Page 88 of Gross Misconduct

“What time do they get up?” Jack rolls off me, and my body instantly craves his warmth.

“June sometimes gets up at five, maybe four-thirty if she’s having a rough time sleeping. And that usually wakes up Annabelle, too.” I want to be certain that if they wake up, they can find me in my bed. Alone.

I’m not ready to explain why Jack was sleeping over. I’m still figuring out what this means. My heart is all over the place.

“The last thing they need is to see my bare ass when they wake up,” Jack says, and I’m grateful that he gets it.

He wipes a hand through his hair trying to smooth it down. One piece in the back insists on sticking up. I push it down, but it springs right back to its upright position. Not unlike my dick right now.

He rubs an arm across his eyes.

“Are you okay to drive?” Even though he understands, I can’t help but feel like a jerk for asking him to go. “And for the record, if I had my way, I’d lay in bed with you all day. A real bed.”

“That sounds nice.” He yawns into my chest. “I’m going home and crashing before the game.”

Shit. Today is Sunday. We both have games. Jack can play on a few hours of sleep. I’m going to have a tougher time. At least Carmen has the girls today, so I can crash this afternoon.

Jack sits up for a moment, then flops against me, mashing his face into my chest. I could get used to him living permanently in the crook of my arm. “What a night, huh?”

“You said it.”

A far-off look clouds his face, dimming my enjoyment. His eyes are a thick curtain I can’t pull back. “This was…nice.”

My heart lifts, thinking about us playing with the girls, about us kissing tenderly. I didn’t think of myself as the guy who would ever get Hallmark moments. Nice is nowhere near as strong a word to describe the past twenty-four hours.

“I guess I should get going.” He searches for his clothes, thrown about somewhere in the truck bed.

I reach for his arm, stopping his hurried pursuit. “Hey. What’s going on?”

“I’m trying to find my clothes so I can go.”

“Jack, I wish you could stay. I want you to stay. I just think if the girls saw you this morning…it’d be a conversation I don’t know if I’m ready to have. But I want to, eventually. I don’t see this ending anytime soon.”

I surprise myself as well as Jack with the admission. It’s probably bad form to mention anything serious in the afterglow of sex, but time waits for no man. I spent the first forty years of my life not letting myself feel these feelings.

“I like you, Jack. I really like you.”

He nods, his jaw tight, emotion welling behind his eyes.

“Is it crazy that I want to be with you?” I ask.

“A little. But I’m just that good in the sack.”

“It’s not that.” He’s trying to deflect. I won’t let him.

“Griffin, maybe we should just leave it as some hockey season fun,” he says, his voice detached. He finds his boxers in a tangled ball against my leg.

“Is that what you want?” Did I completely misjudge the chemistry between us? Because what we had last night was not just sex.

Jack licks his lips, but stays silent.

“Is it because of your dad?”

“I mean, I doubt he’d be a fan of us fucking, to put it lightly. But come on, Griffin, we had some fun and maybe it’s best that it doesn’t go any further and ruin things. Our big game is in a week. Don’t mess with the juju.”

I don’t know what changed with Jack, but the wall between us went up fast.

He puts on his boxers, then finds his jeans. His dexterity at dressing himself while laying down is impressive and suggests that this isn’t the first time he’s snuck out of someone’s bed. I’d been using his shirt as a pillow.

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