Page 29 of Powerless
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, grabbing them and zipping the bag up quickly because the entire thing stinks.
“Sorry,” I hear from behind me.
“For what?” I squeeze water onto the towel and walk toward him.
“Getting sick.”
My hand lands between his shoulder blades, sliding on the silky fabric of his suit jacket. “No need.” I hand the towel to him, and he drops his face into it. “It’s your hockey bag you should be sorry for. That towel smells like moldy cheese and not the good kind.”
A quiet chuckle shakes his body. Or at least I think it’s a laugh. It’s hard to tell without being able to see his face.
“Give me the keys, Jasper. I’ll drive us.”
“Not a chance,” he says as he wipes the towel over his face.
“Listen, I know you don’t like when other people drive. But I promise I’ll be fine.”
He shakes his head, peeking at me from over one broad shoulder. “No.”
I roll my eyes and sigh dramatically while continuing to rub slow circles on his back. “Control freak.”
He stiffens slightly before giving a terse nod. “Yup.”
“At least you own it.”
He glances at me again as he tosses the towel in a nearby garbage can, but this time there’s a look in his eye that wasn’t there before. “Yeah,” is his faint response.
Then he clamps my hand back in his and walks me to the passenger side, where he opens the door and ushers me into my seat while avoiding eye contact. I don’t know if it’s the outcome of the game, the fact he just hurled in front of me or that I called him a control freak, but there’s a new tension in the air.
Shame hits me again.
Jasper’s having one of the worst weeks of his life, and I’m psychoanalyzing if he’s upset with me while he holds my hand and opens a car door for me.
I shake my head at my selfishness as the door slams and he gets in beside me.
“Ranch?” he asks as he slides his long arm over the back of my seat. We’ve pulled out together in a car a million times, except now the nearness of him feels heavy and unfamiliar.
“Yeah.” I sigh and sink back into the plush leather seat. “Ranch.”
We make the same drive we’ve made several times in the past week. No music plays. All I hear is the white noise of air rushing through the vents as I switch between staring out the darkened window and then back at Jasper’s carefully blank face.
“You know the saying ‘there are no stupid questions’?”
His eyes slice my way and he nods once firmly.
“Would it still be true if I asked you if you’re okay?”
His cheek twitches, and I watch his hands twist on the steering wheel.
“Sunny, I am so far from okay, it’s not even funny.”
My heart twists in my chest, and my tongue darts out over my lower lip as I continue to regard him, racking my brain for what to say next.
“Nothing you say is stupid though,” he quickly adds.
I smile flatly and look out over the dash. Leave it to Jasper Gervais to say something like that when I’ve spent the last five months engaged to someone who constantly made me feel like the things I had to say were dumb.
And I just let him. I put a hand over my throat in a sad attempt to quell the ache there.
