Page 104 of And Now, Back to You

He pinches me gently in admonishment. “Is there a lot?”

I think about that blinking red number in the bottom corner of my phone screen. “Define . . . a lot.”

Jackson groans.

Another soft laugh eases out of me. “People are probably just engaged because we’re on their television screens twice a day,” I assure him. “And on their radios in between. They’re fixated, but it’ll pass. It always does.”

It’ll pass for everyone. The guy who made that audio remix. The girls debating Jackson’s hand placement. The rest of the city of Baltimore.

Jackson.

I press my lips together. “We don’t have anywhere to be this morning. I thought you could use the extra sleep.” I pause, still smarting a bit from when he left to take that call. It’s silly, and I have no reason to be. He’s allowed to keep his private life . . . private. We’ve made no promises to each other. I hold no expectations.

I keep my hands moving through his hair. “Is everything okay back home?”

Jackson blinks. He’s still halfway asleep, by the looks of it. “Yeah,” he rasps. He drops his head back into my neck and makes a pleased little sound. “It was my sister, Adeline. But she’s okay.”

He doesn’t say anything else and I tell myself that it’s enough. It’s enough that he came back last night. It’s enough that he let me help him when he couldn’t sleep. He doesn’t need to unpack his family baggage.

Jackson shifts, his arms tightening around me.

“She’s having a hard time at school,” he says, still in that rough, slow way.

Hope flares in all my secret, soft places. “Yeah?”

He nods, his nose nudging at the soft skin of my neck. “Yeah. It’s hard for her that she doesn’t have a mom she can count on. I try to be everything she needs, but—”

He sighs heavily instead of finishing that thought.

“But you can’t be her mom,” I finish quietly.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Yeah.”

I know what that feels like. To want something so desperately, while not wanting it at the same time. To feel that ache so sharply when everything is changing around you. To have one good parental figure who loves you with his whole heart, but still feeling like you deserve more.

“I could—” I cut myself off quickly, rubbing my lips together. I have a nasty habit of injecting myself into situations where I’m not wanted, and I refuse to do it with Jackson.

Jackson leans up on his elbows above me. “You could?”

“Never mind,” I say easily. Deflect, my brain screams. Change the subject. My fatal flaw is offering too much of myself, too soon, and Jackson is quite literally trapped in a room with me. Now is not the time. I smile. “Do you want room coffee or do you want to wander downstairs?”

“I’d like to finish this conversation.” Jackson pulls one of his arms out from behind my back, pushing my hair off my forehead. His hand lingers under the curve of my ear, thumb rubbing. “What were you going to say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper.

“It matters to me.”

I exhale a harsh sound, feeling stupid. “I was going to say if she needs someone to talk to—someone who gets it—I’d be happy to.” I pause. “I’ve been where she is. Maybe I could help.”

Jackson doesn’t respond. He remains quiet long enough for me to regret both saying something about it and bringing it up while he’s got me flattened against this bed. I want to scurry off to a corner. I want to launch myself into the stratosphere.

“When we get back?” he finally asks. His eyes search mine. “That’s when you want to talk to her?”

I don’t necessarily see how timing is relevant, but—“Yeah,” I say. “I could also talk to her on the phone, while we’re here, if you wanted. But sometimes these conversations are better to have in person.”

He digs a knuckle into his cheek, then presses his palm into the mattress at my hip. I roll slightly into his arm, but he doesn’t move.