Chapter Six
Six
Jack
I’m still slightly in shock that this is happening.
Sure, there’s physical evidence that Abby actually did take me up on my offer—there’s the text in my phone, the call that came after to work out the details, and most importantly, there’s her stuff currently being brought into my apartment—but none of these make it easier to believe.
“Feels like just yesterday we were moving you out to live in bliss with my sister,” I sigh, patting Ian’s shoulder as he sets a box down in his old room.
He narrows his eyes. “I swear to God, if this is some ploy…”
“Does that sound like me?” I flutter my eyes innocently. “I’m just being a Good Samaritan.”
“Good Samaritan my ass,” he mutters. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Why does she wanna move in here, anyway? She can barely stand you.” He gives me an apologetic look. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I tell him. “It’s just how we flirt, after all.”
Ian rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right. At least I don’t have to worry about that,” he laughs. “I think pigs would fly before Abby would hook up with you.”
“Should I be offended by that?”
“Maybe,” Ian says. “But we both know you aren’t.”
“Ah, you know me. I like a challenge.”
Ian grimaces, then levels me with a flat stare. “Listen, all jokes aside…Abby has been through a lot. She needs some stability right now after all the shit our dad pulled.”
Wow, they really are babying the shit out of her.
Ian and Abby’s dad used to own the Druids with Ian’s mom, but after it came out that he had a secret love child who he’d been keeping quiet for years—Abby—the marriage fell apart and he fucked off to California somewhere after leaving behind plenty of baggage for his kids to sort through.
“I’m not a complete ass,” I remind him. “Just a partial ass.” I consider for a moment. “With a completely great ass.”
Ian shakes his head, a little chuckle escaping him. “Yeah, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
“Worry about what?” Dee says as she steps into the room, Abby in tow.
“Nothing,” Ian tells her. He eyes the box in Dee’s hand. “That’s the last of it?”
“I think so,” Abby tells him. “Nothing else in the car.”
“And you’re sure this is what you want,” Ian prods her.
“Hey,” I say. “You roomed with me for months before you ran off to play live-in boyfriend with my sister. I didn’t hear any complaints from you.”
“I can’t just take up your living room for two more months,” Abby says. “And it’s silly to do so when there’s an empty room right here.” She cuts her eyes to me. “Besides, Jack and I are…friends.”
I almost laugh at her tone, like it pains her to say it. I have a feeling this is going to be a lot of fun.
“Best friends, practically,” I tell Ian. “I’m thinking of swapping you out for her.”
Abby snorts. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“I just don’t want you to think that we didn’t love having you,” Dee says with a pout.
Abby smiles at her, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. “It’s not that. I just need a little more space to work, that’s all. I feel like I’m in the way over there, anyway.”
“Hey.” Ian takes a step closer, clasping her shoulder. “You’re not in the way. You’re never in the way, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Abby answers quietly.
Dee tugs on my arm, tilting her head toward the door, no doubt wanting to give the siblings a moment of privacy to make sure they’re okay.
“Get me a drink, Jack,” Dee says.
I huff. “You’ve got hands.”
“Come on,” she says with another tug of my arm. “I want you to get it.”
I frown as I let her tug me out of the room, noticing she’s being careful to avoid my bad arm. I follow her through the living room and into the kitchen, moving around her to the fridge to grab two beers, handing her one.
She smacks my shoulder before she takes it.
“What were you thinking? Offering her a room? I swear to God, Jack, if you’re actually trying to get Ian back for him and me, I will stomp you so far into the ground—”
“Easy, tiger,” I say with a laugh. “It isn’t like that. I just ran into her about a week ago, and she mentioned there wasn’t a lot of space, that’s all. You know me.” I grin. “Always trying to do the right thing.”
I don’t mention the other stuff, how suffocated they made her feel; I know it would only serve to make Dee and Ian feel bad, and I know that isn’t what Abby wants. I may not know much about her, but I know that much at least.
Dee’s eyes narrow. “You’re impossible, that’s what you are.”
“How rude,” I say, pressing a hand to my chest in mock outrage. “I’m the picture of goodwill.”
“Stupid,” she snorts, taking a sip of her beer. “You better know what you’re doing.”
I wince at her mostly playful insult. It isn’t like I think Dee believes that I’m actually stupid, but she sure acts like it sometimes.
“I’m just trying to help,” I tell her, meaning it. “Seriously.”
Her lips purse, and I give her my best look of sincerity. It’s definitely one I don’t use often, but I really do mean it, oddly enough. It’s been a long time since anyone needed me, since I had the ability to be what someone needed, and even in this small way…it feels kind of nice.
“This still feels weird,” Ian says as he emerges from the bedroom with Abby trailing after him.
I beam at him. “Does it? Does it feel weird having your sister live under the same roof as me? Man, wouldn’t it be weirder if, I don’t know…I was doing unspeakable things to her?”
“I can assure you,” Abby pipes up. “No one in this apartment will be doing unspeakable things to me.”
