Chapter 13
My intentions were noble when I set out for the bathroom. I swear it. Put a Bible under my hand and I will—okay, well, that’s taking it too far because clearly my intentions were as noble as sin.
I’m standing in the middle of Jake’s bedroom, looking around with hungry eyes. I’m a jewel thief inside Tiffany’s, and I don’t know where to start.
Jake was on a work call when I left him, and Sam was in the living room. I walked toward the downstairs bathroom, innocent as the day I was born, until I was out of Jake’s eye line. Then I shut the bathroom door from the outside—I obviously missed my calling as a spy of some sort—and hurried down the hall to where I suspected Jake’s room to be.
I don’t know why I feel the overwhelming need to be in here. I think it’s because Jake still feels like a mystery to me, and I’m hoping that if I have this inside look at his personal life, I’ll stumble across the secret to who he is. During our last five days of training camp, Jake has been kind and friendly. But that’s it. Nothing more. Nada. His attention is zeroed in on Sam or work or Daisy. He smiles at me. He asks if I want anything to drink. But that’s it.
I wouldn’t think anything strange about it if it weren’t for the texts I get like clockwork every night. I’ve never been so glued to my phone before. It always starts with something innocuous and then quickly dips into flirtatious. It’s like he has another Jacob Broaden stuffed in a closet somewhere and only lets him out after eight P.M.
I open his closet, and unfortunately, no one jumps out. It’s so tidy, though. Everything hung nice and neat. By now, I’ve discovered that Jake is an obsessive cleaner. He puts things away as soon as he gets them out. And he must do a thorough sweep of all surfaces every night after Sam goes to bed, because by the morning everything is spic-and-span.
As I look under his bed, I realize I’m borderline stalker-woman right now. It’s creepy that I’m tiptoeing around his room, running my fingers across his rumpled gray bedspread, and smiling that he makes it to perfection before he leaves in the morning. I really want to pick up his folded T-shirt and smell it . . . but I said that I was only borderline creepy, so I refrain.
The ugly truth is, I saw the signs saying Beware: Crush Ahead, but I blew right past them. Jake has stolen all my brain space.
He is all I think about, and it’s really making me nervous. I don’t want to fall for him. I still feel like he’s too good for me. So, I guess by me tiptoeing around his room like this, I’m sort of just torturing myself with what I’ll never have.
My eyes narrow on a book beside his bed, and my greedy little fingers snatch it up. What does a man like Jake read before he goes to bed?
Twilight?!No. You’ve got to be kidding me. This one life choice of his has me rethinking everything. There’s no other explanation for a thirty-three-year-old man reading a book about teenage vampire love: he’s a weirdo.
Yes, I realize that’s rich coming from a woman snooping around a man’s bedroom.
“Find anything interesting?” Jake’s voice sounds from behind me, and I snap the book shut and spin around to face him, holding the book behind my back.
I’m caught red-handed. The jewels are behind my back, and it’s incriminating enough to send me to prison for the rest of my life. I don’t dare speak. I have the right to remain silent. I’ve seen enough cop shows to know that anything I say will be held against me in a court of law.
“Whatcha got there?” He’s smiling, and I’m turning into a tomato.
“I was looking for the bathroom.”
“In my bedside table?”
He’s stalking toward me, and I’m quaking in my tennis shoes. Where’s Charlie when I need him? Attack, boy!
Jake stops just in front of me, so close that I can feel the heat rushing off him in waves, and I have to tip my head up to look at him. It’s doing nothing to help my flaming cheeks. I don’t think he’s ever stood this close to me before, and I’m wondering if maybe this is eight-P.M. Jacob Broaden, freshly escaped from whatever cell he’s normally kept in.
He reaches around me, his arm brushing against my shoulder, and I think I accidentally shudder. No, I know I do because he notices and smirks. Hello, eight-P.M. Jake.
After retrieving the evidence from behind my back, he chuckles. I can’t look away and neither can he. He’s holding the book between us now but doesn’t bother to look down at it. “Were you about to call Child Protection Services to have Sam removed from my guardianship after seeing this?”
“The number is halfway typed in my phone.” I don’t like how wobbly my voice sounds. But how else am I supposed to sound when I’m face to chest with a superhero who just finished fighting crime? Because that’s clearly what Jake is. It’s the only logical explanation for all the muscles.
He smiles. “Sam said she wanted to read it, so I thought I would read it first to see if it’s appropriate for her.”
