I wanted was for Jack to see me with a runny nose.
When I was done I rushed back to him. “Sorry, sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me. It’s fine,” he murmured.
A lot of things were fine this evening.
He held up my jacket and when I hesitated for a second, he raised an eyebrow and just waited. I pushed my arms in and let him settle the heavy weight of it on my shoulders. I turned to face him so we could leave and bundled myself tighter in my coat, knowing I was about to freeze my ass off the second I stepped outside.
Jack was right beside me as he opened the door, and I took my first step into the cold and busy night. With my right hand, I held the collar of my jacket closed and breathed out, watching it puff out in a cloud in front of me. On my third step, a warm hand gently slipped around my left one without a word, and I climbed down the stairs hand in hand with my husband as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
The number of times Jack Hawthorne smiled: three. (VICTORY IS MINE.)
Chapter Fourteen
Rose
I woke up in the middle of the night with a loud gasp and a light sheen of sweat covering my body. My breathing was labored and my heart rate was a little faster than I would’ve liked it to be. Feeling dazed and not sure where I was exactly, I looked around. The room was dark, but as my eyes adjusted to the sliver of light coming through the terrace doors thanks to the moon, I realized where I was: in my room at Jack’s apartment, where I had gone to sleep, but… I closed my eyes and groaned, letting myself drop back to my pillow. I turned to my side, facing the terrace doors, and just stared at nothing. It was…Sunday night, the night after the charity event.
And I had just dreamed of Jack.
I was so incredibly aware that what I had just seen wasn’t real, but it had felt real—real enough that I felt a vast emptiness inside me. I swallowed and turned onto my back, staring at the dark ceiling, trying to rein in my emotions. I could still feel his arms around me, his touch, could feel and hear his voice right next to my ear. I couldn’t remember the words, but I’d remember that low, gruff sound anywhere now, and when I’d looked back over my shoulder, Jack had been right there smiling at me.
I lifted my hand and touched my cheek where I could still feel the prickly sensation, a remnant of his stubble rubbing against my cheek. It felt so real that I had to close my eyes and try to feel the ghost of his touch.
I was screwed.
It all had felt so real.
In my dream, I was in love with Jack, and I was pretty sure he was in love with me too. When he kissed me, just a slow graze of his lips on mine, there had been no one around. It was just us. Then he smiled against my lips. We had both smiled, and I’d wrapped my arms around his neck and forced him into a longer, more satisfying kiss. I’d never felt a happiness like that. When we’d come up for air, we had both been smiling, him pushing my hair out of my face with his hands, our foreheads resting against each other as we caught our breaths.
There had been no one around.
No one to show off for.
Just us.
My feelings hadn’t just disappeared suddenly like the dream, though. They hadn’t changed. I could still remember what I’d felt. I still wanted him and that, more than anything, scared the hell out of me, because it wasn’t real and yet I could still feel it.
I breathed in and out of my mouth and kicked off the covers. It was too hot inside the room.
After a few minutes of just staring into the darkness of the ceiling, I closed my eyes and desperately tried to go back to sleep in the hopes that I could pick up exactly where I’d left off.
I tried and it didn’t work.
When I realized it wasn’t happening, I dropped my legs from the bed and gripped the edge of the mattress, just sitting there for a few minutes, trying my best to clear my mind.