15. Then
15
THEN
Brooke’s boots crunched along the snowy, frozen ground. The night was sparkling. She’d grown up with her fair share of snow, but it never lost its magic. Especially when a once-in-a-lifetime storm blew through. Fat flakes came down while she followed Kieran and Chels hauling a full-size kayak up the side of Arthur’s Seat—the steepest sledding hill next to Mount Rainier. Rohan and Jack led the way.
While the idea belonged to Chels, the kayak belonged to Rohan. And wherever Rohan went these days, Jack went. Jack struck Brooke as a person with common sense and a survival instinct, not someone who frequently entertained the idea of careening down a sporadically rocky hill under patchy snow cover. Her chest radiated heat at the thought of why he’d agreed to this completely bonkers activity.
She knew why she was here. Being around Jack was addictive. As was the rush she’d found blowing off studying and trying something new. Her writing felt amazing lately, like she’d leveled up or tapped into a higher energy source. She felt inspired and buzzy.
“You’re doing great.” Rohan swung his arms as he walked beside Kieran struggling with the kayak grip. “Quite impressive.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Kieran said, dropping the kayak to flip Rohan off and earning a disgruntled “Could you be any more useless ?” from Chels.
Jack laughed under his breath, his arm brushing against Brooke’s as they trekked upward into the darkness. He’d lent Brooke and Chels headlamps, and the golden light cast bobbing halos at their feet.
It was probably unsafe to choose footing based on the proximity to Jack’s body instead of other, better things, like stability and lack of loose gravel. Maybe that made her a bit desperate, but this longing to see him had morphed from silly and fun into something heavy and insistent. Being around him was exhilarating. Swimming in freezing water had left her with a thirst for adventure she’d never felt before. And also an unquenchable ache for Jack. She wanted to major in the furrow of his eyebrows, the crinkle of his eyes, and the low roll of his accent.
She loved that he was vulnerable. That he shared about the pressure of expectations and the feelings of being lost. Loved that he’d told her about the Scott Monument instead of laughing at her when she’d exposed what a nerd she really was for coming to Edinburgh for the literary history. He didn’t think less of her and her failed attempt at wild swimming.
She felt safe telling him things. She wanted to impress him but she didn’t feel like she had to, and that was remarkably special in her world.
“This is the spot,” Rohan declared from somewhere above them. Even without supporting the kayak, Brooke’s ragged breaths came out in white puffs, illuminated by the headlamps. Her winter jacket was no match for the damp cold of the air this close to the sea, but she was flushed from the exertion. By the time she made it to the flat shelf, her thighs burned from the climb.
Kieran and Chels hauled the kayak over the lip and both collapsed in a sprawl, like they might make snow angels the second their strength returned. Rohan made a move toward the front seat but Kieran wrapped his arms around Rohan’s leg. “I’m going first if it’s the last thing I fucking do,” Kieran said, punctuating his words with gasping breaths.
“It’s my kayak.”
“Irrelevant.” Kieran hoisted himself up and steadied the boat, hooking a leg over the open side.
Chels put a hand on his chest to stop him. “I’m taking the front. This was my idea.”
“And I did the bulk of the heavy lifting.”
“You absolutely did not.” Chels slipped into the front seat and Kieran moved to the back, grumbling, and they fisted their gloved hands in the snow, rocking back and forth.
“On my count—”
“No, on my count,” Chels said.
“One—”
“One, two—”
Rohan adjusted his black hat with soft red and orange spikes, and Brooke winced before he yelled, “Three!” and dived in behind Kieran, sending them all bombing down the hill.
Chels’s high-pitched scream and Kieran’s broken curses reached them like smoke billowing behind a steam train.
Brooke held her breath as she stared into the darkness below, the hiss of sliding along snow interrupted by thuds and bangs as her friends hit rocks on the way down.
Maybe she wasn’t feeling that adventurous after all. She wasn’t ready to get a concussion and end the night early, especially when she was up here— all alone —with Jack.
