you.” Jackson pauses. “That can’t be what this is.”
I think he’s done—because what more is there to say? He practically admitted he’s falling in love with me—but he keeps talking to the bedroom, spilling his guts to the dark.
The walls have ears…
“You like me, don’t you? Me for me, not because I play ball? You’d stick with me if I decided not to play in the pros I know you would.” He’s wishful-thinking out loud, but he’s one hundred percent right. I would stand by him, no matter what. If we were in a relationship, it wouldn’t matter to me what Jackson decided to do.
Besides…
Being a professional football player is dangerous. Why would I want to send him off week after week with the possibility that he’d get injured? I’d be a nervous wreck watching him on the field every week—waiting for the career-ending hit to take him down. Could my nerves handle that?
Doubtful.
“I don’t love you.” Pause. “Do I? Shit.” Then, “Do you love me?”
My breath—it escapes me completely, and my body goes completely still.
“Do you love me? Of course you don’t.”
Jackson laughs, this time louder than before. If he thinks I’m sleeping, it’s certainly loud enough to wake me up. Does he care? Does he know what he’s saying? What he’s asking me?
“Love.” He tests the word, his voice deep and baritone and smooth. “Love.”
Luuv.
I can hear him thinking as the seconds tick by. He sighs into my hair. “I’m an idiot. What the fuck am I even talkin ’bout?”
Tawkin bout.
This boy…
He’s breaking my heart, but not in a bad way; rather, it’s bursting. I’m feeling everything all at once, another tear sliding across my cheek. Down my face and wetting the column of my neck where he just laid his mouth.
Jackson stiffens as the salty tear meets his lips.
I hear his inhalation—feel it against my back when his body stiffens. “Charlotte?”
Oh god.
“Jackson?”
His pause is painfully long. “Are you awake?”
I pause, too. “Yes.”
I swear I can hear the second hand on a clock somewhere in this house, loudly counting the seconds away. Tick. Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
“Charlotte?”
“Yes?”
I can feel his heart pounding in his chest, the beats pressing into my back.
“Nothing.”
He isn’t going to say it, and he isn’t going to ask if I heard his private confession. But I heard him, and I loved it, and I don’t want him to pretend he didn’t just say the words no guy has said to me before, because it was beautiful.
“Jackson?”
“What.” He sounds miserable. Pouty, almost.
“I heard you.”
“Heard me what?”
I roll my eyes in the dark; silly boy, playing dumb. “I heard you tell me…” I inhale. “I heard what you said.”
“Oh.” Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s fine; I understand. I understand he has no idea how to express himself. Hasn’t had to.
Extricating myself from his hold, I shift to my back. Then roll to my side so I’m facing him in the dark. I can’t see his face, but I don’t have to. I know what I’d see there if the lights were on: devastation that he confessed what’s in his heart because he’s not confident I feel the same way.
“Jackson,” I whisper in the dark. “Jackson.” I say it again, my voice…full of pain and longing. I’m choked up, not having spoken in so many hours, the words stuck in my throat. “I love you.”
My fingertips feel for his face, and I smooth them down his cheeks. He grabs them with his hands, kissing the tips before they can continue their course down.
“I love you,” I whisper again.
I’ve never said it to anyone but my parents and my friends, but I find that I mean it, and he so needs to hear the words.
“Say it one more time.” He’s whispering back.
One more tyme.
That I can do. I shiver.
“I love you.” I cup his face with my palm, his hand still wrapped around my wrist. He kisses the heel of my hand as it moves past his mouth. “You’re beautiful,” I tell him. “And smart.” My hand sneaks to the back of his head, and I bury my fingers in his hair. “And sexy.”
“I am sexy,” he admits for the first time, a bit bashfully. “Broken nose and all.”
“Especially your broken nose.” I lean in, feel for it in the dark, and plant a kiss there. Then another. Then I plant one in the corner of his gorgeous, pouty mouth—my favorite spot. I can’t see it, but I can visualize it: full bottom lip, a bit petulant. Cupid’s bow on his upper,