“No,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to jinx myself.”
“You will tell him though, right? He’ll be thrilled for you.”
“Give me two minutes to catch my breath, then I’m heading straight to his place.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I’m sure he’ll help me celebrate appropriately.”
Jack rolled onto the pillow Brooke had slept on and inhaled the floral scent of her shampoo on the fabric. She’d left a couple of hours ago, but he wasn’t due at work until ten and was reveling in the chance to sleep in. He wriggled further into the mountain of blankets, murmuring in contentment. The only thing that could improve his mood was having Brooke tucked into the crook of his arms.
A distant banging disrupted his peace. He buried his head beneath the pillow and tried to tune it out. The banging stopped, and he was drifting on the edge of a dream when it sounded again, far closer. Blinking, he lifted his head an inch from the mattress. Was someone at his bedroom door?
“Go away,” he grumbled.
“You don’t really mean that.”
Brooke’s voice broke infiltrated his cocoon of warmth, and he sat up, rubbing his eyes. “You’re back?”
She entered the room fully and gave him a toothier grin than he’d ever seen from her before she’d had a coffee. “I just walked seven miles on an incline, wearing a weight vest.” She announced it as proudly as if she’d single-handedly won New Zealand the Bledisloe Cup. And no wonder. This was a massive achievement for her.
“That’s fucking awesome, Brooke.” He jerked his head. “Come here.”
She did, wearing that shy smile he adored. He tilted his face up and she bent over to kiss him. Then, before she could react, he yanked her onto the bed. She squeaked in surprise and rolled, taking him with her, and landed with her palms splayed over his chest, her body sprawled along the length of his.
“Ugh, I’ve just been exercising,” she protested. “I’m disgusting.”
He kissed her nose. “You could never be disgusting. How come you didn’t tell me what you were up to this morning? I would’ve come and supported you.”
She fidgeted, and stared at something to the side of his head. “You know I appreciate you having my back, but I needed to do this on my own.”
He frowned, not liking that thought. “You know I wouldn’t ever give you a hard time if you came up short, don’t you?”
“Of course. I just…” She sighed. “I think I needed to prove something to myself.”
Squeezing her tight, he kissed her cheek. “Fair enough. I won’t question that.”
“Thanks.”
He kissed her sweaty forehead, his mind wandering to the hiking equipment he’d already bought for her because he had no doubt she’d succeed at the upcoming mud run. She was working her ass off. The weekend after it was done, he planned to whisk her away. He’d chosen a track he’d done several times because he wanted to be familiar with the terrain, but he was eager to watch her expressive face as she took in the scenery. It would be like seeing it through fresh eyes.
“Here’s an idea,” he said. “Why don’t you have a shower while I make breakfast?”
She looked down at him dubiously. “Dare I ask what?”
“Snails and bush grubs.”
She winced, and he grinned in response. “Pays not to ask. Just trust me.”
“Fine. I can do that.” He could hear the shrug in her voice. She rolled off him and he mourned the loss of her body. “I need to update my blog, but I can do that once you’ve gone to work.”
“It’s no trouble if you want to do it now. You don’t have to keep me entertained.” In fact, he wouldn’t mind seeing her blog for himself. It struck him as odd that it was responsible for the sponsorship, but he had yet to get a glimpse of it. He couldn’t even look it up himself because he didn’t know what it was called. He could ask Kat, but that seemed too intrusive. Brooke would tell him herself when the time was right. It probably hadn’t occurred to her that he’d be interested. She didn’t know about Claudia, and her Insta-famous project to transform him from bushman-boyfriend to suave man-candy, so there was no reason for her to understand his caution toward social media.
“I know,” she said. “But I want to. I’ll do it later; it’s no big deal.” She shed clothes as she headed to the bedroom door, and cast a coy glance over her shoulder. “Sure you don’t want to join me?”
No. No he wasn’t. She exited the room, and he stumbled after her. “Hey, wait up!”
22
She was going to be sick. Brooke clapped a hand over her mouth and ran to the toilet in the en suite off her bedroom, dry retching into it. Her stomach revolted. There was nothing inside of it to throw up, but it roiled and seethed nonetheless. A hand landed on her lower back, rubbing circles through her shirt.
“You’re okay. You’ve got this. You’re going to kick the mud run’s ass tomorrow.”
“There are going to be so many people watching,” she whispered.
“They’re coming to support you,” Jack assured her. “They’ve got your back.”
She straightened and looked him in the eye. “But what if I fail?”
“You won’t.” He sounded confident in her when she was anything but. “Even if everything goes to hell, I’ll still be here for you.”
At that, she turned and retched into the toilet again. Because yeah, she’d come to believe that he truly did care for her, and that they were equals in a lot of ways, but how long would he stay around if he decided she could never be the partner he took on two-week hiking adventures to the middle of nowhere? What if she let him down? Let Olivia down? Let all the people who were pinning their hopes on her down? She wasn’t just doing this for herself, and that added to the pressure.
While she’d always known that her blog readers were actually out there in the world, living their lives, they’d seemed abstract until now. She’d be meeting many of them in person. She couldn’t blow this. If she did, dozens of people who’d grown up like her might lose faith. Stepping around Jack, she turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face with shaking hands, then she exhaled and looked herself in the eye. She had to believe she could do this, or it was all over.
“That’s it,” he encouraged her. “Get your game face on.”
She tried to smile at him. “You know you didn’t have to skip poker night to hang out with me. I’m not going to be much fun. I’ll just be sitting around, stewing about the race.”
“It’s not a race,” he reminded her. “You’re not trying to win, just finish.”
In her mind, finishing equaled winning. Giving up equaled losing. Even if it wasn’t a race, it was still a win-lose situation.
“I know. My point is, I’m probably just going to drink hot chocolate and binge watch Doctor Who.”
He cringed. “Make it Game of Thrones and I’ll join you.”
She shrugged. “If you insist.”
God knew she could use something to keep her mind off things, and hey, maybe they could reminisce about their first kiss, when she’d been dressed as Khaleesi. Perhaps it had been long enough by now that they could look back and laugh. She certainly felt like they’d come leaps and bounds in their relationship from where they’d been a few weeks ago.