“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“It’s stupid,” I tell him.
He reaches to brush the hair from my eyes. He looks good in his dark henley and his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, no doubt trying to be incognito.
“It’s not stupid,” he says. “You sounded really upset on the phone.”
“It was just class,” I sigh. “The topic today was childhood abandonment issues, and I just started feeling like shit the more I listened to the lecture. I got myself all worked up.”
Jack is quiet as he frowns up at me from the ground, his hand moving to cover mine. “That’s not stupid,” he repeats. “Of course that would upset you.”
“But this is the field I’m trying to go into,” I argue. “I can’t let this sort of thing get to me if I want to be able to help others with the same issues.”
“Give yourself a little credit,” he says. “You’ve been through more than most people. It doesn’t make you some sort of failure just because you had one bad reaction to one lecture. It just makes you human.”
I feel wetness at my eyes, and I reach to rub it away. “Now who sounds like the shrink?”
“You’re rubbing off on me,” he chuckles. And then he wiggles his eyebrows. “Sometimes literally.”
“There he is,” I laugh, oddly feeling better just from this short conversation.
He squeezes my hand. “Hey, how about we get out of here?”
“And go where?”
“I have a place in mind,” he tells me. “It’s a surprise.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Is this another attempt at a maybe-date?”
“Hey.” He presses a hand to his chest in faux outrage. “Does that sound like something your bed buddy would do?”
“Sort of,” I chuckle.
He raises two fingers. “Scout’s honor,” he tells me. “Friendly outing only.” He flashes me a grin then. “Besides, youdidsay you missed me.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you.”
“Not anytime soon, no.”
“Are you sure you have time?”
“We don’t have anything going on today,” he tells me. “I’ve got nothing until practice tomorrow. And since I’ve been spending most of my time obsessing over the upcoming second round…you’d be doing me a favor with the distraction.”
“Well, as long as it benefits you,” I say with a grin.
His answering smile makes my chest feel lighter. “That’s my girl.”
He says it casually, already helping me to my feet and obviously not meaning anything by it, but what it does to me is a little more weighted than that. I know it’s not technically true; I’m not Jack’s girl in any real capacity, but I can’t pretend that my stomach doesn’t go off with a fluttering like rampant butterflies just the same when he says it.
Jack threads his fingers through mine, not giving a shit who sees us. It sort of worries me, because even though he’s keeping alow profile, there are still people who could point us out, and then where would we be? I can see the headlines now. Not to mention the shit Ian and Lila would give us.
I try to push it out of my mind, focusing on the warmth of his hand in mine instead.
When we’re both buckled into his car and I feel like I can breathe a little again, I finally turn to ask, “So where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he tells me.
I frown. “I told you, I hate surprises.”
