Nick stood up, rolling his shoulders so hard his neck cracked. “Yep. Good idea. Let’s definitely go do that.”
On Sunday morning, Jackson insisted on driving, since he hadn’t on the way up. Nick didn’t argue. He just settled on the passenger side, wishing for a warmer jacket. Maybe he’d finally fix the heater once he got home.
Not that he wanted to spend all night working on the truck. But he had a burning desire to avoid Tansy, who probably thought he’d spent the past two days having another imaginary sex marathon and would have no qualms about asking.
For whatever reason, Nick didn’t want to tell her what he’d really done. Aubrey would never know, either, but in his mind, it linked him to her in some intimate way, and he wanted to keep that for himself. He wanted just one damn piece of her that would belong to him alone.
He hunkered in his seat. Stupid, pointless thoughts. It was done, now. Time to go home and get on with life. It might take a week or two before David’s confession worked its way through the proper channels and resulted in an offer of reinstatement, but Aubrey would probably hear from Osos before Thanksgiving.
Miles passed. Jackson started humming some riff from last night, and Nick envied the guy for somehow being a morning person, despite never drinking a drop of coffee. Not to mentionthe fact that no matter how low Jackson’s mood dipped, which didn’t happen often, he always bounced back. He was like the pop-up mole from that arcade game with the squeaky plastic hammers.
“I guess someone’s feeling better this morning,” he grumbled.
“Yeah.” Jackson grinned. “It’s a brand-new day. I feel great. You?”
“The usual.”
“Which means... what? Heart’s all smashed to bits? You got a rabbit hole in your mind deep enough to spit you out in China?”
Nick rasped a flat laugh. “How’d you know?”
“Come on. How many years have we known each other? It’s always the same with you. But I still have hope for you, man. There’s always hope.”
Nick watched the window. New Jersey rolled by, flat and drab and colorless, which somehow gave him the impression of looking in a mirror.
Hope. Ha. He’d packed up all his hope, bought it a one-way ticket to Antarctica, and shipped it off himself with one click of David’s email. He’d do it again, too. “Easy for you to say. You still have a shot of finding your Satine.”
“I don’t mean there’s hope with Aubrey. I just mean that someday, you’re going to stop holding back and actually go out and do something for yourself.”
“What’re you talking about? I do stuff for myself all the time.”
Jackson ejected a breath that edged on laughter. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like... I don’t know. Going to the gym. Like. . .”Writing letters, Nick almost said, then swerved before he could partake in that particular car crash of repressed feeling. “...doing this volunteer thing with Paige. Providing for my family. All kinds of stuff.”
“I hate to break it to you, man, but those aren’t things you do for yourself. And I know you think you’ve been fighting all your life, but the truth is, you’ve beensurviving. Reacting. Making do with what you got, which wasn’t much more than a crap dad and an even crappier hand to play.”
Nick grunted. “What’re you, my therapist?”
“I’m your friend. All I’m saying is, you’ve never really fought for anything, not really. For your own sake, I mean.”
“Bullshit.”
Jackson slid him acome-onglance. “Name one thing.One thingyou’ve actually gone to war for, just because you wanted it.”
Nick pulled his brows low. “I don’t know. What’veyougone to war for?”
“Nice.” Jackson nodded. “Deflection. But you know what? I’ll bite, if only to prove a point. So here it is: I’m going to war for my Satine. The minute we get home, I’m signing up for Tinder, and Bumble, and whatever that other one is where they put you through an algorithm and match you up using math. I’m going to find my queen or die trying.”
Nick’s heart squeezed at the wordalgorithm. Then again at the wordmath. Jesus, could he be any more pathetic? “I don’t think your Satine’s on Tinder.”
Jackson shook his head. “Your attitude sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Come on. Look at all this.” Jackson swept a hand to indicate the rising sun, which spilled light across the frosty landscape. “It’s a new day. Another chance to go out and seize life by the horns.”
“You sound like a fortune cookie.” Really, Jackson sounded like a young Aubrey, but Nick couldn’t bear to say so.
