerous smile. “Good. My shift starts at eight.”
Chapter 21
Abigail’s perched on a barstool when I walk into Hooligans just past ten. I do a double take, not because I didn’t invite her in the first place but because, even with her reassurances, I didn’t expect her to actually come.
“You made it.” I slide onto the leather seat next to her.
“I was promised free drinks.”
“Righto.” I lean forward, well aware that my camisole is cut just low enough to show the tops of my boobs. Behind the bar, Jackson does a double take of his own. His eyes linger on my silky shirt for way longer than is considered polite before sweeping up to take in my smirk. I’m glad I wore my hair down, glad I wore a pretty lace bra, but just as soon as I think that, I correct myself. It shouldn’t make me so happy that he can’t look away, but it does.
Before Jackson has a chance to take my drink order, a flurry of girls arrives next to me and Abigail. They arrange themselves on the barstools with the practiced air of women who have done this before. The blond closest to me winks at Jackson, interrupting before he can speak.
A wink. Could she be any more obvious? I almost burst out laughing.
“Jackson, can we get a round of Cosmos?” she asks in a Boston accent I’m so glad I never acquired.
Jackson looks at me with a bemused grin and I wave for him to continue. Tonight I’m not in a hurry. I’m exactly where I need to be.
Jackson goes through the motions, pulling bottles from the shelves and pouring drinks in an elegant ballet. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to show off his forearms, and I watch the muscles in his arms move as he works. It’s a fine sight, something sexy and commanding about the level of control he has. Even the girls next to me are rendered speechless as they watch.
At last Jackson places the delicate stemware on the bar and the girls throw down a twenty for a tip. After they leave for a booth in the corner, taking their pink drinks with them, I notice a phone number scrawled across one of the bills. Of course.
I never got the chance to go drinking with Jackson in college—not a drink at a real bar, anyway—and I wonder if this would have been typical for him. A room full of girls throwing themselves at him.
Probably. It doesn’t bother me like I thought it would—mostly because Jackson doesn’t seem to care.
Jackson returns to Abby and me with a grin. “Sorry for the interruption. What can I get you ladies?”
“Just a beer,” I say, and Abigail nods that she’d like one too.
He pours two glasses from the tap and adds a curl of orange peel to our drinks, which makes Abby smile. She takes a sip and nods again. “Thanks Jackson. And thanks for hanging out with Nico the other night.”
“No problem. How’s his pirate ship holding up?”
Abby wrinkles her nose. “It’s currently decomposing.”
The three of us laugh and I see Abby’s shoulders relax. It feels good, sitting here with the two of them, Abigail and Jackson being civil to each other for once, because of me.
It makes me feel like anything is possible. I’m going to do this. I’m going to make my business work and be in charge of my life again. I’m going to get back to Boston and write some stories and rule the world because, dammit, I can.
The thought fills me up with this bubbling energy, a warmth that spreads through my chest and makes me smile.
After I drain my glass, Jackson leans against the bar. “Another drink, m’lady?” I feel the heat of his breath on my neck and I have to admit, the muscles in his arms are looking pretty damn good right now.
I look up at him through my eyelashes. “Well, if you’re offering.”
“As long as it’s bartender’s choice.”
“Fair enough.” I want to see what he makes me.
Behind his back, Abigail raises her eyebrows at me. I ignore her.
After a minute Jackson sets a glass on the bar in front of me, sides sweating. When I sample the drink it slips down my throat, cold and sweet. Elderflower liquor and gin and lime and something bubbly. The fizz shoots up my nose and I gasp in surprise.
“This is delicious,” I tell him.
“Figured you might want a break from all your beers.”
“What’s wrong with my beers?”
“Nothing.” He lowers his voice suggestively. “But a little variety is the spice of life.”
It’s so fucking hard to tell when he’s being serious or seductive or just playing, and my body doesn’t care that he’s probably all bullshit. My stomach gets tight and I hate that I still have this reaction around him. I shift on my barstool, grateful when he turns away to help another customer.
Abby leans close to me and whispers in my ear, “Watch out, Nat.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I say, which probably isn’t fair. Abigail worries about everyone—me and Nico and even her own ex. She puts everyone else’s well-being in front of her own and she does it out of pure love. It’s just who she is.
Abigail gives me a look.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You better be, because I have to leave after this drink. Want me to drive you home?”
I shake my head. I want to drag out this feeling, this high that I’m on. I don’t have to go into Holy Grounds tomorrow and I’m going to enjoy this night, however long it lasts. And anyway, part of this celebration belongs to Jackson, too.
After Abigail heads home, I catch Jackson’s eye. “Can I buy you a drink now?” I lean my elbows on the bar.
