Called Out

by Jen Doyle

  Then he shifted his gaze down to her son. “Yep. I sure was.”

  That was enough to have Si jumping out of his seat, video game forgotten entirely. He even helped with the younger boys, shepherding them into the house with a we’re-in-this-together look over his shoulder at Jack.

  Leaving Lola alone with Jack. She looked at him and then, although, yes, sparks were still firing, she forced herself to ignore them, turning on her heel and going to get the food she’d brought out of the back of the car.

  From the corner of her eye she could see him look up at the house. But rather than take the easy out she was giving him, he came back around to where she stood.

  “So,” he said.

  She reached for the crate in which she’d put her Crock-Pot full of chili. “So.”

  There was another moment of silence as she rearranged boxes and tried to think of a way to begin a conversation that had nothing to do with kissing, actual or implied.

  He spoke first. “I’m sorry.”

  She turned to him. “For kissing me?” She took the crate out of the car with perhaps maybe a little bit too much force and then shoved it into his hands. She wasn’t sure why she was angry with him, but that’s exactly what she was.

  Whether he was oblivious to that fact or just ignoring it, she couldn’t say. And she was in wholehearted agreement with his follow-up statement, which was, “We shouldn’t have done that.”

  Correct. They absolutely shouldn’t have. So there was no need for Lola to be feeling a stab of disappointment that they wouldn’t be doing it again.

  She grabbed the bag in which she’d put a container of guacamole and a few bags of chips. As long as they were apologizing, she supposed she should add, “I’m sorry you got hurt.” When he raised his eyebrows in question, she pointed to the bruise.

  “Oh.” He rubbed his jaw. This time she noticed regret and pain flash through his eyes again right before he gave her a devil-may-care grin. “Serves me right. I shouldn’t be kissing anyone, much less women Nate Hawkins cares a whole lot about.”

  She hadn’t expected him to be quite so blunt about it—she even found herself at a loss for words for a moment. Just a moment, though. Looking up at him, her eyes zeroed in on his lips, no more than a few inches away from hers at the moment. “That’s a shame,” she said, even though she shouldn’t, “because this particular woman hasn’t kissed anyone in a really long time and she was hoping it might maybe happen again.”

  No, she wasn’t.

  She absolutely wasn’t.

  Had she not just two minutes ago told herself this was not something to take further? Yet, here she was, rooted in place and not even trying to pull herself away.

  She was close enough to hear his breath catch. To see him go entirely still, the only exception being his eyes as they dropped down to her mouth again before coming back up to meet her gaze. “If our next kiss is anything like our first one, it’s not going to end there,” he said gruffly. “I can’t do that to him again.”

  Her voice sounded scratchy as she answered, “I was envisioning it more as you doing it to me, not to him.”

  And then she did take a step back. If kissing him was bad, sleeping with him would be catastrophic; yet that’s pretty much exactly what she’d invited him to do. Maybe if she closed her eyes really tight they could pretend she hadn’t said that. But she had just said that. And given the way he was staring at her there was absolutely no way she could take it back. To her deep and utter dismay, there was a part of her that didn’t want to.

  Just one of his steps closed the distance between them, and she was suddenly looking directly at his chest. She looked up just as he said, “That’s a very dangerous image for me to have in my head.”

  It was. It was dangerous in all sorts of ways. She worked hard at keeping all hints of regret out of her voice as she pulled further away and said, “Then I guess we’ll need to make sure it stays there.” She turned and walked up the front steps. Grateful that Nate appeared at the front door right then, she reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek and then left Jack to fend for himself.

  Chapter Eight

  That woman would be the death of him. Case in point, the second Jack got to the door, Nate said, “What was that about?”

  Given that Nate’s eyes were on him, Jack tried not to be obvious about watching Lola walk down the hallway. Hell, he tried not to watch her in the first place. It shouldn’t have been a problem. But he couldn’t stop thinking about her, and now he knew she was thinking about him, too.

  Trying not to let on how much he wanted to feel that soft hair against his skin again, Jack turned to Nate. “I’m not entirely sure.” Which, actually, was true. The woman was supposed to bust his balls, not caress them, goddamn it.

  Forcing himself to turn away, Jack moved on to the next thing before the conversation went too far in the absolute wrong direction. “You sure you want me here tonight?”

  Nate took his football seriously. It wasn’t a social engagement; only devout fans need apply. Other than his required attendance at the Harvard/Yale game each year with his father—or, more likely, because of it—football hadn’t exactly been one of Jack’s favorite things. Going to college in Texas had started to turn the tide a bit, and then he’d begun hanging out with Nate. He’d spent his fair share of games sitting around a big-screen TV with Nate and Wash in Chicago, with Deke, Jason and/or Cal joining in.

  Sure, he was grateful Nate was willing to train together, all but guaranteeing Jack a shot at signing with the Watchmen. He had no expectation, however, of regaining the friendship and was a little unsure of what was going on. The Lola thing created enough complications; what the hell was he supposed to do with this?

  All conversation stopped when he and Nate walked into the room. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Even Lola’s kids stopped whatever they’d been doing over in the corner. Wash was sitting on the sectional, with Dorie perched on the coffee table across from him. Jason was in one of the recliners off to the side, and there was some guy Jack had never seen before.

