“I don’t want to calm down!” he replied angrily, but thankfully, in a lowered tone. “Do any of them even know you? Don’t they know how important it is to you to show them that you deserve a place in their family, and that even though you’ve been told for years by the media and by strangers that you don’t fit in?”
“No, Jack. I don’t think they know that,” she muttered soberly and pulled him further through the lobby until they were finally out in the fresh air.
“Then you should damn well tell them! They seem to have no idea who you are. Who you are now, not who you might have been in the past.”
His voice had grown louder…and Penny’s heart bigger. Her lips slightly parted as she stared at him. Her eyes stung and the lump in her throat dissolved into a hundred different emotions that swirled uncontrollably through her body.
“What?” Jack asked, irritated. “If you say again that I should just calm down, then…”
She didn’t let him finish. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him – deeply. She squeezed her eyes shut so the tears wouldn’t run amok.
“Thank you,” she whispered against his lips before sinking back to the floor. “Really, thank you.”
Stunned, Jack peered down at her. “For what?”
“For saying that. For being on my side. For listening to me when my parents won’t.”And thank you for being so easy to love. Everything seems complicated except my feelings for you.
She didn’t voice her last thoughts aloud. She only said them in her head; it was too early. Much too early. But really? She had started loving him when he had accepted her whiskey. And she didn’t have time to feel bad about it, because it wasn’t bad! It was something fantastic.
She was going to enjoy it while she could.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Hawks won despite the team’s general unrest surrounding the boss’s visit. Jack was certain that none of his teammates were as nervous about it as he was. Shit, he had gone too far. He knew that he shouldn’t have spoken so disrespectfully to the man who literally owned him, but he hadn’t been able to restrain himself. His mind had blown a fuse because, God, Penny’s parents had to be blind not to notice how important the whole thing was to her, how hard she worked, how much she hoped to finally prove to them that she was not a failure, but actually, more than brilliant.
On the flight back the next morning, everyone talked in hushed tones about how they had answered Mr. Clark’s questions while Jack pretended to be asleep. It was a miracle no one on the team had noticed his outburst. Dax had kept quiet, of course, and Gareth had obviously done the same. Still, he felt sick to his stomach when they finally landed. In theory, he actually wanted Penny’s parents to like him. He had no intention of letting her go anytime soon – not then or in the next few years. The present had priority, so he stood behind her at the baggage carousel, leaned over her shoulder, and murmured, “Your place or mine?”
Penny’s cheeks turned pink, but she didn’t turn around. Instead, she just whispered, “My place. But give me a few hours, I want to get some groceries. Then we can cook something tonight.”
“You meanyoucan cook something. Do I have to remind you that I’m a terrible cook?”
She rolled her eyes. “You can’t be that bad. It’ll be fine.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I think so.”
“Penny, I wanted to make myself some cocoa the other week and I ended up having to throw the pot away.”
She laughed. “Well, making cocoa is for the advanced. You have to start by making tea.”
“I don’t like tea.”
“Coffee?”
“I have a machine — I don’t have to do much. Even I can press a button without a problem.”
“Popcorn in the microwave?”
He grinned and removed his suitcase from the conveyor belt. “Burned.”
She looked at him, shaking her head before picking up her own bag. “Okay. You’re hopeless.”
“I told you,” he said contentedly. It was better that she found out sooner rather than later. He had other talents that he loved to demonstrate to her – over and over again.
They walked toward the exits together with the other players and members of the organization, and no one cared that Jack and Penny were talking. Why should they? Their behavior was perfectly platonic – Jack’s thoughts not so much. Thank God no one could steal them from his head.
“Oh, wait, I wanted to show you,” Penny said, pulling something out of the front pocket of her travel bag and holding it up triumphantly. “I bought it in Glendale yesterday afternoon.”