That draws a loud laugh out of Ian. “Okay, so maybe I don’t have anything to worry about.” He points a finger at me. “You’re too much.”
“Just gearing up to be the best brother-in-law I can be someday,” I tell him.
Dee and Ian share a smile at that, and I have to suppress the urge to gag. They really are tooth-achingly sweet together. It made it easier not to hold any real grudges about them keeping their…thing a secret from me for so long.
“Well, I guess we’ll get out of your hair,” Ian says. “You’ll be at practice tomorrow?”
I nod. “Team doctor finally cleared me. I’ll make the Buffalo game too.”
“That’s good,” Ian says.
Dee scoffs. “Sure it is.”
Ian places a hand over her nape, squeezing gently while they have one of their silent conversations with their eyes. It’s really annoying when they do that.
“You’ll call if you need us?” Dee asks Abby.
Abby nods back at her. “I know where to find you.”
Ian gives his sister a tight hug, Dee following suit.
They both murmur their assurances that she still has a place at their apartment if something happens.
And if I didn’t find it so amusing, how little they seem to trust me, I might just be offended.
I could tell them that I have no plans to woo Abby, that she would probably have my balls if I did anyway, but letting them squirm feels like appropriate punishment for having the audacity to fall in love with one another.
My sister moves to hug me after, whispering in my ear, “Be good.”
“I can assure you,” I tell her, “I’m always good.”
“That’s really not reassuring,” she sighs.
I laugh as I pat her back. “I’ll be good.”
It takes them a few more moments to gather up their things and finish saying goodbye, and one would think that they’re dropping their kid off at a strange new daycare rather than an adult woman at a place she’s going to be living in for the foreseeable future.
When they’re finally gone, Abby lets out a beleaguered sigh.
“Do you see what I mean now?”
“You mean them acting like you’re still in diapers and need me to baby-gate the apartment?”
She grimaces. “Yes. That.”
“They mean well.”
“I know they do,” she says. “And I love them, but I just need some of my own space sometimes.”
“I’m all about space,” I say seriously. “King of space over here.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Are you going to make me regret this decision?”
“I mean…” I shrug. “Probably.”
She rolls her eyes. “At least my new room has a lock on it.”
“I’ll have you know I’m still adept at being annoying through a door.”
“I have no doubts about that.”
Now that we’re alone in the apartment, it’s fully sinking in that she’s here. That she’s going to live here. I mean, I knew that, in abstract, when I offered her the room, but it isn’t until this very moment that the gravity of that offer is really settling.
Because despite the fact that I have no outward designs on Abby Thompson, she’s still a beautiful, ball-busting woman who is now living across the hall from me. It will definitely take some getting used to.
“So you said you get to play again soon?” she asks, breaking the silence.
My head snaps up, as I’m roused from my thoughts. “Hm? Oh. Yeah. Finally.”
“And how is your arm?”
I tense, my hand instinctively moving to touch my stiff wrist. There’s a lingering tension there that I fear isn’t going away, but it doesn’t throb like it did right after I took the hit weeks ago, at least. I try to look nonchalant.
“It’s fine. Not worth all the fuss.”
Her piercing eyes find mine, looking right through me. I don’t think I considered the fact that those eyes would be trapped in this apartment with me for however long. They’re unnerving, is what they are.
“I told you that you didn’t have to pretend none of this worries you,” she says finally. “You already admitted that it did.”
“Maybe I really am just feeling better.”
“You don’t just feel better with something like that. Not without treatment.”
“I’ll get the treatment,” I assure her. “Just…after the season.”
She watches me for a long moment, finally shrugging. “Like I said, it’s none of my business.”
The way she says it…It’s almost like she’s trying to hide the fact that she might actually be worried about me. Her eyes shift away and her mouth presses into a line, like she’d like to push the matter.
But that’s ridiculous, right?
“I’m going to grab a shower,” I tell her, needing to get away from that stare of hers. I flash her a grin. “Wanna join? Conservation and all that.”
She looks unimpressed. “Don’t make me regret this on the first day.”
I watch as she turns and stalks to her room, shutting the door behind her.
I stare at the closed wood for a moment more, considering the ramifications of this arrangement I’ve offered up.
Which is something that I’m not really used to.
I rarely think about things after I do them. I just kind of…do them.
But now I have this scowling, snarky woman living in my apartment, just a hair’s breadth from my bedroom door.
And as much as I like to tease Ian about getting back at him, I would never actually hit on Abby.
As much as she hates all the fussing my sister and Ian dote on her, I can appreciate that she’s been through entirely too much this year to deal with my bullshit too.
Probably best that I give her a wide berth while she’s here.
Considering that we’re on track to make the playoffs, I should be so busy that it won’t be an issue, anyway.
I stride down the hall, only giving her door one quick glance as I pass by it, shaking my head as I duck into the bathroom to shower. This might actually end up being the stupidest idea ever. Which makes sense, I guess.
It was mine, after all.