“For not keeping my promise to look after you. I went off to school and left you to get your heart broken, to get involved with someone like Jack Eversea, twice, and now I probably won’t even be able to keep our house for you.”
Tears stung my eyes. I’d never heard Joey sound so distraught. “Joey, I don’t know who you made that promise to, but you need to let it go. We’re both grown-ups now. It’s not your job to look after me anymore. We’ll figure it out, okay? We’ve got time. We’ll figure it out,” I repeated reassuringly and squeezed him hard, then pulled back. “And you didn’t let me get involved with Jack, I did that all on my own, and it only happened once, I’ve never been uninvolved.” I admitted the truth to both of us. “I need you on board, Joey. I think … I think this is it for me.”
A throat clearing behind me made us both jump. I turned to find Jack, in a black ball cap, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his eyes boring into mine.
“I came in the back way,” Jack said quietly, his fingers stuffed in his jean pockets. His shoulders were hunched up under what looked like the sage green t-shirt I’d been wearing earlier.
My cheeks throbbed with heat and my chest expanded with embarrassment. How long had Jack been standing there listening to Joey and me? Long enough to hear my declaration? Perhaps even long enough to hear the pitiful story of the house. I couldn’t tell by his eyes, but they looked intense.
“Hector said it was okay. Sorry to interrupt.” As Jack stepped toward us with his hand out, his eyes finally left me and went to my brother.
That seemed to spur Joey into action. He approached Jack and took his hand.
Jack nodded at my brother, who matched his height. “Jack. We’ve never officially met. I apologize for that.”
I bit my lip. The last time they’d seen each other in person was in Savannah, when I’d practically run into my brother’s arms after I’d said goodbye to Jack. Not to mention Jack had just decked my brother’s best friend.
“Joey. Good to meet you,” my brother said and shook Jack’s hand firmly. Joey cut his eyes over to me a split second, and I knew he too was wondering how much Jack heard, and also acknowledging that he himself had heard me, understood what I was saying. We would talk about it again, I knew, but right now my brother was giving me his temporary blessing.
“I hear you’re walking my sister home tonight.” He looked back at Jack.
Jack gave a slight nod and winked at me. One of those twinkling, slow and sexy winks that melted my insides and made me instantly self-conscious that he’d done it in front of Joey. “If she’ll still have me.”
“I do believe she will.” Joey raised an eyebrow at me, but seemed to have missed whatever it was I’d just experienced from Jack’s wink.
“Yeah, uh, just give me a few.” I quickly turned back toward the bar and tried to remember my close down checklist. “Joey, you finishing this beer?”
“Sure.” He walked over and Jack followed. They both sat. Awkward.
“You want something, Jack?” I asked. Please say no, so we can get out of here faster.
“No, thanks, I’m good.”
“Wow, I get it now,” said Joey about twenty minutes later as we made our way home by the light of the almost full moon, chatting about everything and nothing. Joey, bless his heart, had politely been asking about Jack’s movie and making conversation while Jack tried his best to look engaged. He’d grabbed my hand as we left, his first contact since he’d arrived. And now his fingers wouldn’t keep still.
Hidden by the shadow of our bodies as we walked, Jack’s fingers were sliding up my wrist, skating my pulse, down my hand, skimming my palm, and then sliding languidly between my fingers, as if they were my legs.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Get what?” I managed to ask Joey and immediately cleared my throat, pretending my breathy response was just a vocal mishap.
“Being with you two is like being in the showers in the girls’ locker room after volleyball practice. You have nowhere safe to look.”
Both Jack and I burst out laughing, our moment temporarily suspended.
“Soooo not what I was expecting to come out of your mouth.” I raised my eyebrows. “What the hell do you know about being in the girls’ locker room after volleyball?”
“Oh, you have no idea what Colt and I got up to in high school,” he said cryptically.
“God, and I don’t want to. I played volleyball!” Well after they’d both left school. Thank God.
Joey laughed. “I don’t think principal Holt could wait to see the back of The Butler-Graves Offensive, as he called us. On and off the field, we were kind of a nightmare.”
“Joey was center and Colt was quarterback of their high school team,” I explained to Jack.
They launched into a discussion about football and high school sports.