I Wish You Were Mine
Page 80

She didn’t want to go with him. Even if he’d asked her to go, this was her home. This was her life.
But it didn’t matter. Because he hadn’t asked.
And yet he was here…
Jackson moved into her bedroom, barely glancing at her as he scanned the moving boxes. He walked toward the bed and gestured at the one she had just filled.
“This one ready to go?”
“Um…,” she said, thoroughly confused. Was he seriously going to help her pack? It could have been nice—might have been, had she not recently told him she loved him, only to be met with utter, terrible silence.
He glanced at her, pointed down at the box, and lifted his eyebrows.
“Yeah, it’s mostly good to go. I was just—”
She didn’t finish her sentence because he was already lifting the box and carrying it out of her bedroom.
“Jackson!” She followed him. “Wait, your shoulder—”
“I can handle a box of clothes,” he said, not turning around. “But for your giant vibrator, we’re calling the guys.”
Mollie was expecting him to carry the box to the front door, as though to get her out of his home all the sooner, but instead he walked into his bedroom.
“Wait—Jackson!”
She dashed after him just as he carried the box into his closet. “What the hell are you doing?”
He didn’t answer as he reached into the box, grabbed the hooks of a few hangers, and lifted her clothes out. Without so much as glancing at her, he hung them on the empty side of his closet as she watched with a slack jaw.
He bent to repeat the move with more of her clothes, and she reached out, knocking them from his hand. “Stop it. What are you doing?”
Jackson straightened, his hazel eyes meeting hers. “Moving you in.”
“To your bedroom?”
“Obviously.”
He started to reach for the clothes again, and she knocked them down once more. “Would you stop? This isn’t funny. This isn’t fair.”
Jackson picked up her clothes, and this time when her hand shot out, he was ready for it, holding her wrist with one hand as he hung her clothes with the other.
“You’re not actually suggesting I live here after you leave, are you?” she said. “Because if this is some guilty-conscience thing, you can take your guilt and shove—”
Jackson jerked her toward him, her knees bumping awkwardly into the moving box just moments before his mouth closed over hers.
It wasn’t a hard kiss, but it wasn’t particularly soft either. It was just perfect. The perfect amount of sweet and hot, and…
She put her hands on his chest, shoving him backward. “Please don’t mess with me. Please. Just talk to me.”
Jackson’s eyes shadowed with regret as he slowly released her wrist, lifting a hand to her face. The back of his fingers stroked her cheek softly. “Talk to you?”
She nodded.
“What shall I talk about?” he whispered.
“How about the fact that you’re supposed to be in Houston right now? It’s the only reason I came over.”
“I was in Houston,” he said.
“For what, an hour?” she asked.
“Probably about that, yeah.” He was watching her mouth as his thumb brushed softly over her lips.
Her breath caught at the tenderness in his touch—in his eyes.
“What happened?”
His eyes flicked up to hers. “You want the full story, or the important part?”
“The important part,” she whispered.
“I love you.”
The words were so quiet, so matter-of-fact, so shocking, that Mollie couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
“What?”
He slid his other arm around her waist. “You heard me.”
“I heard you, but what—”
He kissed her again, and this time it was hard. Maybe a little desperate. “Tell me I didn’t screw it up,” he said when he pulled back. “Tell me you still love me. That I still have a chance. That you don’t hate me for being the biggest idiot on the planet.”
When she didn’t answer, he murmured, “Mollie?” His eyes were pleading.
“I don’t hate you,” she whispered. “But I don’t understand. What about the job? I can’t move to Texas, and you can’t coach from here.”
“I told Jerry I don’t want it.”
She stared at him. “But Jackson, you do want it. You hate New York. And you’re a quarterback—”
“Was a quarterback. Now I’m a fitness editor for Oxford magazine,” he said with a wink.
“What if you change your mind? Or what if—”
“I might change my mind about the job. Someday. Maybe I’ll realize I want to do something besides journalism. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll take over Cassidy’s job someday. Maybe I’ll become an accountant or a barista. Hell, I don’t know, Mollie. I don’t know any of that. But I do know what isn’t changing anytime soon, and that’s how I feel about you.”
She opened her mouth, but he shook his head, talking faster now. “I messed up. I get that. I was clinging so fucking hard to what I thought I wanted that I didn’t give myself a chance to realize that what I wanted had changed. That I’d rather be a kick-ass journalist than a wannabe quarterback. That I’d rather be an awkward New Yorker than a comfortable Texan. Hell, one of these days I’ll even be able to wear a suit without feeling like I’m choking.”