Page 63 of All Jacked Up

“Oh, wait, you don’t drink beer. What about wine?”

“The tea is fine,” I replied.

He opened the door to the fridge and pulled out a bottle, then snapped off the top with his bare hand before taking a long pull from it. I watched him as if he were doing it all for my personal entertainment. Which he was not. I jerked my hungry eyes off him and focused on my tea again.

Get yourself under control, Noa.

“I booked my return flight for tomorrow. I’ll need to head to the airport at eight.” I decided to go in that direction of a subject change. Since I’d found out that he’d returned my rentalcar early without telling me, I was going to need a ride. Unless Madison had Uber, and I doubted it very much.

He lowered the bottle from his mouth. “All right,” he replied.

“Do you know if Uber has made its way to Madison?” I asked when he said nothing more but took another long drink.

He frowned then. “Yeah, but you don’t need it. I’m taking you.”

Oh … well, he could have said so.

“Thanks.”

I watched him drink the rest of the bottle down and found myself mesmerized by the way his neck flexed as he swallowed. When he finished, I grabbed my cup and drank the tea like I hadn’t been ogling him.

“What’s that kids movie with Johnny Depp that you said I needed to watch?” he asked.

“Pirates of the Caribbeanisn’t a kids movie. Adults enjoy it too,” I told him.

It had been at least a year since he’d texted me and I was watching it. He said he’d never seen it, and I had told him he was missing out on life.

“It’s fucking Disney. It’s a kids movie,” he replied. “Let’s go watch it.”

I laughed and stood up. “You’ll see that it isn’t just for kids.”

He cut his eyes at me. “Are there naked tits or fucking?”

I sighed. “It’s a Disney movie. Of course not.”

“Like I said, it’s for kids.”

I had counted four times that Ransom laughed. Okay, fine, three were more of a grin, but still. He’d enjoyed the movie, sans tits and sex. And I’d enjoyed watching him. More so than Johnny Depp, and that was saying something.

Yawning, I stood up and then smiled down at him. “Not so bad for a kids movie, was it?” I asked, feeling smug.

“Eh, it wasn’t so bad,” he replied.

I knew that was the best I would get out of him, so I didn’t push.

“It’s late, and I need to get some sleep,” I told him, but left out how much I hadn’t gotten the night before.

He nodded, but didn’t move as he stared up at me.

We hadn’t sat close enough to touch during the movie. His doing since he sat down after me. There had been enough room for two men to sit between us. I pulled my feet up and covered up with a throw blanket he’d tossed at me. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t sat closer, but this wasn’t a romance story, and I was not the heroine. Unfortunately.

This was reality. Mine.

“All right. Good night,” he said after a moment, but he didn’t get up.

He was probably staying up to watch something with naked women. I wanted to roll my eyes at myself for being jealous.

“Good night,” I replied. “And thanks for today. What you did for me with Mom’s things … it meant a lot.”

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