Sidelined (39 page)

I
swallow when I see him sitting outside my door. “I had a feeling I’d find you here.”

Jack stands and stares at me. I can barely stand to look in his eyes. They’re stripped bare, every emotion visible one hundred percent raw.

But I had to do it.

It has to be this way.

“Surprised you’re alone,” he says, bitterness coating his words.

“There’s no reason I wouldn’t be.” I reach past him and unlock my apartment door. Pushing it open, I slide past him and drop my purse on the table, kicking my shoes under it.

I wonder how much he’s going to hate me for what I’ve done.

Jack slams the door behind him. “You know somethin’? I’ve been sittin’ out there for nearly a fucking hour waiting for you to get back, and there hasn’t been a second where I ain’t fought with myself over being here. Shoulda left the second I turned up, but I can’t, ‘cause I gotta know why.”

I look down and twist my fingers together. “It had to happen like this.”

He laughs, but nothing about it is happy. “Nah, babe. I gotta know why I fucking love you when you’re killing me slowly.”

My eyes snap up.

“Yeah. You heard that? I love you, M. God. I fucking love you so much and it scares the shit outta me.” He steps toward me. “I told myself no more forever after Lucy. But you? You make me want it. You make me fuckin’ crave it so badly as long as it’s with you. We’re fucked up, I know, and we’ve both made a damn good show of running when shit gets hard, but I’d run to you every damn time. Nothin’ comes close to the way you make me feel.”

My blood is pumping through my body at light speed, illuminating every inch of my veins with a sensation that makes me feel more alive than I have in a long time.

“The thought of you going back to him, fucking being with him, when I damn well know you should be with me has torn me apart every damn day since he showed up. Leaving that restaurant without you,
seeing
you with that fucker across the street, made me realize how badly you have me trapped. Every single thing about you pulls me in and holds me to you, M.”

He advances, and I retreat. Until my back hits the wall and he slams his hands against it, on either side of my head. His pure, emotion-filled, green eyes burn into mine with the kind of intensity only truth and desperation can evoke. And dedication.

“Baby, you could tie me up with chains to keep me away and you’d still be the only damn thing I need. You’d still be the only damn thing in my life I wouldn’t change a single bit, even if you hurt me more than I ever knew you could. And you scare me.” He lowers his voice. “You scare me so damn much because you’re the only woman with the power to break me. And you have. When I saw you with him and realized what choice you’ve made, you crushed every fucking part of me in the palm of your hand.”

I breathe in slowly but deeply and drop my eyes. “Look in the fridge,” I whisper.

“Fuckin’ what?”

“Look in the fridge,” I repeat, this time slightly louder.

“Again, fuckin’ what?”

“If you think I chose him, then you don’t know me at all.”

Jack shoves off the wall. I let my gaze travel upward as he stalks toward my fridge and yanks the door open. Butterflies swarm in my stomach, and I feel sick. Deathly so.

But I know the moment he sees it.

He reaches forward and lifts the carton out. Then, slowly, he turns his attention to me. “If I thought I was confused ten minutes ago…”

I bite the inside of my cheek to control the twitch of my lips. “Drinking from the carton is disgusting,” I say softly. “I told you I was going to buy a carton and put your name on it so you didn’t use mine.”

Jack drops the carton back into the door and slams it. It bounces back open, but I don’t care, because each step he takes toward me is powerful and predatory. He grasps my jaw, forcing my eyes to his.

“Explain. Now.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.” My words are barely a whisper. “But I knew you’d be here when I got back. I stayed longer deliberately because I felt so fucking guilty for doing it this way.”

“Baby, you’re making no fucking sense right now.”

“You saw me kiss him, and
I
saw how much that hurt you. So I wanted you to see me say goodbye to him, too.”

Jack’s grip loosens, and his thumb brushes the curve of my jaw as he slides his hand around to cup the back of my head. “You serious?”

I nod, reaching out and slipping my fingers under his shirt. His skin is hot and his stomach hard as I feel the smoothness of him beneath my hands.

“I’m falling in love with you, Jack. Even if you do have dumb habits like drinking orange juice from the carton and leaving my goddamn toilet seat up. I can’t fight how I feel. And I think I always knew. I was just too afraid to admit it to myself, and I’m a total bitch for causing so much unnecessary pain.”

“Not gonna lie, babe,” he breathes, the distance between our mouths diminishing, “I’m pretty fuckin’ pissed at you for your little stunt, but I’m also feeling kinda smug, so I’m not gonna go apeshit on your ass. At least, not tonight.”

“Just smug?”

“Damn happy, too.” His words are murmured against my lips, and my blood is thrumming through my body, goose bumps tingling across my skin. “Man am I glad I didn’t leave tonight.”

I smile. “Me, too.”

“It was my magic cock, wasn’t it?”

I fight my smirk. He gets a carton of OJ with his name on it and he gets cocky less than two hours after finding out. “Yes. That’s it. I finally admitted to myself that I’m in love with you, and your magic cock is entirely to blame for that.”

Jack grins. “If you got it, you got it.”

