Chapter 28 #2
“Hey, that’s my question,” he says, holding onto the hand he pulled from my face. His thumb rubs circles on the back of my hand, like he’s imprinting himself there. “And yeah, that’s clearly the line. Isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.” A smile pulls at my lips. “One week.”
“One week till you’re single,” he corrects. “Then we get to start this right.”
I’m about to whimper again when Lucas tips my face toward his.
“It’s okay. We’ll transition to ‘being friends,’ and then ‘hanging out,’ and before you know it, we’ll be making out on road trips.”
Heat surges from where we’re touching, electrifying every nerve from top to bottom. “I literally cannot wait.”
“Quinn, you have no idea.” He’s staring at my mouth, and his gaze only makes me flare hotter. I push up from the table, mesmerized by the hunger on his face.
“I promise you—”
The door swings open, and before I can even jump back, I hear the sound of a phone camera clicking.
My stomach drops to the floor.
Above his phone, Jake’s face is brick red.
Lucas and I have frozen in place like statues—six inches apart, hands almost touching. Heat claws up my neck as Jake closes the door.
“We gotta talk,” Jake says.
Lucas takes a step in front of me, holding his hands up like he’s protecting me. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Jake stalks up to him, his shoulders up around his ears in a way I know anyone else would find intimidating. When he reaches Lucas, Lucas stands taller as Jake tries to look past him at me.
“You’re not touching her,” Lucas growls.
“Touching—what are you talking about?” Confusion makes Jake’s forehead jump, and he tries to look past Lucas again to see me, but Lucas is blocking him.
Jake rolls his eyes hard. “Stand down, bro. I don’t care about you guys.
I care about you being idiots. Anyone could’ve walked into this room. Scot, you promised to help me.”
I bump my head against Lucas’s back, grabbing his arms and squeezing. “It’s okay,” I say before taking two steps around Lucas to face Jake.
I can feel Lucas behind me, the heat of him, the barely contained stillness of someone who wants to act and won’t. He promised me a line. He’s holding it even now, even here, while I step in front of him the way I always step in front of everyone.
I wonder if he recognizes what I’m doing.
I wonder if I do.
The three of us are standing in an awkward triangle, except Jake has dismissed Lucas from the equation entirely.
“So, anything to say for yourself?” Jake asks.
Irritation claws up my throat, but I swallow it down. “Nope. I’m just trying to survive fake dating you while I have feelings for someone else. No big deal.”
“I can’t afford for this to get messy,” he says. “This isn’t fair.”
The word hits like a slap. “Fair? You’re right. I’ve been more than generous. You said until Spring Training, and then you said until the end of the month. Which, hey, no big deal. It’s just a few extra days. But your agent approached me during the game, and he wants this to go on into the summer.”
Lucas’s face flies to mine.
“Would you?” Jake asks, brightening.
Lucas leans forward, and for a second, I think he’s going to lunge at Jake. But when I look at him, the muscles in his jaw are flexing, and his arms are folded across his chest, like he’s bent on containing himself.
All I want is for him not to contain himself. To let go, cross these arbitrary, maddening lines and just stake his claim on my heart.
But he won’t.
“Are you kidding?” I ask.
“Did he tell you the Tide thing, though? He could bring you on. It could be the two of us in these commercials, Opening Day launch, worth a couple mil. They pitched it as ‘A Clean Start.’ They’re all over my redemption story.”
I’m so frustrated, my hands are shaking. “Don’t just make it a story, Jake! And I’m not the only one who promised. You promised me three favors. What was the first one?”
Jake’s eyes go hard. “I need to do the work on my own so I don’t need you.”
“Exactly. Are you?”
“I am! Look at how much better I did in my interview today!”
“Yeah, but you still snapped at that man at the charity event, Jake,” I say, my chest shaking with sobs I cannot cry.
“I didn’t punch him, or anything.”
“That’s not a bragging point! I know how the taunts are triggers,” I say, remembering what my parents told me about Jake’s home life. The abuse—physical and verbal. “But you can’t overcome it on your own. Remember?”
Asking Jake if he’s found the therapist he promised to find would be delicate under the best of circumstances.
These aren’t the best of circumstances.
“I’m still looking,” he says.
