Straight Up Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 2)

“You two have been inseparable since you met,” Mom says. “Even before you considered yourselves friends, you couldn’t stay away from each other.”

Shay grunts. “I couldn’t believe she wanted anything to do with you. You were always playing tricks on that poor girl.”

I stare into my coffee, grateful for the familiarity of it. We might be stuck in the hospital, but having a

cup of Shay’s coffee in my hand makes me feel like we’re at home. “Well, she was fun to tease.”

“Of course, being the old lady that I am,” Mom says, “I always wanted you two to stop skirting around the issue and tell each other how you felt.”

I look up at Shay, then at Mom. “I already tried that, Mom.”

She arches a brow. “Have you? Directly?”

I nod and absently pull my phone from my pocket to look at Ava’s text again. I hover my thumb over the picture of her that appears next to the words. “I told her the day I found out she was engaged to Harrison. I went to her apartment and I kissed her. I told her I was in love with her.”

Mom’s completely silent, and I can’t tell if it’s shock or sadness, but I take Shay’s silence as commiseration. She was the only sibling I told about that day—the only one I trusted to hear the story and not hold it against Ava.

When I look up, Mom has her hand pressed to her chest and her eyes are sad. “Oh, Jakey.”

“My timing was bad,” I say. “I get that. But sometimes . . . I don’t know, Mom. Sometimes I think I’m just being dense. Holding on to her. But I can’t make myself let go.”

And then there was last night. When she confessed to touching herself and thinking about me. Too many times to count.

“Do you want to let her go?” Mom asks. “Would you be happier?”

“No.” I shake my head. “Not at all.” But I don’t want to scare her away either, and I don’t know if she’s ready to learn that my feelings for her have never changed. And I don’t know if she’ll be able to forgive me when she finds out about my night with Molly.

Shay squeezes my shoulder then refills my cup. “Hang in there, brother.”

I meet her eyes, grateful. “Thanks.”

Ava

“Why are you in a crappy mood this morning?” Ellie asks.

We’re at the breakfast buffet in the hotel lobby. We were supposed to meet Levi’s date here, but she decided to get together with some friends who live in Livonia, just outside Detroit. My brother’s already left for the track and we’ll see him over there later. So it’s just Ellie, me, and my bad mood the size of Texas.

She grabs the carafe of coffee and fills her mug. “These walls aren’t very thick, you know, so I have pretty good reason to believe you should be in a spectacular mood.”

I try to laugh, but it falls flat. “I thought you were still at the club when Jake and I came back.”

“We weren’t far behind you.” She squeezes my wrist and gives a small smile. “I’m sorry he had to leave. That sucks.”

I shake my head. “It’s not that. I just had bad dreams all night.”

She wraps her hands around the mug and holds it to her chest as if she’s using it more for warmth than to drink. “Nightmares?”

I shrug. “I don’t know if I’d call them nightmares, but kind of. I was having dreams that I was pregnant, and I was setting up the nursery but I was at Jill and Dad’s house. They were giving me all these rules about how I had to raise my child, and how the baby had to be quiet when we had dinner parties. The whole time I knew I didn’t want to be there, but it was like I had nowhere else to go.”

“What was that about?” she asks.

Ellie only moved to Jackson Harbor a few years ago, so while she knows a lot about my family and life, she doesn’t know all the details. “Remember how I told you I moved in with Dad when I was finishing high school.”

“Yeah, and you had to live with Mother Teresa.”

“I felt like a burden the whole time I was there. It was like he was making an exception by letting me stay. Like he was doing me a favor by letting me live in his house with his real family. The better family. In my dream, I was the unwelcome guest again. The burden. But this time I had a baby.”

“Oh, shit. Your subconscious has the subtlety of a bulldozer, sweets.”