Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
Twenty minutes after they abandoned Bradley Cooper (not that one) to his oysters, Jack pulled his car into heaven.
Or Haleigh’s version of it, at least.
A Target, a bookstore, an ice-cream shop (open year-round), and the best Chinese food in Adams Center, all in one strip mall.
Haleigh twisted toward Jack with wide eyes. “I don’t have the money to be anywhere near here.”
He grinned at her. “Tonight’s on me.”
“Why?”
He flourished a hand toward her dress. “You can’t go home at eight o’clock looking like that.”
Heat invaded Haleigh’s cheeks. She wanted to be stone around him, unmoving, unaffected by his tone, his words, his looks, no matter what they were. Instead, she was a Jackson-Brooks puddle.
Maybe she should have eaten that oyster and died of gross-food ingestion and humiliation.
She whacked Jack’s arm. “Rule Number Four!”
“Pointing out the truth is not flirting,” he insisted. “You know you look amazing.”
Haleigh did. But that wasn’t the same as him saying it out loud.
He eased his car into a spot closest to the bookstore. “Plus, you’ve been on so many shitty dates this week. You deserve a treat.”
Dropping back against the seat, she rolled her face toward him, not even caring about mussing her curls. “Hiking with Dana wasn’t shitty, it just wasn’t…”
“It,” Jack finished for her.
Haleigh nodded. “But this was the point, right? To prove to Mom and Pépère and Joey and Stanton that even when someone else picks the people, dating isn’t some magical ride to happily-ever-after.” It was uninvited financial advice, being force-fed oysters, having one bird shit on your shoe and another steal your bagel.
Good lord, Jack was right. Haleigh had earned a treat.
“That doesn’t make it any less miserable,” Jack said. “Besides, I was a bag of rocks to you on Taco Tuesday—”
“You were fine.” Haleigh had known Jack long enough to recognize when his stress levels were high. She hadn’t given that moment on Tuesday another thought since she’d cleaned the kitchen.
“I almost snapped at you.” Only to Jack would that classify as a sin. “Dylan said I’d been tighter than a guitar string all day, but I didn’t mean to bring that home.”
There was that name again. The one Haleigh had seen on his phone the other night. The one she’d never heard before now. “Who’s Dylan?” She was afraid the question didn’t sound quite as casual as she wanted it to.
Jack shrugged. “She’s one of our new hires. She’s helping me with all the transition stuff from the buyout.” He popped open the door and climbed out of the car before she could ask anything else. All a little faster, Haleigh thought, than was necessary.
He knows the rules, she reminded herself as she followed him. He adhered to them as strictly as she did. Neither of them wanted another Hawaii situation. Another three months without talking to each other, of worrying that they might never find the way back to their friendship again.
They paused in front of the bookstore. “You can pick five,” he said, holding the glass door open for her.
“Are you serious?” One of Haleigh’s dreams was to own every book she loved, to line all the rooms of her home with bookcases overflowing with stories that she could pluck from the shelves and fall into. She wanted books of her own to annotate and bend and read over and over until the pages were soft and curled and molded to her fingertips. She only had a handful right now, since she didn’t have much space at Stanton’s, and books weren’t a luxury she could rationalize when she could get them free from the library. But she had a list, and Jack was helping her to check five more off of it.
As she ducked into the store, he added, “Pick one for me to read too.”
“Okay, so it’s a murder book,” Haleigh said, brandishing the novel she’d chosen for him as Jack set their Chinese food out on his coffee table.
“Of course it is.” Jack chuckled.
“But it’s a murder book set in space. ” Haleigh put it aside to get to work filling their plates with fried wontons, egg rolls, and vegetable tempura. She made sure to remove any battered sweet potatoes from Jack’s since he hated them. “You love science fiction.”
“I’m not sure it qualifies as sci-fi just because it’s set in space.”
Haleigh stabbed a wonton with her fork and pointed them both at Jack. “Does it qualify if the murder was done by aliens?”
“Well, now you’re just spoiling things.”
Haleigh snorted. “Why did you want me to get you a book anyway?”
She eyed her own new selections, tucked into one of the bookcases in the dining room. Jack had offered to keep them here for now since she had limited space. Haleigh figured it was one stack of things she wouldn’t have to pack and move when Stanton finally asked her to leave so he could cohabitate. Not that she’d said that to Jack. She still hadn’t told him about her living situation, and she didn’t plan to until she figured it out. Jack already spent enough time feeling like he had to rescue her. She didn’t want him trying to fix this too.
