I still felt embarrassed and like I took advantage of him, but I was also really starting to enjoy myself.
“What would you like to know about me?” I asked Jackie, already dreading her questions.
Jacob surprised me by jumping in first, and as if he knew not to delve too deeply into what had already been a shitty day, he kept things light and easy. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m an author,” I said. Or at least, I used to be one when I could still write. “Mostly young-adult, fantasy stuff but I dabble in new adult too.”
“So you actually have readers?” His eyes flashed in amused surprise, and his brows rose, but then he sat forward and started talking to me about books. The one thing I would always be willing and eager to talk about.
“Have you got anything Allie and I should read? I’m part of the parents’ book club at the school, but my God, are we in need of better material than what those people suggest.”
I laughed, and dinner flew by after that. Before I knew it, everyone else had said goodbye and trickled out pair by pair, and eventually, it was just us left.
I helped Jacob bring the dishes to the kitchen, figuring it was the least I could do. He was covering up leftovers when I walked in with the last of the empty dessert plates.
“Thank you for inviting us to stay,” I said. “I had a really rough day. It was nice to have a good meal and meet your family. They’re great people.”
“We’re glad we could do something to make your day a little better. Did the turkey fix it?” He gave me a teasing grin, but it was a friendly one instead of a smug or I-told-you-so one. The reddish hues in his eyes were warm, and the corners had only two small creases beside them.
I nodded, my mouth drying up when I realized how close we’d suddenly gotten to each other. “Dinner was fantastic. The turkey didn’t fix it, but it sure made it feel a lot more fixable.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he offered, pushing away from the counter just as I started to pass behind him to get to the dishwasher.
“No, that’s okay,” I said, so focused on trying to avoid having to talk about my day that I didn’t notice him moving back until it was too late.
We ended up bumping into each other, and neither of us backed up right away. Our gazes caught, and I stared up at him while he did the same with me. I was suddenly transfixed by him, getting lost in the depths of his eyes while noticing little things about his features I’d missed before.
There was a tiny healed scar on the outside of his eyebrow and the slightest bit of a crookedness to his nose. A dusting of incredibly light freckles covered his upper cheeks, and the sweet smell of sugar from dessert brushed over my skin every time we breathed.
We moved almost at the same time, his head bending down while I slowly pushed up to my toes. It was like I was being pulled to him by a magnetic force that I couldn’t fight. When his lips were so close to mine that I could almost taste the sweetness I knew I would find there, two loud giggles rang out and suddenly the girls raced into the kitchen.
I jumped away from him like I’d been burned, and I whirled around to look at Katie. “We should go, hon. We’ve taken up enough of your friend’s time today.”
“The night is still young.” Jacob’s voice was a lot more breathy than usual before he cleared his throat. “Why don’t you stay for some coffee?”
I shook my head. All I wanted to do was run in the opposite direction.
What am I doing? This was not the time for me to get distracted or to make things more complicated in my life.
Besides, I didn’t even like this guy. Well, I hadn’t.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
Which is yet another reason to get the hell away from him before I do something I’m going to regret. “Thank you so much for the offer, but it’s getting late. We really should head home.”
His gaze lingered on mine, but eventually, he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “We’ll walk you out. It was good to see you, Laurie. We hope to see you again soon.”
“Sure,” I lied. “We’ll set something up for the girls soon.”
Once I get a hold of these crazy feelings I suddenly have, I added silently. Feelings I definitely shouldn’t be having, especially not about you.
Chapter 14
Jacob
“Friday, Black Friday,” I sang under my breath as I entered the chaos of the store. I knew those weren’t the exact words to the real song I was using the tune of, but they still fit.
It was absolute fucking madness at the mall, and this shop hadn’t been exempted. There were people everywhere, and each and every single one of them meant business. Their jaws were set, their shoulders squared, and their eyes narrowed as they prepared to fight for whatever it was they wanted.
I felt like I’d entered a battleground that someone had forgotten to signpost properly. It would all be worth it once I got what I came for, and I wasn’t leaving without it.
There was a limited-edition doll in there with my name on it, even if no one else knew it yet. Allie had been talking about it for ages. She needed the doll to complete her collection, and it was the only thing she’d brought up at all when I’d asked her what she wanted for Christmas.
A couple of weeks ago, I’d looked it up online. I tried placing an order so I wouldn’t have to brave the crowds on a day like today. Unfortunately for me, I’d just received an email last night that my order hadn’t been processed.
I didn’t know what had taken the shop so long, but it came down to the fact that they were having trouble meeting the demand and wouldn’t be accepting any orders for the doll until after Christmas.
Obviously, after Christmas wasn’t acceptable to me. I might not get the doll if I didn’t get it right away, and I wasn’t taking that chance. My little girl deserved the best, and this was the best present I could get her.
It was also the worst possible day of the year to be out shopping.
I surveyed the utter chaos around me, trying to come up with a plan of attack. Unlike most other people in there, I’d come for one item and one item only.
All around me, there were shopping carts filled to the brim. Shoppers were fighting and crashing into one another, yelling and trying to grab things out of other people’s hands.
I cracked my neck. If anyone thought they were prying that doll out of my hands once I found it, they were sorely mistaken.
I hadn’t been expecting to have to brawl over it, but I would if I needed to. Deciding to stick to the outer aisles, I slowly made my way to the toys instead of trying to elbow through the clusterfuck around the checkout registers and along the discount aisles in the middle of the store.
Think like a ninja. I’d watched so many martial arts movies that I felt like I’d spent my life preparing for this moment. This is it, Parker. It’s time to step up and be a hero. A shopping hero, but that still qualifies.
Blending in with the crowd wasn’t as difficult as it might have been if every person there wasn’t so completely focused on their own goals. I dodged people racing each other to get to certain products, nearly getting my foot run over by a man with a massive lawnmower in his cart.
I winced. That would’ve hurt.