“Thanks,” I told him. “It’s small, good for what I need it for, right?”
A chuckle escaped me, my words so defeated and pathetic they left a sour taste on my tongue.
I headed to my bedroom, rummaging around the bottom of my closet for my overnight bag and stuffing it with a change of clothes for tonight and tomorrow. I tried not to overthink as I packed the bare minimum and slipped into my bathroom for a few toiletries. I stopped packing my bag when I felt Jesse’s eyes on me.
“You keep looking at me like I’m about to combust or something.” I narrowed my eyes as I shut my drawer.
Jesse smiled, propping his elbow against the doorjamb of my bedroom like every fictional and high school fantasy brought to life. The ones I fought against but that snuck into my brain anyway.
Even in a T-shirt and sweatpants, he was so handsome it was painful.
“Like I’ve said, I just like looking at you.” The corners of his mouth lifted. “And maybe I’m watching you a little more closely to make sure you’re okay. I promise I won’t hover or push tonight.”
“I didn’t want to be alone tonight. I’m looking forward to Maddie talking my ear off and distracting me.”
A slow smile broke out on Jesse’s face, making him even more beautiful and calming me for a moment after my shaky breath left me in a whoosh. He’d been around enough for me to get used to the pull toward him, but the events of the past couple of weeks heightened my awareness of him to the point of distraction.
Staying at his house tonight was going to be an Olympic effort in willpower, my growing weakness already evident as I packed my toothbrush.
“I had a feeling. I’m happy that I could be there for you. I’m just warning you that you might be in for kind of a long night because I don’t see Maddie going to sleep anytime soon once she finds out you’re staying with us.”
“That’s okay. At least I can give her the sleepover that her mom always used to beg me for. I never had the heart to tell Tessa that my mom wouldn’t let me stay at her house or go into why.” I smirked at Jesse. “I did have a couple of sleepovers at her house, but nobody knew about them.”
Jesse laughed, deep and throaty and sexy as hell.
“That is true. Only we knew about those.” He lifted the strap of my bag off my shoulder and slipped it onto his. “Although I think my mother may have had her suspicions after taco night, but by the time she started to question things, I was already too torn up over losing you for her to punish me. I’m guessing, anyway.”
His crooked grin slayed me like always. That was when he looked the most like the Jesse I remembered. The one I’d loved, and although we’d taken a big hiatus from each other’s lives, the one I still did.
That was more of a given than a revelation.
“I didn’t knowyou were coming over.” Maddie gasped and almost knocked her uncle over when she noticed me behind him. She squeezed my waist a little too hard, but I bent to hug her back.
“Is your mom okay?” Maddie searched my gaze with worried eyes and too much understanding for a little girl.
“She’s okay, but she’ll be in the hospital for a few days.”
“Emily is staying with us tonight. You can drop the ‘Coach’ while she’s here.” Jesse smiled at me over his shoulder.
“Interesting.”
I turned to find Caden sitting next to Sabrina on the couch, both looking between Jesse and me with the same wry grins.
“Can you stay in my room? I have a new beanbag bed that I use to play video games, but I bet you can sleep in it too.” Maddie bounced with her hands clasped under her chin.
“Emily is staying in my room, and I’m taking the futon. I’m afraid I’ll never get out of the beanbag bed if I try.” He tugged at her ponytail. “We’re ordering dinner if you guys would like to stay. How did it go?”
“Great!” Maddie scurried over to me. “We won! By, like, a lot.”
“Really…” Jesse said, squinting at Caden. “By a lot.”
“There was no sabotage. Relax. Your team was just fired up today. It was fun. Open to help out anytime, Em.”
“And we have a surprise for you. It wasn’t a big game or anything, but the team thought you’d like to have the ball since they won for you today.” Sabrina handed me a soccer ball. “They all signed it for you.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed out, careful when I took the ball out of Sabrina’s hands not to smear any of the signatures. “They suggested this?”
“Maddie and a couple of the girls did, but we had to stop them all from fighting over who would sign next,” Caden said as I turned the ball around to count the names.
