by Reid, Roxy
He looks down at me affectionately. His eyes darken like they do when he wants to kiss me. For a second, I think he’s going to say something crazy like, “Because I love you,” and the thought is terrifying and wonderful all at once.
Instead, Jack gives me a lazy smile and says, “Because you keep wearing that dress on cold nights. Don’t you have something warmer?”
Oh. Good. A normal answer. Nothing crazy. Why am I disappointed?
“Also, it’s the sort of thing a fiancé would do. Speaking of which …” He shifts in front of me and lowers his head so he can speak softly in my ear. “This is the PDA balcony.”
I blink up at him, confused. “What?”
“At Dan’s parties, couples only come out on the balcony to fight or make-out. So, if we’re going to stay out here and keep our cover, we should start fighting or …” He wiggles his eyebrows comedically.
I whap him on the shoulder with my clutch. “That cannot possibly be true. Everyone inside would be able to see!”
Jack takes my drink and sets it down on the ground next to us, next to his own drink. “That’s kind of the point.”
“How can that possibly be the point?” I demand.
He takes a hand and cups the back of my neck. When he looks down at me, his eyes are hot.
“It’s about possession. It’s about telling everyone in there, she’s mine, don’t even think about it. Or sometimes, it’s about one person in there, saying, I’m not yours, and I never will be. Normally, an engaged couple wouldn’t be out here.” He brushes his thumb over my engagement ring. “This thing does all the possessing for me. But since we’re out here …”
I glance at the other people around me, surprised to see that Jack’s right. What started off as focused conversations have turned into public displays of affection between most of the couples. People are keeping it almost appropriate—a kiss that lingers a little too long, a hand on the waist that grips a little too hard, a couple that stands a little too close. Everyone knows they’re being watched, and everyone’s just a little too far gone to care.
Jack releases the back of my neck. “Never mind. We can go back inside. Who cares what people normally do out here?”
I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him. I know it’s a bad idea, but after days of not touching him, I can’t resist the excuse.
Fuck, it’s so worth it. His breath stutters against my lips like he doesn’t quite believe this is happening, and then his hands are in my hair, and he’s kissing me hard while I clutch his shirt like I’m drowning.
It’s barely been a week since we fucked, but I can already feel myself getting desperate to have him again. I step into him, pressing myself against all his glorious hardness. I shudder at how good it feels.
Whose idea was it to stop sleeping together, again?
Jack breaks the kiss. I rise up to kiss him again, but he takes hold of my shoulders and forces me back a step.
“We can’t do this, Eva,” he says, his voice rough.
“I can,” I say. I need his lips back on me. “It’s not real when we’re here. We’re just pretending. You can do anything you want to me.”
“It’s real to me,” he says. “I can’t do this and then go home and not touch you.”
He’s all flashing eyes and male strength, and for a moment, I want nothing more than to keep tempting him. Kiss him until he can’t take anymore, damn my broken heart, damn our friendship, and damn everything that isn’t his body moving over mine, making me his in the dark.
He takes a deep breath. Getting himself under control. “I mean, I can, obviously. You said you don’t want us to cross that line anymore, so we won’t. Please. Don’t torture me like this. I thought I could handle it, but …” He shakes his head ruefully.
I pull his jacket tighter around me in the cold.
Jack picks up our cocktails. “Let’s go home.”
“Don’t you need to talk to your colleague? Ben?”
“Dan. I saw him inside when I was getting drinks. After the way I was kissing you, he’ll have a good idea why I’m leaving.” Jack’s laugh is bitter.
I hate that I’ve made him feel bitter. I hate that I’ve made him pretend. I want to grab the cocktail glasses from him and dash them to the ground just to hear the glass shatter.
I hate that I can’t believe he’s really falling for me.
We go back inside. He steers me through the crowd, one hand on my back.
As soon as we make it out of his colleague’s apartment and into the hallway and the door clicks behind us, Jack pulls his hand away. I know he’s not going to touch me again until our next public function, and I pretty much just guaranteed that future touch won’t be a kiss.
We walk the rest of the way home in silence.
17
Jack
Hey, Eva. I know we haven’t talked in a while. Just wanted to say congratulations on graduating. Our graduation was this week, so I’m assuming yours was soon, too? Humphrey Collins was our fucking valedictorian. What a prick. See, this is why you shouldn’t have left. If you’d stayed, you would have been valedictorian, and no one would have given Humphrey a microphone.
P.S. You never said. Did you pick Stanford or Columbia?
—Jack McBride, email to Eva Price, weekend of his high school graduation
A week after the fucking party at Dan’s, I find myself pretending to be engaged to Eva at yet another event. In some ways, this one’s a lot easier. In other ways, this one’s a lot harder.
This one is my mom’s birthday party, and she is fucking delighted about Eva and me. It’s a relatively small party at my parent’s mansion in Montclair, New Jersey. They bought it a few years ago because my mom wanted, “a place the grandkids can run around in.”
Since neither Mel nor I have plans to have kids any time soon, I feel like buying a whole mansion is a little premature, but my mom is ready to be a grandma.
