Page 75 of Beg, Borrow, or Steal

“Shit, Emily. I’m so sorry.”

I shrug like he can see it. “Me too.”

“But you’re not scared of storms?”

I laugh once. “I’m the oldest daughter, I’m not scared of anything.” I pause as memories hit me wave after wave. And for the first time in my life, I say them out loud. “Someone has to hold it together. Someone had to lift the blanket on her bed and let her sisters climb in when the thunder would shake the house. Someone had to assure them that her bed was the safest place in the world.”Even when my own hands were trembling.“I was always promising them that I would never go anywhere, and my door would always be open for them.”

Jack’s hand finds mine again. He squeezes lightly, and I squeeze it back.

“And even though Noah is three years older than me, he’d always find his way into my room too, nervous, shaking and pacing the room, unsure of what to do when the panic would grip him. So I would give him tasks to keep his mind busy.Get the flashlight in case we lose power. Wake Grandma up and ask her to check the Weather Channel.” I can still picture his efficient nod before he’d dart out of the room. “Maddie…she needed hugs. Big, tight ones. She neededme to stroke her hair and whisper over and over that everything was going to be fine. And Annie…” I squint in the dark. “It was always a bit of a mystery to me as to what she needed. She would go silent and still. When I’d hug her, she’d just say she was okay, and I could help Noah and Maddie.”

“And what did you need?” he asks.

How have I never asked myself that question? No one else has either.

Tears sting my eyes. “To go back to a time when my biggest worry was which cereal I’d eat for breakfast. To the Christmas when my mom and dad bought us a four-wheeler and we all spent the entire day in the freezing cold riding around the Huxleys’ farm.” I press my lips together as a wave of emotions washes over me. “I needed stability and reassurance that everything was going to be okay—but both of those things died with my parents, and I’ve never gotten them back.”

“And what about now?” he asks softly.

“Now…I need to be okay with being alone. Because everyone moves on eventually. But not me…I’ll always be right here where they left me.”

He’s quiet for so long. I could be standing completely naked on a stage under a spotlight, and I’d feel less vulnerable than I do now. The worst part is, I didn’t even realize until just now that I’ve been chasing and protecting a safety that I outgrew a long time ago.

But then he steps so close I can feel his body heat. “I haven’t been in a bar since I was nineteen. My dad used to be a functioning alcoholic most days and then occasionally he’d disappear for days at a time and drink himself into oblivion.”

“Oh, Jack. I’ve never heard that about him.”

I could swear he’s sneering in the dark. “No one has. It was his best-kept secret that the man who could charm millions during his television interviews would get blackout drunk at night. And thatwhen he was drunk, he would yell at his wife and rage at his son and somehow manage to twist it every time to where it was our fault for not understanding what he was going through.”This time, I squeeze his hand.“And one day, my mom was a wreck and asked me to go get my dad from a bar near our house for her. I did. And when I got there, I tried to get him to get up from the bar, but he wouldn’t budge. There were a few people watching and I was so pissed and humiliated and hurt that this was who I had for a father…so I told him for the first time that I hated him. I told him he was worthless and the biggest fucking fraud I’d ever seen in my life. And then he finally stood up, only to smack me in the face while everyone was watching. I brought it up to him once, several years later, and he just denied it and told me I was being dramatic and making stuff up to embellish the story. He didn’t give me an apology and I quit hoping for one.”

“Jack…” I grip his shirt and he rests his hands gently over my white knuckles.

“I’m telling you this because I haven’t stepped foot in a bar since that day. I’ve tried to go with friends before and failed because I could never fully face that memory. Didn’t want to. But knowing you were inside tonight and needed me, it got me through the doors.” He pauses. “You are not alone, Emily. I would walk through my worst memories to get to you every single time.”

My heart is pounding so hard it hurts. “Jack. Can I…Can you…Can we…”

He slips his hand around my lower back and pulls me up close. “Can we what, Goldie?”

“I don’t know exactly because it’s complicated being neighbors and colleagues and now a friend that I really don’t want to lose…but…I can’t ignore this anymore either. I want more with you. I need to go slow, but…I can’t just be friends anymore.”

His response is a kiss that nearly knocks me over. We collide ina desperate tangle. He cradles the back of my neck as his mouth slants over mine again and again. I grip his back and sides and shoulders until I ultimately settle my hands into the back of his hair. His perfect color-changing hair. It’s brown tonight.

Jack’s hands glide down my body, grip my hips, and lift me onto the counter. We never stop kissing, though. It’s the kind of desperation I assumed only existed in the movies. In books. Now it lives under my skin. Rushing through my veins.

But then all too abruptly, Jackson pulls away. Not just pulls away, he takes a full two steps backward. Opening up a cavern between us. “Shit. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

The lights turn on like the universe is forcing us to take a good long look at what we just did.

“I’m sorry,” I say, embarrassment swallowing me up. I press my palms to my overheated face. “I thought we were on the same page, but…this is why you haven’t kissed me again? You didn’t want to? God—I’m sorry—”

“No! That’s…so far from the truth.” He huffs a laugh, and his smile is so fragile and uncertain. I’ve never seen him look like this. “Believe me, I have wanted to kiss you again, Emily. Every second of every damn day. But I promised myself I wouldn’t until I was ready to be honest with you about something. And I haven’t been able to find the right time because…” He rubs the back of his neck and meets my eye with resignation. “I’m scared to death it’s going to change everything.”

I swallow thickly. “You have a secret family, don’t you?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jack

“No! I do not have a secret family,” I say to Emily, who looks like she’s sitting on pins and needles instead of a bar top.

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