“Nothing to do with the fact that I felt like I’d sawed off my arm the second I made you leave or that I cried so hard I felt like knocking myself out just so I’d shut up.”

His smile drops a little and he wraps his arms around me. “You know, I sat in the parking lot for an hour after that, hoping you’d call me and tell me to come back up.”

“Um. Yeah. I could see you from my bathroom.”

“Why didn’t you call me if you knew I was there?”

“Because,” I say softly, resting my hands on his biceps. “I needed that time. For me. I needed to be away from both of you for a few days so I could breathe without either of you clouding my mind. Him with his bullshit declarations and you with your…well, all-around sexiness.”

“Ah. Well, it wasn’t a fair battle for your head to be fighting. I can back up my sexiness with words and actions, as you well know,” he murmurs. “He didn’t stand a chance.”

“I don’t think he ever did,” I admit, sliding my arms around his neck.

He didn’t. I was entirely driven by my need for closure, and in the end, I realized that all the closure I need is knowing he’s a giant, cheating rat who’s completely incapable of keeping it in his pants.

“Baby, what do you know that I don’t?”

I grab my wine sippy cup from the side. They’re not just for girls’ night, you know. “You should know that, by the time I found out, I’d already made my choice. I knew exactly what I was going to do by the time you landed in Denver.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Huh.”

“Yeah.” I drop my ass onto the sofa and cross my legs. “I asked Mitch before if my cousin was the only time he’d cheated. He said yes, but I didn’t really believe him. At the time, I put my disbelief down to my distrust, but the more I thought about it, the less I believed him. So I did some snooping this weekend.”

“Snooping,” Jack states, sitting next to me.

“I’m a regular fucking Sherlock Holmes. Watch it.” I waggle my finger at him with a grin. “Anyway, turns out. Mitch isn’t the brightest crayon in the box because his Facebook password is still the same, and everyone knows Facebook hugs your sins to its chest tightly. I went in and read his messages. There were a bunch from this chick called Lana, and every single one of them was recent. Some were”—I wrinkle my face—“scarring.”

Jack laughs.

“But a couple of them mentioned me, and every single one that did was a total lie. He had her thinking that I was the one going after him.”

“He’s fucking deluded.”

“Right. Anyway, he told her last night that he was meeting me tonight, and he’d do his best to end things.”

“He’s definitely fucking deluded.”

“Can I finish?” I tap his thigh.

“Sure.”

“Thank you.” I link my fingers through his. “I woke up this morning to a message from Lana telling me that I’m not the only one he’s seeing. I laughed so hard I might have peed a little.”

Jack snorts. “Your hotness knows no bounds, does it?”

“Shut up!” I laugh. “Just before I met Mitch, I’d been talking to her. If Mitch wanted to play a game, then I was going to play. I let her believe I was heartbroken, and she told me that Suzie wasn’t the only person he’d cheated on me with.” I explain the exam break we always used to take. “Turns out, he’d seen Lana a whole bunch of times when we were together.”

“And she’s still seeing him.”

“Well, she was.” My lingering smile turns a little evil. “I needed closure, and she gave me it. Or, rather, I gave myself it when I told her I knew exactly what he was up to and told her the truth about the last few weeks. Then I met Mitch. And”—I raise my eyebrows, nudging him—“if you’d have stayed, you’d have seen her show up at the restaurant and tear him a new asshole in front of every single person there.”

“And what did you do?”

“I ran away and laughed.” I shrugged.

“Seriously?”

“What? I never pretended I wasn’t a bitch. I am and I embrace it.”

Jack laughs low and wraps his arms around my waist. Tugging me onto his lap, he puts my cup on the table and curves his hands around my ass.

“I kinda like it when you’re a bitch,” he murmurs, his mouth brushing across my neck.

“Uh-huh,” I mumble as shivers cascade down my spine.

“Especially when you’re a bitch to him.” His fingers massage my ass gently, his lips kissing lower.

“It’s kind of sexy how much you hate him.”

“He almost cost me you. Of course I fuckin’ hate him, baby. That shit ain’t ever happening again.”

I thread my fingers into his hair and capture his mouth with mine. “Never,” I agree. “You’re damn well stuck with me now, Carr—lack of football understanding and all.”

“Baby, I can help you there.” With no effort at all, he stands, taking me with him.

I shriek at the swift movement, laughing at the same time. My legs bend around his waist, and he lifts me up higher by my ass. Jack’s mouth takes mine as my body bounces against his with each step he takes. I gasp at the sharp sting as he bites my bottom lip and drops me on my bed simultaneously.

“Football lesson number one: think each play through carefully.” He tugs my shirt over my head, and after unclasping my bra, he covers my nipple with his mouth. “Very, very, carefully,” he says as he kisses to my other breast.

“Uh,” I breathe.

“Lesson number two: know exactly where your target is.” Jack’s fingers ghost down my sides and hook in the top of my jeans.

I lift my ass as he tugs them down—with my panties—and throws them to the side. He bends his knees, but I sit up sharply and grab his T-shirt. A smirk curves his lips.