1. Iris #2
“We are, but he’s been best friends with my older brother for forever, so he treats me like another obnoxious sibling he has to keep an eye on.
” Which was fine. That was all fine and normal and it was just that the last dregs of my stupid teenage crush on him sometimes reared its ugly head at the most inconvenient moments.
Like when I was half-drunk in the middle of the night.
“He might be a bit of a pain to deal with, but he agreed to pick us up at one in the morning, didn’t he?” Savannah pointed out.
“Cole would have, too,” I mumbled.
Savvy made a face. “Tanner and Cole don’t really get along anyway, so this is better.” Tanner was cousins with Cole and Jackson. Because of course, in a town as small as Oakdale Springs, everyone had multiple connections to everyone else.
Before I could make a comment about Tanner’s attitude, Jackson pulled up in his SUV.
“Any reason you girls couldn’t organize a designated driver before going out?” he asked as Savannah and Maya piled into the back—the cowards—leaving me to sit next to Jackson and deal with his grumpy ass.
Not that I could see the curve of his ass or much of his thick thighs with him in the driver’s seat.
“We did. It fell through.” I climbed in. The original plan had been to stay until closing and help with cleaning up in exchange for catching a ride home with one of the bartenders.
Oh, I’d forgotten how comfy his car’s seats were. I got all nice and cozy in the buttery soft leather. My head swam as the alcohol caught up with me.
“What happened?” Jackson watched me, the chocolate brown of his irises almost black in the low light. How dare he sit there, looking all annoyed? No one forced him to be here.
God, he must have been asleep when we called.
His short, dark hair was all rumpled, and a thin T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and barrel chest. I’d long since committed what he looked like shirtless to memory and could call it up with a blink.
Tanned skin, lightly defined pecs, with a rounded stomach and thick arms. The kind that best showed their strength when in motion.
Jackson might not have had the sharp definition around his pecs and abs of guys who spent hours in the gym—he didn’t have time for that—but I’d seen him pick up and toss around heavy equipment like it was nothing. And that little bit of extra padding made him so much more tempting to cuddle up to.
Tonight, he wore flannel pants instead of his usual jeans. Which was strange, because he and Cole didn’t live together, so Cole had to have been over at Jackson’s place.
I avoided his eyes, even though they threatened to bore holes in my skull. After my third drink, I lost the ability to deal with probing gazes from overprotective men. I’d spill my guts in a second. “Can we just go?”
“Buckle in first,” he said in a gravelly voice that went straight to my core.
I knew from experience that he wouldn’t touch the gas pedal until my seat belt was buckled, so I fumbled with the stupid doohickey until he huffed with annoyance, yanked it out of my hand, and clasped it himself.
His hands were shockingly warm. I leaned into them. On accident, of course.
He snatched his fingers away from my side and pulled out of the parking lot.
We’d been on the road for a few minutes before Jackson said, “Is someone going to tell me what the hell happened?” Despite the harsh language, his tone was more long-suffering than angry.
I knocked my head against the window, wishing Savannah had convinced Cole to drive us instead.
My brother was on a boat, in the middle of some ocean or another.
Travis worked on international internet cables—huge lines laid across the ocean floor—which meant months on a boat, often, ironically, without much internet or phone access.
As long as Travis was out of the country, Jackson considered himself my brother’s replacement. Actually, Travis had formally given him the title of “bonus big brother” on his first trip out to sea, and Jackson had never let the damn title go.
“My mom was at the bar,” I said.
“Last I heard, she was halfway across the country,” Jackson said.
How the hell would he know that? Before I could ask, Savannah piped up from the back seat. “Well, she’s back in town now.”
Jackson whipped his head around, then back to the road. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Savannah said.
Jackson grunted acknowledgment.
Oh, sure, believe Savannah over me. It’s only my mom. I expected Jackson to choose Travis over me—after all, they were friends. But it stung that he needed confirmation from someone else for something I told him.
We paused in front of a cute duplex to let Maya out.
