Page 54 of Fight for Me
“What do you mean?”
“I mean on an actual get-dressed-up-and-go-somewhere-nice kind of date. Not just lunch by the lake or ice cream in the car.”
“Ilovedlunch by the lake!” she protested.
“Well, sure, but I want you to know I can do the fancy stuff, too,” he said. There was a self-conscious edge to his voice that made Lexie frown, and she studied his face while he drove. He seemed to be purposefully avoiding her eyes.
“Jacob,” she started, “I don’t care about ‘fancy stuff.’”
“I know, I just...” He trailed off, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“Jacob Tanner!” Lexie barked, making him whip his head toward her in alarm. “Pull over!”
“What? Why?”
“Pull over!” she insisted, and she could see him scanning the businesses on the right side of the road, looking for a place to turn. When he finally brought the car to a stop outside an empty post office, she shoved the gearshift into park and turned to him with fire in her eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I want to show you something, and I want to have your full attention,” Lexie said, her voice firm. She wanted to stop this line of thinking once and for all.
“Okay,” he said, his eyes wide, like he’d suddenly found himself in the principal’s office at school. His gaze dropped towhere Lexie’s hand slid into the pocket of her slacks. She closed her fingers around the flattened penny and pulled it out before showing it to him. It was just a tarnished coin he’d probably pulled from the bottom of his pocket. Literally one single cent—now worth even less. He stared at it in confusion, and Lexie waited until recognition dawned on his face before she went on.
“Colt gave me thousands of dollars in jewelry, and he took every bit of it with him when he left because that’s all I was worth to him. I was a shiny doll that he used to show off his daddy’s money, and when I wouldn’t play anymore, he took his expensive toys and went home. He expected me to care, but I didn’t. You know why? Because he never gave me a single thing that really mattered.
“But this? This I carry with me every single day. This would break my heart if I lost it. This is more important to me than all the fancy restaurants and five-star hotels and little velvet boxes in the world because it came from you, not because it has any value to anyone else. I would rather wear one of your sweatshirts than any of Colt’s diamonds, and I never want you to doubt that.”
She finally wound down, having said all she needed to say, and Jake’s eyes stayed focused on the little brown oval in her palm. The hush that followed her declaration was calm, and Lexie felt like the air had been cleared in a way she hadn’t realized was necessary.
After what seemed like ages, Jake cleared his throat and lifted his eyes to hers.
“Okay,” he said, nodding, and Lexie smiled.
“Okay,” she repeated. She tucked the penny back into her pocket where it belonged as Jake shifted the car into drive and moved slowly back toward the edge of the highway.
The rest of the trip was quiet, but Lexie didn’t mind. It was a thoughtful kind of silence, and she occasionally looked overto find him smiling as the gears in his head continued to turn. She could almost see him processing, working his way through everything she’d said.
And when she arrived at her desk the next morning, she found a ticket to the Hampton Symphony on her keyboard and a well-worn Cypress Valley Redtails sweatshirt on the back of her chair.
11
“We’re still onfor tomorrow, right?” Lexie asked as she made her way through the empty photography studio late Friday afternoon. She stopped short as she rounded the corner of Jake’s partition. His cubicle was empty.
“Apparently I’m talking to myself,” she muttered, shaking her head and pulling her phone from her back pocket. Her text conversation with Jake was already open, as it usually was.
Lexie:Hey. Are we still going to the
A door opened directly in front of her, and she jumped, leaving the rest of her message unwritten. Jake stepped out of the old darkroom—now a storage area for unused equipment—with his eyes on the ground. He looked up and startled, clearly surprised to find her waiting for him.
“Hi!” he said. “I didn’t know you were out here.”
“You scared me to death!” she said, one hand pressed over her heart.
Jake laughed softly and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. His eyes darted around, as if checking for witnesses, before he stepped in and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. Dating among the interns wasn’t against any office rules, but they didn’t want to make it a big deal if they didn’t have to.
“So, what can I do for you?” he asked.
But Lexie couldn’t answer. Her eyes were glued to the faded wooden door behind him, and heat rushed to her cheeks.
