Page 130 of A Heart Worth Finding
She pulled back to look at him. “I thought we were going to celebrate…as a family.”
Jack spun her around so she could get a good look at the entire room, though her eyes never left his. “All of these peopleareyour family,” he reminded her.
“I suppose you’re right,” she relented. “But still, I would’ve been happy with you, and me, and a bottle of wine.”
He pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. “The night is still young.”
She grinned at him before kissing his lips, soft and slow in deference to the crowd of people surrounding them, but it still held the promise of all the ways she wanted to thank him later.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Jack set her back on her feet, but not before giving her butt a little squeeze and a playful smack. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Now go mingle. I’ll be right here.”
“I love you,” she said as she trotted off, making a beeline for her parents.
“I love you, too,” he said, but she was already gone.
“You two are disgusting,” Asher said from behind him, and Jack turned with a sigh.
“You’re just jealous,” Jack said.
Asher didn’t say anything, only turned and headed back to the bar. Jack followed.
Though they spent the bulk of the evening apart, Jack knew exactly where Jessica was at any given moment. Every cell in his body begged him to go to her, to glue himself to her side and not let her out of his sight until she left tomorrow morning. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t the only one she was saying goodbye to tonight, and Jack needed to give her the space to do that.
Even if his heart was breaking in his chest.
He couldn’t even imagine how she was feeling. She’d put on a brave face the entire night, but he could tell from looking at her that her smiles were often forced, their edges wobbling, her eyes shined over with an emotion most mistook for excitement but Jack knew was sadness.
The later it got, the more the loft emptied out of the elderly people and those families with young kids who needed to get home for bedtime. Soon, all that remained were the Daniels and Jean families, a handful of Warriors and Spartans, her roommates and a few college friends, Jack, Asher, Luke, and Aiden.
Jack sat with his teammates in one of the small conversational groupings of furniture Berkley had asked them to set up earlier, each with a beer in hand, Jack and Aiden on a loveseat while Luke and Asher sat across from them in matching oversized leather armchairs.
“How did you manage to get tonight off?” Asher asked Aiden.
Aiden shrugged. “We had practice earlier, and we don’t play again until Wednesday.”
After he put up crazy good numbers in April with Toledo, the Assassins, the Warriors’ AHL team in Grand Rapids, called Aiden up, and that’s where he’d been playing for the last few weeks.
“Plus,” Aiden added, “you know I wouldn’t miss saying bye to Jess.”
Jack smiled when Asher rolled his eyes. Aiden treated Jessica like Jack treated Kenzie—like she was his sister. As the love of Jack’s life, Aiden treated her as if she was family, and Jack was forever grateful for this group of guys—even Asher.
A moment later, Asher, who anyone who’d met him would agree didn’t have a romantic bone in his body, said to Jack, “So, what’re you going to do about Jess?”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked. “She’s leaving tomorrow.”
“Right…” Asher started. “And you’re just going tolether leave? Without putting up a fight?”
“I put up a fight months ago, Ash,” Jack said, his jaw clenching. He didn’t want to be having this conversation right now—or ever—and Asher knew how sore of a subject this was for him. “She’s not going to change her mind. She’s leaving, and I’m staying here.”
“But…you don’thaveto stay here.”
Three sets of eyes swiveled to Asher, and it was Luke who spoke first. “What are you talking about, Ash?”
“I’m just saying…if Jack loves Jess as much as he claims he does—”
“Of course I do, you asshole.”
