Page 109 of Knot That Serious

Her gaze snapped to him guiltily as she stilled. “Yeah, why?”

Jack studied her for a moment longer, and Eli swallowed, trying to project coolness into her expression and body language.

Too bad Eli was, like, the most uncool person ever.

“Nothing,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Anyway, I got him off, but he made me wait.”

“Aw, sounds rough, Jacky,” she cooed, disappearing the last of her first taco.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. The thing is, it was… easy. God, I don’t know what it was, but…” He shook his head again. “Dunno. It was hot, that’s all I can say.”

Jack shifted in his seat, too, and Eli squinted at him while he stared down at his food. “There’s just something about him.”

Eli felt a pang in her chest, a stab of jealousy from the thorns on the green vines curling through her ribs.

“He the one?” she asked, practically choking on the words.

Jack scoffed, shrugging. “It’s a little soon for that, I think.”

“Is it?” Eli asked.

“Well, how about you?” Jack asked, turning the subject to her. “How do you feel about your date last night?”

Eli shrugged. “Didn’t know you cared,” she found herself saying.

Jack pointed his fork at her, making the sound of a buzzer. “Wrong answer.”

“You guys didn’t seem to give a shit when I got home last night! I was expecting fifty questions, and you—” Eli grunted, and took a violent, messy bite of her second taco.

“I didn’t want you to think we were prying.”

“I just figured you’d want to make sure he was treating me right,” she said, shrugging.

Jack leaned forward, almost tipping his bike over and dropping his little paper box with his tacos inside before he settled again, expression worried. “Is he not treating you right? I’ll kill him.”

Eli snorted. “He treated me just fine, thank you very much.”

“Well? Details, sweets. Give ‘em,” he said, making a grabby hand at her.

Hiding her smile in a sip of water, Eli shrugged and told him everything. How he opened doors and packed a picnic and apparently built the Vine Tower—

Jack made a face when she said it, a little mimicking snarl that made her giggle and kick at his knee—not the one that’d been fucked in the wreck.

She told him about the lights and the view and the food and the terrible cheap wine. Jack listened intently, finishing his tacos long before Eli did and resting his hands on the bike on either side of him. The motion stretched his shirt and jacket over his frame, and Eli tried not to stare.

“And then…” Eli hesitated, wondering if it was a step too far. But Jack had not spared her any intimate details. “And then he had dessert,” she said, a curl to her lips.

“Ooh, what did you have?” Jack asked innocently.

Eli waited for him to meet her gaze. “No, he had dessert,” she said, a dark glee swirling through her at the understanding in his eyes. The five stages of grief seemed to flit across his expression before he cleared his throat.

“Oh?” he asked, voice cracking on the single word.

They both pretended they hadn’t heard it.

“Yeah. Spread me out on the picnic table like another course. And didn’t even let me return the favor. Said my pleasure is his pleasure,” Eli bragged.

“Christ,” Jack said, and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s… cool,” he finished eloquently.

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