23. Chapter 23
Seren
The knocking at my door was insistent.
“Ughhh,” I groaned, dragging the heel of my hand over my face, wishing I could have another hour I clearly wasn’t getting.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, grabbing the first hoodie I could find off the floor and shoving my arms into it as I moved, not bothering with anything else beyond that, because if this was something stupid, I wasn’t putting in effort I didn’t have to give.
“Coming,” I muttered under my breath, even though they couldn’t hear me.
The floor was cold under my feet as I padded down the hallway, every knock echoing a little louder the closer I got. “Okay, okay.” Peering through the peephole, my breath caught in my chest when I saw Jake.
What was he doing here so early? Did something happen?
“Hey, is everything okay?” I rushed out as soon as I pulled the door open.
His light eyes flicked over me quickly, like he was checking I was in one piece, then immediately past me, over my shoulder, into my apartment.
“Hey. Yeah— Yeah, you’re good,” he said, too fast, voice pitched higher than usual. “I mean, I’m fine. Cool. Great.”
Not overly convincing.
“Are you sure? You seem a little…off?”
“I just wanted to come and say good morning to my friend and her son, is that allowed? I wasn’t sure it was allowed. There are zero rule books for this and, honestly, I’ve never been one for following rules anyway.”
My eyebrows rose as my mouth dropped a little, trying to figure out what to say exactly. When my mouth opened, he beat me to it.
“I’ve been up all night—”
That much was clear. If the shadows under his eyes didn’t give him away, this jittery version of him definitely rung alarm bells.
“—thinking about things, and I wanted you to know that I am a responsible guy.”
He exhaled, smiling in a way that wasn’t normal for him. I scratched my head as my eyebrows pinched together, trying to figure out where all this was coming from.
“Jake,” I said slowly, because there was no other way to approach whatever this was. “What’s going on?”
He was chewing on his bottom lip like a hungry bear. “Oh, I actually— Yeah, I brought you something.”
He held it out to me.
I frowned, taking it slowly, staring at the zip-up training hoodie. A Knights zip-up training hoodie.
I looked down at it, then back up at him.
“You left it in my car,” he said. “Last week. After training.”
I stared at him for a second longer, then glanced back at the hoodie, running my thumb over the fabric. “I didn’t leave this in your car,” I said, lifting it. “Because this isn’t mine.”
His eyes dropped to the hoodie, then back to me, something flickering across his face as the realization hit.
“…Oh. It looked blue in my car.” A red flush crept up his neck as he rubbed the back of it.
Was he okay?
“Look, I was about to make some tea. Do you want to come in?” I wasn’t entirely sure how to help his erratic mood, nor did I usually drink tea in the mornings, coffee was my vice, but I was sure I had chamomile tea inside to calm his nerves.
Jake deflated, and the wild look in his eyes shifted as he nodded. “Yeah, tea sounds good.”
I stepped aside, opening the door wider. He hovered there, as though he needed one more sign he wasn’t crossing some invisible line. So I reached out and took his hand, tugging him in.
His fingers tightened around mine, squeezing twice like I’d done before, and I returned the gesture. The tension in his shoulders eased by the time we made it into the kitchen, his hand still firmly in mine, his thumb brushing over the back of my hand. I placed his zip-up on the counter.
“I didn’t mean to show up here acting like a lunatic. I really thought that shirt was yours.” His voice was resigned, his eyes rimmed with red.
“Was it really about the shirt?” I had a ridiculous thought in the back of my mind that maybe he was feeling some other things since Derek had been here this weekend and we’d barely talked.
Closing his eyes, he exhaled, then looked up at the ceiling. “No.”
I stepped a little closer, dropping our connected hands between us. “Want to talk about it?”
“I called you last night, and Derek answered. He said, ‘we’re going to bed after her shower,’ and I’m not going to lie, I lost it a little bit.
” He laughed, but it held no humor. “That use of ‘we’ had me spinning. I didn’t sleep much thinking about it all, and I know I’m not making sense, but, like, are you sleeping together?
Wait, don’t answer that. You don’t have to tell me.
That was rude to ask.” His face buried into his hands, breaking our connection, as he muttered something unintelligible.
My brain played catch up as fast as I tried to make sense of everything he’d said. Frustration built inside me at the fact Derek answered my phone, then didn’t tell me afterward. I’d have to have a conversation with him about that.
Trying to read between the lines and Jake being here, was he trying to tell me he was jealous?
