Page 9 of Off Trail Love
That’s only one thing.
Yes, but it feels like more because he also won’t stop using all of his old nicknames for me. And I called him Jack-Jack. I’m so embarrassed. I’d like to crawl into a hole now.
Meg
Don’t crawl into a hole. Just don’t let him know that he’s affecting you.
That is easier said than done.
Ava
I still want a picture of the man!
Not going to happen. Ever. I don’t need any pictures of him as an adult. It’s not fair how good he looks.
“Maggie?” Fiona nudges me. “We’re here.”
I look up from my tiny screen. Everyone else is already out of the car and standing in front of a cute little Italian place.
“Sorry.”
“You okay?” Fiona asks me as we climb out of the car and join the others.
I avoid looking at Jack, but out of the corner of my eye, I see him looking down at his phone. I wonder who he’s texting. Not that it matters. I smile. “I’m great. We’re finally going to hike Longs Peak.” I just need to keep focusing on that and everything will be fine.
Despite my best efforts, Jack slides into the booth next to me before Fiona can, so he and I are squished, side by side. My shoulder bumps his as I open my menu. “Sorry.”
“No problem, Magpie. I like when you touch me.”
My mouth drops open at his obvious flirting. I don’t know if I can handle this, so I ignore him by looking at the menu. I scan it, trying to find something that will fill me up but won’t completely bog me down since we’re hiking tomorrow. The pasta dishes look amazing, but I know my body and I know I’ll have to choose something else. I end up ordering the classic salad with a small margherita pizza.
The waitress brings us water and I finally start to focus on the conversation.
“And then I had to jump into the lake because he didn’t know how to swim,” Graham is telling the table.
“I was three,” Jack protests and everyone laughs, including me. I missed most of the story, but I want to join in the fun. I’m not going to let Jack and our nonsense war he declared on me ruin this trip. I’m going to have a fun time. And I’m not—under any circumstances—going to let myself go back to my teenage fantasies of hiking with Jack. It might be coming true, but everything is different now and I will never fall for his charm again.
I won’t let myself. I know how things with him end.
How things with men like him end.
Jack takes a sip of his water, then sets his glass down so close to mine that an idea hits me like a bolt of lightning. I grab one of the little salt packets—which feels completely out of place at an Italian restaurant—but it’ll be perfect for what I’m about to do. No one is paying attention to me as I play with the packet for a few seconds while I slowly rip it open.
I tuck it into my hand as I reach for my own glass, pausing slightly over Jack’s and dropping the contents of the packet into his before grabbing my own. Fiona catches my eye and mouths, “Are you okay?”
I wish she would stop asking me that, but I give her a nod and a smile. Because now, I’m more than okay. I just pulled off one of the easiest pranks in the book, and while it might not be huge, I know it’s going to get a reaction out of Jack. I might be a little rusty at pulling pranks, but this one is going to be just like me; small but mighty.
“So, Maggie,” Hannah is saying, and for half a second, I think I’m caught. “What do you do for work?”
Whew. She didn’t see me dumping salt into Jack’s drink. “I was a real estate agent.”
“Was?”
Drat, she caught that. I’m aware of everyone’s eyes on me. “I was recently let go from the agency I was working with. Downsizing.” The last part is a lie. I wasn’t let go because of downsizing. I wasfiredbecause I made the mistake of working with my ex-fiancé and he decided that wasn’t going towork forhim anymore. He fabricated an entire story—with photoshopped proof—that I was using the houses I was looking at to make out with our male clients. It’s actually laughable, since the last person I kissed was him, before I ended our engagement nearly nine months ago. But I was still fired.
I’m still jobless.
“That sucks,” Jack says.
