He laughs. “I know, I hide it well.” He licks his lips. “But I’ll do it, this time. I promise.”
His gray eyes are serious, and a coil of tension loosens in my chest. “Right now?” I offer.
He nods. “Right now.”
He follows me to the living room and curls up on one side of the couch with his knees bent in front of him. I grab a blanket from the closet and toss it to him before I sit down, like I’ve done a hundred times before. I sit down on the other side of the couch, facing him.
“What do you want to talk about?” I ask.
“I’m in love with you,” he says.
Just like that, with no preamble or anything. He goes a bit red after he says it, but he doesn’t look away from me.
“You’re—oh,” I say, eloquently.
He clears his throat. “It’s okay if you’re not... I mean, if you don’t feel the same way anymore.” He drops his gaze and fiddles with the hem of the blanket draped over his knees. “I know we’ve been—you know, not together, for a while. I know things have probably changed.”
I move my gaze over his face. His features are so familiar to me. The tousled blond hair, the tiny scar near his left eyebrow, the shade of his eyes, like a crystallized storm cloud.
“Nothing’s changed,” I say quietly.
His expression changes, like a flash of light leaping into his eyes. I try to remember if his face was so expressive before. Maybe it was, and I just didn’t know how to read it. “Yeah?” he says, his tone hopeful.
I smile. “Yeah. But I don’t think things can be the same, this time.”
“I know.” He rests his temple against the couch. “I messed everything up before. I’m no good at relationships.”
“I mean, you’re better than me,” I point out. “At least you’ve dated people before.”
He snorts. “No one I actually liked. Well, I liked Kelsie,” he amends. “But I wasn’t—you know. In love with her.”
A pleasant shiver runs through me. That’s twice now he’s said the word. There’s color in his cheeks again, and for a moment I’m tempted to change the subject, but Heather’s voice is whispering in my ear, talking about being accountable.
“You didn’t say it before,” I say. “When I—” I gesture to the kitchen instead of finishing the sentence. I can tell by the look on his face that he knows what I mean.
“I know.” He exhales heavily and shifts a bit deeper into the couch. There are faint smudges under his eyes, like he hasn’t been sleeping well. “I wanted to. I just... I don’t like giving up control.”
I get the strangest feeling when he says it, like a puzzle piece has clicked into place in my mind. In the span of one heartbeat, my memories of Jacob reshape themselves. His plastic smile when I gave him the simulator. The stiffness of his fingers when I held his hand in the hospital. His strange jitteriness when he got back from his run with Nate, the day I tried to tell him I loved him.
I stretch my leg out and nudge his shin. “I don’t want to control you,” I say. “Idiot.”
He laughs, and the air relaxes a bit more between us. We’requiet for a moment, then I ask the question that’s been haunting me for months. “What happened in the hospital? Why did you end things?”
“Because I’m an idiot,” he says.
I snort. “Jacob.”
He smiles a little, then sobers. “I was scared,” he says, quieter.
“Of what?”
He shrugs a bit helplessly and casts his gaze around the living room. “I don’t know. Lots of things. Never racing again. People finding out about us.”
“That freaks me out a bit, too,” I say.
“Yeah, well, it shouldn’t,” he says, his brow furrowing. “I mean, I don’t want a bunch of strangers knowing our business,” he adds, perhaps seeing the wariness in my face, “but there’s a difference between private and secret. And I’m tired of keeping secrets.”
One side of my mouth curves up. “Me too.”
