Not that Jack wanted that. Nor, it seemed, did Carla, but the tension seeped from her like blood from an open wound.
“Yeah,” he said. “I-I don’t mind. I know you hate waking up with him.”
Carla groaned, turned a corner. She kept her back to Jack. “No,” she snapped. “You don’t understand. I finally got to spend a night with you, and then I woke up next to that fucking asshole.Again. I was so happy, Jack—so fucking happy! And then it all just shattered.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, softer this time. “I didn’t like waking up alone, either.”
Her grip relaxed. “Yeah, OK,” she said. “That makes me feel a little better. You missed me?”
“I definitely missed you,” he promised, following her toward the guest room where they’d made love the night before. His heart leapt.
She grinned at him. “Yeah? Good.”
They atemisshapen pancakes in bed, drizzled in entirely too much syrup, with a bowl of haphazardly cut strawberries between them.
“I’m real sorry,” Carla told him between kisses in the kitchen, the planes of her face highlighted in the dim overhead light. Behind them, pancakes sizzled on a skillet. “But I’m not risking going to a restaurant with you. Ronnie finds out, we’re gonna have a problem. But we’re safe here,” she reminded him, kissing a line up his jaw, fingers slipping beneath his shirt to press against the bare skin there.
Jack nearly flipped the pancake onto the floor.
“Right,” he said, steadying his breath. “Trust me, I don’t want to meet Ronnie.”
“See, that’s what I like about you. You’re smart.”
A smart man would’ve stayed far away from all this. Under other circumstances, Jack never, ever would’ve gotten involved with her. Their social circles wouldn’t have overlapped. They never would’ve had a reason to speak.
If it weren’t for the time loop, he wouldn’t be here at all.
A part of him didn’t regret it. Carla made his heart race, his blood thrum in his veins. He liked the sound of her laugh, loud and unabashed, and the sound of her voice, once grating, now charmingly hoarse—the sex and cigarettes rasp of a rock star. He’d always found her attractive, but now even more so, the way her eyes squinted when she smiled, the line of her jaw, the way her manicured fingers constantly tapped, the scar on her knee from a childhood accident.
Another part of him still feared that she would abandon him for Ronnie the moment the fog lifted. Or worse, that she was only using him to get away from a boyfriend she’d temporarily lost interest in. Loneliness was a heavy weight to bear, and Jack didn’t dare assume that her heart would ever belong to him.
This is fun,he told himself.Just for fun.
But it didn’t feel like just fun when his stomach fluttered at the sight of her, when she grabbed his hand and tackled himonto the bed, giggling and running her hands over him like she couldn’t get enough.
There was only one picture of Ronnie in the house, and Jack often found himself staring at it.
He was more or less what one might expect: tall, broad-shouldered, raven haired, handsome, with a hooked nose and a gut that his tuxedo only just contained. Beside him, Carla barely reached his shoulder. Jack had no doubt she was wearing heels.
Comparatively, when he and Carla were both barefoot, the top of her head just reached the tip of his chin.
Ronnie could crush them like bugs. More importantly, whatever was stuffed into the massive gun safe in the master bedroom could probably blow them to pieces before they even realized what was happening.
But Carla was right. No one bothered them inside the house. If the servants knew what was going on (and they must, Carla wasn’t subtle), they hadn’t reported anything to Ronnie. Maybe he was hard to reach. Maybe they didn’t care. Maybe they liked Carla better—another thought that sent shivers down Jack’s spine. What had Ronnie done to lose their loyalty? What went on around here?
Which led to another question: Why did Carla want to leave? Why now?
That question followed him into the bedroom, lingered at the back of his mind even as they tangled together, panting and writhing, connected at the mouths and hips. It was there afterwards as they passed a cigarette between them. Finally, Jack had to ask.
“So, why are you leaving Ronnie?”
Carla exhaled a puff of smoke and scowled. “Really? Right now?”
“I want to know,” he said, properly chastised, heat flooding from his cheeks to his chest. He reached for the cigarette.
“Have you been thinking about this the whole time?”
Jack’s blush deepened. “Maybe.”
