Chapter 11
60 hours until the wedding
Jack and I retreat to opposite sides of the bed—him frowning at his phone and me mindlessly flipping through the five-year-old copy of Tatler someone left on the end table—until I hear footsteps on the landing followed by a knock on the door. Rap, rap, rap. “Hello? Mr. and Mrs. Houghton? I brought you some extra sheets,” our host says through the door.
Neither Jack nor I move. We both stay frozen in place, eyes darting to the door and back. I can practically hear the crackle of unsaid words firing off between us like electric currents.
What should we do?
I don’t know, but do something!
Me? Why don’t you do something?
“Make her go away!” I whisper. But Jack doesn’t move or say anything. For a moment I think maybe he didn’t hear me, then he starts rocking the headboard back and forth, slowly at first, then faster, picking up tempo. The legs of the bed scrape against the floorboards. Creeaaaak. Followed by eeeee uhhh eeeee uhhh.
What on earth is he doing?
He’s not…?
Oh, but he is.
“Jack, stop!”
“Just trust me,” he whispers, continuing to shake the bed. “She’ll get the hint.”
“I don’t want her to get that hint!” I grab his arm, attempting to yank him away from the headboard, but the bed squeaks even louder under my movement.
“Hello?” she calls again. “Mr. and Mrs. Houghton?”
Seriously?
I’m deliberating if now is the time to tell her to go away like grown-ups, when Jack opens his mouth and—to my horror—lets out a litany of porno-worthy moans.
“Mmmmm, baby, you feel so good.” His voice is ragged, carnal, like he’s somewhere between agony and ecstasy.
The black hole is back, and this time I wish it would just take me with it.
“Jack! Stop!” I hiss.
But apparently the snappy mom voice I used to use with Allison when we were kids does nothing to curb the way his eyes flare, eyebrows raised in challenge.
“Come on,” he whispers back. “She’s still there.”
My eyes zigzag to the door, then back to Jack, now watching me with calculated interest like I’m the wild card cast member on an unhinged reality show, and he’s waiting to see what I’ll do next.
I basically have two choices. I can answer the door and tell her to please leave us alone. Or I can follow Jack’s lead and make a total and complete ass of myself. Either way she already thinks we’re boning thanks to Jack and his… sound effects.
Before I can weigh the wisdom of what I’m about to do—because if I do, I’ll chicken out—I let out a spine-tingling cry.
“Oh, Jack! Mmmmm. Yes! Right there!” My voice pierces the air, reverberating between us. Then for emphasis I smack the wall and the whole room shakes. A decorative picture frame falls to the floor with a crash.
Jack covers his face in silent laughter, and I do the same, fighting back my own unhinged gasps until our breaths harmonize in a cacophony of strangled, wheezing rasps.
Once we regain control of our breath, we freeze, listening as she mutters something about coming back later, followed by footsteps retreating back down the hall.
As soon as she’s gone Jack raises his hand for a high five, and even though it’s got to be the weirdest context for a high five of all time, it feels oddly deserved, and I smack my palm against his before collapsing against the bed, convulsing with laughter.
“I can’t believe you did that!” I cry, clutching my stomach.
“You told me to make her go away!”
“I didn’t mean by making sex noises !”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“You think she bought it?” I ask.
“With those porn star screams? No question.”
A laugh breaks in my chest. “Can’t that lady take a hint?”
“Maybe she’s secretly a pervert?”
“She did listen for a long time,” I concede.
Jack gets off the bed and picks up the fallen picture. Thankfully, the glass is still intact. Now that would be bad luck.
“Nice touch, by the way.” He hangs the picture back on the hook. “Nothing says, Don’t bother us, we’re having mind-blowing honeymoon sex like breaking furniture.”
“Thanks. I was inspired by Twilight .”
He looks over his shoulder, eyes twinkling. “Very convincing.”
Jack comes back toward the bed, and I scoot over, careful to avoid the special blanket to my left.
“Please tell me you don’t really sound like that in bed?” I ask. “There was so much grunting, I wasn’t sure if you were orgasming or constipated.”
“I could say the same for you.” His lips twist into a devious grin. “Are you really a screamer?”
Static waves flash across my skin as my pulse ramps up, making me newly aware of how close we’re sitting, how his knee keeps brushing mine. I scoot back.
“I’m still not having sex with you, you know,” I say. “So don’t get any ideas.”