She waved, her smile a little strained, and embarrassment washed over me again.
I’d only known her a few months. This was our first time hanging out outside of work, and she got a front-row seat to my messy family drama, with a side of almost getting stranded at the bar.
We made the rest of the drive to Savannah’s house in uncomfortable silence. “Thanks for the ride,” she said, popping out of the car. Just like he had for Maya, Jackson waited for her to get inside before he pulled out of the driveway.
“I can’t believe Tanner didn’t leave any lights on for her,” Jackson muttered.
“I can’t believe she puts up with him.”
Jackson ran his hand through his dark hair. “And you won’t put up with anyone.”
“Don’t you start.” I snuggled deeper into the seat.
“Travis is always telling me that I’m too picky and I’m going to die alone with a hundred cats.
” I hated it when he said that, but it wasn’t Travis’s fault that my track record for getting to a third date was nearly nonexistent.
He claimed it was because I was too picky, but I secretly thought it was because the guys always found someone better.
Jackson scoffed. “You’re not picky, Iris. Travis should be glad you won’t settle for a man unless he treats you right.”
I warmed from the inside out. Sometimes, when he forgot that he was trying to be Travis’s eyes and ears, Jackson could be okay.
“Also, you don’t own any cats.” He pulled out of Savannah’s driveway.
“I have that orange one that comes around sometimes.”
“Only ’cause you feed it.”
I blinked up at him, distracted briefly by his strong jawline and aquiline nose.
Why did I have to find his stupid face so attractive?
“I can’t let the poor thing starve.” The cat had started coming around last summer, and when the cold hit, I’d bought a bag of cat food.
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to take the bowl away now that it was warm.
He was too used to trotting up onto my porch in the mornings and demanding his breakfast.
“Didn’t he leave you half a mouse last week? I think he can feed himself just fine.”
My nose wrinkled. Cleaning that thing up had been disgusting. “He was just thanking me. He’s very sweet.”
“If someone else put out a can of tuna, he’d choose that over your dry kibble any day.”
“I know.” I fiddled with the edge of my top, no longer enjoying this conversation. All I had to offer was some food and a few pets. Nothing that a stray couldn’t get anywhere else.
I stared out the window at passing trees until Jackson said, “So, you wanna tell me what happened tonight?”
Sighing, I resigned myself to the interrogation Jackson was about to subject me to. “Like I said, my mom was at the bar. I thought…I mean, she looked okay. Not high or anything. But she wanted to crash with me, and I didn’t want to upset her, so I bailed.”
Jackson’s knuckles turned white where he gripped the steering wheel. “She wanted to stay the night with you?”
“Yeah. I told her no, that she should get a hotel room instead, but she kept pushing…” I left out that I’d sent her fifty for a hotel. Jackson would only yell at me for it. “If she’s back in town, it’s gotta be for a reason, right?”
“Right.”
Sucking in a breath, I said, “She said some stuff.”
His eyes snapped to my face. “What stuff?”
“About getting older and rethinking her life choices and all. So she’s maybe coming by for lunch tomorrow—”
“Oh, hell no.” The car jolted to a stop at a stop sign. “If your mama’s back in town, it’s for a reason, but you damn well know it’s a bad one. Whatever line she fed you was just that—a line.”
I slumped down in my seat. Did he really think Mom didn’t have it in her to regret? “I want to hear her out.” Maybe she really had missed me, or she regretted everything, or…
“Come home with me,” Jackson said.
My heart stuttered, heat pooling between my thighs. “Wh-what?” How many times had I secretly hoped to hear those words come out of Jackson’s mouth?
“I don’t like you being home alone tonight, when your mom’s after something.”
Oh, right. Of course that’s what it was. More big-brother concern. Would my conga line of humiliations ever end? It’s fine, I thought. I was totally over my schoolgirl crush. “Just drop me off. I’ll be fine.”
“I’d feel better if I knew you were safe.”
“I can take care of myself, Jackson. Take me home.”