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were trying to make mischief,” Jackson teases.
“You say that like I don’t know how to have any fun.”
“Oh, I think you’re plenty fun,” Jackson says in that low voice again.
Dammit.
“Just have the stupid drink, Jackson.” He laughs and pours two amber shots of whiskey, then slides one across the bar to me.
“Here’s to being lube moguls,” he says. “Two words I never thought I’d say.”
“Cheers.” I touch my glass against his. “And thank you.”
“The pleasure’s all mine.” He tosses back his drink and winks at me. I groan and set down a generous tip. It’s still weird that he’s not at the general store but if his other bar customers tip half as well as those other
girls and I do, I can see why it could be lucrative for him to stay here.
Jackson goes back to work and for the last hour of the night I stay perched on the barstool like the president of the goddamn Jackson Wirth Fan Club, waiting until his shift winds down. I may be, maaaay be, a little drunk. It’s kind of awesome.
I don’t think I’ve ever stayed at a bar until closing. Matthew was always so practical, worried about alarm clocks and waking up to be industrious, and it made me practical too. But there’s nothing I need to wake up for tomorrow and there’s a first time for everything.
Jackson looks over his shoulder at me as the last customers trickle out. “You staying?”
“Mmhmm.”
I watch as he closes out the drawers and splits tips with the other servers. Then he wipes down the sticky bar with a soapy rag, making everything smell lemony and clean. It’s soothing, actually, all the din dying down around us while Jackson straightens bottles and cleans glasses. Jackson Wirth, reordering the world.
At last Jackson walks around the bar to me, his jeans riding low across his hips, his muscles demanding I pay attention. He takes a look at me and rubs a hand through his messy hair.
“Honey, you’re not getting in your car.”
I shake my head and the edges of the room blur. “Nope,” I agree.
“Come on then.”
He holds out a hand to help me to my feet and when my palm fits into his, tingles explode up my arm. I don’t ask where we’re going, just let him loop an arm over my shoulder, his skin hot on mine. I take a deep breath and lean into him. We walk outside like that, side by side, into the fresh, dark night.
Chapter 22
Cool night air shivers against my skin and Jackson pulls me tight to his side. He’s so close I can feel his heartbeat through my shirt. He’s warm and, god, I want to sink into him.
Bad, bad Natalie, I chide myself, then giggle. I shouldn’t have let myself drink so much.
Jackson and I walk quietly, side by side through downtown. Everything’s closed: the pharmacy, the deli with homemade fixings and the biggest dill pickles I’ve ever seen, Papa Gino’s Pizza—one of the very few chains that has thrived in Swan’s Hollow. Chalk covers the bumpy sidewalks, the states listed out in a child’s uneven scrawl: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas. We walk all the way through Iowa before Jackson stops in front of an apartment building a few blocks from the bar.
Oh, I realize all of the sudden. He’s taking me home.
It feels foreign and weird to climb the stairs to the second floor with him, to watch him open the front door to the place he lives. I’m so used to this picture of him stuck at seventeen, eighteen, in his messy bedroom, his desk cluttered with books and baseball mitts, and this apartment is yet more evidence that he’s grown into someone I don’t completely know.
I want to look around and explore his apartment but he skims his hand down my side, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. I can’t pay attention to anything else but his touch. I want him to keep touching me. I want to not want that.
I’ve told myself a thousand times that I don’t want Jackson, that I can’t. This is Jackson who broke my heart. Jackson who failed me when I needed him. But my body’s still singing for him, still lighting up.
Jackson moves his fingers away from my sides and then reaches for my hand, linking his calloused fingers through mine. He gives me the tiniest tug forward.
“Come on, let’s go take care of you.”
I stop breathing for a minute.
Is this what it all comes down to? Me and Jackson, drunk and alone at night? Everything I’ve been fighting against, the past pushing up against me.
But no. He leads me into the tiny bathroom. I blink in the harsh light of the overhead bulbs.
“Sit,” he commands, and I perch on the edge of the bathtub. The porcelain seeps through my jeans, cold and shocking. I bite my lip as I wait.
Jackson picks out three pills and tumbles them into my hand. “Ibuprofen,” he explains. “And Vitamin C.” He hands me a glass of water and waits for me to drink. “You can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”
I tilt my head to look up at him, half disappointed that he’s going to leave. “Thanks,” I say. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for.” When he turns to go, I stand up quickly—my body loose-limbed—and I sway ever so slightly on my feet. Jackson reaches out to catch me and my chest collides with his, his hands landing on my hips.
Time stops and it’s all warm skin and his fingers just under the hem of my shirt. If he wanted to, he could slip his fingers below the waist of my jeans. I know in this moment that I wouldn’t stop him.
