Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
Haleigh Berkshire: Holy crap! I was invited back for a second interview.
Brian Lee: I knew it! You’re amazing! You’re totally getting it.
Jackson Brooks: I *accidentally* bought that new RPG game you were talking about and I think you’re going to have to come play it with me. It has couch co-op.
Haleigh Berkshire: Let’s get to the third before we start assuming anything.
Haleigh Berkshire: I am SO there.
Brian Lee: That’s the spirit.
Jackson Brooks: The third what?
“Shit, shit, shit. Shit. ”
Haleigh replied to Jack with an excuse about meaning to text her mom and tossed the phone in her purse.
Her mother looked over from the clothing rack she was flipping through. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
Joey and Whitney had asked Haleigh and her mom to help them find dresses for their party. It was coming up fast, and Haleigh needed time to slow down—or freeze altogether—until she could decide between Jack and Brian.
Because right now, it felt impossible.
She shoved her purse strap up her shoulder. “Dating two people is not easy.”
From behind her, Joey and Whitney let out yells of surprise. Their noise reminded Haleigh that she hadn’t been giving anyone except Stanton updates on the date-pocalypse lately. She probably should have prepared her family, but she’d wanted to keep Jack and Brian to herself for a while. Let some of their moments be just hers.
Now, though, the pressure to choose was making Haleigh desperate for advice. She’d even accept it from Joey at this point.
“Excuse me, two people?” Whitney declared. “Look at you breaking hearts.”
“Who are you dating?” Joey insisted at the same time.
Haleigh pretended to be seriously considering the selection of matronly dresses in front of her.
“Stanton introduced me to one of his friends, Brian. We’ve been out a few times, and things seem like they’re going… I don’t know… well?” She shrugged, hoping none of them were looking too closely at the flush that had crept into her cheeks.
Mentioning Brian’s name immediately summoned memo ries of his hands on her arms as he’d stopped her from knocking into his furniture, the kisses he’d snuck against her neck, how eager he was to get her out of her sweater as they kissed. How hard it had been to slow things down, to resist getting as close to him as she could in every way possible.
The only thing taming that impulse was Jack. She couldn’t sleep with Brian as long as she was seeing how things went with Jack. It wasn’t how Haleigh worked.
In typical mom fashion, Haleigh’s mother asked all the standard questions: Where did he live, what did he do, how old was he?
Whitney demanded to know if he was hot.
Joey watched Haleigh carefully. “Who’s the other person?”
That was Haleigh’s cue to find a new rack of dresses. Stanton and Jazzy were going to style her for the party, but she pretended she was browsing anyway.
“Jack,” she mumbled, pulling out a navy-blue body-con dress with ruching down the front.
“I’m sorry.” In two even strides, Joey was at her side. “What was that?”
Holding the dress up to her body, Haleigh did her best to avoid her sister’s gaze. “Jack.”
“Jack!” their mom exclaimed. She and Whitney hurried over to join them. “Oh, sweetie, did you and Jackson finally admit how you feel?”
Haleigh coughed to cover the way her body jolted at those words. “We’re seeing how it goes,” she said vaguely.
“When did this happen?” Joey pressed.
She’d always liked Jack, so Haleigh wasn’t sure why her sister looked so pensive. If anything, she’d thought Joey would be the most thrilled. Jack would be an easy choice to take to her party. He was already basically a part of their family, and Haleigh having a date would allow Joey to check that off her list of worries.
“He set himself up as my last date.”
“Oh my god,” Whitney squealed. “That is so cute.”
Haleigh tried to shrug, but it was hard to be nonchalant. Talking about it out loud felt too much like she was cursing them to fail. This past week, whenever Haleigh was with him, she couldn’t wrap her head around how she and Jack ever thought they belonged with anyone else. But the minute they were apart, her doubts flooded back. What if this was no different from Hawaii, and they hurt each other so badly that there were no rules to fix it this time? What if Brian really was a better fit for her? What if she broke everything by choosing the wrong person?
In an attempt to change the subject, Haleigh grabbed a black dress off the rack and handed it to her sister. “This looks like your style.” It was a wrap dress with a collared neck and belted waist in an A-line flare that hit at mid-calf. Business on the top, fancy on the bottom. What better reflected Joey’s vibes?
Her sister frowned, but she took the dress and draped it over her shoulder. “I don’t understand why it took Jack nearly two decades to tell you if he’s always been into you.”
Haleigh’s shoulders tightened, and her browsing grew a little more violent. “I guess he realized after seeing me date all these people that he didn’t want to lose a chance for us to be together.”
“But you’ve been in relationships before. Why now?” Joey shifted the bundle of dresses in her arms. “You went out with a lot of people in college. Where was he?”
That had been after Hawaii. And none of those relationships had gone anywhere. “Things with us were complicated then.”
Now that she was thinking about it, Haleigh realized that neither she nor Jack had dated anyone seriously since high school. All this time, he seemed to have been struggling as much as her to move on.
