Page 63 of Tempting the Player
“Or I can stay at my place, of course. My roommates all have different schedules, so someone is there most of the time during the day.”
“I don’t love you being there by yourself when I can’t get there quickly, but you also can’t miss three days of classes.”
“I’ll email my professors and just do whatever I can outside of class. It won’t be a problem.”
It feels like such an easy solution, and maybe it’s asking too much of her but I’m just so happy to have a solution that doesn’t require me to navigate twelve different hoops that I agree. “Thank you. I really appreciate it. I want to be there with him, even if he doesn’t really want or need me to be.”
“I think he wants it more than he’d ever let on.”
“Maybe.”
Jane eyes my fries. “That looks disgusting.”
“Ketchup and mayo?”
She nods.
“Try it.” I push my tray toward her and watch as she carefully dips the very end of a french fry into the sauce before tasting it.
She immediately makes a face. “Oh, no. No, no, no.” She takes a long drink of her lemonade before she speaks again. “Looks disgusting because it is.”
We smile at each other over our food and it’s the first time in an hour that I feel like I can take a full breath.
20
JANE
“Are you ready?”Hendrick asks when we’re both finished eating. He smiles at me, but it’s a tired, stressed-out smile that makes me wish I could fix all of it instead of pile on. But I have to pile on. It’s been three days since I got the weird email, and I still haven’t told him. Nothing else has happened, but if I know Hendrick, and I think I’m starting to, he’s going to be pissed I didn’t confide in him immediately.
I wish I had done it, oh, about three hours ago. Now I feel like a giant jerk for adding more things for him to worry about.
He scoots to the end of the bench and starts to stand, but I force myself to stay sitting. If I get up, I’ll wait another day (or three) to tell him.
“Everything okay?” he asks in a hesitant tone.
“Wait. Before we go...”
He moves over in the booth so he’s back directly in front of me. His voice is gruff and tense as he says, “Fuck, I’m sorry. You wanted to talk to me.”
“It’s probably easier if I just show you.”
I hold my phone in my hands with the email pulled up so all I have to do is hand it to him, but I still don’t just yet. “First though, I’m so sorry for the timing. The thing with your brother is top priority. Family comes first and if it’s all too much right now then I will call Grady tonight and—”
“Show me, Jane.”
The command in his voice leaves no room for argument. I hand over my phone and wait while he reads it. It doesn’t take long.
When he looks up at me those hazel eyes are so dark, I’d swear they’re brown. “You got this on Friday and didn’t say anything until now?”
I guess it was too much to hope that he’d not notice the time stamp. “I wanted to. It’s why I texted that night. I knew I needed to, but then you showed up and, well, I didn’t.”
“Why? Why would you keep something like this from me? Dammit, Jane, I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know what’s happening.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry, okay? I’m just tired of it.”
“Of what?”
“All of it. Feeling scared and hopeless and dealing with drama after drama. And I used to like drama.”
