Page 50 of Nothing But It All
“I will. Thank you.”
Michael races to the door, holding it open for her and Pops. He exchanges a look with his father before he sets off after Mrs. Shaw’s granddaughter.
“What was that all about?” I ask, staring at the doorway.
“I think you know what that was all about.” He saunters toward me. “What’s in the basket?”
The look in his eye makes me flush, and I head to the refrigerator to make a glass of tea instead of standing close to him.
“Lasagna,” he says. “Garlic bread and a bottle of wine.”
I look over my shoulder as Jack sets the wine next to a baking dish. The room is scented with garlic and tomatoes, making my stomach rumble.
The door flies open, catching us off guard. Maddie sticks her beaming face around the frame. “I’m going to Ava Shaw’s for dinner, okay? Bye!”
The door slams before we can answer her.
My heart races as Jack’s attention lands squarely on me. There’s nowhere else to divert it, no one else around to include in our conversation. It’s not even bedtime, when I could feign sleep.
This is precisely what I don’t want.
There’s no way for this to end well. Either we end up in a heated conversation about something inconsequential—where we’d then have to contend with animosity between us for the next two weeks—or we manage to be civil. Where would that get me?
I’ve fought too hard to get here—to the stage of apathy that Jack has deemed worse than heartbreak. I’m finally to the point where I’ve accepted my marriage for what it is ... and what it isn’t. And life is easier when those lines aren’t blurred.
Why bother blurring them now?It’s one dinner, Lo. You are totally overthinking this.
“I guess it’s just me and you,” he says. “This is still warm. Want to eat now?”
I face the window and close my eyes for a moment.
“We could go sit out back,” he says. “Maybe I could clean out the firepit, and we could pull up some lawn chairs.”
A smile ghosts my lips as I open my eyes again.
“Or we could just pack this back up and drive out to where I proposed.” His voice is a touch shakier than before. “I don’t think the mosquitoes are as bad as they were that night.”
My heartstrings pull just enough to loosen the guard around my heart a little bit more.
“And ticks,” I say, still not facing him. “That year was so bad for the tiny ones. I wore my brand-new engagement ring into the dollar store and bought lint rollers to try to get them off us.”
His chuckle caresses me from the other side of the room.
“That was one of the happiest days of my life,” I say, the words fading into the evening.
Jack moves quietly across the kitchen before coming to a stop behind me. His presence is that powerful, that familiar, that I don’t have to turn around to see if I’m right. My body instinctively leans toward him, and it’s all I can do to fight it.
“That was one of the luckiest days of my life,” he says softly.
“Not the happiest?”
“I think I was too awestruck that you actually said yes to be happy.”
My chest bounces with a suppressed laugh.
“Lauren Madeline McKenzie, I can honestly say you weren’t looking your best the night we met,” Jack says.
I laugh and hold tight because this is going somewhere. Something is on his mind, and it has been all weekend. The impromptu trip to the cabin. His inability to sit still. The odd suggestion of a picnic and the coincidence that Mrs. Shaw had a picnic basket ready at the Cupboard.
