Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
When Jack called Haleigh to suggest that he play hooky from work on Tuesday so they could go mini golfing, she thought he’d lost his mind.
Yet here they were, at ten thirty on a Tuesday morning, cueing up at the first hole of an indoor course that was an absolute assault on the senses.
The walls of the giant warehouse were painted black, causing each hole to look like a neon floating island. Lights mounted to the ceiling cast dancing sprays of color across the floor, and a disco ball spun in the center. Top-forty hits blasted out of every speaker.
Jack handed Haleigh a club. “Do you remember the first time we played mini golf?”
“I kicked your ass, and you cried.” She grinned at him.
“I was eight and used to my family letting me win.”
“Then I’m glad I could teach you an important life lesson so early on.” No one had ever let Haleigh win at anything. Joey didn’t believe in it. Even when Haleigh was five, her sister would destroy her at checkers and Candy Land and lecture Haleigh when she cried.
He laughed. “But do you remember what I taught you ?”
The first part of the course involved putting the ball into the middle pipe to avoid sand traps and to get a chance at a hole in one.
Haleigh set down her bright pink golf ball and lined up her swing.
Sticking her tongue between her teeth, she found the best angle and took her shot. It came to a stop right in front of the hole.
She stared at it for a moment, frowning, as if she might be able to Jedi-mind-trick it into the opening.
“Using telekinesis is cheating,” Jack pointed out, nudging her out of the way with his hip.
Haleigh made a face, but in her chest, her heart was pounding. He could read her so well. That tether between them felt like something rare. Special. Something she’d never find anywhere else.
Jack placed his ball down like it was a precious gem. “Every time I mini golf, I think about that day with the narwhal.”
Before Haleigh’s dad died, he’d taken her and Jack out for ice cream and mini golf to celebrate the end of the school year. The fountain in the middle of the course had a giant narwhal at the center, and Haleigh had stared at it for a good ten minutes in wonder. “Do you think they’d be this big if they were real?” she’d asked Jack.
Jack’s brow had furrowed, the way it still did whenever he wasn’t sure if he could take her seriously. “They are real. They’re about the size of whales, so they might get even bigger than that.” He’d just ended his dinosaur phase and had been big into sea creatures at that time.
Haleigh had made her father look it up on his phone before she’d let herself believe Jack.
Now, her eyebrows shot up as he sent his ball rolling across the green. “What? Why?”
Jack’s aim was better than hers and Haleigh heard the telltale sound of plastic circling the cup.
He shrugged. “You always seemed so smart to me. In class, you knew all the answers.”
Haleigh hit her ball. “That’s only because I used to read ahead. Some of those social studies and science chapters were basically cliff-hangers.”
That pulled a deep laugh out of Jack. “Of course you did.” He shook his head. “When I told you about the narwhal, it made me feel smart too. I loved that I got to teach you something, and take up some space in that big brain of yours.”
Hearing Jack explain it this way changed the memory for her. Colored it in new and vivid ways.
Her face flushing, Haleigh hurried to retrieve her ball. She wanted to tell him that he took up pretty much all the space in her big brain.
The next hole was a classic windmill. She usually excelled at these, but her hands were trembling a little from what Jack had said.
“Okay, but what you don’t know is that I got lost twice in the woods behind the park that summer trying to find Bigfoot because you told me narwhals were real.” She’d been so embarrassed she’d sworn her parents and Joey to secrecy, even trying to make them all take a blood pact (her mother shut that down fast). Eight-year-old Haleigh was a Girl Scout. She was supposed to have wilderness skills.
Jack’s mouth fell open, and his golden eyes flashed with amusement. “No.”
“You know I like to believe in magic.” She tapped his calf with her foot.
It was the first time they’d touched since their kiss last Friday.
From the moment he’d picked her up this morning, they’d been dancing around each other, jerking away at the slightest brush of an elbow or a shoulder. They couldn’t seem to make their gazes catch either, one of them always glancing elsewhere.
This was not what Haleigh had meant by slow. She’d wanted them to take their time, ease into a new way of being together, not double down on all their rules.
“I definitely remember the dragon obsession of two years ago.” A giant smirk found his face.
Haleigh might have stumbled upon a set of fantasy books that she’d fallen hard for, and her favorite character might have been a super-sexy shape-shifter who took the form of a silver dragon.
Since Jack had blown up her world a little with his narwhal story, maybe it was time for her to do the same. Get them back on a level playing field before he kicked her ass.