“You’ve said that for three months! I know someone in South Carolina who used to work in Chicago. She has connections. I’ll call her today and get you a referral—”
Jake’s lip curls. “Scot—”
“Watch your tone,” Lucas says, as cold as ice.
“I don’t want to talk about this in front of your boyfriend,” Jake says.
I catch a glimpse of Lucas from the corner of my eye. His jaw is so tight, I can see the muscle working. He’s not looking at Jake. He’s looking at me.
Not with pity. With something that looks like grief.
“You never want to talk about it,” I tell Jake, trying to ignore the pain on Lucas’s face. “You promised me you’d see someone, and you haven’t fulfilled your promise.”
“What about what you promised? That you wouldn’t let anything change between me and your family?”
“It hasn’t changed! They defend you every time something happens! My brothers are constantly harping on me to do more for you, to talk about you in interviews, to post! It’s never enough for them!”
“Your mom’s mad at me.” His voice cracks, and his lip is curling, like he’s trying not to cry. “I can’t lose your mom. Your parents. I can’t let this happen.”
“My mom takes your side every time! Every time you did something growing up, I took the fall! You took money from my parents to give to your junkie dad? I said it was me. You broke a window coming in late drunk in high school and didn’t want my parents to be disappointed?
I told them it was me. I can’t keep doing this, Jake!
I can’t throw myself in front of another train for you when you’re the one driving it! ”
The words come out louder than I intend, and a second later, the echo of my voice against the walls bounces back to me.
And then something strange happens.
I hear myself.
Not just what I said to Jake—but what I’ve been saying to myself for years. That throwing myself in front of things is what I do. That it’s what I’m for. That the only version of me worth keeping is the one who steps between other people and their consequences.
I believed that. I built a whole life on it.
Jake looks ashamed. He should.
But maybe I should, too.
Something changes in the room. I don’t know if Jake feels it. But Lucas does—I can tell by the way his breathing changes, just slightly.
He sees me.
Not the version of me that has everything under control. The one standing here realizing she built a life on the wrong thing.
“I don’t want this, Scot. You’re my—you’re my family.”
“Then act like it. Please. Please let me break up with you.”
The ache in my chest is so thick, I can hardly breathe. All I want is for Lucas to put his arms around me and take some of this burden, but he seems frozen—not sure where the line is. I want to scream when you love someone, there is no line! But it’s so unfair of me to expect him to know that.
And I’m so tired of having to rationalize to myself that “It’s so unfair.”
I just want him to know.
I want him to punch Jake in the face for me, no matter the cost. I hate myself for wanting that, but I want it, anyway.
After everything I did last year to keep him at arm’s length, after drawing line after line in the sand with him this year, I just want him to fight for me. To chase me so boldly, no one in the world could mistake it.
And it’s all so incredibly unfair.
Then I risk a look at him, and the truth hits me: he wants all of that. I know he wants it. He’s holding the line I drew, even now, even here.
I drew it to protect him.
He’s honoring it to protect me.
We’re both so busy protecting each other that neither of us is asking for what we need.
“I won’t make this ugly, Scot,” Jake says quietly. “End of the month, it’s over, like we agreed.”
I sniff through my sobs. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“I swear. No more trains.”
I laugh and look up to see a sad—almost heartbreaking—smile on his face. “What was the third thing you promised?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t hurt TikTok kid’s career.”
“And if you break that promise?”
“I’m the one who has to tell your family.”
I nod. And then, because he’s an idiot, but I really do love him, I pull him into a hug. “I’ll still be here for you. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“I love you, bro.”
“Love you too, sis.” He pats my back. “Thanks for all the help.”
And now, finally, we both turn to Lucas, who looks like he’s a bull trying very hard not to break everything in the China shop. He must have had to turn part of himself off to manage being present for this at all.
“So how are you two going to break up?” Lucas asks Jake. “When do we get to date openly? I can’t wait two more months to make this look like there was no cheating, man. I’m dying.”
The desperation in his voice makes me slip my hand into his. I don’t think about it. I don’t calculate whether it’s smart or what it costs.
I just reach.
He holds on so tightly, I get a sense for everything he’s been holding back.
And it occurs to me, somewhere underneath the carnage of these last ten minutes, that I’ve spent my whole life making myself available to anyone who needed me.
But I never once asked someone to hold on to me like this.
I’m not sure I would have let them if they tried.
