10. Jake
Chapter ten
Jake
T alk about the newsflash of the decade. Allie has had a huge crush on me for years? I knew she used to stare at me, but I could never tell if it was just because she was a little kid and curious about me or if she disdained me. Now I know. She was into me from day one.
I can’t deny it changes everything between us. Now I feel responsible for her feelings. This isn’t just some hookup between us. This is something more.
The three of us are in my Mercedes, since all of my sports cars only sit two people. After my little sister’s huge mistake of revealing what Allie reminded her was supposed to be a secret, Allie said that Kenz was not going on her date but was coming with us to the dinner. Kenz looks miserable sitting beside Allie in the backseat.
I don’t know much about their friendship, but I know enough to know that something like this won’t tear them apart. It’s like Gator and me. It would take a hell of a lot to break our friendship, and we haven’t even been friends as long as my sister and Allie have been.
The drive to the assistant captain’s house is silent and awkward. Every NHL team has a captain who is the star player or the most point-winning player and for the Eagles, that’s me. My assistant captain is a senior guy in his mid-thirties. He and his wife are a friendly couple with two kids. It’s their house where the dinner is tonight.
I clear my throat. “You know, we can turn back around. Honestly, neither one of you really looks like you want to go tonight.”
Kenz looks on the verge of tears and keeps giving Allie contrite little glances while Allie looks stony faced and refuses to look at me at all. She was red after Kenz told on her, but now she’s just completely checked out, her mind far away.
“I’m sorry, Allie,” Kenz says for the third time.
Allie shakes her head, dismissing my sister.
Kenz looks at me for support, clearly not knowing how to reach her friend. I sigh. I’ll do my best, but I think I am the very last person Allie wants to hear from right now.
“If it means anything, I had a crush on our neighbor’s oldest daughter—Maggie. Remember her?” I ask them. We all lived on the same street growing up. Maggie’s little brother and I used to play outside all the time.
Allie’s stony face softens into a little smirk. Then she laughs and her dark lashes flutter as she looks up at me. “Maggie?” she says. “Library Maggie with the bangs and glasses?” She laughs a little to herself.
“We called her Library Maggie because she got a part-time job there,” Kenz explains to me.
“I didn’t know the frumpy girls were your type,” Allie says, her tone a little icy. She still chooses to focus on all the girls I might have gone out with in my younger and wilder days. I mean, I still do, but just not as often.
I wait until she looks up at me in the rearview mirror before I say, “I never had a type until very recently.”
Her cheeks flush a little, but she doesn’t smile. I don’t know if she’ll ever trust me. But I’m being honest. I find myself liking her the more I get to know her. And by now I’ve seen her in a wide variety of situations, so I think I know her pretty well. She has a solid head on her shoulders, knows what she’s talking about with my physical therapy, and still has enough sass in her to stand up to my bossy little sister. Most girls are fake, from my experience. But Allie is as real as they come. It’s nice.
Kenz looks at me with that knowing look she gets when she’s putting pieces of a puzzle together. She holds her peace, though, not asking what I mean.
“We friends again?” she asks Allie, holding out a hand.
Allie sighs. “We’ll always be friends. Even when your big mouth gets us into trouble.” She takes my sister’s hand and then they chatter away, as if there never was an issue between them.
“So, how do you feel about leaving early tonight, then?” Kenz asks, immediately pushing the limits with Allie. “That way we can still meet up with that guy I matched with?”
Allie shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry, but I can’t be the third wheel again. It wasn’t exactly fun for me last time.”
Kenz frowns. Then she brightens up. “I know! We’ll take Jake. We’ll leave this stupid little team dinner thing around eight o’clock tonight and then we can go to that beach themed bar so you can wear what you have on and not be out of place. It’ll be perfect. You and Jake can talk while I get to know this guy.”
“I don’t know how comfortable I am with you meeting up with so many guys,” Jake says. “It doesn’t seem safe. How well do you know them before you meet up?”
She wrinkles her nose. “We always meet up in a public place. And I don’t really waste any time ‘getting to know them’ on the dating app. People can fake all kinds of things digitally. I would rather see them and get to know them.”
Jake opens his mouth to reply, but she cuts him off.
“Oh my God, Jake. Do not even try to tell me you spend days and days getting to know the girls you match with online before meeting up with them in person. I know for a fact you had just gotten back from the Maldives with your latest little bimbo not two days before Allie started working for the Eagles.” Kenz gives her brother the stink eye. “So don’t judge me.”
