My chest rises, blood sweltering. I can feel myself resisting the pull towards Jack. I’m just afraid of where this ends.
It has short-term fling written all over it.
Normally I wouldn’t even give a shit. But I just wanted more for myself.
I detach from his attractive sphere and start to chuck off leather sofa cushions.
Jack stops me. “Don’t pull out the sofa bed. I can just sleep on it.”
I hesitate because he clearly has muscle aches. But he’s yawning again, too tired to have a full-on debate.
Fine.
I toss them back on the couch, and Jack takes a slouching seat with another sigh. “This is a good place to be stuck, I guess.”
“You guess?” I give him a look. “You fail Geometry in high school, Long Beach? Your place is half the size of mine.”
“Mmmhmm, true.” His eyelids weigh heavy. They close, then open. He’s even more exhausted than I realized. Evidence: he’s still wearing Allbirds. I don’t remember a time Jack has ever kept his shoes on past the doormat.
I kneel in front of the couch. My fingers gingerly unlace the sneakers. When I shift off his left shoe, he glances down at me.
I meet his eyes as I untie the right laces. “You know you don’t have to follow Charlie the whole time. You can grab a couple hours of footage and call it a night.”
“I want to make sure I have everything,” Jack replies softly. “I haven’t figured out the narrative structure of the pilot yet…and I figure…more footage will make that easier on me in the long-run.”
I know next to nothing about filming a documentary. And Jack only has one person to rely on. His seventeen-year-old brother.
I feel badly I’ve made it harder on him by requesting a small crew. But then I remember how annoying it is to have five people shoving around me with cameras and booms and I’m less upset by this outcome.
I pull off Jack’s right shoe. “You should get some sleep—”
“Wait,” he cuts in. “Just…” He sits up more on the couch, legs spread open. “Can we talk?”
About the kiss.
I ask, “Yeah, we can talk if you don’t fall asleep on me.”
His lip quirks. “I won’t. I’m really stoked—” He tries to catch another yawn.
I decide not to point it out. “Not shocked you’re stoked. You are Mr. McCheerful.”
He laughs quietly. “You’re Mr. McDreamy then?”
“Oh no, I’m Mr. McSnacky.” I grin. “And you’ve been eating my heart out.” My friends would be giving me such shit for that line, but I’m too confident to care.
Jack leans forward, elbows on his knees. Still fighting exhaustion. “Yeah? Let me take a bite.” He playfully fists my Yale tee, and I grab his wrist.
Heavy breath expels from us, but I cut it off first. Dropping my hold of him, I take a firmer seat on the floor and back up from the couch.
He has to release his grip of my shirt.
The show.
We should talk about Charlie.
Jack battles the umpteenth yawn.
And in the quiet of my apartment, I tell him, “If you’re going to be following Charlie all day just like today, you need to start listening to my advice.” I rest my forearms on my bent knees, his shoe still in my hand. “When I tell you to take a nap in the car, you should actually take a nap.”
Grid-locked in traffic on the way to the library was the best time for Jack to catch up on sleep.
“I was trying to fix my quick release practically all day,” he explains. “And I never saw you nap.”
“Because I’m used to this.” I absentmindedly pass his shoe between my hands. “You need to also eat when you can. Even if you’re not hungry. When you are hungry, you might not actually have time to eat.”
He nods, looking deeper in me for answers to his bottomless pool of questions. He’s a filmmaker. He sees the subtext.
I care about your health, Highland.
I actually really care about you.
Why else would I be flinging pro-tips at him? I don’t personally benefit from Jack eating a granola bar.
But I must still be wary to put my heart on the line. Because I add, “I don’t need a casualty on my hands. And that’s what’s going to happen if your scrawny ass keeps forgetting to eat.”
“You keep saying that.” His lip rises as he leans back. “But I’m not scrawny.” He eyes the shoe in my hands, and I set it on the floor. “What were you like in high