Haleigh glanced around. “Where are the shoes?” They were usually set apart from the rest of the formal wear. It would give her an excuse to dodge the rest of her sister’s interrogation.
But Joey followed right behind her as Haleigh headed for the center of the store, shadowing Haleigh until she gave up and headed for the dressing rooms instead. “What was complicated?”
Haleigh was fooling herself. She could drill to the center of the earth or blast herself into space, but she’d never escape her sister’s endless barrage of questions until she answered them. Joey had no clue how to let something go.
Haleigh spun around. “We hooked up on that trip to Hawaii.” She dragged a hand over her face. There was a reason she and Jack had Hawaii on their list of rules. Thinking about it was like a knife through her gut. “We weren’t ready and it was a complete mess. I think we’ve been afraid since then to discover that the same thing would happen if we tried again.”
Joey nodded. For once, she seemed to actually understand. “So when you said to all of us that you wanted to find something real, and he saw that that might happen, he thought this could be his last chance.”
Haleigh nodded. “I think so.” She dropped down into one of the padded chairs. Whitney and her mom were already trying things on.
Joey sat beside her. “Who are you going to pick? You can’t take both.”
“Joe. She knows that,” Whitney chastised her from the closest changing room.
Their mom stepped out from another, wearing a full-length emerald-green dress. “What does your gut say?” she asked as she modeled the dress for them.
She and Joey both flashed a thumbs-down. Way too formal for a party, even if it was at an estate.
“That’s the problem. My gut is unreliable. It has a different answer when I’m with each guy.” Haleigh dropped her head into her hands.
Whitney stepped out in a white sleeveless lace dress that fit close to her body and stopped at her knees. “Have you made a pros and cons list?”
“That feels weird to do for people,” Haleigh said. “And too logical. Love isn’t logical. You can’t talk your heart into something because everything looks good on paper.”
“Okay, then talk it through. What do you like about Brian?” Joey asked. “We know you’ve had heart eyes for Jack forever, so why is this even a question?”
Haleigh blew out a long breath. “Brian and I are getting to know each other. He hasn’t watched me grow up and seen every mistake I’ve ever made. Our history is just beginning, if that makes sense?” She could tell him about her job interviews and needing to move without him assuming she couldn’t get her life together, because he’d never witnessed her being a mess. Haleigh rubbed at her face. “And he’s upbeat and really positive, which is probably something I need in my life, and he’s super supportive. And we laugh a lot.” She’d hung the congratulations certificate he’d given her on the back of her door. It was a good reminder that she was doing things, even if she wasn’t seeing the results she wanted yet. Meanwhile, Stanton stole the Gerber daisies to dry them out so she could keep them in her “I love Brian” box (his words, not hers).
Joey smiled. “He sounds great.”
“Okay, but now tell me about Jack,” Whitney urged. Neither she nor Haleigh’s mother had bothered to look at themselves in the mirror. Everyone was crowded around Haleigh, waiting for her answers.
She could feel her muscles pinching. She wasn’t used to this much attention from her family.
“Jack is… Jack.” He’d been there Haleigh’s whole life. Most of her memories included him. And he knew her. Inside out. Upside down. He’d seen her at her worst and her best and everything in between and he loved her anyway. Or maybe even loved her because of it. “He started reading thrillers because he knew they were my favorite. He watches horror movies with me even though they terrify him. He anticipates my needs without me ever having to ask. He’s generous and kind. We can talk about nothing for hours, or sit in complete silence, and we’re happy to simply be together.”
Her mom rested a hand against her hair. “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”
Haleigh shook her head forcefully. “Just because he’s all those things doesn’t mean we’re right for each other. If we get together and it doesn’t work out again, I could lose him for good. And I can’t not have Jack in my life.”
“What if you took some time to see where things go with Brian?” Joey asked. “ Really date him. Bring him as your plus-one. Commit to the relationship. Then if it still doesn’t feel right, maybe you’ll be more certain Jack’s the right guy for you?”
“I get what you’re saying.” Haleigh rested her head against the wall, letting the unflattering fluorescent lights cast spots into her vision. “But isn’t that unfair to both of them? I can’t ask Jack to wait. And wouldn’t it put a lot of pressure on this thing with Brian?”
“You’ve got more time,” her mom said. “Maybe you need to keep seeing both of them for now. Something will make the decision clear to you.”
Haleigh hoped her mother was right.
“I have dates with both of them coming up,” she said. “We’ll see what happens, I guess.”
Haleigh feared that she’d only end up more confused. But right now, she wasn’t ready to make a choice.
Joey must have read this in her face because she rose to her feet and made her way to Whitney’s empty changing room and closed the door. “Keep us posted,” she said between the clangs and clacks of hangers. “In the meantime, I need to find something for this party because Whitney will leave me at the altar if I show up in one of my work suits.”