49. Jack
Chapter 49
Jack
T he house was only a ten-minute walk from the Ren Faire entrance, but I felt like a weary adventurer by the time I arrived anyway, kicking off my boots, shedding my plastic armour piece by piece in a trail through my room and bathroom. I at least folded the trousers carefully so Phil could mend them. By the time I was done in the shower, all I wanted was to go to bed, despite the smell of food wafting down to the basement.
I grabbed my tablet and decided to have a wander before dinner. I had a nosy in Chloe’s giant primary bedroom, which had its own living room and everything; I checked out the deck, where Fatima and Grey were firing up the hot tub; and finally I went upstairs. There wasn’t a lot to see, but there were huge picture windows looking out over both the front and back of the house. I looked out towards the festival grounds; from up here I could just about make out the shape of the jousting arena. Then I crossed the room and looked out at the neighbourhood of almost identical houses, wondering why anyone would opt for something so starkly out of place in the landscape around it.
I pulled a bean bag chair up to the window to sketch. I was on a new tablet: a used iPad I’d bought off Amy. I knew she could use the money, and I needed something more sustainable than pencil and paper to use for my course. But sat there, I struggled to find inspiration in the overly manicured neighbourhood; it was like all the soul had been sucked from the landscape when it had been developed. I imagined it as it might have been before, still full of the oak and maple and chestnut trees we’d seen at the festival ground. And that’s how I found my muse.
I started sketching out the landscape; it was flat now, but I could tell from the way the trees leaned around the borders that there would have been a shallow gully at one point. So I recreated it as best as I could imagine, with a little stream running through the middle. Then I started to add a Tudor-style cottage beside it, just big enough for two.
Just as I was finishing the shape of the house, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I looked down and saw Morgan in the driveway, doing the running man with her phone in one hand.
I smiled and watched her until she stopped and brought the phone back to her ear, and wondered who she was talking to that had her so excited. My heart sank when I realised it was probably related to the job; she’d probably got an offer. But on a Saturday? No, something wasn’t quite adding up…
“Dinner!” Phil yelled, and I headed back downstairs, reaching the kitchen just as Morgan came through the front door. She had a huge smile plastered on her face, and she searched around, locking eyes with me and opening her mouth as if she were going to share whatever her news was.
But then she clearly thought better of it, or maybe remembered that I wasn’t supposed to be that person for her anymore. So instead she frowned and clamped her mouth shut, filing in line behind me as we queued for dinner.
* * *
I didn’t quite have the stomach for combat once it was full of spaghetti bolognese, but I knew how much Fatima had been pouring into planning tonight’s session – it was “the big one”, apparently – so I made myself a cup of tea and soldiered on. And I wasn’t alone; the kettle took so long to boil on the hob that by the time it was done there was a queue behind me, including Fatima and Grey, who were still wearing their swimsuits.
“Let’s aim for eight maybe for our session?” Fatima asked the group as she dropped teabags into a line of mugs one after the other. That gave us about forty-five minutes.
“Finally time to see Ser Prize in action!” Grey said, smiling at me.
“I need a disco nap,” Chloe said with a yawn, which set the rest of us off.
“Eight sounds good,” Phil said. “Just enough time to mend Jack’s trousers and my undershirt before tomorrow.”
I headed downstairs to grab said trousers, then followed Phil to his room on the top floor. He had me put them on since the rip was in the pocket, not wanting to get the angles wrong and have it lie funny. I told him it didn’t matter, but he insisted, so I used his bathroom to strip off my joggers and put my trousers back on. Phil squatted down to pin them in place, shoving his hand down through the waistband of the trousers so far that, had I not known him all my life, I might have been filing a complaint.
Just as he was finishing the pinning, there was a knock at the door.
“What do you want me to do with the leftovers?” Chloe’s voice asked from the other side.
“Hang on,” Phil called, then looked up at me. “If you put these on the bed, I can get them mended. Just be careful taking them off.”
“Aye, aye,” I said with a little salute.
