Page 9 of Jacking Jill

“You’re lying,” Jack said. It was a statement, not a guess, like he saw right through her veneer of reasonableness that Jill hoped would hide the streak of obstinate irrationality that made her do things grown-ups should not do. “Your so-called best friend didn’t even invite you to her wedding. Which means you’ve already tried to change her mind and she’s told you to fuck off. I bet she’s blocked your phone number and your social media messages and all that.” He gazed coolly at her now, his eyes dark with some sort of depth that made Jill tingle inside. “And you brought a gown to wear to the wedding, which means you know you aren’t getting access to your friend Nina before the wedding. And that means you’re going to crash the wedding and try to stop it before they take their vows.” He smiled with smug satisfaction. “Correct me anytime, sweetheart.”

“The first correction is that I’m not your sweetheart, so if you call me that again, I’ll drop your carjacking ass at the side of the highway,” Jill informed him huffily. “And yes, the dress is in case I do need to go to the actual wedding. But that’s a last resort. The wedding isn’t till Sunday, so I’ve got a couple of days to get to Nina. I can get through to her. I know I can. I . . . I have to get through to her.”

Jill’s voice trembled at that last sentence, enough that Jack’s lingering gaze felt uncomfortably penetrating. He stayed quiet for a long tense moment, watching her in a way that did something to her insides, twisting them this way and that, making her hot and anxious, certain he could see inside her.

“Why?” His voice was calm, confident, like the word wasn’t a question but simply a prompt for her to keep going, keep talking, keep opening up because he wanted to get inside. “Why do you have to get through to her? Why is it your responsibility to change her mind when she’s clearly not interested in changing her own mind? She isn’t being forced into this marriage, is she?”

Jill shook her head, her lower lip jutting out again as the guilt pressed down on her like a weighted blanket. “No. She thinks she loves him. But she doesn’t. She can’t.”

Jack grunted, raised a curious eyebrow. “And you know that because you’re an expert on love?”

Jill’s grip on the wheel tightened as she overtook a semi-truck with a cartoon cow painted on the side. “It doesn’t take an expert to know the difference between love and . . . and whatever Nina thinks she feels for Bobby Carmine.” She gritted her teeth, shook her head, huffed out a frustrated breath. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this, all right? It’s . . . it’s complicated.”

Jack shrugged with an irritating coolness. “Seems pretty simple to me. You’re jealous that your best friend found true love, and now you want to stop the wedding. It’s like a sisterhood rivalry thing. I think I saw it on some melodramatic soap-opera episode.”

Jill almost choked on a sudden burst of indignant anger. “OK, you’re getting off at the next exit. Or screw that, I’m pulling over on the shoulder. You can walk to Philly for all I care.” She flicked on her signal, started to move over towards the shoulder, then saw the wicked grin on Jack’s face and groaned. “You asshole. You’re baiting me. Trying to provoke a reaction so I get defensive and tell you the truth.”

Jack’s grin was wolf-wide now. “Is it working?”

Jill moved over to the slow lane near the shoulder, then checked her mirrors, sighed, and sped up again. “All right. Since you’re clearly not going to shut up and let me drive in peace, I’ll tell you.”

Jack grunted with smug triumph, pumped his fist in victory, then relaxed in his seat and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I’m waiting,” he declared after Jill merged back into the middle lane and sped up to traffic-speed. “Don’t make me speculate again on the inner workings of the female psyche, Jill. Because I’ve got some great theories that date back to when cavemen roamed the land in search of those rare cavewomen who shaved their legs.”

Jill stifled a laugh, shook her head with feigned annoyance, then rolled her eyes and took a breath. “You sound like a true scholar of the caveman-cavewoman dynamic. Your wife or girlfriend is a very lucky woman.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Are you being sarcastic? Because my wife or girlfriend would most certainly be a very lucky woman. If she existed. Which she doesn’t.” He rubbed his jaw and frowned as he eyed her up and down with dramatic obviousness. “Well, she might exist. She just isn’t my girlfriend or wife yet.”

Jill felt the blush burn her cheeks as her butt tightened on the seat. The guy was obviously a shameless flirt, the kind of cocky player who was always on his game, like hitting on anything with a vagina was just habit, an addiction to constantly inflate his fragile male ego. “You can’t turn it off, can you, Jack?” she said with an eye-roll that she wasn’t able to pull off with the nonchalance she’d intended.

Jack grinned wickedly. “Wait, did you think I was talking about you? Oh, please. Do I look like the type who wears knitted sweaters? Because I guarantee that your husband or boyfriend gets one for Christmas every year. If he exists, of course.” His grin was now big enough that Jill hoped his smug face hurt. “Does he exist, Jill? Husband? Boyfriend? Lover?” His voice dropped to a teasing whisper. “Booty-call? Fuck-buddy?”

Jill gasped, her face brighter than a tomato in season. “OK, you are just shameless! Who asks those questions to somebody they just met? Somebody they just . . . attacked?”

“Actually, you attacked me,” Jack pointed out. “Using this car as a weapon. You’re lucky I have the reflexes of a panther, or else I’d be missing two kneecaps right now.”

This time Jill’s eye-roll came easy. “Setting aside the self-congratulatory comparison to a panther, I fail to see why I’m the lucky one. That whole thing ended with you smashing my moonroof and pointing a gun at my head.”

Jack grunted. “The safety was on, sweetheart. I wasn’t going to blow your brains out all over that nice blue dress. Is that satin? It’s very shiny.”

“You’re very shiny,” Jill muttered, not even sure what she meant by that. She changed lanes to overtake a minivan packed with more kids than seemed reasonable. When she glanced over at Jack, he was still grinning. It was infectious, and she couldn’t stop herself from smiling back. His game was good. It almost felt genuine, like he actually liked her. Though of course Jill knew that a player-type like Jack had learned how to make all his targets feel like they were special.

Special for one night.

Nope.

Not happening, buddy.

Not my thing.

Not my type.

“Nah, you don’t seem like the fuck-buddy type,” Jack said thoughtfully, like he was type-casting her out loud just like she was doing to him in her mind. “Besides, you couldn’t knit a sweater for a fuck-buddy. It sends the wrong signal. I guess you could do a scarf. Maybe some socks. Or a dick-sock.” He grinned. “Is that a thing?”

“You tell me,” Jill said. “Does your dick get cold in the winter because of overexposure?”

Jack exploded with laughter. “Damn, that was a solid burn, baby. Overexposed dick? That’s good.”

“Why, thank you.” Jill was beetroot-red but smiling wider than she had in years. She knew because the sides of her mouth hurt, like those smile-muscles hadn’t been stretched this much in forever. “I’m here all night.”

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