Page 34 of Jack

“No, I’m leaving.”

I needed to get out of here before I did something I really regretted. Something like telling Crenshaw to go fuck himself because Ava was off limits, because she was mine.

I walked to the exit without looking back.

****

Chapter 21

Ava

I walked into chemistry on Friday feeling both deflated and excited. I was upset because Jack had made no effort to communicate with me all week. I thought he might do something when he saw me helping Mike Crenshaw. He certainly hadn’t looked happy when he saw us in the cafeteria, but instead he walked out; his jaw tight, his expression grim.

I might need to accept that this was exactly what Jack said would happen. We’d have sex when we both wanted to have sex, but there were no strings, no commitments. I was frustrated at how attached I’d obviously become to him. How rejected I felt by his casual dismissal.

However, that might change today. Today, we had our first lab, and Jack was my lab partner. We were doing flame testing with different metal chlorides, so I wasn’t thrilled at wearing safety goggles considering this will be the closest I’d been to Jack in days.

He walked in, sat down as the bell rang, and started talking to the guy sitting next to him. It was hard to ignore just how attractive he was, wide shoulders and strong forearms displayed in a Henley the same color green as his eyes. I found myself staring at his hands and daydreaming about the night we spent together, feeling stupid and predictable for acting like a lovesick moron.

“Okay, guys, you know what to do. Go to your stations and start assembling your materials. Once again, I’m going to caution you. A very real flame will be produced in each dish, so please pay attention and extinguish the flame as soon as you’ve recorded results,” Mr. Perkins intoned soberly.

Jack didn’t even look at me as he made his way to get our materials before bringing them back to our lab bench.

“Okay, you know what we’re doing, right?” he asked as he sorted through our supplies.

Was he insulting me? “Uh, yeah, I know what we’re doing. We have to put each compound in the dish and light it to see what color the flame is.”

Jack nodded his head. “Right. Let’s get started.”

So much for small talk.

I wanted to talk to him before I had to put on those stupid goggles, so as we were setting up the dishes, I initiated conversation.

“So, how have you been?”

He glanced up at me from what he was doing, looking as if he’d forgotten I was there.

So flattering.

“Fine. You?”

I cleared my throat, not sure if I should give a casual answer, or say something a little more meaningful. “I’m good. The tire’s working out for me,” I added jokingly trying to activate the connection that had felt so strong last week.

He didn’t laugh. In fact, his expression was intensely serious. “So, nothing else has happened? Nobody has messed with you since the thing with your car?”

I shook my head. “No, nothing since then. I really think it was kids, or something.”

Jack nodded and went back to messing with the chemicals. I felt swamped with disappointment and disbelief. Was this it? Was this all we were going to be now?

I was struggling to cope with this inaccessible version of Jack. It had felt like we were building a real relationship last week, and now we were acting like strangers. I knew he said this was how he operated, but it had seemed like things were different between us. My embarrassment was starting to turn into something much worse, like pain or grief. Shit.

“Okay, I think we’re ready to light these things. Grab your goggles.”

He put his on, and unfortunately, they did nothing to diminish his attractiveness. I begrudgingly slid mine on and waited for him to start lighting the compound in the dish. I really wasn’t pulling my weight in this experiment; Jack had done it all while I stood here agonizing about the status of our non-relationship.

“Why don’t we just light all of them, take the notes and put them all out at the same time?” Jack suggested. He lit the rest, and I had to admit, it was cool. Each dish lit with a different color flame that I found mesmerizing.

“I’ll put the flames out,” I said, looking to contribute in our lab partnership.

---