“You know, for someone who was very adamant that they didn’t want to have sex last night, you sure do bring it up a lot.” He tilts his chin, considering me. “That’s not a Freudian slip, is it?”
I pull a face, hoping to mask the fact that it feels like a cartoon-style anvil has just plummeted into my stomach.
“No, Jack. Believe it or not, I don’t want your dick.”
“Good. Because that offer has expired,” he says.
I let out a humorless guffaw. “I didn’t realize your generous offer of meaningless sex came with an expiration date.”
I expect him to brush me off with a joke or one of his usual comebacks. Instead, his eyes search mine before saying in a low, almost cautious voice, “It’s just…better if nothing happens between us, right?”
I’m not sure what catches me more off guard—the change in his tone, or the way the question dangles in the air, almost like he’s waiting to see if I’ll counter it.
And for one wild moment it’s like my brain and my body separate and I let myself imagine what might happen if I told him I wanted him. If I gave in to the need that’s been building inside me all day.
I imagine how it might feel to have him push me down on the bed. How his hands would feel against my curves. Would he take his time, kissing me slowly, dragging out each moment? Or would he hurry, ripping my clothes off with brazen excitement?
The thought chases shivers down my spine until reality takes over, and I’m promptly reminded that there are two very good reasons I’m not supposed to want that.
For one thing, I know myself well enough to understand that casual and intimacy , like rum and tequila, are two things that don’t mix for me. I need commitment. Consistency. Certainty. Things Jack certainly isn’t offering.
And second, unlike everyone else, I haven’t yet given up on Carter and me—the mere thought of which is enough to jolt me out of my head and back into the room, where Jack’s watching me.
“Right,” I tell him with a stiff nod.
We make brief eye contact, the kind that feels like a silent wager—though what the terms are, I’m not sure—then I flop back against the mattress and shut my eyes, determined to ignore the guilty pound of my racing heart.
Once we’re pretty sure the innkeeper won’t be coming back, Jack and I drift into silence. The only sound is that of the old house creaking around us.
I wonder if this place is haunted. I bet it is. Someone definitely died of bubonic plague here.
I’m about to ask Jack if he thinks our next unwanted visitor will be a ghost, but he speaks first.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, I do think this place is haunted,” I say, eyes still closed. “And no, I’m not telling you if Carter and I used butt plugs.”
“Actually,” he says, laughter cutting through his voice. “I was going to ask why you want to get back with your boyfriend so badly?”
My eyes flick open and I sit up on the bed. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not really my business, but it seems like he was sort of an asshole to you. Why would you want to go back to him after that?”
My internal defenses instantly shoot up. Things might be complicated with Carter and me right now, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be lectured on what a healthy relationship looks like by Mr. Expiration Dating.
“First off, you’re right, it’s not your business. And second”—I shoot him an evil eye—“he’s not an asshole. He’s a nice guy.”
“ Nice ?” Jack’s eyebrows inch toward his hairline. “That’s why you’re so hot and bothered over him? Because he’s nice ?”
“I’m not hot and both—” I pause, catching myself. “I mean, there’s more to a relationship than getting hot and bothered ,” I say instead.
He leans closer, examining. “Like what?”
My stomach pendulates and I can’t help feeling as though I’ve walked into some kind of trap.
“What do you want?” I ask. “An essay?”
“I’m just asking why you want to get back together with the guy. Should be easy to answer since he’s perfect , right?”
Okay, now I know it’s a trap. But I hate the way he’s looking at me. Like he thinks he knows everything. Like he’s got me all figured out.
“Carter and I have been together for a long time,” I say stiffly. “We have a life together.” But Jack doesn’t look convinced.
“That’s why you want to get back together with him?” he asks. “Because you’ve been together a long time already?”
“Well, no,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “That’s not the only reason.”
“Then what else?”
I take a breath, steeling myself. “What is this? An interrogation?”
He shrugs like the answer doesn’t really interest him, but I can see the defiant look behind his eyes, like he’s a bloodhound ready to sniff out any misgivings.
Annoyance pricks my skin. Just because I know Carter and I have issues doesn’t mean I want to become ammunition for Jack’s crusade against commitment. A commitment he doesn’t know anything about.