“A likely story.” I can’t let him know that I think he’s probably the best dad I’ve ever seen. The way he loves and cares for Sam only adds to my attraction for him.
“It’s not at all an appropriate book for her.” His eyes drop to my mouth. “Too much longing and wanting.”
Between Edward and Bella, right? Because my mind is screaming that he’s talking about us, and I have no idea what to do with that information. I want Jake to like me; I want him to want me. But I also don’t dare believe that he really does. I don’t have anything to offer him.
“By the way, your boss is here,” he mentions casually, as if that isn’t the most startling information I’ve heard all day. It has the same effect on me as a hypnotist snapping their fingers.
My head rears back. “Joanna?!”
He nods, but his eyes are still trying to tell me something. “That’s why I came to get you. But I figured I should let you have a few minutes to creep around my room first.”
My cheeks heat again. “You knew I was in here the whole time?”
His smile grows. “I don’t mind. Snoop anytime you want.”
“Why would you be okay with that?” It’s a dare as much as it is a real question.
He’s quiet for a minute, then he looks over my shoulder as if he can’t look me in the eye when he answers. “I guess I . . . want you to get to know me.”
“Oh.”
His eyes hook mine again. “So, we can be real friends. Not just work friends.”
Oh.
Again with this friend crap?I try not to let my dejection write itself across my face, but it’s probably no use. I’ve never been good at hiding my feelings. He’s probably reading a Post-it on my forehead at this very moment: Hi, I’m Evie. I want you to like me romantically, but you don’t, so I’ll cry on my car ride home.
“Do you know why Joanna is here?” I’m ripping the Post-it off and changing the subject. “She never comes to my training days anymore.”
He shrugs his big shoulders, and I’m mesmerized by how the fabric of his shirt pulls tight. “I guess you’re in trouble.”
Not likely. If I had to guess, I would say that Joanna is going to be the one in trouble at the end of this day.
I try to step around Jake, but he cuts me off. Maybe Jake isn’t the only superhuman, because I halt my body so fast that I almost knock myself backward. Thanks to my reaction time, neither of us are touching, but that doesn’t help all the chills racing across my body.
“Wait. I want to know what you think of my room.” His voice is playful, and this is seriously throwing me off.
He’s like a bully who pulls my hat down over my eyes in the hallway and then keeps spinning me in reverse circles so I’m never able to catch my bearing. Business. Flirting. Stoic. Friends. Flirting. Quiet.
But he’s very clearly not going to let me leave this room without an answer, so I sigh and take a long, exaggerated look around the room (as if I didn’t already do a thorough investigation a few minutes ago).
“It’s nice,” I say and then get ready to leave.
“No, no, no. Tell me what’s going on in your head. What do you think? What stuck out to you?”
“Why do you want to know?”
He smiles. “Because . . . I don’t know. I just do.”
“Okayyy. I like the vaulted ceilings.” Ceilings are neutral, right?
“What else?” His smirk says this is some sort of game to him, but I haven’t figured out the rules yet. Or the objective.
“You’re being weird.”
“Says the uninvited woman standing in my bedroom after going through my side table.”
“Right. Well . . . I guess I like that you make your bed.”
He chuckles, deep and full, and I’m pretty sure that if my hand were on his chest, I would feel the rumble of it all the way up my arm. “I knew that’s what you’d like most. I wanted to see if I was right. And I was.”
I narrow my eyes. “No you did not! How could you possibly have known that?”
He shrugs again. “I guess because I picture your place being messy.” He’s pictured my place?
“Should I take offense to that?”
“Not at all. I just mean that you . . . you’re not uptight. Life moves too fast for you to take time to put your things away. It’s refreshing.”
Oh good. The claw of heat is creeping up my neck again, and I’m about to be full-on strawberry. “I haven’t confirmed that my place is messy.”
He looks down at me and lifts a brow. “Is it?”
My shoulders slump. “Yes. But I want to make my bed from now on like you make yours. This looks nice.” I touch his bedspread one more time.
He smiles, and those shoulders of mine are perking right back up. I need to get out of here. He’s being strange, and I like it way too much. It makes me wonder if maybe his house is so clean because he needs someone else to help him and Sam live in it a little more. Someone like me. And maybe I need someone like him to help me keep my things in order.
“I need to see what Joanna is doing here.” I move past him, and this time I don’t avoid touching him. In fact, my arm brushes over his as I pass, and I could swear I feel his fingers extend to lightly fan against mine as I do.