She turned to find him watching her, lit in the dusty tones of the snow-filled sky, a shy smile on his lips. It made her bite her own, her heart twirling in her chest like the snowflakes all around them, a delicious dance of anticipation.
A crash sounded, followed by a cheer erupting from somewhere far away.
Jack shook his head with a huff of laughter and unzipped his backpack, pulling out three bottles of red wine.
“What do we have here?”
“Mulled wine. Or, it will be.” He rummaged in his bag, retrieving a small camp stove, igniting it with a lighter he slipped from his pocket. The purple flames glowed bright in the night, sending shadows dancing along the snow.
“Oh, so you’re outdoorsy .” Brooke liked a man confident enough in himself to bring a camp stove to uni. She hadn’t been camping since she moved here, but she could totally see herself getting back into it, especially if Jack was the one sharing her tent.
He flashed her a grin, white teeth and rosy cheeks illuminated by the flame. “I don’t know my way around a filleting knife, so I suppose it’s all relative.” That awareness between them bloomed, like he was collecting her details—tiny, immaterial things—and cataloging them as if they intrigued him.
“Roll that out, would you?” Jack tipped his chin to a yoga mat hooked on the bottom of his pack and Brooke laid it out the best she could, sitting down and trying to keep as much snow off it as possible.
Jack hooked a loose-leaf tea strainer to the edge of the camp stove, the smell of cloves mingling with the fresh, snowy scent of the night.
“Have any oranges for that?” Brooke teased. He was adorably committed to this and while she sat on his yoga mat and he tossed cinnamon sticks into the pot, she wondered if he’d planned this just for her.
“Orange juice .” Jack pulled a pint-size container from his bag. “What do you take me for?”
“A certified sommelier.”
“Ah, then you would be correct.” He handed her an open bag of Pink Panther wafers. “A sous chef, too.”
She pretended to roll her eyes. “What an overachiever.”
He joined her on the mat while the wine heated up, sitting cross-legged, his knee resting atop hers, and the touch that had felt innocent and comforting in the library felt charged here. Made her count her own heartbeats and the minutes before their friends returned.
“How’d the paper turn out?” The heat from his leg seeped through her jeans.
Brooke took a bite of the vanilla wafer, crumbs falling into her lap. “So great. Mhairi said she was going to stop grading for the night but got pulled into my story.” Her chest flushed relaying the praise. Wild swimming, stealing secret glances at a soccer game, and now night hiking in the snow had given her this feeling of drafting grandiosity—and if she kept this up, kept going on excursions with Jack, there was no way she wasn’t getting into Mhairi’s fellowship.
“Did you frame that?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
She nodded. “Obviously. Big gilded one. Sparkles in the light.”
“Just had that lying around?”
“A whole set. I’ve got big dreams, Jack.”
He snatched the wafer from her fingers and ate it. “I know. I like that about you.”
Brooke’s heart went oddly melty. Jack was like the snow, absorbing all the noise in her brain, making her feel cozy and peaceful.
He leaned back on his hand, his shoulder slipping behind hers, his face close enough she could make out the faint flush of his cheeks. His knit hat bowed out where his glasses rested and his hair curled out from underneath the fold. Jack’s eyes dropped to her lips and she was sure the air had crystalized between them the way it shimmered.
“ You do it, then!” Chels shouted, and the crunch of snow beneath boots infiltrated the little bubble of firelight she and Jack had gotten wrapped up in. Brooke’s heart beat like she was about to be discovered breaking into a safe with a stethoscope and a ninja costume.
Jack cleared his throat and stood, blowing heat into his hands as he went to check on the wine. Brooke’s disappointment lingered as Rohan and Chels reappeared and Jack fished honest-to-god wineglasses—albeit plastic ones—from his backpack. He ladled one full for Brooke.
“You sure know how to woo a girl.” Brooke smiled.
