Tangled Thoughts (24 page)

I emptied my backpack, sorted the rest of the mail, changed into running gear, all with one hand while I carried the card around with the other. I took it all the way down to the gym. I'd already run that morning, but that was before
this
. I ran again, until sweat dripped into
my eyes and my lungs hurt from the exertion, not from anything else. But funny thing about running on a treadmill—you never get anywhere, or away from anything. Especially the thing you carried with you.

Back upstairs and showered, I laid on the couch with the TV on, trying not to obsess. And failing. I turned the volume off on the TV and gave in.

I wished for a switch to turn off my brain.

I wished for some magic to erase Elaine Rachel Young from it.

I wished I could hold her again.

I wished I hadn't thought that, or that it wasn't true.

Would I feel better if I'd never met her? Where would I be if it wasn't for her?

And the big one: would I be happy?

There were signs I could be, and without her. It was a different feeling from what I'd had with her, but still a good one. Still one I wanted back. And that made me feel, what? Guilty? Maybe that was it. I had guilt for being happy without my own permission, without Lainey. Part of me—
most
of me—didn't want to move on. That was the part staring at the four scrawled words and aching.

But the other part…now it was pissed off.

I hated that I didn't know what to do or, worse, that there wasn't even anything I could do. I needed to get up, move.
Anything
was healthier than this.

Lainey

I
was late. Heart pounding, I stepped out of the taxi. I'd never been here before, this club on the south side of the city. I had no ID to come here. The line for the door told me it was popular, and I had to trust Jack's magic would somehow get me in. That, and my getup.

I
never
dressed like this, pants like skin, boots like stilts, and a tissue-thin shirt over a contrasting bra. It felt like a costume, like I was auditioning for a role I had
no
idea how to play. But at the same time, it felt good. Carefree and dangerous, the two things Jack seemed to inspire.

“Latecomer!” he called, pushing away from the shadow of the wall. “I was getting worried.”

He looked his usual in a button down and expensive jeans under a snug wool coat, dark hair unstyled to perfection. He looked
good
. Before I could say anything at all, he walked right up and kissed me on the cheek, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. With a whistle, soft and low, he said, “Good God, you are tall, aren't you?”

I blushed. He was right. In my heels, I was taller than him and I wanted to kick myself with their pointy tips. First late, and now this. “Sor—”

“Nope. No apologizing. That's a terrible way to start a date. And besides, I
like
it.” He slid his arm around my shoulder and turned me toward the front of the line. “Dante!” he called. “She's here!” To me he said, “The bouncer. Dante and I go way back.”

“All the way to September?”

He laughed. “Yeah. We're kindred, though. I told him you were coming.” He called again to Dante, “I'll take that twenty now! Thanks.” The big bouncer, whose job was to let as little as possible amuse him and he was undoubtedly good at it, looked amused. “We made a little wager,” Jack told me, smiling a politician's grin.

“On whether I'd show?”

“On the fact that you'd be the hottest girl here.”

I didn't know whether to laugh or be insulted. “So no pressure or anything.”

“Nope,” Jack said. His lips were very close to my ear. “You win without even trying.”

“I actually
did
try.”

“I know.” And this time those lips grazed my neck. I shivered. I couldn't stop thinking about how officially he wasn't my TA anymore.

When we reached him, Dante wordlessly removed twenty dollars from his wallet, though he handed the money not to Jack but the guy collecting the cover. “You're all set, my friend, but…”

Dante was giving me another appraisal, the one that would finish with his asking, politely, for my ID, when Jack reached out a hand. “Thanks, man.” They knocked fists. “We're good, right?” As he said it, the warm brown of his eyes flashed a soft gold color. I suppressed a gasp.

And then after a tiny hesitation, barely time for a blink, Dante said, “Yeah. Of course, yeah.” He inclined his head toward the door. “Have fun.”

“Always,” Jack said, smiling once more before following me inside.