He even said so himself. He doesn’t do relationships. He doesn’t get that Carter and I have been through a lot. That we have inside jokes and secrets and stories only the two of us know. Jack doesn’t get all the ways my life feels like a tapestry of the experiences I’ve shared with him. Or that without him, I’m afraid everything will unravel.
“You’re right,” I say after a beat. “Carter isn’t perfect and neither is our relationship. But we’ve been through a lot together and after the year I’ve had, I don’t want to lose him too.”
It’s perhaps the most honest I’ve been with anyone, including myself, but Jack frowns, eyes narrowing in question. “I know I’m not exactly a relationship guru over here, but shouldn’t wanting to be with someone be about passion? Love? Longing? Not fear.”
It’s that last word, fear , that makes my stomach lurch, acid rising in my throat. Of course I’m afraid. But it’s also more complicated than that. Complicated in ways Jack doesn’t understand.
“I thought love was the opiate of the masses or whatever it was you were saying on the train,” I shoot back. “Now you’re going to lecture me on what passion looks like?”
He puts his hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying, do you want to get back together because you love him? Or because you’re scared of the alternative?”
“Of course I love him.” I cross my arms over my chest, limbs suddenly heavy with indignation. “But that’s not all a relationship is. There’s also trust and history and shared intimacy. Things you can’t get with expiration dating or a one-night stand,” I add pointedly. “Things you probably wouldn’t understand.”
As soon as I say it a shadow ripples through his face, expanding from his eyes outward as though consumed by a ghost only he can see.
“You’re right,” Jack says stiffly. “I probably wouldn’t.”
He looks away, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve stepped on some kind of emotional land mine.
Part of me wants to pause and dissect it, to explore the tiny layer of Jack that’s just been pulled back. But another part of me suddenly feels claustrophobic. Like my skin doesn’t fit right. Like this room is too small. Like I need to leave.
My eyes dart toward the door. “I think I’m gonna go outside. Get some fresh air.”
“Alone?” he asks.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Alone.”
“But it’s dark and you’ve never been here before.” He sits up, pushing his hair out of his eyes, like he might try to stop me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I reach for my jacket and sling it around my shoulders. “I’ll be fine.” Then, before he can protest further, I open the door and slip back out into the hall. Thankfully, the innkeeper is nowhere to be found and I’m able to disappear into the night air unseen.
Outside, a chilly wind licks at my neck, brisk enough to heighten my senses. I inhale deeply, hoping the crisp air will help clear my head, but I can’t ignore the ball of emotion tunneling inside me, weighing down each step I take.
Jack is being presumptuous, not to mention judgmental. He doesn’t know anything about Carter and me. He doesn’t know about when I had food poisoning and Carter stayed up all night, holding my hair while I puked, or that Carter knows all my restaurant orders by heart .
Jack doesn’t know what it’s like to be with someone for eight years. To have your life be so inextricably entangled with someone else’s that losing them feels like losing a vital organ. To fear the possibility of losing everything.
Jack doesn’t understand any of it. And yet, despite my every instinct to write off his half-assed assessments of our eight-year relationship, there’s a kernel of truth embedded in what Jack had said. An infuriating, inconvenient kernel.
I try to brush it off, but it only digs deeper.
I think about the night Carter and I hooked up after the break. I hadn’t planned for it to happen, but I’d been sad and horny and lonely, so I’d sent him an ill-advised text that I was thinking about him…and that I wasn’t wearing any underwear.
He’d texted back instantly, asking me to come over. I remember the jolt of excitement, the feeling that everything was going to be okay. But it hadn’t been.
After we had sex, I assumed I’d stay the night at Carter’s place— our place—but Carter got weird and told me it was probably better if I left. So things don’t get messy , he’d said.
Part of me had wanted to fight with him about it, but another part of me didn’t want to appear even more pathetic than I felt, so I left, fighting back tears until I made it to my car, where I cried the whole way home.
I really thought we’d get back together. That our night together was proof of the inevitability of our relationship. That sleeping together would somehow fix things and Carter would realize he couldn’t live without me.
But now, in retrospect, I consider why I’d gone over there in the first place. It hadn’t been because of some inextinguishable flame of passion in our relationship. Or even because I wanted to get laid. No, I’d gone over there because I was looking for proof that I still had some semblance of control over my life. Because it was easier to go back to him and his bed than it was to try to cope with the rising tide of instability and loneliness in my life. Because Jack’s right. I am afraid.