Jock Reign (Jock Hard 5)

The expression he makes has me giggling, the wry set of his mouth a telltale giveaway.

“Fine. So maybe I am playing because it’s what my brother loved. And okay, maybe I do want to be just like him when I grow up.” He laughs. “What younger brother doesn’t?”

When he grows up? How much bigger does he expect to get? The man is already a giant. Adorably huge but apparently gentle.

“Listen, I have an older brother and I want to be just like him too, and I’m a girl.”

“Must be a decent bloke.”

He is.

“You have no interest in playing anything else? What about intramural volleyball? You’re certainly tall enough for it.” I eyeball him. “How tall are you anyway?”

“Hundred ninety-five centimeters.” He grins. “I’m not sure what that is in American. I’m terrible at math.”

Jack winks.

I’m not sure what the wink means.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“You’re right, I’m amazing at math.” He laughs, tipping back his head, almost forcing me to stare at his throat. “I’m six foot four. Trust me, I learned the conversion pretty early on—it was something everyone asked, and I knew I’d better know the answer. Americans don’t seem to take well to other cultures and customs. They expect everything to be on their own time and their own terms.”

I know this to be true.

I’ve seen House Hunters International plenty of times, and I’m always triggered by the way Americans behave in foreign countries. Wanting full-size appliances when there is no room for full-size appliances in the teeny-tiny, three-hundred-year-old French flat that’s within their shoestring budget.

But I digress…

“The omelet is getting cold,” he tells me, changing the subject back to food.

I change the subject back to rugby. “You don’t honestly think anyone is comparing you to your brother, do you?”

“No—I think everyone is comparing me to my brother.” He chuckles. “Kind of like Wills and Harry, and look how that ended.”

Wills and Harry?

Oh, duh—the two princes from England.

“William and Harry are not dead yet,” I point out. “They can change the ending to that story.”

“Perhaps.” Jack has a fork in his hand, and I wonder what he thinks he’s going to do with it. Very suspect.

Very shady.

The utensil gets twirled between his fingertips masterfully.

“So.” I cut into my eggs, ignoring Jack’s rude ogling. How can he be hungry when he just polished off my first order, his order, and who knows what else he ate when he woke this morning? “Explain to me again why you can’t just quit and do something else? It makes no sense why you’d put yourself through all that misery for the sake of…”

I need him to fill in the blank, but he’s watching me blankly.

“For the sake of…” I prompt him. “Offff…”

“My mates?”

“Your mates.”

“Yeah—I have mates because of rugby.” The fork, I notice, has encroached precariously close to my plate, so I pull it back a few inches toward me.

“You can find mates anywhere. All you have to do is join an activity—or not sit in your dorm room all day.”

“Don’t live in the dorms.”

His intention is one hundred percent to stab my food with that fork. No doubt in my mind.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I knew what you mean.” He scrunches up his face. “Knew what you meant. Der.”

“Wow. You sure have picked up some terrible habits since living here. Did your nannies teach you it’s okay to swipe food off someone else’s plate?”

He pulls his arm back, affronted. “I was doing no such thing.”

“Not yet, but you were going to. I thought they taught you better table manners than that in England.”

“They did—they do. But I’m hungry.”

“So you keep saying.” More egg goes into my mouth. “How bad are we talking here—at rugby, I mean. How terrible are you?”

“Bad.” His head hangs low. “I’d be properly humiliated if anyone actually saw me. Ashley would have fits.”

He must really love his brother a lot if Ashley is at the forefront of his mind enough to put himself in a situation he’s not comfortable with just for the sake of having friends and impressing his family.

Briefly I wonder what his parents are like.

Nannies.

Boarding school.

A completely different life than the one I had growing up, it seems. I’m also not sure how much of that is cultural being from an entirely different country, or simply because he grew up in a well-to-do family.

I will probably never know the answer to that.

“You never did tell me what you’re working on,” he says, once again sliding his utensil across the table, except this time he’s not being overly stealthy about it. He’s wiggling the silver tines at me as if wielding a pitchfork.

It makes me laugh.

“No, I didn’t tell you what I’m working on, did I?” I’m glad my laptop is facing away from him, glad I haven’t opened my notebook yet. I’ve never been one to open myself up to scrutiny, and I have no desire to start with a British guy who is more into blonde cheerleaders than intellectuals.