“I’m trying as hard as I can.” Jack didn’t inject even a bit of sarcasm in his voice and Brooke’s heart sped up at the confirmation that he had planned this all for her.
Chels picked up an empty glass, holding it out to Jack. “I want to be wooed, too,” she said.
Realizing she’d been overheard, Brooke took a gulp of wine, scalding her entire mouth and letting out a pained cry.
“It’s hot,” Jack said with a wince.
Brooke scooped up a handful of snow with her mittened hand and placed it directly on her tongue. “Gathered that.”
Rohan tutted. “Schoolboy error,” he said and Brooke laughed at the expression.
“We call it a rookie mistake.”
“Oy, we invented the language. Play by the fucking rules. And you!” Rohan shouted, as Kieran emerged victorious from the slope, pushing the kayak over the lip, snow covering his hair and the left side of his face. “Could you take any longer?”
“Maybe if I hadn’t been abandoned!”
Kieran and Rohan scuffled in the snow before they settled into a rock-paper-scissors system for turn-taking. Either all the hollering into the night was infectious or the mulled wine was working overtime because hurtling down a mountain in a water vehicle started to sound exciting to Brooke, too. Like a capture-the-flag kind of wholesome fun.
Brooke circumvented the brothers and Jack was suddenly there. “Need a hand?” he asked, reaching for her waist as she climbed into the back. His touch and the low tone of his voice went straight to Brooke’s head, more potent than the mulled wine, making her feel light and effervescent.
“Mind the boulder halfway down on the right,” Chels said from somewhere far away, too far away to really register the warning when Jack was nudging Kieran aside and hopping in the front.
“Oy,” Kieran objected, but Jack rocked at the top of the ledge and pushed off and then they were careening down the slope.
Rocks scraped the bottom of the kayak and the blows sent shockwaves reverberating through Brooke’s bones. The wind they created blew across her face and whipped her hair backward. Jack’s silhouette was dark against the twinkling city lights before them.
The freedom of flying coursed through Brooke as they slid along a stretch that must’ve been straight mud. She would’ve thrown her arms out wide if she didn’t have a death grip on the rim of the boat.
The kayak shifted and tilted, then slammed against the side of a boulder.
She was weightless for a breathless moment, then rolling, snow in her face, hands grabbing for purchase.
Brooke knocked into Jack’s body, her momentum sending her sprawling on top of him. She braced herself with hands by his shoulders, snow soaking through her jeans at the knees where she straddled his waist.
In the glow of the moonlight, she could see his eyes locked on her mouth, could feel his fingers splayed across her hips, could sense that he wasn’t shifting her away. Her breath came in heavy pants, mingling with the white puffs of his.
Her heartbeat kicked a bass drum in her chest to the beat of want, want, want . There was a long list of reasons she absolutely should not make out with Jack Sutherland on the side of a snowy mountain at night, but something about the darkness and the adrenaline made her forget every last one of them.
“Jack,” she said and her voice sounded husky in the darkness. Her hair hung around his face, snow caught in the dark strands.
“Don’t say my name like that,” he said, his voice gravelly.
Her pulse pounded in her temples—in her fingertips, between her legs—with the knowledge of the ledge they were straddling. Of how easy it would be to tip over the side. “Jack,” she said again.
His fingers flexed, gripping her hips, and a low growl fell from his lips. Lips she couldn’t resist for a second longer.
She leaned down and kissed him. Pressed hard against the softness of his mouth. Jack’s hands immediately moved, one sliding to her lower back, the other slipping beneath her hair, both pulling her closer. His mouth slanted against hers and she met every tangle of his tongue, hot and insistent, excitement pulsing in her veins like starlight.
The cold tip of Jack’s nose brushed her cheek as he changed the angle of the kiss, the pressure of his fingers in her hair tightening. She moaned into his mouth and his arm banded across her waist, pulling her tighter. She rolled her hips against the hardness she felt between her legs and his hand fell to her thigh, squeezing. Jack groaned, the vibration buzzing across her lips, and she kissed him deeper, her tongue sliding against his.
