Thirteen
IINTEND THE FLIRTATIOUSNESS OF THE COMMAND. I WANT TO REMIND myself how unflirtatious it feels to me, how coldly I can issue such demands. How little they spark in me. I want Jackson to listen hopefully for invitation in them while really I’m just screwing with him.
Jackson rounds on me slowly, looking as if he’s found one view he prefers to the ocean. His eyebrows rise.
He doesn’t question. Doesn’t decline.
While not dropping my gaze, he undoes his tie and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
Objectively, it’s sexy. Which is why I watch. I need to fortify my defenses. I need to know my enemy.
Of course, he notices I’m watching. His eyes darken.
With his shirt hanging open down his front, he steps forward, right up to me. I don’t step back. Not when his scent hits me, intoxicatingly familiar. He smells like clichés—like safety and danger, like skin pressed to mine on my small couch far from here. Like kisses I want to lose myself in.
It means nothing to me.
Part of me wants to stop what’s happening here, feeling my grip loosening on my composure. Part of me wants it to keep going, and not only out of the rigid desire to push myself into unfeeling. The weeks since I last touched Jackson have felt like forever.
He leans close to me as if he’s going to kiss my neck the way he used to. Countless movie nights on my bed, school lunches when I’d pretend his flirtation didn’t fill me with delight, minutes I’d linger in his car parked up the street from my mom’s house when he was dropping me off.
“Olivia,” he exhales. “Let me make it up to you.”
His words wrench me out of the reverie. The fragile longing I’d started to feel shatters under the reminder of what he did. Glass ground underfoot.
I step back now, irritated. Embarrassed, even. While I’m glad I caught myself, I wish I hadn’t had the feelings in the first place. The night I got Kelly Devine’s messages, I decided in the deepest part of me I would never again let Jackson in. I won’t have the heat in my cheeks make a liar of my heart now.
“I didn’t bring you up here for that,” I say sternly. “You’re wearing a suit. You need to be wearing a tux to be a groomsman.”
I walk into the bathroom connecting the his-and-hers closets. The room looks ready for a home-goods catalog, no shaving supplies or hair products in sight, everything fastidiously relocated by the housekeepers. It’s palatial, the claw-foot tub shining ivory white, the ottoman’s fabric flawless.
“What are you talking about?” Jackson follows me, understandably confused. “A groomsman?”
In the closet, I pull out hangers, looking for the right label on a garment bag. “One of Dash’s didn’t show,” I explain. “He needs you to fill in.” With perfect timing, I find the Ted Baker bag I’m looking for. I hold the dark plastic silhouette up in front of Jackson.
“No. No way.” He looks aghast. “I can’t be Dashiell Owens’s groomsman. Are you kidding?”
“You’re already at his wedding,” I point out flatly. “What’s the difference?”
Jackson watches me, pained. I hate the pleading written over his expression. I won’t permit the risk of even one molecule of myself pitying him. “I’m at his wedding for you,” he points out. “Being his groomsman would be for him. I hate him.”
I fix my expression in place. I wish I was convinced the only reason Jackson hates my father is because Dash Owens is, well, Dash Owens. Public figurehead of entitled assholes. Except I know it isn’t the full story. Part of the reason Jackson hates my father is because he knows how deeply my father hurt me.
Jackson doesn’t deserve flirtation. He doesn’t deserve updates on my relationship status. He definitely doesn’t deserve to feel defensive of me.
He has, however, conveniently revealed the quickest way I can get what I want.
“Fine,” I say, “then be his groomsman for me, too.”
Jackson narrows his eyes. “Why? Why do you even care?” he asks. “If he’s down a groomsman, he looks bad. Whatever.”
I glance aside, frustrated. I don’t welcome the direction of his interrogation. While Jackson is not calculating, he has natural savvy. He learns card games fast. He wins in-class debates with no prep. He figures out the plots of movies. I had to impose strict silent-watching rules following the disastrous guessing-the-ending-of-Spies-in-Satin-out-loud fiasco, although in fairness, silence often worked fine for what we ended up doing during movies.
While I want no one inquiring into my means, motive, and opportunity, Jackson Roese is someone whose curiosity I especially cannot permit. He knows me too well.
It’s just one more reason I don’t want him getting close. “I don’t care,” I say. “Look, my dad told me to ask you. That’s it. Be his groomsman or…” I pause, pretending I’m weighing my next words when in fact I’ve planned them perfectly. “Or there’s really no reason for you to even be at this wedding. You’re not my date anymore.”
Jackson’s eyes storm. Harried, he runs his hand through his hair, making the front stick up. Once, I would have smoothed it down for him. I don’t.
“Olivia, can we just talk? I love—”
I cut him off, unable to hear the next word. “No. We can’t.” I look past him. “My boyfriend is outside, waiting for me.”
It’s time to make my move. The thing is, Jackson may know me, but I know him, too. He doesn’t quit when he wants something. I walk past him, ready to leave. On my way out, I toss the tux onto the bathroom’s plush ottoman, wondering for the millionth time why the room needs this particular piece of furniture.
In my head, I start counting. Three… My heels click rhythmically on the floor. Metronomic.
Two…
I head for the bedroom, not pausing in my pace.
One…
“Fine,” I hear Jackson say.
I stop, hiding my smile from the mirrors. In their reflection, I watch Jackson collect the tux from the ottoman. He hasn’t lost the half-desperate look in his eyes.
“If”—he emphasizes the word, walking up to me—“you save me a dance.”
I frown imperiously. I don’t like negotiating. I don’t like conceding. It kind of negates the whole staying-in-control plan.