Jake looks at us, no judgment in his eyes. “We can say the longer we dated, the more we realized we work better as what we’ve always been—friends.”
“That means this week, we can’t have any more lovey-dovey stuff,” I say.
“Finally,” Jake mumbles. Then he shudders, and I punch his shoulder, hard.
“Dude! As if I’m the one who’s gross to kiss?” I fake vomiting in my mouth.
Jake snorts and looks at Lucas. “Come on, man. You gotta agree with me. She’s a terrible kisser.”
Lucas looks like he wants to break Jake into tiny pieces. “I wouldn’t know.”
Jake’s eyes go big, and then he laughs even bigger. “Oh, you poor sucker. You have no idea what you’re in for.”
“I need you to shut up,” Lucas says, squeezing his eyes closed.
Jake taps Lucas’s chest. “You’re all right, TikTok kid.” He grins and looks at me. “Here’s to the final week.”
“May it end quickly.”
He turns, holds a hand up in farewell, and leaves the room.
And Lucas and I stare at each other.
“Is this real?” he asks. “Is it my turn to fever dream now?”
I hold up my hands, and he threads his fingers through them. I’ve wanted him to kiss me for so long, and with his commitment to not crossing a line, it’s going to have to start with me.
“Lucas, I need you to kiss—”
He doesn’t let me finish.
His mouth finds mine, and for one suspended second, neither of us moves. Like we’re both making sure this is real. Like after all the waiting, we need a single heartbeat just to feel it, just to breathe—
Then something gives way in both of us at once.
And we’re all in.
I didn’t know it could feel like this. Like being wanted back.
Nothing about this kiss is careful.
Nothing about it is restrained.
And for the first time since my ridiculous fake relationship started, all lines are gone.
With one hand pressed between my shoulder blades, Lucas brings the other up to my face, pulling off my glasses and dropping them to the ground.
Then he cups my face with his hand, his thumb just in front of my ears, anchoring me to him.
Guiding my mouth to his. His lips are hot and hungry, and he tastes like sweat and the peppermint lip balm I slipped into his locker earlier.
With every kiss, the stadium fades away until all of my awareness is here—centered on him.
He breaks the kiss for a moment to take a breath, and I desperately grab his jersey, practically throwing myself onto him.
He bumps against a table, chuckles in my mouth, and then sits back against the table.
His hands drop down to my waist, but they don’t stay there long.
He pulls me closer at the hips, and then his hands find my back again. My neck. My hair.
Lucas kisses me like he’s been practicing each move in his head for months, like he’s memorized my lips, the curve of my neck, the small of my back in theory, and now he’s finally getting to enjoy it in reality.
Us.
A soft sound escapes my throat—half laugh, half sob—and he backs up enough to check on me, his eyes roving my face. “Are you okay?”
I laugh and press my forehead into his lips. “Definitely okay. Is this real?”
He kisses my neck just below my ear, his breath turning my legs to jelly. “It had better be. If I wake up from one more dream where I’m finally kissing you just to realize it’s my pillow, I’m going to walk into a live bullpen.”
I laugh as he wraps his arms around me. I put mine under his, and scratch my nails across his back over his jersey.
“Mmm,” he says, finding my lips again. “I love that.”
I scratch more, my nails tracing around his number, roving around his back like it’s an exploratory mission—an excuse to feel every muscle in his back. Soon, I’m smiling too hard to kiss anymore, and Lucas lets go of me, hugs me close, and kisses my forehead again and again.
“One more week, Quinn.”
“One more week,” I echo. “And I’m all yours.”
Somewhere down the hallway, a door slams. We risk one last, hungry kiss before forcing ourselves apart. I fix Lucas’s jersey where I tugged it a bit too hard. He smooths my hair and blouse.
And then, with a lingering look that promises more than either of us are ready to say out loud, he leaves the video room.
I watch him go, smiling like an absolute fool.
When the familiar buzz pattern of my family text thread vibrates against my thigh, I don’t even glance at it. They’ll want updates. Reassurance that Jake’s star is rising. Something strategic and self-sacrificing.
But for the first time in my life, I don’t feel obligated to answer.
For the first time, I’m choosing something for me.
For us.
The phone buzzes again.
I silence it.
Trace my fingers across my smiling lips and try not to squeal with excitement.
One more week.