T
HE
KIND OF
place I pictured Jack, somewhere expensive, filled with leather and wood and specializing in something like bourbon—this was not that place. This was a club, the kind of place with a one-word name that implied what you'd be feeling tomorrow. The kind of place filled with beautiful youth, exposed skin, laughter too loud so it could compete with the music, and fifteen dollar mixed drinks being tossed down as casually as water. The kind of place where sex floated on the air and filled in all the empty spaces.

I fidgeted my way through the crowd, yet Jack seemed as comfortable here as anywhere. He led me to an area of seating guarded by a relentlessly pretty girl. Probably “hostess” was her job title, but the job description was more like
hotness
.

And she was happy to see Jack.

“Oh, there you are,
Mr.
Kensington!” The wattage of her smile was blinding, as was the shimmer of the lights off her acres of smooth skin.

“Hello, Char.”

With daring familiarity, she reached for his arm and purred, “I see you'd like a banquette tonight.” I had no idea why that was so suggestive, but Char did. The second she noticed me behind him, that smile dimmed. “Oh. And I see you've brought a
friend
.”

“Indeed.” Jack slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me next to him. “This is Lainey. You'll be seeing us often,” he said and her smile dimmed even more.

“Of course. Follow me. And what would you like this evening?”

“Lainey?” he said and I nearly stumbled. Was that his answer? When I didn't respond, he said, “What's your poison tonight? Vodka maybe?”

“Vodka,” I echoed, and Jack obligingly ordered a bottle.

I fell onto the soft and improbably white banquette, feeling breathless. It did not escape my attention that the first and only word I'd uttered in my entire club experience so far was vodka. Around me, music pounded and lights pulsed, briefly illuminating people writhing on a sunken dance floor. Servers expertly wove between it all, delivering drinks and wearing little. I felt over dressed, which when I left my dorm, I wouldn't have thought possible.

I slipped off my leather jacket and Jack slipped his arm around my shoulders. It was comfortable there, his arm, like it had always wanted to be there. I liked the weight of it, the potential.

“What do you think?” In the privacy of our booth, he didn't even have to shout.

“It's a lot to take in.”

Jack laughed and the vibration of it flowed between us, joining the reverberations from the music. “That,” he said, “is the point. Places like this specialize in excess and abandon.”

“And you like that?”

“Like is a strong word.” Our heads leaned toward each other while we watched the drama of the club play out. My neck rested on his arm, his fingers still light and warm on my shoulder. “Appreciate, maybe? Enjoy? Everyone can benefit from a little of both sometimes.”

I nodded. Amy and Serena would both agree I needed to. I was starting to believe they might be right. “What the hell was that, by the way, earlier?”

Our eyes met for a glance and Jack dipped his chin. “Sorry. It's possible I might have flirted with Charlotte on previous visits and she—”

I rolled my eyes. “Not
that
. I mean
outside
. With Dante. I
saw
you, your eyes, I mean. And he decided not to ask for my ID or whatever. So—”

Before I could finish that question, our
entire bottle of vodka
arrived. Jesus. Our own
bottle
, guarded and delivered by a private brigade of servers, along with an assortment of things to mix with it.
This
is what clubs were like?

“Cheers,” Jack said, clinking his newly minted vodka-tonic-with-a-twist with mine. I took a tiny sip and put it down.

“I'd say you were trying to impress me with all”—I looked around at the spectacle, pausing on Charlotte, who stood nearby pretending not to be disappointed—“
this
, but you've obviously been here enough times for her to hope
she'd
be joining you in this banquette.”

Jack coughed, abashed and amused. “I just thought we'd have fun. Plus, I'm fairly certain
this
”—he gestured toward the club with his drink and then tilted it at me in salute—“isn't the kind of thing that impresses you. And I'm sorry, again, about Char—”

“If you feel like you have to apologize, you should probably do it to
her
.”