My heart drops. Allie will never want to talk to me again given the way Kenz just portrayed that weekend. I mean, she’s right, I was in a tropical paradise with some bikini model. But we didn’t exactly get along. She wanted to take photos with me and of me to put all over her social media. Her main focus was growing her following and making it look like she was rich and famous. She wasn’t. I felt used, so I sent her home early and just chilled by myself on the islands.
Allie’s gaze is full of judgement and condescension when she looks at me. Then she tightens her ponytail and says pertly, “I think the two of you have issues. Why use people like that? Why not commit to just one person? I don’t get it.” She glares at me and then stares out the window.
“Ouch!” Kenz says, swatting Allie. “Careful or you’ll come across like a prude.”
Little does Kenz know, but Allie is not a prude. She’s sexually free and exciting, but it does sound like she is much pickier with her partners than my sister and I are.
She continues to lecture Allie on how her own dating app approach is the best because she gets to vet lots and lots of men and that one day she’ll find the perfect guy…
I’ve heard it all before. She tells our mother this every time we get together for a holiday. But I know better. Kenz was deeply traumatized when she was twenty. She dated a professional athlete who was eleven years older than her. He used her and then tossed her aside for an even younger girl. Kenz hates all athletes for this reason.
I glance at Allie in the rearview mirror. I know Kenz never told Allie the real reason she and the athlete broke up. I was half a country away working on my career, so I didn’t get the chance to stand up to the guy for Kenz. I don’t know if she’ll ever recover enough to trust a man again.
“You know what?” I say, suddenly deciding what I want to do tonight. “I will go out with you two tonight. It’ll be fun to meet a guy you’re dating, Kenz. But you better know that I’ll never approve of him, unless he’s some sort of saint.”
She snorts. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black!” she quips.
Allie looks at me, alarmed. We pull up to a huge house with at least ten cars parked out front. Lots of families hustle about as they unload their kids and toys from the cars and head around the side of the house to the huge backyard.
“You don’t have to go out after. You should stay here with your friends and teammates. I’ll just get an Uber back to your place and Kenz can go on her date alone. We don’t all need to go out. That would be, um,” Allie’s voice drops off, then she shrugs, “weird.”
I see Gator just pulling up in a sports car, revving the engine and making all the kids jump up and down, demanding that he do it again. I look in the rearview mirror and catch Kenz looking at my friend from under lowered lashes. I shove the car into park and turn to both girls in the backseat.
“I’m sure it goes without saying that every single dude here is completely off limits to the both of you tonight.” I let my gaze linger on my sister. “You don’t even like athletes, remember?”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “I wouldn’t dream of it, big brother. I was just looking at that guy’s car. Not at the guy himself.”
My eyes move to Allie. She’s also looking over toward Gator, but unlike my sister, I would believe that Allie really is only looking at the car. Kenz gets out and immediately flounces over to the car, ever the extravert ready to make conversation. I lock eyes with Gator and shake my head, but he waves me off as he steps out of his car and grins at Kenz.
I trust him. He won’t try anything with her. Not that she’d let him actually do anything with her. She’s like a skittish horse around athletes.
“You think she knows?” Allie asks me as we get out of the car and meet at the front bumper, watching Kenz check out Gator’s flashy yellow car.
I look at Allie for a long moment, admiring the shine of her dark hair and the little tilt of her nose, and then when those baby blue eyes move to meet my gaze, I actually feel my heart do a flip-flop in my chest. I have no idea exactly when I started having strong feelings for her, but I know after learning about her crush earlier that I have to be careful with her.
I swallow my attraction to her and clear my throat. I try to tear my eyes away, but it’s like she’s gravity constantly pulling me to her in a grounding force that leaves me breathless and in need of more.
I force a cavalier look on my face, about to put a wedge between Allie and me so that I don’t end up totally crushing her by leading her on. I can’t give her what she needs. I think today reminded me of that. Kenz knows me well. She’s my sister. And she reminded me, in so many ways, that I am not the settling down type. And that means I can’t let myself get attached to Allie. Allie is the settling down type, I’m very certain.
“Nah. I mean, there’s nothing to know anyway, is there?”
I watch as Allie’s walls go up. With a cold little nod of her head, she turns from me and marches toward Kenz. If letting her go—encouraging her to let go of me—is the right thing to do, why do I feel like an absolute monster who just made the dumbest mistake of his life right now?