In the meantime, she’s using it to host elaborate weekend-long themed parties for her New York friends. Recent themes include, but are not limited to: “The Titanic,” “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “Disney But with Booze,” “Indiana Jones,” and “This One Doesn’t Have A Theme, We’re Just Wearing Stretchy Pants and Drinking Rosé.”
Mostly, my dad sits in the corner reading the paper during these parties, but if my mom gives him a themed hat, he will wear it. Every now and then, he’ll just look at my mom over the top of his newspaper and smile like he’s the luckiest man in the world.
Since this is my mom’s birthday and my dad did the planning, it means no costumes, only half a day, and a guest list of our immediate family, my mom’s siblings, and a few of her closest friends.
And, of course, Eva.
I stand in the corner, nursing a mug of spiked apple cider and pretending to listen to my uncle Anders. Actually, I’m watching Eva.
I’m watching her laugh with my mom and charm my mom’s friends. She’s wearing this soft blue sweater that slides over her curves, making them look eminently touchable, and she’s let her hair hang down so that it swirls around her when she moves, and she keeps having to push it out of her face. She moves around a lot.
There’s nothing still about Eva. To think I thought I could get her to hold still long enough for me to win her.
“Hey. You. I need to talk to you.”
I look down to see Mel poking my shoulder. Mel is the shortest person in my family—she takes after my late grandma—but she makes up for it with volume and bossiness. Normally, she’s in a suit, but today’s she’s slumming it in jeans and her old college sweatshirt.
She grabs my elbow. “Excuse me, Anders, I need to talk to my brother.” She hauls me off to the kitchen before I can have a say in the matter.
Once we’re in the kitchen, she turns around and closes the door behind us so that we can talk without the rest of the party overhearing us.
I frown. “Mel, is something wrong?”
She goes to the pantry and pulls out a bag of potato
chips. “That’s what I was going to ask you.”
“Why would you think something is wrong?”
“Because you’re back to looking at Eva like you did right before she moved to California. Which is kind of weird, considering that you’re about to get married and live together forever.”
Fuck. Is it that obvious?
I make myself roll my eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You were finally going to ask her out in high school. Then, before you could, she left, and you moped around the house all depressed. Then she moved back for college, and, suddenly, you acted like you had no interest in anything but friendship. Which would be totally fine. Almost no one ends up with the person they had a crush on high school.”
I snag a few potato chips. “This is all ancient history, Mel.”
“It was until there was a photo of you trying to suck her tonsils out. Then you announce you’re secretly engaged. I think, ‘Oh. Weird. But I can see them making each other happy. Good for Jack. He finally grew a pair.’”
This time, I take the whole bag of potato chips. “I still don’t see where this is going.”
“Then, you show up today, and instead of acting like you got the girl of your dreams—or, you know, even acting relaxed and happy ‘cause it’s your mom’s birthday—you spend the whole time staring at Eva like she is the girl of your dreams, but you’ve tragically lost her, and now you must wander the moors, suffering in silence.”
“You’ve been watching too much BBC again,” I deflect. “What is it with women and moors?”
“See, that joke isn’t even funny by your standards. The only time you’re this un-funny is the first few weeks after a bad breakup when you’re heartbroken.” She takes the chips back from me, peeking into the bag to see how much is left. Then she looks up and sees my face. “Oh my God. You broke up with her, and for some reason, you’re lying to everyone about it.”
Shit. She’s getting too close to the truth. I need to come up with a lie. Or just tell Mel she’s wrong and go back to the party.
Mel lays a gentle hand on my arm. “Jack? What’s wrong.”
My bossy, annoying big sister is gentle with me because she can tell just by looking at me that I’m not okay. Suddenly, I’m just too tired to lie.
I sink to the floor.
Mel sits down on the floor across from me like we would do back home when we were kids. She holds out the chips. “Come on. Take some carbs and tell me what’s wrong.”
I sigh. “I really shouldn’t. I don’t want you having to lie for me.”
“Jack. You are my baby brother, and you’re miserable. I don’t care if it makes my life difficult. Tell me what’s wrong. Did Eva break up with you?”
I sigh. “No. Because we were never together.”
“What?”
“The night the photographer got that photo. That was the first time she’d kissed me. Well, other than … I’d kissed her earlier, but it was kind of an accident, not a real kiss. Then she kissed me.”
Mel blinks. “So, you said you were engaged after one kiss? Because of the reporters?”
“No. We hooked up, and it was amazing. The next morning we woke up to, you know, you yelling at me about the photo and a reporter asking Eva if she’d slept her way into a job or if I was sexually harassing her. When Eva came up with the idea for the fake engagement, it seemed like the best solution.”
“Which is when you stopped sleeping together,” Mel nods like she finally understands what’s going on.
“Which is when she moved into my apartment, and we kept sleeping together.”
Mel winces. “Oh. Moving in together is rough. I’ve seen it destroy plenty of couples.”
“But it wasn’t rough! It was great. That’s actually why Eva wanted to stop sleeping together. She said the friends-with-benefits thing was fun, but now that we were living together, she could see herself falling for me for real, and she wanted to stop before we ruined the friendship.”