For a moment, Jack regarded me, and I tried very hard not to get sucked into the depth of his eyes. “You,” he said, “are even more amazing than I realized. And you're right. Excuse me for a second.” And then he walked over to the lovelorn hostess.

I watched as he did it, apologized and sincerely. He ran his hand down his hair to the back of his neck while he spoke and she toyed with the reservations book in her hand, shifting on her high heels. But ultimately she nodded, smiled, and Jack lightly touched her elbow before returning to our table.

“
Now
, I'm impressed,” I told him as he slid in next to me. “She didn't even slap you.”

“It's a gift.”

“About that. As I was saying before our bottle of abandon and excess arrived, I saw you in action outside. I know you're a no-good Herald, but what exactly is it you
do
?”

Jack took a deliberate pull from his drink and set it down. With a smile that brought out the dimple, he said, “People say I'm trustworthy.”

“Now I don't trust you at
all
.”

“Good. You shouldn't.” After a second he said, “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“What? No. Why?”

“You seem…” He looked at my fingers, which were absently sliding my necklace, and I stopped. “Nervous,” he finished. “I'm not your TA anymore, remember?”

I remembered. Oh, did I remember. “I guess I'm out of practice with all this.”

“I can't imagine why,” he said, eyebrows raised. “I can't be the only guy who fell all over himself this semester wanting to ask you out.”

I swallowed, trying to ignore how hard my heart was beating. I
should
have left it at that, but for some reason, I couldn't. Amy would kill me for talking about this on a first—whatever this was. Finally, I said, “I was…with someone. Before.”

Jack sighed. “I know,” he said, and before my pounding heart could go into free fall, he tickled my side. I shrieked like a stupid girl before I laughed. He leaned close, like he was going to tell me a secret. “I've been ‘with' other someones too, you know.”

I raised my eyebrows, unable to resist asking, “How many?”

He held his hand to his chest in mock horror. “A gentleman never kisses and tells. The past is past.”

“So a lot then?”

He chuckled. “Definitely fewer than you're imagining right now. Probably by a lot.”

I considered him for a moment, and the openness in his face, not his gift, made me believe him. And it made me want to be honest too. “I only brought it up because I wondered if you know him is all. Know who he is, I mean. My ex.”

“I don't want to.”

“He's—wait, what?” Jack's response finally registered.

He tapped my nose with a finger. “I said, ‘I don't want to.' I don't want to talk about it. I'm sure he's a great guy, but he was someone else. The past. And that's over. I like
now
.”

“But you might already know anyway. He's Sen—”

“Lane.” Jack silenced me with a look, his eyes so deep and intense my thoughts of anything—or any
one
—else evaporated. “The past is past,” he repeated. “Let's just be
now
. Let's not talk about exes. In fact, let's
not talk
. You know, people
also
say I'm a good dancer. Want to try?” He held out his hand in invitation. After a moment, I took it.

We danced.

He really was good at it, and I had rhythm. Better than that, I had an excuse to touch him, and that was the best part. At touching, we were awfully good. Naturals.

The club music was loud and insistent, each song morphing into the next, so there was no beginning or end and no reason to stop. We danced until my shirt clung to me, even more see-through than when I arrived. The pulsing lights, blue—green—blue—red, bounced around, reflecting off my skin below. I felt lit up from within, glowing, and this, I thought, was happiness.

I was having fun and I was happy. When Jack was touching me, I was even happier. He pulled me back against him with one arm, and pushed my hair to the side.

“You're pretty good at this, too,” he said into my ear.

“It's mostly you.”

“Ah, flattery.” I could just feel his lips moving as I leaned back into him. He was solid behind me, strong. I could feel that as we moved to the music together. He was shorter than Carter, but bulkier, not in a bad way. Carter was a V, all broad shoulders down to slim hips. Jack was a pillar, a column of muscle and agility. “I know it doesn't do much for you, but it'll get you
everywhere
with me.”