Rachel pictures Ali scurrying across the landing from their room and feels like she’s being hollowed out with a spoon, her chest an empty chamber of rib bones. She wants to tell Paige what she saw, but she knows that instead of allaying her fears, she’ll ignite them; turning what could well be an innocent interaction into one that has Jack and Ali making love in the shower.
“In what way?” asks Rachel hesitantly.
“He just doesn’t seem able to look her in the eye,” says Paige.
“And we know why that is,” says Rachel indignantly. “Because she’s cheated on Will.”
Paige nods her head. “Yes, but I just wonder if it’s something more than that. She’s different with Jack too.”
“Well, maybe she knows he knows,” says Rachel, feeling as if she’s clutching at straws. “Maybe this Rick fella has told her that Jack knows.”
Paige looks away thoughtfully. “Yep, you might be right.”
“I am right,” says Rachel, resolutely.
Paige puts a hand on Rachel’s knee. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” she says. “It’s just that sometimes that girl brings out the worst in me.”
“I get that, but she’s not really our problem,” says Rachel, trying to convince herself more than Paige. “Once this weekend’s over and done with, I would imagine Jack will try to put as much space between him and her as he can.
Paige offers a tight smile. “Let’s just hope we can all get through this weekend then.”
7
“You look absolutely gorgeous,” says Jack, as he comes up behind Rachel as she stands in front of the mirror. He smells like he’s already had a drink or two with the wedding party up at the hotel.
His hands fall on either side of her waist, fingering the soft silk of her dress as he kisses the nape of her neck. Even after all this time, he still manages to ignite something deep within her with just a touch of his lips.
As if sensing her ardor, a grin spreads across his lips and he looks at her reflection with mischievous eyes.
Rachel swallows the unexpected threat of tears. “Are you happy?” she asks, through tremoring lips.
He laughs, though Rachel can’t help but wonder if it’s false.
“With you?”
She nods as she watches him carefully.
“Of course I am,” he says. “I can’t believe you even need to ask.”
She turns to face him. “If you were unhappy, or wanted something or someone else, would you tell me?”
He shifts, his eyes momentarily flickering to the side before snapping back. “I have never wanted anything more than I want you,” he says, kissing her cheek.
“Or … anyone?” Rachel asks hesitatingly.
“What?” he exclaims, as if the mere thought is so abhorrent and unnatural that he can’t believe she’d even say it out loud. His hands drop from her waist and he walks across the room, facing the floor-to-ceiling glass doors toward the ocean that is shimmering with gold as the sun sets behind it.
His pale-pink shirt is pulled taut across his back, his shoulder blades tense as he cricks his neck from one side to the other. Rachel can feel the tension emanating from him and steels herself for what he might be about to say.
What would she do if he suddenly decided to admit to something happening with Ali, either now or in the past? Would she tell Will what his bride and brother had done? Ruin his wedding … his relationship with his brother … his life? What if he called it all off? What would he say to the guests? The family would never be the same again.
Her mind whirs with the fallout of the hypothetical scenario.
“Well?” she pushes, desperate to stop the agony from wrapping its tentacles around her and squeezing her until she can’t breathe. She’d rather an answer she doesn’t want to hear, than be stuck in this state of limbo. “Is there someone else?”
Jack sighs so deeply that it sounds as if it’s been sitting there for months, waiting for the right time to be released. As he slowly turns around, Rachel can’t help but shut her eyes, in a futile attempt to protect herself from what he’s about to say.
“How ironic that you feel the need to ask me that,” he says, his tone tight and high-pitched.
Rachel pulls back at his inference. “Sorry?” she says, looking at him, confused.
Jack laughs to himself, but makes Rachel feel as if it’s aimed at her. “Do you not think I can see straight through you?” he says.
She shakes her head as if to awaken the part of her brain that will make sense of what he’s saying. “I’m not with you,” she says.
“Do you think I didn’t see what happened today?”
“What are you talking about?” she says. “Where? When?”
“On the beach,” he says tersely. “With Noah.”
She can’t help but feel wrong-footed. This isn’t the way she’d anticipated this conversation going. “I don’t understand what you mean,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady.
“I could see the utter fear in your eyes,” he says. “I could feel you trembling in my arms.”
“That’s because it was absolutely terrifying,” she says.
“Any more terrifying than if it happened to me?” He stares at her unwaveringly, as if expecting an answer.
She tuts. “Why are you being so stupid? You were there—you saw what happened. I would hope you felt just as scared as I did. If you didn’t, then there’s something wrong with you.”
“Don’t turn this on me,” he says. Hadn’t he just done exactly that himself? “My gut reaction was one of guilt; that I was somehow responsible for what happened.”
She narrows her eyes. “And were you?”
“No!” he exclaims. “I told Noah not to go any further into the impact zone, but he ignored me, so I had to go out there myself to bring him back. His selfish actions put us both at risk.” He looks at Rachel. “But you didn’t seem too fazed by that. All you were concerned with was making sure he was all right.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, will you just listen to yourself?” she says, exasperated. “In case it escaped your notice, Noah had been knocked unconscious and if it hadn’t have been for the quick actions of those around him, he might not have made it out alive.”
“I’d taken a battering myself,” he says. “But all you seemed to care about was him.”
Rachel is taken back to the intensity of that moment and instantly feels tears spring to her eyes. Like Paige, she would have given anything to know that Noah was going to be okay—but to the detriment of her own marriage? Yes, probably.
“You’re behaving like a child,” she says, uncomfortable with the realization that she’d put Noah before Jack. If not physically, then certainly mentally. She would rather have God strike her, Jack, or any of them down, than take away her first love. The shock of what she was prepared to sacrifice lodges in her throat.
“What really went on between you two?” he asks, not for the first time. “Because you can tell me that you were just friends until you’re blue in the face, but seeing you today suggests it was so much more.”
Should she tell him that they’d crossed the line just once, but that it had been the singular most defining moment of her life? That barely a day had gone past when she hadn’t transported herself back there, if only for a split second?
“Absolutely nothing,” she says, sticking to the agreement she and Noah had made shortly after he’d met Paige. They both knew that if they were to remain friends, in the way they wanted—in the only way they knew how, because after four years of living in each other’s pockets, they didn’t know how to be any different—they’d have to renounce any notion of something more ever having happened. Because neither Jack nor Paige would allow their friendship to continue if they thought there had ever been an iota of sexual chemistry between them.
“But do you not see the way he looks at you?”
Rachel shakes her head. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Oh, come on, Rach, you can’t possibly be that naive,” he says loudly. “It’s so obvious, it’s staring you right in the face, and if you can’t see it, then you’re blind, unless you’re choosing to pretend it’s not going on.”
“I don’t even have the words,” she says, going to get her gold wedges from the top of the open suitcase that’s still sitting on the floor.