Page 44 of Forget Me Knot

“Definitely! I’m lookin’ forward to it.” She’s so naturally poised while also inviting. Both sisters are. I feel like we could be friends. “So, Jackson, huh? That must be fun.”

“Oh, it’s something, for sure.”

“He was just tellin’ Davey this mornin’ all about the kitten he got.”

I want to hop out of my seat. “He kept him?”

Caroline exchanges a glance with my sister, and Emory explains, “The cat’s a whole thing. Dinah hasn’t spoken to the guy in a week, after they baked sexy pretzels together and almost kissed, but then he had some sort of tantrum and hasn’t reached out since.”

“Wow.” Georgia looks positively delighted at all the juicy details Emory’s intent on dropping. Like she’s one second away from squealing, “Girl Talk!”and insisting we change into jammies. “Well, maybe you’ll get your chance… for both.”

All our eyes follow Georgia’s line of sight where J. Jones walks onto the baseball field like some sort of athletic supermodel and quietly calls the kids to the mound.

I grip the coffee in my hands to keep myself from fanning my face and study the man kneeling at eye level with the gaggle of kids surrounding him excitedly.

He’s smiling gently but seems stiff. Maybe a little uncomfortable. One of the Lovett guys says something, and the rest of the men, Owen included, chuckle around the mound. For the life of me, I cannot figure out whether I’m obsessively peeping on Jackson or Jack. He throws his hand into the center of the circle, encouraging the kids to stack theirs on top, and winces slightly when they chant.

I think it’s Jack.

He tips his hat forward over his brow, ready to pitch to Owen who’s playing catcher. In all those romances I read, a backwards hat is the way to go, but I’m here to testify that a front-facing baseball cap casting a mysterious shadow over the eyes is nothing to scoff at. In fact, when the kids line up at the edges of the field and cheer for every ball that makes it into Owen’s glove, I want to be down there, too, just to get a better look at what’s happening beneath the rim of that old Badger’s cap.

Jack’s movements are so smooth and natural, I think maybe I’m mistaken. I’ve seen that same body swing a bat before like it was an extra limb as Jackson, but Jack has never mentioned baseball. It seems totally out of character that he’d be here today playing with children and shaking his head between pitches as Maloy, Nate, and Owen rag him from the sidelines.

Maloy says something I can’t hear clearly, and J. Jones turns his attention to me. Our eyes meet for a breath before Jack—because that intense stare can only be his—throws out another pitch.

“Um, whoa.” Caroline fans her face. “That is…”

“Mega-tension,” Georgia finishes for her and fans her face.

I know I’m drooling here, but I can’t seem to be bothered to care. Especially not when between pitches, Jack adjusts his hat, his shirt, or takes a deep breath and then always finds my eyes before throwing another. It’s that same magnetic force that pulled me towards him the first night I saw him, but it’s Jack.

Just Jack.

He calls Theo out onto the field, earning the wild cheers of Caroline and Georgia, and kneels down to talk to him on the mound. Jack demonstrates exactly how to throw the ball, walking Theo through the basics of his arm movements, and then finally steps back to watch the little boy give it a shot. When the ball meets Owen’s glove the whole crowd cheers, but I only have eyes for Jack.

He gives Theo a high five, and holy cannoli,Coach Kenis something special.

For the following one hundred and twenty minutes, I’m forced to watch Jack as he gracefully, and absolutely flawlessly, fills the role of Little League coach to twenty-five youngsters. Running bases, batting, pitching, catching what they callpop flysdeep in the outfield, and thengroundersin the dirt. He moves across the field like he was born to do so and lavishes each kid with praise and individual attention.

The extent of my baseball knowledge can be narrowed down to the two and half minute clip of supermodel vampires playing in an undersaturated thunderstorm with “Supermassive Black Hole”playing in the background and my first date with Jackson at the batting cages. I know absolutely zero, but I also know, without a doubt, Jack is a natural.

And let me tell you, he is a sight to behold. One I can’t tear my eyes away from. I don’t even care that my sister has rolled her eyes at me the entire morning. Or that Caroline and her sister have quietly planned our wedding and the names of our future children—the four I'll apparently be birthing naturally in some sort of tub—by the time we reach the midway mark.

It’s lunchtime when I notice that Jack’s starting to slow down, growing quieter and more terse, and I know something isn’t quite right. He’s wearing sunglasses and his hat’s pulled low over his eyes as he sips a bottle of water.

“Hello,Just Jack.” I put my fingers through the chain link fence he’s leaning against on the other side. I feel unsure of myself, in a new way, after our talk on the street earlier in the week. I haven’t seen him since Monday, but I also haven’t sought him out. I want to give him time to figure everything out for himself, but I also want to climb over this fence and kiss his stupid, beautiful face, so my self-control may not last much longer.

“Hi, Polly Pocket.” He sips again, and though I can’t see his eyes through the shades covering them, I know he’s studying my face. “I’m sor—”

“You look good out there.” I blurt out the understatement of the century, interrupting his apology. He looks like a dang supermodel is what I don’t say. “Really good.”

Whoa, Bessy. Calm down.

He smirks, and I see a flicker of Jackson in the way he shifts from uncertainty to cool confidence. “Oh, yeah?Really good.I don’t hate that.”

I roll my eyes but feel his gaze and don’t miss the way he shifts the weight of his feet back and forth, letting himself lean closer to where I’m standing. “I’m sorry about the other day. The way I—”

“No, Jack. I pushed too hard. With Chipper and your family. You don’t owe me anything. We aren’t… I dunno… It’s not like we’re…”

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