Page 38 of Second Chance Saloon

“Oh, Mitch. Don’t you think that’s a bit harsh?” Jackie’s chin jerked back. “Besides, you’re shy, not boring. There’s a huge difference.”

“You think?” Mitch bit back a grin. “You’re so … vivacious.” The adjective tingled at the tip of his tongue as soon as he said it, and he knew it was the perfect one-word description of Jackie. If someone had never met her and heard that, they would expect exactly this. They’d expect her, the way she was.

She nodded avidly. “Of course. Those walls you built around yourself won’t fool me. I know there’s a more confident, more outgoing, side to you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

She cupped his cheek and looked into his eyes. “But I do.”

He swallowed. “I’ve never felt the way I feel about you. You’ve crashed into my life and knocked everything off balance.”

“I don’t have such words, but, in simple terms, I …” She inhaled. “I feel the same way about you.”

Mitch remembered all the times he worried he shouldn’t say something he might regret. So often, his father’s voice rang in his ears. Don’t bring shame to the family name. Don’t be ridiculous. So, he made himself smaller. More palatable.

But that was all behind him now. He was in college, free from Tanner’s influence. He was entering adulthood: the era when he would figure out who he was, not who his father wanted him to be.

He kissed her, briefly, resting his forehead against hers. “What if I never become more confident?” His voice had a hushed timbre, filled with uncertainty.

Jackie dropped one, two, three sweet kisses along his jaw. “Then I’ll be extroverted enough for the both of us. I like everything about you, no exceptions. I’ve dated cocky guys, guys who were more confident or at least wanted you to believe they were. You’re so much more than all of them put together.”

His soul was all but ready to dance a cancan. She liked him, too. It wasn’t one-sided. All his worries from mere moments before, about how she would grow bored of him or how this wouldn’t last, lay forgotten at the unlocked gates to his heart. There was nothing that could get in the way of the happiness filling his chest to the brim.

Jackie tilted his chin up and pressed her soft lips to his, setting off technicolor fireworks inside his chest.

His hands imprinted in the small of her back; her fingers dug into the nape of his neck. Their tongues clashed, setting butterflies free and stoking the flame engulfing their hearts.

Eventually, she broke off the kiss. “So, about that stargazing …”

Mitch dropped one more kiss in the corner of her lips. “Lead the way.”

Dry blades of grass dug into his back through the blanket and gray T-shirt.

Jackie snatched his swim-team sweatshirt on their way out of the house, saying she would probably be cold. She looked at him through the long fringe of her lashes and Mitch knew there was no way he’d ever refuse her anything.

“Do you think we’re the only ones doing this right now?” she whispered, her gaze at the vast sky.

They were laying side by side, so close that their bodies pressed together.

Mitch moved his fingers to brush her wrist. “I hope not. It’d be a waste of a beautiful night.”

“I wish I’d learned some astronomy. When I was younger, I thought the sky was this never-ending book, filled with fantastical fairytales. The stars were words on its pages, and those who could read it, surely, had some superior wisdom.”

“What stopped you?”

Jackie shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t even remember. It was one of those things, you know … A new interest every week. Another hobby, another passion.”

“I’ve never had those.”

“Never?” she asked.

Mitch closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s always been swimming for me. I didn’t have time for anything else.”

“That must’ve felt like a lot of pressure.”

He sighed, casting his mind back to his childhood. He’d started swimming lessons when he was six years old. It hadn’t taken long for the kid who could barely stay afloat in water to become one smashing school records and winning trophies by the time he was ten.

“It was. Though I didn’t think about it that way, not back then,” he said slowly.