I let out a slow breath, focusing back on the man in my kitchen right now.
“Jake,” I said, wrapping my hand around his wrist and pulling it away from his face. “Derek didn’t tell me you called.”
His eyes found mine, tortured and hopeful all at once, like he wasn’t sure he could believe that.
“He shouldn’t have spoken for me.”
Moving a little closer to me, the warmth of his body was soothing, and I wanted to lean into him, take some of this stress away, but I wasn’t sure that would fix everything.
“I know I’m being messy, showing up like this.” He sighed, voice rough. “I’m very aware that it’s not a good look for me. I really regret asking if you were sleeping with him. Please forget I said that.” He swallowed with a wince but didn’t break eye contact with me.
The way he looked at me like he was bracing for me to step back, to pull away and confirm the fears he’d been wrestling with.
This wasn’t friend territory, I was right; it was jealousy. My pulse kicked up, a warm thrum under my skin. I could feel it in my throat, in my fingertips. He was worried about losing me. After everything he’d told me about his past, I understood that.
I swallowed hard. “Jake, you aren’t being messy.”
His head tilted.
“I’d rather have you showing up here to talk than pretending you don’t care.”
His breath hitched, and it sent heat curling low in my stomach.
“I do care,” he whispered, eyes dipping to my mouth. “I care what you think. I care about you, and Cai. And if you thought I was some player who could make things difficult for you both”—his eyes closed for a beat—“that would tear me up.”
The soft spot I was developing for him pressed against my ribs.
I knew what people had said about him in the past, and how easily he could charm women.
But the man who had shown up for me wasn’t the same.
He’d learned Cai’s favorite things and remembered my coffee order after meeting me once.
He took care of us when we were sick. He lost sleep thinking of me with another man, that I had the wrong impression of him.
Jake had a heart so big that I wondered if it scared him sometimes.
“I don’t think you’re a player,” I said softly. “I think you’re kind, thoughtful, and you pay attention to everything that matters to you.” My mouth curved. “You make people around you feel important, and you care so deeply.”
His eyes lit up like the sun breaking through days of clouds.
“That’s the man I’m getting to know.”
Jake’s throat bobbed, his gaze locked on mine.
The space between us felt like something we were both holding on to with bated breath.
All the noise he’d walked in with disappeared, leaving us with heartbeats and contact.
I was aware of everything in a way that made it hard to think straight—how close he was, how my hand was still wrapped around his wrist, how neither of us had moved.
He looked at me like he was waiting. And I didn’t know what to do.
The gravity between us shrank again as his eyes dipped to my mouth again, and mine did the same.
Nothing about this moment was wrong. In fact, everything in my mind and body wanted him, and I knew with certainty that if I leaned in, he’d meet me there.
His tongue darted out to swipe across his lips, and I swallowed at the motion, unable to look away. My body reacted to his presence too, nipples pebbling under my hoodie, goosebumps erupting down my bare legs. God, I wanted to kiss him.
I wanted to—
“Mommy!”
Cai’s voice cut through the moment, and the world snapped back into place all at once. I jerked back instinctively, letting Jake go, spinning to see my sleepy baby boy rubbing his eyes, clutching his favorite elephant plushie.
“Jakey.” He yawned.
“Hey, little buddy,” Jake said, clearing his throat. Cai blinked slowly, still half asleep, his hair a mess of curls.
“Come here,” I murmured, crouching slightly as I gathered him up, his weight settling against me in that way that always grounded me faster than anything else could.
I needed that reminder, the one where I had a whole other person to consider before acting on impulses. No matter how strong they were.
His head dropped onto my shoulder instantly. “Mommy,” he mumbled again. “I hungry.”
Routine; that would help everything go back to normal. I brushed his hair out of his eyes and kissed the crown of his head. “What would you like today? Oatmeal, cereal, toast…”
Cai shifted, his hand pressing into me as he adjusted, his elephant squished awkwardly between his chest and mine.
“Owmeal! Jakey hungry?”
I glanced over at the man still hovering in my doorway, and my stomach flipped a little at how freaking handsome he looked.
“Jakey is always hungry.”
My mind took a turn, a wildly inappropriate turn that I shut down immediately.
It was six-thirty in the morning, for god’s sake.
“Okay,” I murmured, adjusting Cai on my hip. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
I didn’t need to look to know Jake had followed me in. I could feel him there.