Once Phil left the room, I unfastened the trousers and slipped them off carefully, just grazing my upper thigh with one of the pins. Then, when I was folding them to set them on the bed, I managed to plunge one of them deep into my finger. When I pulled it back, it instantly started dripping blood, and a few droplets got on my white t-shirt.
“Shit,” I said, pulling it off immediately. I ducked back into the bathroom and started filling up the sink with water, dunking the entire shirt into it and scratching at the red spot with my finger. I’d seen Mum do this before when she’d cut herself cooking, saying the sooner she got the towel into the water, the less likely it would be to stain.
I turned off the water once the sink was full and kept scratching at the fabric; I was pretty sure it was working, but there was one stubborn spot right by the hem.
I reached for the plug to drain the sink so I could fill it with clean water, but just as my hand came in contact with metal, the door on the other side of the bathroom opened, and Morgan stepped in, her eyes going wide when she saw me.
“What the fuck?!” she shouted. “What the hell are you doing?” Her eyes looked from me – mostly naked – to the sink full of slightly pink water and back again. “Are you cleaning up a crime scene? Is Phil in there with fabric scissors sticking out of his chest?”
I laughed, half in surprise and half at her joke. It came out like a bark. “Just trying to get blood out of my top,” I said.
“That’s not really helping your case,” she said, then reached out towards the sink. “Here, you need to get some clean water running over it.”
I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. “Good idea.”
Once I’d refilled the sink, I stood up straight and suddenly realised just how small the bathroom was. Or maybe Morgan was just standing closer than necessary to me. Either way, I didn’t step away, and neither did she. I looked at her in the mirror, trying to catch her gaze, but I couldn’t, because it was too busy running over my form. I tried not to flex or reposition, which I knew would give away that I’d seen her, so I just watched her check me out for a solid five seconds before she realised what she was doing. I took advantage of the moment to admire her in return, from the unkempt, very grabbable array of hair falling over her shoulders to the almost-too-short t-shirt dress she wore. I could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.
When she saw me watching her watch me, she looked away, her cheeks flushing pink. But she still didn’t move away.
“Jack,” she said quietly, and now I turned to face her, my chest just inches from her. She still didn’t step away. “I’m so sorry about earlier. What I said was over the line.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I brought my hand up under her chin without even thinking about it, tilting it up so I could see her face. It still took her a moment to meet my gaze, but when she did, the mix of emotions I saw there sent shivers up my spine. “No, it wasn’t out of line at all. It was exactly right. You were right. This whole time.”
I watched her eyes as she listened to me, my pulse quickening as I saw relief flash across them. Then I dropped my hand, because it wasn’t my place to touch her like that anymore; and because if I didn’t, I was going to kiss her.
“What you said sucked,” I said. “It really, really hurt. And I still don’t totally understand why you couldn’t let me figure my shit out and be with you. But I don’t blame you for feeling like it was getting in the way.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, her brows pulling up and in, her lips forming into a pout. “It wasn’t getting in the way. I just…”
I could see her debating what she wanted to say to me; how far to push this. It felt like we were on the precipice of something; maybe the most honest conversation we’d ever had. So I stood stock still, not wanting to spook her.
“I didn’t know what I wanted yet,” she said. “And it felt like your baggage was making you pull me in a direction that I’m not even sure you wanted for me.”
I sort of half-laughed – more of an audible smile, really – and she frowned.
“So in other words,” I said, “it was getting in the way?”
She rolled her eyes up and to the side as she thought about that, taking a deep breath. “Yes, okay, fine. It was getting in the way. But you weren’t getting in the way. And it’s important to me that you know that.”
“I think I do,” I said, and it was true.
As I watched the way she looked at me, her chocolate brown eyes staring into mine, I felt like maybe she still wanted me as much as I wanted her. God, she was gorgeous. And so talented, and so clever. And infuriating sometimes. And I really, really wanted to kiss her.
But I didn’t get the chance, because she kissed me first.