She was supposed to be the champion mini golfer, after all.
Before she took her swing, she caught his eyes with hers. “I used to imagine you as Rhoe,” she admitted. She turned away just as his mouth dropped open.
She decided not to share how dirty those daydreams had been.
At least for now.
It took Jack four strokes to finish the hole. He kept glancing over at her and fumbling over words that he couldn’t quite get out of his mouth.
Haleigh loved knocking him senseless like that. The loose, almost wild expression on his face incited a hot flame of desire in her.
On one of the trickier holes, Jack tried and failed to make a shot six times before Haleigh walked up behind him.
“Here.” She used her hands to straighten his hips. He was so tall she couldn’t see past him. “Try now,” she said, stepping away.
The ball skittered off the course.
“You’ve got to stop moving.” Positioning him again, she wrapped her arms around his waist to anchor him in place.
The feel of his thick body against hers summoned a thrumming to her core. It was too easy to remember how it had felt with that same body over hers, sinking her deep into the mattress as they moved together.
In Hawaii, from the minute they’d collided in their room the first night, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands to themselves. They’d been constantly kissing, reaching for each other, hands slipping under shirts and skirts and zippers. It was like they’d been starved for too long, and nothing could sate them.
It had been hot—so hot—but like any roaring fire, it would have burnt itself out eventually.
This, though, the achingly gentle way Jack’s fingers cradled hers, was an eternal flame. Haleigh was sure she could burn forever.
He bent his knees so his ass pressed more deeply into her. “I think we’re going to have to stay here now,” he said, his voice deep and husky.
“Jackson Brooks, this is a family game.” She stepped away, cheeks flushed. “Get your damn ball in the hole.”
He winked at her. “I like it when you’re bossy.”
Haleigh won the game by five strokes.
As they returned their clubs, Jack turned to her. “I forgot to tell you. Winners buy lunch.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “I will remind you of that the next time you win at go-kart racing.”
“Oh geez. I’m going to be buying lunch for the rest of our lives.”
She went to punch him, but he caught her fist and wrestled her into his arms. She melted against him as he leaned down to steal a soft, slow kiss.
There was a pub next door, and they grabbed the last open booth. The waiter brought over a basket of popcorn with their water, and Haleigh popped a few kernels in her mouth as she perused the menu.
“Have you ever made caramel popcorn?” she asked.
“It sounds messy.”
“Probably. But I saw someone do it in a video online and it looked delicious.” She sighed. “One day I’ll have a kitchen of my own to attempt my culinary adventures.”
Jack took a sip of his water, then set it down. On the coaster. Because Jack believed in coasters like some people believed in Jesus. “You have a kitchen.”
Haleigh shook her head. “I never feel comfortable cooking at Stanton’s. The appliances are so new and the counters are so pretty. I make too much of a mess.”
“I didn’t mean at your apartment.” Jack’s eyes searched her face. “My kitchen is your kitchen. You know that.”
“Yeah, but you like it to stay neat, too.”
Her mind flashed back to that Taco Tuesday when he’d freaked out at the mess. Those were the moments that caused her to tap the brakes with Jack. She could trigger his anxiety so badly. And when he got frustrated, it hurt her. He didn’t always hold back.
Brian seemed so easy-going that Haleigh wondered if he ever got frustrated.
Jack’s brow furrowed, clearly remembering the same thing. “That was just a rough day at work. You can make a mess of my kitchen whenever you want.” He rested his hand over hers. “I promise.”
“How is work, anyway?” He hadn’t brought it up in a while. “Can you be taking time off right now?”
He shrugged, his eyes focused on their linked fingers. His thumb painted gentle lines across the inside of her wrist, and Haleigh had to fight off a shiver.
God, this man knew how to touch her. Her body was like a live wire around him.
“Sometimes you need a day off.”
Said the man who had never taken one in his life. “You don’t do that,” she pointed out.
“I have too much PTO, I have to burn some of it, so I took the week off.”
Whoa. “The week? Aren’t you still in the middle of merging those two departments or whatever?”
“My team has it handled.”
Haleigh studied his face closely. His hands were steady—not even a little bit of tapping—and she couldn’t feel the bounce of his knee reverberating through the floor. His eyes were clear as he met her gaze.
Maybe he really was just taking time off. And he’d chosen to spend it with her.
She needed to enjoy that.
He shook out the menu and held it in front of his face. “Now let’s see what you’re buying me for lunch.”