“My family isn’t perfect either. My parents had a pretty awful divorce when I was a kid, so I ended up having to pick a side. I actually moved to Palo Alto in my twenties to spend some time with my dad and work for his construction company, but it didn’t strengthen our relationship any. He still blames me for picking my mom when I was fourteen. It was like he took it as a personal betrayal that my brother and I stayed. I just didn’t want to leave my mom and friends to start over at a new school, but he never seemed to get over that. He is known to blameeveryone but himself anyway, so we never really recovered. But my mom is wonderful, and so is my brother. Sometimes I wish I saw my dad, but also, with how we left things, he doesn’t deserve a second chance until he reaches out, and it’s been years. So I guess in that way, we’re in the same boat.” He took a deep breath, and we let a long moment sit between us before he continued. “So yeah, I have a shitty dad, but at least he’s still around. I can only imagine what you went through when you lost yours.”
I hadn’t expected that. When I met his steely blue eyes, he seemed unsure if he should have broached this topic with me or not. I put my hand over his for a second before returning to run my glittery nails along the empty beer bottle’s label.
I was glad to talk about my dad. It had been a while since someone had asked me about him. “I miss him like crazy. He had this way of making you feel like you were the most important person in the universe. He didn’t have the easiest life as a politician’s son, and he gave me the attention he never had himself. He never lost his cool or made me feel like I didn’t matter.” I turned to face him. “You’d be a great dad, you know.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”
“The way you are with Jordy. The way you are with your friends. I get the feeling they could come to you with any problem, and you’d solve it.”
“Wow, Nat. That’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.”
“I just thought it was obvious.” It was hard not to think about how I didn’t have anyone I could go to like that, and it didn’t look like that was going to change anytime soon. I cleared my throat. “Do you want kids?”
“I love kids. But I don’t know if that’s in the cards for me,” he said with a twinge of resignation. I wanted him to elaborate, buthe turned the tables on me before I could ask for clarification. “What about you?”
“I’d like the same, but I’m hopeful. I’d love to be someone’s person. And I’d love to raise my kids to know they can do whatever they want to do, and I’ll still love them no matter what.”
Jack smiled softly as if he understood exactly what I meant by that admission. “I’m sure you will.”
I felt cut open, and yet, Jack didn’t take advantage of my vulnerability. Instead, he offered me understanding and a tenderness that felt foreign and necessary. My heart pounded with the realization.
I needed to put some distance between us. “Well, I think I’m going to go take a shower.” Maybe I could wash away the awkwardness that coated me after that date. “Night, Jack.”
“Goodnight, princess.”
SIXTEEN
Jack
After our unexpectedly personal conversation,Nat went to sleep, but I was wired. The moment Chase had picked her up, an emotion I couldn’t define had filled my senses. Made me… jittery.
How did she have time to date someone out here?
I was not upset. I wasn’t.
She could do what she wanted. After all, relationships were for fools. A huge percentage of them didn’t work out, and then most marriages ended in divorce. I didn’t care that it was cynical. I wasn’t playing those odds.
She sure had looked beautiful when she left, though. Her hair was curly instead of wavy, and she wore this little sundress that had lacy shoulders that gave you the barest peek of skin, which was somehow more alluring than the places her body was visible. She just glowed.
And the talk we had when she’d gotten back, where I learned more about her? I’d enjoyed it, up until we got to the part about me not dating. I hadn’t wanted to hash out the Gia stuff I’d been avoiding. Hoping to shove it under the rug, more like. I didn’t want to deal with it myself and especially not with Nat.
I hated her. So why did images of her standing close to Chase under the moonlight keep flooding my mind?
I needed to remind myself that I didn’t care about who people dated, least of all her. And even if I did have some kind of feelings for her, however small they were, I wouldn’t act on them. I wasn’t going to date anyone, not any time soon. Maybe ever again.
But I did have to admit she was the first person who had piqued my interest that way since Gia. I hated Nat even more for it.
Only, that wasn’t true. When it came down to it, I enjoyed getting to know her more. I liked how she was slowly opening up to me, in the quiet space of our bedroom, more than I’d thought I would. I found myself hanging on to her every word when she did. Slowly, I realized I hated how much more I wanted to know about her.
A message popped up on my phone, and I swiped quickly upon seeing Jordy’s name. What was he texting me so late about?
Nat. Of course, it was Nat. Apparently, she’d followed him on his socials. Before that, there had been just nine of us, most of whom were family. And Jordy was ecstatic, given the ten or so exclamation points after “Naturegirlnat followed me.”
I shot back my nicest “That’s awesome,”with an exclamation point of my own, even though that wasn’t really my thing. It was nice of her to follow Jordy. She had been so sweet with him, giving him tips and helping him learn about what she did. There was no condescension, only kindness. And from the way she explained her process, I realized there were a lot of things I’d made stupid assumptions about. With every bit of new information, she was more and more intriguing.
Maybe I should just let this whole thing go with her. If I were being honest with myself, I wanted to stop holding this anger. It wasn’t sitting well, and it hadn’t in a long time.
I decided to go for a walk to clear my head. My creaky door swung behind me, slamming into the frame. “Come on.”
