Page 61 of Body Check

“Minor, inconsequential detail. You were naked where it mattered.”

I roll my eyes at his smooth baritone. “Andsecond, what happened tonight is . . . was . . .”

When words fail me, Jackson’s dark eyes soften. He ducks his head to dunk his toast through the egg yolk. “The stars aligned.”

Swoon.

Seriously, that shouldn’t sound as romantic as it does, but there you go. Jackson Carter is clearly determined to steal my breath away tonight, by orgasm or by other, no-less-panty-melting measures.

Focusing on my food, I soak the fluffy pancake in the maple syrup and do my best to maintain my composure. But boy, is that hard to do when you’re post-orgasmically blissful, the way I am right now.

“I didn’t realize you believed in stars aligning or any of that.”

His white teeth sink into a juicy, red strawberry. Chewing, swallowing, he then shrugs. “Truth is, I don’t.”

“Then why would you bring them up now?”

He meets my gaze head-on, his brown eyes unflinching. “It’s nearly impossible to believe in that sort of thing when your life is falling apart. Same goes with fate.” His thumb caresses the spine of the knife he’s holding. “We were breaking, Holls, and I was spending nights on our damn balcony making futile wishes on shooting stars.”

My heart splinters at the visual of him standing out there, loose sweatpants hanging from his hips and one of his hoodies pulled on but unzipped, revealing his strong chest and cut abdomen—his usual attire when we were home together. “I don’t remember any of this.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t.” His smile is blasé but frayed. “Most nights, you fell asleep at the office after a long day.”

At his words, guilt threads through my veins. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs, another casual offer of acceptance or forgiveness orsomething. “It’s in the past. It happened.” Another shrug, this one followed by a mouthful of egg and a swallow once he finishes chewing. “I was no boy scout either. We both fucked up, Holls. I know that.”

“We both prioritized our professions over each other. We accepted the divorce the same way we lived our marriage at the end—quietly without digging deep and fighting forus. Counseling felt like a useless endeavor when we never made a change. What did we really change? Nothing. You shut down after that last night at Sal’s and I . . .” The truth clogs my throat, clawing its way up. And then it spills forward in all of its ugly glory: “I grew to despise everything about hockey.” His eyes go wide, but my confession isn’t over yet. Palms tightly wrapped around my utensils, I continue. “I hated that I felt like I had to choose between supporting your career or growing something for myself. I hated that hardly anyone knewme. I was ‘Jackson Carter’s wife’ or ‘the captain’s girl’ or ‘that chick who’s always at the games.’”

Something in his rugged features splinters. He shoots a covert gaze at the packed diner—one of the few twenty-four-seven restaurants in the city, and thus a hot spot—and combs his fingers through his hair, still messy from my hold on it just an hour ago.

“You meant more to me than all of that,” he vows, voice low.

Appetite dwindling, I set my fork down. “I know that I did. You meant . . . hell, there wasn’t anything Iwouldn’tdo for you. Except, I guess, that the bigger you got in the NHL, the more my own identity was just”—I drop my gaze—“squashed.”

“Byme?”

My hands turn clammy. When I reach for my short glass of orange juice, I can’t help but note the tremor in my hands. An hour ago, I gave myself to Jackson fully, holding nothing back. I opened my body, bared my soul—gave him every ounce of control and power to do with me as he wanted—and yet this conversation is so much harder than sex. Harder than sex in public, no less.

As though he’s read something in my expression, Jackson drops his fork and stretches his arm across the narrow table. He cups my cheek, eviscerating my heart with that one touch, and draws in a sharp breath before he speaks. “Don’t do that.” His thumb brushes over the crest of my cheekbone. “Don’t run from me. Tell me what you need to say—I can take it, I promise.”

A weak smile pulls at my lips.

He knows me so well.

Running is my M.O. and has been since childhood. I guess that’s sort of what happens when you’re constantly trying to box up your emotions and remove the perpetual hurt from your heart. You become way too good at putting on a happy-go-lucky front, even with those who matter most to you.

How many times did I lie to friends at school that my parents had been killed in some sort of horrific accident? Better that than the bitter truth, which was that my parents were cocaine addicts. By the time I was six and my brother four, they’d packed up their things and dropped us—their only children—off at my grandmother’s house with our meager belongings.

They never came back.

No postcards.

No letters.

No phone calls to let us know how much they loved us.

In the end, my childish lies came to fruition. In a letter that my grandmother wrote to accompany her will, she finally revealed what happened to my parents. Momma had died years earlier—drug overdose. Daddy was locked in prison on a life sentence—he’d murdered someone after a drug deal gone wrong. I know that my grandmother was only trying to shield us from any more hurt. In the end, it seems I’d only loved the vision I had of my parents a little too hard. The reality, as realities tend to be, wasn’t anything to write home about.

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