However, I’m not keen on wasting more precious minutes up here in present company. I have elsewhere to be, other machinations to put into motion. It’s just one dance. I’ll probably have fled the wedding when he comes to collect anyway.
“Fine,” I say. “One dance.”
Jackson grins his heart-stopping smile.
“Great. Hold this for me.” He hands me the garment bag, then proceeds to unbutton his pants.
In front of me, close enough I could reach out with hands I’m determined to keep unmoving, Jackson strips down to his underwear.
I fight my renegade impulses, forcing myself to appear unaffected. It’s one of the hardest feats I’ve ever managed. Jackson holds keys to places in my heart I didn’t know could open, hidden doors in forgotten hallways.
He was my first in every way. The first time we had sex was perfectly planned. Courtesy of me, of course. I told him exactly when to come over if he wanted to do it. I made sure my mom was out of the house. I had protection. I had the right underwear. I’d done my research.
Jackson came over. I explained how much time we had and how I’d devised where in the house would facilitate the easiest exit if we were caught. I hit every contingency with efficiency, complete with backup plans and fail-safes.
“Any questions?” I asked.
He smiled. He walked up to me with the same softly adoring, half-amused look I always saw in his eyes when he was around me. What a look. It made me feel… precious and alive.
When he leaned in close, his hands found my hips, his whisper close to my neck.
“No questions,” he said. “In fact, I know I’m in very good hands.”
He followed my plans exactly.
Unexpectedly, the memory is what I needed. It makes me indignant. Right now, he’s unintentionally doing the opposite. I unzip the bag and unceremoniously toss him the pants, then the shirt.
He pulls them on indulgently slowly, as if he’s modeling. I hate how much he has to show off. With what once was pride, now protest, I’m faced with the familiar honest fact—Jackson is ripped. It’s horrendously unfair. He couldn’t content himself with helping his little sister with her homework, making me laugh until I cried with impersonations of our classmates, or listening intently to every song I ever said I liked, then including each with his own devotedly chosen picks on the “oLOVEia” playlist he made for our drives home?
He had to go and combine all this with the chest and abs of East Coventry High’s star soccer captain, prize recruiting prospect of prestigious colleges? Not to mention his sweep of movie-star hair, his way of looking at you as if you’ve just pulled him into a closet, his devastating smile?
Honestly, it’s criminal.
Shrugging on the dress shirt, he’s practically flexing with every movement. He knows he is. He knows I know he is.
He extends one wrist to me. “Cuff links please?” He actually winks.
My mouth is dry. I say nothing. Instead, I set the garment bag down and open my dad’s jewelry drawer. Inside, rows of cuff links sit neatly.
Jackson’s gaze goes directly to the pair with crossed-dagger emblems. “Whoa,” he comments. “Can I wear those? They’re sick.”
I roll my eyes, grimacing. “No. They were my grandfather’s. The crossed daggers are a family symbol.” Jackson isn’t wrong, which I don’t say. They are really cool. “My ex is not allowed to wear my grandfather’s favorite cuff links,” I inform him unequivocally. Instead, I reach for ordinary oval-shaped ones.
In order to put them on, I have to step closer to him. He hasn’t buttoned the shirt, and I can see down the line of his chest all the way to his waistband. It’s like a minefield. The flawless surface could prove fatal.
This is the problem with Jackson. He makes me volatile. He makes me scribble outside The Plan’s clean lines. He is rogue flashbacks when I need clarity, uncooperative variables in my long-forethought formulas. He has the power to flip my chessboard right over, send the pieces flying.
When I finish with the cuff links, I step back. I need to reach a minimum safe distance.
Jackson chuckles, like he knows exactly what’s going on with me.
I feel resentment’s familiar flash. Him intuiting what his chest has done to me feels like—like something stolen. If I’m the one with the heist plans, why do I feel like the one robbed right now? Robbed of focus, of control, of every fragment of rationality in my head?
Goddamn Jackson.
He buttons his shirt with leisurely fingers. I hand him a bow tie, practically throwing it at him, and he grins as if I’ve told a joke.
“I have no idea how to tie that,” he informs me.
I grit my teeth. Of course, I know how. I was raised here, in this place of closets with the dimensions of garages, personal department stores hanging in rows of shimmering fabric. Of my dad in hired cars, running late, prodding his phone in hasty distraction. Here. Tie my bow tie. It’s not rocket science.
I step behind Jackson, lining my body up to his as I slide the silk around his neck. The proximity is overwhelming. It’s just like hugging him, like lying next to him. Painfully right. I can’t fight the waver of my fingers, the yearning hitch in my chest. It’s horrible. Yearning does not fit into The Plan.
Jackson stands still under my ministrations.
“You can tell me you have a new boyfriend all you want, Olivia,” he says, his voice vibrating from his neck into my fingertips. The feeling is devastatingly distracting. “But I know you’re still attracted to me.”
I pull the tie a little too tight on purpose.
“Easy now,” Jackson responds.
Deciding I’m done with him controlling the conversation, I reach for the upper hand. Rebalancing the power. “Yes, I’m attracted to you,” I reply. “In case you forgot, that’s not why we broke up.” The reminder swipes the charm right off Jackson’s face. I guess I’m the one stealing again. The guiltless rush is wonderful, exactly what I needed.
I even out the bow. In the mirror, the newly dressed Jackson is polished. Precisely uniformed. He looks good.
Objectively, of course.
“Meet my father in his study with the rest of the groomsmen,” I instruct my ex without emotion. I throw him the jacket, which he catches, then head out of the bathroom.
In the bedroom, with the endless views from the windows only emphasizing the room’s expansiveness, I feel like I can breathe easier, if only barely.
I hear Jackson’s voice behind me. “Don’t forget about that dance.”