“Hold the phone.” Mel holds up a hand to stop me. “All this time you were doing friends with benefits, you didn’t tell her you’re in fucking love with her?
“If I tell her and she’s not there yet, she’ll freak out! Then she’ll move out, and I’ll never get a chance again. I was trying to ease her into it. Slowly. We were planning on a six-month engagement, and then one year of being married before we divorced. I thought I had enough time.”
Mel stares at me, her mouth hanging open. “Oh my God. You are the dumbest man in the world.”
“Hey.”
Mel starts pelting me with potato chips. “You have known her for twenty-five fucking years. How much more time do you need?”
I snatch the potato chips from Mel. Out of ammunition, she just glares at me, her hands on her hips.
Finally, she sighs. “Okay. So, she told you she could imagine herself falling for you. And you said …”
“I said, what if I’m falling for you, too? Then she said we needed to go back to being friends like I hadn’t said anything at all. So that answers that.” I stare down numbly into the potato chips.
Mel sighs again, this time, even bigger and more long-suffering. She leans forward and takes my face between her hands. “Look into my eyes, Jack. She acted like you hadn’t said anything because you hadn’t said anything. Eva’s always in a relationship, even when she shouldn’t be. You’re never in relationships, even when you should be. So she needs more than what if. She needs, at the very least, ‘I have already completely fallen for you, and I want a real relationship.’ Personally, I’d go big or go home and just say, ‘Hi, I’m Jack McBride. I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen and probably will be until the day I die.’”
I shove her hands away from my face. “That’s easy for you to say. When was the last time you put your heart on the line?”
“Jack,” Mel says quietly. “That’s exactly why I’m telling you this. It’s not going to hurt any less if she leaves without you telling her how you feel. Trust me.”
This time, I’m the one who reaches out and gently touches her arm. “Hey. Do you want to talk about it? We’re already on the floor with the junk food.”
Mel gags. “Fuck no. My shit’s in the past. There is not enough alcohol in the world to bring that pain up again.”
I toss a potato chip at her, and she cracks a smile. For a while, we just sit there eating potato chips on the floor in companionable silence.
The kitchen door swings open, and my dad walks in, carrying a tray of empty cocktail glasses.
“Uh-oh. Floor sitting. Is everyone all right?”
Mel hauls herself to her feet. “We’re fine. Jack’s just in love and being a wimp about it. Got any fatherly advice?”
“Sure. Don’t be a wimp about it.” He sets the empty glasses by the sink and goes back to the party.
Mel looks down at me. “Well. You heard the man. Don’t be a wimp about it.”
I sigh. “Do you know his business advice is like that, too? It’s a miracle I ever figured out how to run anything.”
Mel gives me her hand, and I let her pull me up and shove me back into the party.
As I walk into the room, Eva glances over, and our eyes meet.
That moment is exactly like it is in the movies—my world tilts, the sun comes out, the birds start singing. She’s so beautiful that I can’t breathe. It doesn’t seem fair to be able to love a person this much. It feels like a pretty big design flaw if I’m honest. This ability to feel so much when she feels so little.
Except, what if she could really fall for me?
Mel pats me on the back, saying, “Don’t be a wimp,” and then she struts over to give our mom and Eva fresh cocktails.
I return to my spot in the corner, but this time I’m feeling something dangerously like hope.
18
Eva
WHY ARE YOU KEEPING A SECRET FROM ME???? I AM YOUR BEST. FRIEND. It’s bad enough you got to go to Greece for spring break.
But now you come back with a secret. A secret you won’t tell YOUR BEST FRIEND. You stole something ancient didn’t you? Tell me the truth.
—Eva Price, note passed in class to Jack McBride, fifth grade
A few days after Jack’s mom’s party, I’m in the air somewhere over the Atlantic on my way to Greece. Jack’s sitting to my right. We’re in first class, naturally. Originally, I wasn’t supposed to come on this trip, but in my current role as his fake fiancée, Jack said I might as well come. Greece seemed like an excellent distraction.
It’s a relatively simple trip. Apparently, Jack tries to check in on each of their biggest hotels once a year, just to maintain good relations with each hotel’s leadership team, check on the customer experience, and make sure everything is running smoothly. Except, he’s had to cancel on Greece two years in a row, and they’re a little salty about it.
That doesn’t explain why Jack’s staring out the window pensively, though. He’s been quiet ever since his mom’s birthday party. Not upset or worried. Just quiet.
If anything, he seems kind of optimistic.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I ask.
He turns and looks at me. Then he smiles enigmatically. “I’ll tell you later.”
“See! You’re doing it again,” I say. “Either you’re staring out the window, or you’re staring at me, and you’re being weird about it.”
He looks past me and signals the flight attendant for refills on our drinks. “I forgot how much it bugs you when I know something you don’t.”
“It doesn’t bug me.”
Jack looks at me with raised eyebrows.
“Okay, yes, it bugs me,” I say. “I work in an industry where secrets blow up in my face all the time. I like to be informed.”
“Nah, you’re just nosy.”
I punch Jack playfully, and he flashes a smile that takes my breath away.
Why does he have to be so him?
“Tell you what. I promise I’ll tell you before we get back to New York,” he says.