“I’ve been to some amazing places all over the world,” Jack murmured, his eyes on me. “And all I can think about is how much I want to take you to each and every one of them. See them all through your eyes, be there with you … make love to you in every single one of them.”
His dimple flashed, and he cut his eyes away.
Warmth pooled low in my belly, but it came along with a shiver as Joey’s words came back to me. Would Jack expect me to follow him around the world? Not that I didn’t want to go places with Jack, I did. But …
The breakfast we’d just eaten began to feel like cement the more I considered his being with me for the event. I should want him there at the party. I should want him there for the support. I should want him there, even to help with my fear of attention, because truly, who would give a shit about a small town waitress and her sculptures when they could focus on Jack? That thought gave me pause. So I was nervous of the attention, but yet I didn’t want Jack to overshadow me? I was so confused.
The added concern of the house and how I would even go to SCAD added its weight to my churning thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” Jack’s voice broke through my thoughts.
And I hated that we’d shortly be leaving this cocoon of privacy. “How do you always know when something’s wrong?” I asked, cocking my head to look at him.
He shrugged. “Honestly? I seem weirdly attuned to what’s going on with you. It affects my mood.” He glanced at me then got up and stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. Leaning a shoulder against the pillar, and turning to the view I was so mesmerized by, he shrugged. “Right now, I’m starting to feel anxious and on edge. And since I know I’m not afraid of golf carts, or boats, which are both in our near future, I can only assume I’m catching a vibe.” He winked.
“I know I’ve talked to you about being nervous to be seen with you. What that will mean. What that will look like … for me.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I get it. Living in a fishbowl has been my life for six odd years, and to be honest, I’m still not used to it.”
“So how do we do this?”
He blew out a breath.
I stared at his profile and the lump in his throat moving as he swallowed. His shoulders, which had made to shrug again, stayed up in an expression of tension, muscles outlined through his thin white cotton t-shirt.
I waited.
Then his face transformed, and he pointed out straight ahead. I followed the direction of his hand and looked in time to see another splash and dark glossy fin. A pod of dolphins frolicked just off the shore, not a hundred yards from us.
I jumped up and grabbed his hand, and we jogged to the water’s edge, the grass cool and wet under our bare feet. There was no sand here but rocks that had been placed to stabilize the coastline.
The dolphins swam in a group, first one way then the other, all shining backs and blowing mist, undulating and vanishing in turn.
“Wish I had my kayak,” I murmured.
Jack slung an arm around my shoulders and tucked me in close, dropping a kiss on my head.
“You know people get bored and move on to a new story quickly, right?” he asked, continuing our earlier conversation. “I mean, if we just do this and go out there, it will suck for a period of time. People will want to photograph us together, photograph you. Ask about you. But then when there’s no drama, it will get easier. It won’t be gone, but it will get easier.”
My heart rate picked up a panicked rhythm. I shook my head. “I don’t think—”
“Let’s not think about it right now. Okay?” He turned me to face him, threading his fingers through my hair and tilting my head back.
I blinked up at his beautiful face and tried to calm my heart.
“I’ll do whatever I can to keep you out of the madness, I swear,” he said softly.
I nodded, and he kissed me softly, wrapping me up in his arms. It wasn’t the madness I was nervous about. It was the fact that that’s all I’d be known for.
We locked the cottage behind us and left the key for the cleaning service. I hated to leave. I wasn’t sure when Jack and I would next get to spend time like that again. We headed back toward the dock on the golf cart.
It looked like the boat was already here. And Jazz was on it, pacing.
“What the—”
“Oh my God, you guys,” she screeched, leaping off the boat onto the dock. “I’ve been calling like a maniac—”
“What? Why?” I said, as we headed toward her.
“It’s a freaking nightmare. Jack,” she speared him with a sharp look. “Why don’t you tell me which ‘source close to the actor’ knows about Keri Ann? Because I’ll freaking cut them.”
A rush of cold ice poured through me as my blood drained. “What?” I repeated, but without sound. My ears rang and my vision turned black at the edges. Orange juice and coffee turned into a vile mix in my belly.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jack asked.
I stared at Jazz, hoping beyond all hope I was reading the wrong thing into her question. But I saw her face, and I belatedly noticed the pages she held in her hand and was now shoving in Jack’s face.
As Jack’s expression of shock confirmed my worst fears, I stumbled backwards.
“Fuck!” Jack yelled and grabbed his hair, sinking down to his haunches. Then he lifted his head and turned in slow motion to look at me, his face bleak.
My stomach heaved.
The pictures? The thought flitted through my mind.
Jack nodded. He looked destroyed. God, and in pain. He’d been betrayed again, but all I could think about was me right now.
Jazz stepped past him and marched to me, her face a mask of concern and rage mixed together. I shook my head, like if she didn’t get to me and show me, then it wouldn’t be real.
“I don’t want to see them, please don’t,” I said as Jazz got close. She wrapped me up in her arms. I buried my face in her vanilla hair.
“It’s bad,” she whispered against my ear. “Really bad. It’s a reporter. He showed up and spoke to Joey this morning, gave him this, he wanted a statement from you. Joey would have come here himself but didn’t want to lead him to you, so he called me. You can deal. Okay? You can totally handle this.”
I peeled back.
She grabbed my face, morphing into a pillar of strength as she realized I wasn’t coping. “Seriously. You can deal with this. You’ve gone through worse.”
I nodded, though I didn’t know what I was agreeing with.
Behind Jazz, Jack conversed briefly with Dan, the captain of the boat, then started talking on his phone. He paced back and forth and kicked an imaginary object. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms for having to always go through this. I wanted him to wrap me up and tell me it was all a joke.
Taking a deep and bracing breath, I looked back at Jazz. I needed to see it all and know what I was dealing with. What we were dealing with, I corrected myself.
“All right, show me,” I said to Jazz. The buzzing in my ears from nerves and dread made me feel off-balance.
The moment I saw the pictures of Jack and me from seven months ago, just as Jack described, my stomach finally rebelled. I turned, making it to the edge of the dock. As I looked down, the churning coalesced into a sharp spasm and I gave in to it, opening my throat and throwing up my breakfast and my worst nightmare into the marsh reeds and black pluff mud.