go with Jack? Could I do both somehow?
Each had its pluses and minuses, or so I thought. When I remembered how Jack's arms had felt around me, how malleable he'd made me with his comforting words, it felt like something else. A tiny spark lit a fire in my mind.
I remembered my conversation with Stacy and how she and Jack had strayed apart due to their conflicting schedules and relentless work ethic. The answer hadn't been present then, when I had worried for just a moment that with Jack, a relationship would be tough. Maybe even impossible. How could I stay close to a guy who always needed to be gone for work? Most people didn't want that sort of relationship, though for many, it was a harsh reality.
But here was the answer, the answer Jack had given the previous night without ever knowing about my conversation with Stacy. He said it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, but what if he had considered something like it since the inception of his own label? His job offer didn't sting so much anymore, didn't feel so much like a dumb way to avoid responsibility, a one-way ticket to fantasyland, millions of miles from the real world.
This was the real world. It was a world that Jack wanted to create for us, a world that allowed us to thrive—together. He wanted to take me on trips, wanted to treat me to the best that the world had to offer.
Why should I fight the one who loved me, maintaining tension and hard-headedness for no real reason at all? Having a career of my own and being with Jack weren't mutually exclusive, and finally I saw it.
Nothing with Jack had been even remotely short of breathtaking—the food, the sex, the talent, the looks, the personality, the care and concern. I would be an idiot to let him to go, because he was the fucking man of my dreams.
It didn't fucking matter if I felt unworthy, or if I felt inferior to the women he had dated in the past. None of that mattered anymore. I believed what he said, believed every word that came out of his lips like it was the most brilliant thing ever spoken. I had treated him to unjustified ups and downs, rushes of emotion that I had allowed to overtake me, to confuse and weaken me.
If I went back and analyzed his reassurances, his promises that everything would wind up okay, he had been right every single time after the dust settled. I was okay. I would survive. I was being overdramatic, immature and stupid. After so many years of thinking that men like Jack just didn't actually exist, I could understand my opposition, my brain's desire to move to slowly while my body wanted to travel at light speed.
Jack was real. This wasn't a dream. Everything would be okay. His offer was both pragmatic and dreamy, a situation in which infatuation concurred with reality. Things didn't usually happen this way—but if they could, why should I avoid them?
As if he had been listening to my mind all along, Jack called my phone, currently the only frustration-free way I could communicate with him. "Hi, Jack," I said, my voice masking the visible satisfaction on my face.
"I can tell you're smiling. What's up?"
"Drinking coffee at my usual spot. They offered me my job back." I wasn't sure how he would take the news.
"Great, just great. What'd you tell them?"
"Nothing yet. I thanked them for being reasonable. Sam's been suspended thanks to people defending me in the office."
Jack started laughing so hard I had to pull my phone away from my ear. "Those guys are like sharks. They terrorize everyone else until a bigger group of pricks come along and hunts them down." There was some commotion in the background. "Fuck it, I'll be there in a couple of minutes. I don't know why we're talking on the phone when I'm two blocks away." The call ended and I sat quietly, my coffee nearing completion.
Less than two minutes later, Jack popped up in the doorway. He glanced at the cup in front of me and then locked with my eyes. "Do you want anything else?" he called.
"Only if I don't have to decide what it is."
He nodded and started talking with the barista. I saw her eyes ogling him—I absolutely couldn't blame her—and it only made me prouder. Jack Teller was mine. They would look, but they couldn't touch.
After his order came