  “That’s Tuck,” Nate said into the silence, and the man gave a small wave. “You know everyone else.”

  “Yep.” Funny how a stadium full of thousands of strangers taunting him didn’t faze him one bit, yet walking into a room with a handful of people froze him entirely.

  Before he could produce a sword to throw himself upon, Lola swooped into the room and smiled. “Oh, good.” Although she seemed perceptive enough to identify the wall of ice between Jack and the rest of the room, she breezed right through it and put her hand on his shoulder, steering him to what he assumed was the kitchen. “Let’s get that chili on.” With a look over her shoulder, she gave a curt, “Boys! With me.”

  It wasn’t a huge surprise that everyone snapped to attention. It was much more of one that all four kids jumped up and followed after them.

  “Didn’t realize plugging something in was a six-person job,” Jack murmured to her once they were safely in the kitchen, the boys seeming as unclear as to what they were supposed to be doing as Jack was. There were definitely some mixed messages coming his way. Then again, he was all mixed-up when it came to her, so maybe she was having the same problem.

  Disappearing behind the massive kitchen island as she crouched down, Lola answered, “We’re saving your ass, Iceman. Right, guys?”

  One of the little ones piped up, “Ice ass! Right!”

  Jack didn’t know a lot about kids, but one of the things the PR crew always drilled in was that you weren’t supposed to swear around them. Since Lola was the actual parent here and didn’t seem too concerned, he wasn’t going to mention that. Especially since his ass was grateful for the assist. He took the Crock-Pot out of the crate and found an outlet to plug it into just as Lola reappeared, several big plastic bowls in hand.
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  “Si, can you get the chips?”

  Within a remarkably short amount of time, she’d gotten them to empty out bags of chips into the bowls and had Silas fill two much smaller bowls with salsa and guac, and then she lined up the four boys and sent them out into the living room with all the food.

  He wanted to thank her. He wanted to wrap her into his arms and drop his head down to hers and hold her until he felt some life come back into his frozen heart and veins. Hell, he wanted to put his hands on her hips, haul her up onto the counter and bury himself so deep inside her it would be impossible to know where he ended and she began.

  He settled for keeping his distance, saying, “I don’t know why he wants me here.” Which, honestly, was a bit of a surprise. He wasn’t exactly a sharer.

  With a sharp glance in his direction, Lola opened up a drawer and pulled out a bunch of spoons. “Maybe he doesn’t actually hate you.”

  Needing something to do other than just standing and staring at her, Jack started opening up cabinets to find a stack of bowls. Yes, this was Nate and Dorie’s kitchen, and it felt wrong to be going through it as if it was his own. But Jack was pretty sure the reason neither of the house’s two residents had appeared in here yet was because they were talking down the masses who wanted to run him out of town, so he was doing whatever he could to help.

  “He never did know what was good for him,” Jack muttered.

  “Is that why you did it?” Lola asked.

  And Jack froze.

  “Oh, my God.” She quickly busied herself digging for napkins. “I can’t believe I actually said that.”

  “Don’t.” An unfamiliar feeling resonated through him as he turned his back on her. He was afraid it might be something close to hope. “Don’t try and pretend that there was anything even close to good in what I did.”

  Except rather than be frightened off by an asshole like him, she came closer—close enough to put her hand on his back. He grasped the edge of the counter, afraid of what would happen if he allowed himself to give in to the comfort she appeared to be offering.

  “Jack,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion for, he was pretty sure, him. Then she ran her hand down his spine.

  Trying to ignore how desperately he wanted to turn to her, he dropped his chin to his chest. For a moment he allowed himself the fantasy of having someone who not only knew how to soothe him, but who actually wanted to.

  But a moment was all he got.

  “I said don’t,” he snapped. Then he pulled away and made sure he didn’t look back.

  Lola knew she should have left well enough alone. He could handle the crowds; he’d been doing it all on his own for the last year. He was not the cruel and indifferent man the press had made him out to be, however. If ever there was someone who needed a little love, in fact, Lola was pretty sure it was Jack Oxford. But if kissing him had crossed a line, what she’d just done was a thousand times worse.

  The problem was that she could stay away if it was just about kissing. It was harder than expected, but she could do it when required. Seeing him standing there like that, though—steeling himself to face everyone because that’s the way he’d gotten through the last year—had nearly broken what was left of Lola’s heart. And since her heart had been in pieces for three years now, she had to protect it however she could. If that meant pulling Jack Oxford out of that room, then that’s what she’d had to do.

  She slapped her hands down on the edge of the counter. Damn it. She wanted sex, not a project. Especially not after those last few months with Dave.

  “Hey,” Dorie said, coming into the kitchen. “Sorry to leave you to fend for yourself in here.” She went over to the oven and took out a couple of trays of enchiladas that smelled amazing. The glass-front cabinets made it as easy to find plates as it had been to find the bowls. “How are they doing in there?”

  Dorie snorted. “Men. You know how it is. They stomp their feet and smoke comes out of their ears, but so far no blood has been shed.”

