Page 28 of The Match

Training Camp Day 5

JAKE: Last day of training today.

EVIE: Yep.

JAKE: Sam’s going to miss you.

EVIE: Sam can come see me anytime she wants.

JAKE: Good to know. Come hungry today. I’m going to feed you pancakes before you guys start your session.

EVIE: Do you talk this dirty to all your female friends?

JAKE: Just you.

CHAPTER 13

Evie

My intentions were noble when I set out for the bathroom. I swear it. Put a Bible under my hand and I will—okay, well, that’s taking it too far because clearly my intentions were as noble as sin.

I’m standing in the middle of Jake’s bedroom, looking around with hungry eyes. I’m a jewel thief inside Tiffany’s, and I don’t know where to start.

Jake was on a work call when I left him, and Sam was in the living room. I walked toward the downstairs bathroom, innocent as the day I was born, until I was out of Jake’s eye line. Then I shut the bathroom door from the outside—I obviously missed my calling as a spy of some sort—and hurried down the hall to where I suspected Jake’s room to be.

I don’t know why I feel the overwhelming need to be in here. I think it’s because Jake still feels like a mystery to me, and I’m hoping that if I have this inside look at his personal life, I’ll stumble across the secret to who he is. During our last five days of training camp, Jake has been kind and friendly. But that’s it. Nothing more. Nada. His attention is zeroed in on Sam or work or Daisy. He smiles at me. He asks if I want anything to drink. But that’s it.

I wouldn’t think anything strange about it if it weren’t for the texts I get like clockwork every night. I’ve never been so glued to my phone before. It always starts with something innocuous and then quickly dips into flirtatious. It’s like he has another Jacob Broaden stuffed in a closet somewhere and only lets him out after eight P.M.

I open his closet, and unfortunately, no one jumps out. It’s so tidy, though. Everything hung nice and neat. By now, I’ve discovered that Jake is an obsessive cleaner. He puts things away as soon as he gets them out. And he must do a thorough sweep of all surfaces every night after Sam goes to bed, because by the morning everything is spic-and-span.

As I look under his bed, I realize I’m borderline stalker-woman right now. It’s creepy that I’m tiptoeing around his room, running my fingers across his rumpled gray bedspread, and smiling that he makes it to perfection before he leaves in the morning. I really want to pick up his folded T-shirt and smell it . . . but I said that I was only borderline creepy, so I refrain.

The ugly truth is, I saw the signs saying Beware: Crush Ahead, but I blew right past them. Jake has stolen all my brain space.

He is all I think about, and it’s really making me nervous. I don’t want to fall for him. I still feel like he’s too good for me. So, I guess by me tiptoeing around his room like this, I’m sort of just torturing myself with what I’ll never have.

My eyes narrow on a book beside his bed, and my greedy little fingers snatch it up. What does a man like Jake read before he goes to bed?

Twilight?! No. You’ve got to be kidding me. This one life choice of his has me rethinking everything. There’s no other explanation for a thirty-three-year-old man reading a book about teenage vampire love: he’s a weirdo.

Yes, I realize that’s rich coming from a woman snooping around a man’s bedroom.

“Find anything interesting?” Jake’s voice sounds from behind me, and I snap the book shut and spin around to face him, holding the book behind my back.

I’m caught red-handed. The jewels are behind my back, and it’s incriminating enough to send me to prison for the rest of my life. I don’t dare speak. I have the right to remain silent. I’ve seen enough cop shows to know that anything I say will be held against me in a court of law.

“Whatcha got there?” He’s smiling, and I’m turning into a tomato.

“I was looking for the bathroom.”

“In my bedside table?”

He’s stalking toward me, and I’m quaking in my tennis shoes. Where’s Charlie when I need him? Attack, boy!

Jake stops just in front of me, so close that I can feel the heat rushing off him in waves, and I have to tip my head up to look at him. It’s doing nothing to help my flaming cheeks. I don’t think he’s ever stood this close to me before, and I’m wondering if maybe this is eight-P.M. Jacob Broaden, freshly escaped from whatever cell he’s normally kept in.

He reaches around me, his arm brushing against my shoulder, and I think I accidentally shudder. No, I know I do because he notices and smirks. Hello, eight-P.M. Jake.

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