“Gee, I don’t know,” I snap. “Am I the same as Angela, or Olivia, or that Heather girl with the purple hair?”
He scowls. “What, are you keeping tabs on everyone I go to bed with?”
“Well it’s not hard to do when you’re parading them through the Thirsty Coyote.”
His eyes flash. “At least I never slept with any of your roommates.”
I point at him. “I had no idea Tyler was your roommate. That was a complete coincidence.”
“And what about Davis? Was that a coincidence too?”
I smile sharply. “Davis was just as much a coincidence as you going home with Bella was.”
A beat passes. We pretty much just listed off all of our sex partners since the two of us hooked up, and that can’t be normal. Clearly, we have jealousy issues. And the fact that we’re not a couple yet we still have jealously problems is a sure sign we’re completely dysfunctional.
“This is why us sleeping together was a mistake,” I say, leaning back in my seat. “It changed everything.”
“It didn’t change anything,” he says. “It just brought the truth to the surface. You’re just too chickenshit to admit it.”
“Admit what?” I shout, throwing up my hands. “What is this mysterious thing I’m supposed to be admitting, Jack?”
“The way you feel about me. About us,” he shouts back.
I roll my eyes. “Not again. I’m not hashing this out again.”
“You never hashed anything out in the first place. I did,” he says. “You know exactly where I stand, but I have yet to hear a single real thing come out of your mouth as far as you and I are concerned.”
My heart begins to pound and my eyes burn. “Because you and I aren’t part of my plan!”
His knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel. “Your plan.” He nods angrily. “Because God forbid anything happen outside of your precious plan. God, Jenna.” His jaw clenches. “You’re so obsessed with controlling everything in your life that you can’t even consider that maybe ‘your plan’ isn’t the best thing for you.”
“My plan is perfect for me—”
“No. I know your plan.” He shakes his head. “And it’s a fucking dead end for you.” I open my mouth to protest, but he carries on with flared nostrils. “It will drive you to boredom and suck the life out of you until you either die, safe and old and absolutely miserable, or break your own damn rules and live, wild and free, and without any goddamn plan.”
I fall back in my seat, stunned, and face forward, watching the lines on the road race by in yellow and white blurs. “What do you want me to say, Jack?”
He visibly swallows. “It’s not about what I want you to say. It’s about the truth, Jenna. That’s what I want.” Glaring at the road, he mutters, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Shaking my head, I slowly inhale and try to keep my emotions locked down. Damn Jack and his truth. Damn this whole thing.
“I don’t know what the truth is,” I say after a few long seconds, “so I guess you’re out of luck.”
His lips form a thin line as he stares out the window as dozens more yellow and white blurs skate by. When he finally responds, his voice is low and bitter. “I guess so.”
We don’t speak for the next hundred miles, and a screaming silence hangs between us. And with the silence comes more memories of that night, last year.
After Jack and I had had sex, I rolled off his body and stretched out beside him in bed. We stared at each other for a moment, both of us breathing heavy, and I tried to get my ridiculously happy heart under control. An impossible task, considering it was hammering away with a contentment I’d never experienced before.
I traced a finger down his thick bicep, where a fierce-looking hawk clutching a snake in its talons was tattooed against his muscles. Then I glanced at his back where, among a dozen other designs, a mighty eagle soared at me with determination in its eyes.
“I like your tattoos,” I said softly, trailing a fingertip over the eagle’s spread wings.
“Mmm,” he murmured as he lightly brushed the shooting-star tattoo on the inside of my thigh. “And I like yours.”
“Which one was your first?” I smiled. “Your first tattoo.”
He turned onto his back to show me his chest. “This one,” he said, pointing to a silhouette of a small bird flying against the moon.
It wasn’t the most detailed ink on his body, but it was captivating in its own simplicity, and a little faded.
“Why that?” I asked. “Why a midnight bird over your heart?”