Page 61 of The Match

Jake squeezes my hand, willing me to agree. I’m opening my mouth to do just that when our attention is distracted by the sudden buzzing of his phone.

He lets go of my hand and darts to his phone. Noticing the number, his eyes flash worry at mine. “It’s Jenna’s parents.”

“Answer it!”

He puts the phone to his ear, and I can see the worry and dread filling his face. “Will. Is everything okay?” He listens for a minute, giving away no hints of what Will is saying. I wish I had asked him to put it on speaker. Is Sam okay? Did she have a seizure?

There is a silent panic I’ve never felt before welling up in my heart.

Jake mumbles a few mm-hmms and then says, “I’ll be right over.” He hangs up, and his shoulders relax. “She’s fine. She didn’t have a seizure, but she wants to come home.”

I sigh, feeling deep relief. What is this feeling? I’m worried about how my heart seems to be tying itself to not only Jake but also his daughter. “Whew. That’s good.”

He gives me an apologetic smile, and I already know what he’s going to say, so I hold up my hand. “Don’t apologize. I was going to decline your offer to stay anyway.”

He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me one bit. “Yeah, okay.”

“I was! Jacob Broaden, I am a southern woman of great moral principle. If you think I can be easily seduced by your pretty blue eyes, you’ll be . . . exactly right. I was absolutely going to stay.”

He laughs and wraps an arm around me, pulling me close to him. “Come with me to get Sam. I can drop you off at your apartment after.”

“You sure?”

He smiles and nods slowly before releasing me. He helps me gather all my things, and Charlie, and the extra food bag that looks suspiciously less like “an extra steak” and a lot more like a full bag of groceries. I should turn him down, but . . . I don’t want to. I think I even see the box of tampons I opened earlier on the top, and I smile to myself.

CHAPTER 27

Jake

Evie and I pull up outside of Jenna’s house, and the door immediately flies open. Out come Sam and Daisy, waving to Jenna’s parents, who are decked out in ugly matching robes and slippers. They have their initials monogrammed on them (the robes and slippers), and they are giving Sam a pitying look as she barrels toward my truck.

I open the door and get out to help Sam and Daisy in and then wave back at Will and his wife, Beth.

Beth calls out, “So sorry you had to come all the way here in the middle of the night, Jake.” Okay, well, it’s ten o’clock, so not exactly the middle now, is it, Beth? “We tried to get her to stay, but she wasn’t having it.” Beth’s voice annoys me for some reason. I think it’s because she’s looking at Sam like she thought it was a bad idea to invite her in the first place. It’s a pitying I-told-you-so look. As if my daughter is the first young girl in the history of girls to want to leave a sleepover early.

“No problem, Beth. I was glad to come get her.”

“Oh,” she says suddenly, tilting her head to get a better look inside my truck as I hold the door open for Sam and Daisy. “Sorry, I just noticed you have a friend with you.” She’s squinting hard, trying to get a good look at Evie, but I just shut the truck door so the tinted windows will cut off her view. Not because I’m in any way ashamed to be seen with Evie but because I’ve always found Beth—queen of the school rumor mill—obnoxious. I don’t want her to have access to my life and twist what’s been a perfect night with Evie into anything other than that when she blasts out false information on her PTA group text.

“Night! Thanks again,” I say, opening the driver’s-side door and slipping in quickly.

The moment I pull away from the curb, Evie leans over to me and says quietly, “Silly robes, right?”

I wish I could kiss her right now, but I don’t know how Sam would feel about that. “You don’t like the matchy-matchy couple style?”

She grimaces and shakes her head before turning her whole body around in her seat to face Sam like she always does. It’s not safe in the least, but it’s sweet, so I don’t say anything about it. “How’s it going, darlin’? Everything okay?”

I was literally opening my mouth to ask that very question. Why do I like it so much that she beat me to it? I close my mouth and look in the rearview mirror to catch Sam’s answer, but her downcast expression worries me.

“I’m sorry, Evie. I tried. I really thought it would be fun. But . . . I just couldn’t stop feeling scared and wanting to go home.”

“Oh, Sam. Why are you apologizing to me for that?”

She shrugs. “Because I know that that’s why I have Daisy—to make me feel more comfortable and keep going on with my normal life like you do with Charlie. But even though I had her by me, and I knew she’d do her job, I just kept feeling scared that I would have a seizure while I was sleeping. I felt nervous and didn’t like it.” She pauses and looks at me now. “I’m sorry I put up such a big fight to go, Dad.”

Her words pierce me. She thinks I’m going to be disappointed that she came home?

No way. I think she’s brave as hell for even fighting to go in the first place. Once again, I’m about to say all this when Evie unclicks her seatbelt and climbs over the center console to get in the back with Sam. For a split second, her butt is in the air beside me, and I have to remember to concentrate on the road.

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