I lean my forehead against his chest. Jackson smells like whiskey and soap, the fabric of his shirt soft under my fingertips. His breath comes out in ragged spurts; he’s unsteady because of me. I smile even though he can’t see. He wasn’t bluffing all those times he flirted with me and it fills me with wonder that I can have this effect on him. I am worthy and confident and invincible.
But the minute his body shifts under mine, I’m drawn back to that moment when everything fell apart. I’d come home for the summer after freshman year of college and we all just had this feeling of killing time.
Jackson showed up at my door wearing a T-shirt that read “Save the chubby unicorns” above a silhouette of a rhinoceros. “Come to this party with me,” Jackson pleaded. I wanted to reach out and touch the words across his chest.
Why was it still me? Why did he pick me when he could have had anyone?
He looked at me with one of those floppy, easy smiles on his face, the kind that made me say yes to things. I hadn’t seen him for months. I’d missed him.
“Fine,” I said. “But I’m driving.”
At the party it was just a bunch of people back from their various colleges, Jackson in the corner talking about California with Travis, who’d gone full scholarship to UCLA.
College had made me different, or maybe just being away had made me different, and the conversations didn’t hold my interest. I didn’t care about the same things my old friends were talking about. I blew out a breath, trying to release the dull ache in my chest. Had I ever cared, or were my friendships just based on convenience, based on the fact that we had all been stuck in this town together?
Jackson found me in the kitchen, filling my red Solo cup with tap water.
“Need a break?” he asked, and when I nodded we walked outside. The air and the space had been a relief, and we sat on the hood of my car to finish our drinks. My water was warm and tasted skunky from the beer, but I drank it anyway, settling the empty cup against my windshield.
Jackson nodded back at the house. “Same old, same old, huh?”
I tipped my head up to the sky. “Pretty much.”
Jackson rocked his shoulder against mine, familiar and brand-new. “I missed you, you know.” He said it quietly, under his breath, so I hadn’t been quite sure of it until his body stilled. But then he turned to face me and it was this: Jackson’s hands in my hair, music filtering through the windows from the party inside.
He looked at me for a moment, his eyes drinking me in, a slow smile spreading. I could feel the heat of that look through my chest, something warm and catching.
“Natalie.” My name on his lips was a whisper, his voice rumbling and low.
And, god, for all the time I had waited for him, I was tired by then. So I closed the distance between us.
The second I kissed him, it felt like he was my Jackson, the secret one that no one in that party ever saw. The one with big dreams. The one who knew my secrets.
Jackson dragged a hand along my jaw, tilting my face to his, and it was everything. All my senses filled with him, with the press of his lips, his inquisitive, dangerous tongue.
He kissed me like he had been waiting for this, too. And it was really, really good.
But then a door slammed somewhere inside the house and suddenly Jackson stumbled away from me. Jackson Wirth
, who I had never once seen lose his shit, looked panicked.
“I can’t do this,” he said. Like a coward he wouldn’t meet my eye.
Stupid, stupid me. Out of all the people who should have known better, I had become another one of those heartbroken girls. And if I let this happen tonight, I’ll be no better off than I was then.
My defenses have been down, but I can’t afford to be foolish around Jackson. I’m not making that mistake again. I take a step back from Jackson now, almost painfully, and drop my hands to my sides. I feel empty without the heat of him. The distant buzz of the fluorescents out in the hallway sound in my ear as I lower my eyes to his tile floor.
I’ve spent so much time having this unrequited love for him, but it’s not romantic. It’s just a sad imbalance, like sitting on a see-saw, all askew. Someone’s in the air, sure, but the other person has their ass on the ground with no relief. When you’re the one on the bottom, your feet start to get dusty and it gets heavy to carry your feelings around inside of you with nowhere for them to go. You just want the other person to get it together and play the game fairly, only they never do.
“I need…Can I have a minute?” I ask.
“Of course.” Jackson swallows thickly before backing away.
When he shuts the door behind him I sink onto the bathroom floor. I sit on the cool tiles for a long time, trying to calm my wild heart. When I finally come out and walk into the bedroom I find a pair of boxers and a T-shirt waiting for me on Jackson’s bed. Jackson himself is gone.
Chapter 23
I wake up in Jackson’s bed, feeling better than I should, given how much I drank last night. I groan and sink deeper into the sheets. They’re navy blue, this soft T-shirt type of material that feels like I’m curled against someone’s chest, and the sheets still smell like Jackson. I take a deep breath and get a whiff of him, all spice and man, and it hits me in the stomach like longing. The memories of last night sit under my skin like a bruise. Me and Jackson and the kiss that almost happened in his blurry-crisp bathroom. The way my wild, irrational heart had wanted more.
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