He shrugged. “We both read a ton and we’ve never swapped books. I thought it could be fun.”
Something about his words gave Haleigh’s insides wings. Or maybe it was just Jack revealing for the hundredth time how he’d be perfect boyfriend material for someone that was not her.
They should have had a rule about not being sweet on their list. Because this was all too much. Jack was her best friend and the best guy in the world and he’d never be hers. Most of the time, Haleigh could handle that, but not tonight, not after so many bad dates in a row.
She focused on slicing her egg roll into four equal quarters before asking, “As much fun as having some dude try to shove oysters down your throat?”
Jack’s brown eyes popped open. “Excuse me. What?”
“Your date jailbreak could not have come at a better time.” Haleigh poured a dollop of duck sauce over each segment of her egg roll.
Jack shimmied his shoulders with pride. “It was pretty excellent.”
Haleigh laughed. “And seconds before you tried to drown one of Boston’s five-star restaurants, Bradley had my chin in his hand and was trying to feed me like a small child.”
Haleigh filled him in on the rest of the evening as dramatically as she thought was warranted for this particularly nightmarish experience.
The whole time, Jack kept up with a steady stream of commiseration and insults, and when she’d finished, he waved a piece of fried broccoli between his chopsticks and proclaimed, “I knew you still needed me.”
Haleigh wished it wasn’t true. But bless him for coming after she’d told him not to. Who knew what state she’d have been in at this point if she’d had to sit through that entire meal?
She hadn’t realized she’d been rubbing her neck the whole time she was talking until Jack asked if she was okay. Haleigh rolled her shoulders. “I guess this night bugged me more than I thought.”
It was probably the money panic Bradley had summoned on top of being terrible company. All those things she didn’t have—the business plans, the savings, the retirement funds—occupied the back of her mind like a bunch of heavy boulders. Too big to ignore and impossible to remove.
“Here.” Jack gestured for her to scoot forward, then he slid behind her on the couch, his legs on either side of her hips. Resting his hands gently on her shoulders, he pressed his thumbs into her painfully bunched shoulder blades and began rubbing them in circles.
“I’m sorry that was so stressful for you,” he mumbled.
“It’s not your fault.” Haleigh had to fight to keep from sinking back into him. Or worse, letting out a completely obscene moan at the perfect movement of his strong hands against her pinched muscles.
“I helped you come up with this whole plan.” His breath blew hot against her skin.
“Yes, but Roger chose that delightful human to set me up with.” Against her will, Haleigh’s voice had dipped low and husky.
She couldn’t remember the last time Jack had touched her in a way that wasn’t a nudge or a playful whack or a one-armed hug. This was definitely a violation of their friendship rules (number two to be exact), but Haleigh couldn’t bring herself to pull away. He knew exactly where to press, and how much pressure to apply, to transform her body into limp spaghetti.
When he was done, she flopped back on the couch, half-high from the relief of her loosened muscles and the feel of his hands on her skin. She was still in her fancy dress, one shoulder slouching toward her elbow, but she was too relaxed to move.
Jack didn’t seem to mind. He switched on a comedy series they’d been watching and settled back between her and the cushions.
Her dress felt soft and silky against her limbs, and the house smelled like everything that gave Haleigh peace: clean floors and fresh sheets and outside just after someone has cut the grass. With Twinkie snuggled on her feet, and Jack’s solid body warm against her back, it wasn’t long before Haleigh’s eyes drooped closed.
She woke up with a start an hour later. The whole house was dark except for the glow of the digital clock on the TV stand.
Jack snored lightly against her ear, and one of his arms was hooked around her waist. The other cradled her head like a pillow. His legs were tangled with hers, the skirt of her dress hitched halfway up her thighs.
Haleigh swallowed hard. Rule Number Two violated again. Their unconscious state was no excuse.
Still, she couldn’t stop herself from lying there a moment in his embrace, indulging in the feeling of being held like she belonged to him. The thrill it gave her was a stark reminder of why their rules existed in the first place.
At that thought, she jumped up like someone had tossed a cooler of water over her head.
Jack grumbled and rolled onto his back, rubbing at his eyes.
Turning away to adjust her dress, Haleigh said, “It’s late. You sleep. I’ll get a rideshare.”
But when she faced him again, he was already slipping on his shoes.