End of Day (Jack & Jill 1)

“Yes.”

“For me?” she whispered, rubbing her dry lips together.

“For you.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “I feel responsible.”

She shook her head. “Oh God! I’ve mastered the ability to push your pity buttons. That’s just great. Please, go to work. My body has taken bigger hits than yesterday’s incident. You didn’t put the pothole in the road. It’s not your fault.” She made a shooing gesture toward the door. “Go, I hereby absolve you of all responsibility.”

“All?” Luke raised his brows.

“No, not all. I’ll see you tomorrow. I gave you three months of my soul and then you tried to dump me. So for that you are not absolved.”

“First, it is ‘tomorrow,’ second, I have yet to see your soul, and third, I didn’t dump you.”

The soul comment stung a bit. She couldn’t blame him. It was possible she no longer had a soul to be seen. “I must look like a sewer rat.”

“What?”

Jessica blew a stray hair from her face. “Me. I need a shower…” she whipped the sheet off her legs, exposing the mottling of road rash “…and then there’s the ugly that won’t disappear any time soon. But you’ve never looked better. You probably need a shower, but I swear to God I can still smell that soap or cologne of yours, and your hair has escaped the confines of its normal gel coating and it’s giving me inappropriate thoughts. I go from visually tolerable to offensive and you go from GQ to Sports Illustrated.”

“Jessica, you look fine.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you mean white boy fine, not like when a brother says his woman looks real fine.”

“I am white and you’re not my woman.”

Her gaze slipped. Luke was perceptive and always stated the obvious as if she was somehow always missing it. “Thanks for staying, but you can go now.”

“I’ll get your doctor to release you, then I’ll take you home.”

When he left the room, Jessica closed her eyes. “You’re killing me, Jones.” There was never a magic wand around when she needed one. With a few waves and some magical words she would be normal and irresistible in his eyes. Her whole I-make-men-bleed-because-I-watched-someone-murder-my-best-friend thing was really getting in the way of the whole I-need-Jones-in-my-bed-NOW thing.

“Jessica, how are you feeling this morning?” Her doctor and his nurse filed in the room with Luke behind them.

“I feel and look like roadkill.”

“Nothing that won’t heal over time,” her doctor reassured her with a kind smile.

“I don’t know, my ego took quite a hit.”

Luke glanced up from his phone, biting back a grin.

Cheeky bastard.

The doctor checked her over then released her. Luke waited outside while she dressed.

“Ready?” he asked as the nurse wheeled Jessica down the hall against her will.

She nodded. “Did you call a cab?”

“No. Gabe and Kelly brought my car last night. Then they took yours home. Nice friends we have.” He relieved the nurse of her chauffeur duties and pushed her to the elevator.

“The best.” Jessica nodded.

In the elevator she glanced up at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re studying me.”

Luke chuckled as he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “Probably because I am.”

“Have you figured me out yet?”

“Not completely.”

“And when you do?”

“Then I’ll have to start doing my own cleaning again.”

Jessica held her breath to keep from gasping. His words were a means to an end. She’d come to rely on her time with him, not his professional knowledge … him.

“What will you do without me to entertain you?” She controlled each word, stripping them of the nervous emotion they wanted to convey.

“Whatever I want.”

The elevator doors opened. He pushed her to the entrance as her shoulders sagged in a slump of defeat.

“Wait here. I’ll pull my car around.”

Jessica stood and waited by the curb; her mind reeled with panic. Luke was supposed to be her incentive to get better, find normalcy again. If getting better meant saying goodbye to Luke, then the incentive was gone.

She looked up as the vibrating roar of an engine approached. “What. The. Hell?”

A cherry red, mint condition 1967 Pontiac GTO pulled to a stop. It was the ultimate car porn and Jessica nearly convulsed right there on the spot. The driver’s window cranked a turn. “Get in, Jessica. It’s not a date.”

She feathered her fingertips along the shiny chrome handle then opened the heavy door. Jessica felt Luke’s eyes on her as she closed hers and slinked into the black leather seat, one slow inch at a time. “400 cubic inches … 360 horsepower … I’m in love,” she whispered.

“Sorry, it’s not a Jetta—”

“Shh! Don’t—don’t ruin this moment for me.”

Luke laughed a little. “I thought you’d like her. Buckle up.”

She opened her eyes and fastened her seat belt. “You’re going to let me drive her, right?”

He shifted into first and eased up on the clutch. “Not a chance.”