Her lips were soft and tentative at first, but the moment I parted mine to taste her, something ignited in her. She reached her arms up over my shoulders, running one hand through the hair at the nape of my neck, biting at my lower lip. I’d made out with Morgan enough times to know what that meant – what she wanted – and I went instantly hard in response.
I reached down to wrap my hands around her thighs, spreading her apart and lifting her up; fuck me, she wasn’t wearing underwear, either. I set her back down on the edge of the counter next to the sink, and she pressed her hips up into me and pulled my mouth back to hers with an urgency that left me breathless. I wrapped one of her curls around my finger, ran my thumb over her nipple through her top, traced the curve of her hips. Then finally, I sank my fingers into the wetness of her folds.
All the things I’d been missing most when I was alone at night. All of the moments I’d replayed in the weeks since we’d broken up. They were right in front of me, and I was going to have them all. Taste them all. If she’d let me.
Her hand tugged at my waistband and rubbed up the length of my hard-on, and I knew her letting me wouldn’t be the problem. I felt like I was about to explode just from a single touch.
“Please,” she said, holding me in her hand, tugging me towards her, and she didn’t need to ask me twice. I pressed straight into her so quickly it made her gasp. And as I thrust as slowly as I could make myself, all I could think was Yes. Finally. I’m never giving this up again. Fuck, I love this woman.
I brought my hand to her face, and then she moved it to her neck, where I squeezed gently, making her gasp in delight. I couldn’t help but pick up my pace, somehow getting even harder inside her. Then she began to tighten around me, and I used every ounce of restraint I had left to keep my rhythm, moving my other hand to the spot between her legs I knew would push her just over the edge. She pressed forward against me as she came, pulsing around me, and I wrapped my arms around her as I thrust once, twice, three times more before I came, too, bracing myself against the mirror as she held me close. Then I collapsed against her body as we both breathed hard in time with one another.
Everything went a little fuzzy for a moment whilst I came down from the heat of the moment, and it wasn’t until I felt a gentle push against my chest that I even considered moving. I grabbed my wet t-shirt from the sink – it needed a wash anyway, I supposed – and handed it to Morgan as I extracted myself carefully.
“That was incredible,” I said as I grabbed my joggers from the floor of Phil’s room and slipped them back on. I’d have to go get another top from downstairs, but that was fine. I finally had Morgan back, and I didn’t care who knew it.
“Shit,” Morgan muttered from the bathroom, and I turned around to see her leaning back against the mirror, her hand on her head.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, stepping back towards her and lifting a hand to touch her leg, but she waved me away.
“Don’t, Jack,” she said, her voice firm. “This doesn’t change anything.”
I froze instantly. “What do you mean?” I asked, hoping desperately I’d misunderstood her.
“I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that you and I desperately need some distance,” she said, motioning between us. “It doesn’t change any decisions either of us has made.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, the hamster in a wheel that passed for my brain running double-time to try to keep up with this about-face. “We made up, didn’t we? Is that not what just happened?”
“No, it’s not,” she said, pushing me out of her way and jumping down from the sink. “You apologised twice. That doesn’t change anything for us.”
“How does it not change things?” I asked, feeling like I was having the same fight again, but in reverse. “I don’t understand what you want from me here.”
She turned back on me. “Look, I’m sorry I let it get this far. But the apologies? They don’t mean anything without actions. Acknowledging the problem doesn’t absolve you of actually having to solve it. And you haven’t solved anything. So no, this doesn’t change things between us.”
I shook my head. There was so much she didn’t know. If she’d only let me explain.
“I know that,” I said, my voice weak and wobbly. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to grab her by the hands and tell her that I knew. That I was working on it. That I’d done so much , and if only she’d let me prove it to her, things would be different.
But the part of me that still fought against all the change I was making kept me frozen. And when she finally looked me in the eye, I thought my heart might excise itself from my body. She looked so … determined.
“This can’t happen again, Jack,” she said, her voice smooth and firm. “This was goodbye.”