“I’ve really missed you,” he said, quietly.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
I know all of Jackson’s expressions, the way he looks when he’s proud, or disappointed, or the way his forehead creases right before he comes, but he looks at me now with a different sort of intensity. Like he’s afraid I’ll break…or run.
For the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel like going anywhere.
“Heaven,” I heard, and turned toward Amber’s voice. She shrugged her jacket on over her shoulders. Ginger’s arm slipped around her waist. “You need a ride home?”
I didn’t look at Jackson, but I felt him behind me. Waiting for my response. Ginger was blissed out enough by the evening that I wasn’t sure she’d even noticed my hesitation. Amber on the other hand; her eyes darted between me and Jackson, the question lingering in the air.
“I think I’m good,” I finally said, walking over to give them each a hug.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Amber whispered in my ear.
“Who? Me?” I mumbled back, but I didn’t want to put anything into the atmosphere. All I was doing was hanging with a friend. An old, handsome friend with eyes burning into my back as we spoke. “I’m just…looking for closure, that’s all.”
She pulled back and gave me a look that I couldn’t quite discern. It definitely wasn’t disapproval.
“Congratulations,” I said. “Love you both.”
“Love you, too,” Amber replied, gazing at me and then over my shoulder. A moment later they were gone, and Jackson and I were alone and I wondered if it’d been a mistake to stay.
I turned to face him and took one look at his face and his body language; the way his hands were tucked into his pockets, the slight way he rocked on his heels, like a man tethered to his spot so he wouldn’t pounce.
It would be up to me, then...to make the decision about where this would go from here. I met his eyes and fought the wave of insecurities warring in my belly and asked him to take me home.
20
Jackson
She asked and I said yes.
And prayed, the smallest of prayers that this was a step in the right direction and not a terrible, awful, unforgiveable mistake.
I walked her up the steps to her studio apartment, hands stuffed in my pockets, saying little. Any words spoken could blow this entirely. Heaven was a notorious overthinker. She ruminated. She worried. She always had and it left her vulnerable. But we’d worked through that and promised not to treat her like she was fragile, but now…I didn’t know how to play this game.
She turned at the top of the steps, the wind blowing strands of her dark hair away from her face, and she was so beautiful. She’d always been beautiful, even when her world was falling apart. My heart clenched when her eyes landed on me—waiting for my dismissal.
I opened my mouth to do it first, soften the inevitable blow, but words rushed off her tongue. “I know we made a deal and I know why, because this is freaking hard. Just being near you—any of you. It scrambles my brain and my heart and all I feel is butterflies mixed with dread and…” she bit down on her red, bottom lip and looked away.
“Hey,” I said, touching her chin, forcing her to face me. “I get it. All of it. I shouldn’t be here, but—”
“I think maybe I need something final between us.”
I sucked in a breath and repeated, “Final.”
“Closure or…I don’t know. Something that signifies the end, not what we had before where we all just vanished from one another’s lives.”
I swallowed and looked over her shoulder, out at the view of Allendale from her building’s doorstep. I should leave. I should just walk away now, because what I wanted to do wasn’t about closure and it sure as hell wasn’t just about me. It wasn’t just about Heaven. It was about all of us, it always was, and if I do something I regretted it could affect everyone.
But then I remembered…I was the first to kiss her then and the first to make her come. If anyone was going to take the chance— “Fuck it,” she muttered, before I completed my thought, reaching for me.
Fire sparked between us when our mouths met; her lips soft, familiar, perfect. Heaven’s hands fisted in my shirt, pushing me against the wall. That move was new, aggressive.
I liked it.
Dammit, I loved it.