Kieran called from up in the dark, “Oy! Did you two die?”
Brooke sat up, heart pounding, as if Kieran could see them all the way down here in the dark. Jack’s hands fell from her body and cold flooded the warm handprint he’d left on her leg.
His attention still trained on Brooke, his breath came in heavy pants. “We’re coming,” he shouted. To her, he whispered, “We can’t do this,” and even though his voice was breathy and light, it slammed into her all the same.
She scrambled off him as swirling black mortification snuffed out the starlight.
They took an endless number of trips down the hill, but Jack’s retreat had completely wiped out the fun, turning Brooke’s buzz to a pounding headache. She’d been delusional to think kissing Jack was okay.
As soon as Kieran got to the top and threw himself on his back in exhaustion, Jack packed up his backpack and Brooke grabbed the front of the kayak to help carry it down the hill. She was ready to get out of here, away from the way he avoided her gaze and not in a secretly seductive way.
“Are you mental? We’re riding it down!” Rohan shouted.
Kieran and Chels clambered in and Rohan took a running leap onto the back, shunting them down the hill. Their buzz was still fully intact.
After a chorus of bumps and bangs, followed by cheers and hollers, Brooke could barely make out the shapes of Rohan, Kieran, and Chels at the bottom of the hill. Damn . She hoped they hadn’t been able to see her draped across Jack earlier, even in shadow.
Her friends raised the kayak above them as they rushed down to the sidewalk ringing Arthur’s Seat, looking like rats absconding with a footlong sub.
The crunch of Jack’s boots reminded her that they were alone in the dark. The air so still and quiet, she could hear her own heart beating. Brooke took wild steps down the hill, needing to put space between them, to get away from the silence between them that no longer felt like charged anticipation but suffocating tension.
She shouldn’t have kissed him. She considered apologizing, except that was beyond disingenuous. She didn’t feel sorry. Especially not after Jack had kissed her back the way he had. But she didn’t know where they went from here, how they found their way back to the easy companionship they’d found. If she’d wrecked it all.
At the bottom, they crossed to the sidewalk, the path looking sleepy from the golden streetlights muted by the fog. Romantic, under different circumstances.
She wanted to ask if he regretted it. If once that magical spell in the snow snapped, and reality had come rushing back in, if all the consequences outweighed that moment. But she didn’t really want to hear the answer if he did.
Brooke rolled her shoulders, her anxiety taking up too much space inside her chest. Jack walked beside her, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes straight ahead.
“You know why, right?” he asked.
Embarrassment flushed through her. Of course she knew why they should never have crossed the line. Why she shouldn’t have. “Yeah.”
“It’s against university policy. It’s a huge conflict of interest. Even though I’m not your TA, since we’re friends with Rohan, it could look like he was being pressured to give you special treatment. It’s possible I could lose my job, or there could be consequences for you. We can’t.”
“Oh my god, you really don’t have to lay it out. I get it.” She adjusted her hat over her forehead. This was worse than him freezing under her in the snow. She didn’t need him to chastise her like she was in the principal’s office. She’d gone way too far on this quest for adventure, gotten reckless and greedy from the rush of it.
“I’m trying to be responsible.”
Brooke wanted to take a darkened side street detour just to get away from this. She wanted to bury herself in her coat or jump down a manhole. “Seriously. It’s fine—”
He caught her wrist, his finger slipping inside the cuff, brushing against the soft skin of her wrist. Her eyes fluttered closed at the chill and the heat dancing across her skin simultaneously. She turned toward him.
“Please don’t confuse this with indifference,” he said, his face golden in the streetlight, deep grooves shadowed between his brows. “I don’t want to jeopardize what either of us has going on.”
“Yeah.” She twisted her wrist and Jack released her.
“Brooke,” he called but she kept walking. She needed to lick her wounds out of his sight.