Not Quite Dating (Not Quite #1)(40)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“Thanks for helping Danny out.”

“I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Jack, please, I appreciate it.”

He leaned a hip against the counter and sipped his coffee.

“I can’t believe I slept in. How long have you guys been up?”

“About an hour. I heard Danny in the bathroom and thought I’d sneak out to check on him and let you sleep.”

Jessie stepped around Jack and pulled him out of direct sight of Danny. She leaned up and kissed him. “Thanks,” she said before he pulled her down for a more satisfying kiss.

When he let her go, she smiled and felt her cheeks warm. Jessie stared into the warmth of his gaze, unable to pull away. What is he thinking? She looked a mess. Hair brushed by her pillow, sleep in her eyes, but still he smiled at her as if she were dressed for the ball.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her softly.

“I’m a mess,” she corrected. But the fact he saw through her messy state first thing in the morning was a huge plus.

He brushed his hand against the side of her face and stared directly into her eyes.

“Marry me.”

At first, Jessie thought she’d imagined his words. When Jack kept staring at her, a slight grin on his face, she knew she’d heard him correctly.

“W-what did you say?”

He laughed and wrapped a hand around her waist. “I said, marry me.”

No, not this. Not now.

The air in her lungs started to push through with difficulty, and not in a good way. From the expression on Jack’s face, she knew her face showed her confusion.

Her smile fell, and her hands began to shake. Jessie’s head started to shake. “Jack,” she said breathlessly.

“I want this, Jessie. You, me. Danny. I know you have reservations—”

She pushed out of his arms. “No. Don’t do this. Please.” Dammit. He knew how she felt about dreamers and forever.

Jessie glanced around the corner and saw that Danny had laid his head on a pillow. She grasped Jack’s hand and pulled him into her bedroom. There, she shut the door behind them and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Why are you doing this? You know I can’t marry you.”

Jack’s smile started to fade. The reality that she was turning him down started to sink in. “Because I’m not rich?”

“N-No.” She spun away from him, away from the cold that started to penetrate his eyes. “I care for you. Really. Last night was amazing…”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Think about it, Jack. We get married, you move in here. Then the newness wears off and the bills are making us snap at each other. Or you remember how much you love Texas, but then realize you can’t afford to move back there. You’ll want to run off and I’ll be here, holding on.” She was rambling. Barely making sense. Why did he have to do this to them? Couldn’t they just enjoy a physical relationship? Why make promises he’d want to break later on down the road?

“That’s not going to happen.” He reached for her arm and she pulled away.

“It will. You need to find someone who can run off with you to make your dreams come true. You don’t need me and a kid holding you back.” And he’d regret her and Danny before a year was out. Dreamers hated it when reality slapped them in the ass.

“What if I told you I had money?”

“Stop it! Just stop!” She hated this. Hated that she felt her heart breaking after it was so full of life only minutes before. “We’re friends, Jack. I don’t want to regret last night, because for a moment there I thought maybe we could be ‘friends with benefits’ or something stupid like that. Obviously that’s not the case.” She still saw hope in his eyes, and Jessie knew she needed to say something to get him to find his forever with someone else. “It was just sex, Jack.”

“That’s all it was to you?” he asked harshly. His tone made her want to weep.

Her lip quivered and tears stung her eyes. “Yes.” She did her best to sound convincing. When he continued to stare at her, she spun away. “I think you should go.”

I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry.

“Jessie?”

“Just go.” She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. If he saw the pain in her eyes, he’d know he meant something to her and keep trying.

Jessie held her breath until she heard him slip from the room. Then she sank to her bed because her legs simply couldn’t hold her up any longer. The sound of her apartment door opening and closing prompted the flood of tears she’d been holding back.

Why? Why couldn’t he be happy with what they had?

Regret was too small a word for the waterfall of pain that saturated her.

She was right in cutting him loose. He would have grown to hate her for tying him down.

But lord, it hurt.

Like she’d let go of something that only came around once in a lifetime.

Jack held back a strong urge to swipe the Christmas tree in the living room of his suite out the window.

The drink in his hand wasn’t numbing him nearly enough. With every hour, his mind vacillated more and more between anger and depression. He blamed himself for blurting out his proposal. If he could have waited, had a ring and done it the right way…

But no. Impulsive Jack jumped right into happily ever after, and now Jessie was out of his reach.

It would be funny if he weren’t so miserable. Jessie had denied him marriage because she thought he was a broke loser with nothing to offer.

How friggin’ ironic is that?

Considering he’d called the damn car dealer that was working on her broken-down piece of crap and had all but given them a blank check.

He drove away from her apartment thinking he could go back to what they were. Friends.

There was no going back, and moving forward wasn’t an option. Damn. He and Jessie couldn’t even stand still.

His head fell into his hands.

The phone in his room rang, startling him. When he stood to answer it, the room started to spin.

Jack glanced at the clock on his wall. It was six in the evening, and he still wore the clothes he’d tossed on in the middle of the night to rush Danny to the hospital.

The phone kept ringing.

“I’m coming,” he yelled at the phone. Clicking on to the call, Jack nearly dropped the phone before he brought it up to his ear. “What?”

“Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine?” a female voice purred over the line.