I can’t agree more, but I just thank her for calling instead. I hear a ding over the door across the room just as I’mdisconnecting, looking up to see a familiar, towering figure ducking inside with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes and a mask over his mouth. The grin that splits my lips is immediate, and even that is a surprise, considering how different of a reaction to Jack it is than it would have been only a few short weeks ago.
He gives me a little wiggle of his fingers in a barely-there wave, pointing then to the empty table against the wall as he signals that he’ll wait for me there. I nod back at him as I stow my phone, finding my manager to tell her that I’m taking my break.
Jack is texting when I take the seat opposite him, but even under the mask, I can see the way his lips curl in a smile when he notices me. “Hey, lover.”
“Shut up,” I grouse, trying to bite back my smile. “How was practice?”
“Nothing too extensive,” he tells me. “I mostly just go to get more time on the ice, with the way Coach keeps cutting my time at the arena.”
“And how does your arm feel?”
He yanks down his mask before he twists his forearm this way and that, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s stiff, but manageable.”
“That’s good, I guess.”
“How has work been?”
I stick out my tongue. “Boring, as usual.”
“Until I got here, right?”
I roll my eyes. “Someone is full of themselves.”
“I can think of someone I’d much rather be full of me.”
I make a face. “Are you trying to get me to kick you under the table?”
“Pretend you don’t like it all you want, Abby,” he laughs. “I won’t tell.”
I willneveradmit that I’m starting to enjoy his very stupid jokes, because that will just make his head bigger than it already is.
“Oh, hey,” he says, changing the subject. “I was going to tell you that Bea invited us over to dinner this weekend.”
“Your aunt?”
He nods. “She knows you’re staying with me, so you got an invite by extension.”
“Oh.” I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t want to impose.”
“She will literally have my balls if I don’t bring you,” he tells me. “You love my balls. You don’t want anything to happen to them, right?”
“I don’t have any particular feelings about your balls, actually.”
“Shh.” He makes a serious face. “Don’t let them hear that. You’ll hurt their feelings.”
“Utterly ridiculous,” I mutter.
“Seriously,” he says. “We’re roomies. It’s not a big deal. She loves feeding people.”
My conversation with the office manager at the apartment comes back to me then, and my lips turn down in a frown as I think about another month at least being added to the time where I have nowhere else to go.
Jack notices the change in my demeanor. “What is it?”
“Hm?” I glance up at him, finding concern etched in his features. “Oh, it’s nothing serious, I just…got some bad news before you came.”
He leans in, his brow furrowing. “Was it your dad?”
“No, no.” I wave my hand back and forth in front of my face. “Nothing like that. It was about my apartment.”
