“Oh God, you’re not pregnant, are you?”
Jason started choking beside me while Mom stared at me expectantly. And I sat there, shrinking into the chair, wondering when life got so complicated. Knowing the answer was simple.
Jason freaking Ford.
After I broke the news to Mom that I planned on switching my business degree to animal science, and she’d had a semi-meltdown, I let Jason drag me away to give us both some space. I’d broken her heart but as he kept reassuring me, it would heal. Because that’s what hearts did. Sure, maybe they never quite got pieced back together the same way, but they would carry on beating.
“How are you feeling?” he asked me as he drove to wherever it was he was taking me.
“Sad, but mostly relieved. I’m their only child, their baby. I didn’t want to hurt them.”
“She’ll come around, I promise.” His hand splayed over my knee, rubbing gently. I covered it with my own, grateful for his reassurance.
“And my dad?”
“Him too. It might not happen overnight, it might not even happen over a few months, but it will happen.” I murmured some incoherent reply, too depressed to answer. “You deserve all your dreams, Felicity, and they will realize that one day.”
“Where are we going anyway?” I changed the subject. I wasn’t feeling in the mood, but Jason had insisted he had something to show me. I never could resist him, and I wasn’t about to start now.
When we turned off the main road out of town and took the familiar dirt path down to the lake, I groaned. “Seriously? You brought me here, now? The last thing I want to do right now is bounce on your—”
“Giles?” He cut the engine.
“Yeah?”
“Shut the fuck up and get out of the car.”
Well, okay then. Rolling my eyes, I shouldered the door and climbed out. The lake shimmered under a blanket of twinkling stars. “God, it’s so beautiful out here.”
Jason came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “A little birdy told me you almost completed your list.”
“Almost.”
There were only three things remaining: fall asleep under the stars, get a tattoo, and go to Winter Formal with a date. Although I still wasn’t sure about getting a tattoo. It seemed so permanent.
“What if I told you, you can tick two of those things off tonight?”
“We’re going to sleep out here?” Because I was pretty sure my boyfriend didn’t have his tattoo license, and Winter Formal wasn’t for another couple of weeks.
I craned my face around to his, unable to hide my grin. “Only if you want to,” he said.
“But it’s freezing.”
“So technically, I thought we could sleep in the car, but the view is the same.”
“It’s perfect.” I brushed my lips over his. “Thank you. But that’s only one—”
Jason shoved something into my hand. I plucked open the note.
Roses are red, violets are blue
I’d really like to go to Winter Formal with you?
Stifling a giggle, I said, “Fess up. Asher wrote this, didn’t he?”
“He may have helped a little.”
Turning in Jason’s arms, I leaned up, touching my forehead to his. “I’m glad the two of you are okay.”
“You really think I want to talk about Ash right now?”
“What else did you have in mind?” I asked, coyly.
“First.” he dipped his head, kissing my collarbone, sucking the sensitive skin between his teeth. A shiver rolled through me, my eyes fluttering closed. “I want your answer.”
“Yes,” I breathed, desire humming through me.
“Good.” Jason spun me so that my ass hit the edge of his car. “Now I’m going to make love to you on the hood of my car and then we can cuddle talk about the final thing on your list before we fall to sleep under the stars, sound good?”
Looping my arms around his neck, I smiled. “It sounds perfect.”
Epilogue
Four weeks later
* * *
Felicity
“My god, I can’t watch,” I buried my face into Hailee’s arm as we watched from our preferential seats. Mya was with us, as well as Jason’s dad and Hailee’s mom, and Cameron’s parents. Asher was on the outs with his parents since the suspension, so they hadn’t made the trip.
A collective ‘oooh’ roared through the crowd as the Bulldog’s defensive end took down Cam for the third time.
“Is it always this tense?” Mya asked, to which me and Hailee both answered, “No.”
“Sorry I asked.” She held up her hands, grabbing another hand of popcorn.
“Seriously?” I gawked at her.
“What,” she shrugged, “I’m hungry.”
I couldn’t eat. I was too nervous. My heart had been in my mouth for most of the game. I knew how much this meant to Jason. He’d played it down a lot around Asher; trying to smooth the cracks that had appeared between them ever since Asher took the fall about the Thatcher ordeal. But when it was just the two of us, when I was lying in his arms, nothing between us, I felt his fear. Fear of failure, of letting his team down, his coach, the entire town.
But most of all, of letting himself down.
He’d worked so hard for this, they all had, but no one wanted it more than Jason. It wasn’t just some high school accolade; it was his legacy. His way of proving himself. So watching him and the rest of the team get their asses handed to them, was almost too much to bear.
“Run,” Hailee yelled, “Run.”
We both held our breath, waiting for the moment our offense reached the end zone, but a Bulldog defensive player came out of nowhere and slammed into Grady, knocking him clean off his feet.
“Dammit.”
“At least he almost got there that time,” Mya remarked.
I levelled her with an incredulous look. “Just because your guy isn’t out there on the field doesn’t mean you can’t at least pretend to be interested.”
“I’m interested.” She sat a little straighter. “And what do you mean, my guy?”
“You know exactly what I mean.” She and Asher had gotten closer since I got with Jason but they were both still pleading the fifth on whether it was more than friendship.
“We’re just friends.”
Case in point.
Rolling my eyes, I settled my gaze back on the field, searching out Jason. Pride radiated from every bone in my body. Not because he’d led his team to this point; the whole town knew he’d do it, but for the fact he was mine.
For how far we’d come.
Rixon’s complicated, brooding, cruel, star quarterback was changing right before my eyes. He was warmer and more open, no longer afraid to tell me how he felt. Even less afraid to show me. He’d even made an effort to get to know my parents, although that was a work in progress. My dad was taking some warming up to the idea I had a boyfriend, let alone a boyfriend by the name of Jason Ford who I planned to go off to college with next year.