  Finding forks and knives to go along with the spoons, Lola paid careful attention to laying everything out as straight as possible. As if it mattered. “Nate really loves him, doesn’t he?” Because even though this felt all sorts of wrong, the fact of the matter was that Nate did want him here. Here in Inspiration, here at the house, here, back in Nate’s life.

  Stashing the oven mitts in a drawer, Dorie leaned back against the counter and studied Lola for a moment. Then she nodded. “I didn’t understand it at first. I mean, how is what he did even close to forgivable?” Then she shrugged and her cheeks got a little pink. “Don’t tell anyone, but I used a picture of Jack Oxford as a dartboard for at least a week.”

  That’s right. Dorie had fit in so well with everyone that sometimes Lola forgot she hadn’t been a part of them forever. A year ago, she’d still been in Boston and Nate had no clue she existed. Hell, a year ago, Nate had still been engaged to the fiancée Jack had apparently been sleeping with, and his entire family had been debating whether to insist he visit for at least some of the holidays versus being grateful they wouldn’t have to spend any time in Courtney’s presence.

  “I won’t tell,” Lola said, “if you don’t tell anyone Jules’s response when the news came out was, literally, to pump her fist and scream out, ‘Ding-dong, the fucking witch is dead.’”

  Dorie’s eyes went wide. “Jules?”

  Yes, prim and proper Jules had actually laughed giddily on and off for weeks. “Well, she also came up with about fifty different ways to send both Courtney and Jack to horrible deaths, but I think it was one of the high points of her year.” The year in which she’d also learned her husband had been sneaking around with other women for years, so the bar hadn’t been particularly high, but still.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Dorie gave a slight shrug. “It feels wrong to be even just a little grateful it happened that way. You know?”

  Lola did know. It was kind of how it felt wrong to want to take Jack in her arms, and yet that’s exactly what she’d wanted to do even without the kissing part involved.

  But he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in forgiveness no matter who it came from. And no matter how much she’d needed that kiss—and, okay, yes, ached for another one—she was 0 for 1 in the fixing men department and she wasn’t overly interested in banging her head against that wall again. Frankly, it would be a whole lot easier to just buy a whole new box of toys.

  “I think if Nate is going through all this trouble to make the man feel welcome, then you should be as grateful as you want,” Lola said. “Just as long as you show your thanks to Nate and not Jack, we should all be good.” Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the most politic of things to say. But whatever. “Now let’s go tell the guys the food’s ready before Wash and Jason decide to take matters into their own hands.”

  Given the complete lack of sound coming from the other room—even her own boys were quiet—Lola was actually getting a little worried they might all be in their respective corners gearing up for some death match.

  “It really is quiet in there, isn’t it?” Dorie asked.

  Yep, it really was. Frighteningly so. “Let’s go.”

  But when they got into the living room, it was clear the silence was just that, with each man just grimly staring at the TV and not interacting. So, as Dorie called everyone to the kitchen for dinner, Lola gathered her kids. She’d done what she could do and gotten Jack over the hump. For everything else, he was on his own.

  Chapter Nine

  “Earth to Ox.”

  Jack shifted his gaze away from the late afternoon stormy skies over the fields to see Nate staring at him.

  Sitting up at the bench press, Nate said, “Pretty sure you could have run to Chicago and back by now.”

  A quick glance down at the treadmill readout showed J
ack he’d been running for over an hour now. Since he’d spent a good deal of the last week trying to run off the seemingly unending adrenaline rush that one kiss with Lola had given him, it barely rated. Still, it probably would be a good idea to pay attention to the actual workout at hand.

  He and Nate had settled back into their old routine over the last few days. It was somewhat surreal, almost like nothing had ever happened, except now the workouts were taking place in the basement level of Nate’s tricked-out new house overlooking Iowa farmland rather than in the weight room at the Cell—or whatever they were calling the stadium these days. They didn’t talk much, of course, but it wasn’t like they’d been running their mouths a mile a minute back in the day, either. On the surface it was like nothing had changed.

  How Nate could stomach the sight of him was something Jack still couldn’t work his way around, however. For now he was just trying to lay low and figure out any possible way to atone, even if it was sitting and watching football in a room full of people who hated him. Then again, everyone had been on their best behavior last night, so it hadn’t been all bad. Except for the part with Lola, it had been almost enjoyable.

  The thing about being a social pariah was that everyone already expected the worst from him. It was an odd benefit—when the whole world thought you were a horrendous excuse for a human being, you didn’t have to even try to be civil. Yes, Jack wanted Lola to stay away—for her own benefit. But he hadn’t meant to be such an asshole about it. Having her hand on him fried every part of him, including his brain. He’d had to push her away; it was as much survival for him as it was protection for her.

  “Hey, guys,” Dorie said, coming into the room.

  “Hey,” Nate said, turning so quickly it was like a magnet finding True North. Jack had spent nearly half his life right alongside the man and had never seen anything like it. For not the first time in the last twelve hours, Jack wondered what Lola’s response would have been if he’d actually answered her question about why he’d done what he’d done. Would it help absolve some of this guilt, or would it just turn her away as well?