Page 95 of Worth Every Game
“So you never lost someone you loved?”
His reaction is subtle but intense; eyes flickering, fingers squeezing the wheel. “Yeah, I did. My dad.”
Guilt sears me. Of course, he knows what loss feels like. Perhaps not in a romantic way, but his father died suddenly of a heart attack less than a decade ago. Jack watches my reaction in glances he steals from the road.
He flicks the indicator and turns into our street. He parks the car outside the house, switches off the engine, and turns towards me. In the silence that follows, the air turns heavy. “If anyone’s going to break my heart, it’ll be you.”
The anticipation of pain in his voice shoots across the space between us, embedding itself into my heart like a bullet. “I won’t, if you won’t,” I say quietly.
“Deal.” He leans across the car and kisses me, and his tongue is soft and warm and the scruff on his jaw scrapes my face.
Sitting in the passenger seat of this ridiculous car, Jack’s tongue in my mouth, it occurs to me that life is perfect.
This, right here, is perfection.
The days following Jack’s confession pass in a blur of sex and kisses. I’ve never felt so loved. So completely safe. Long may it continue.
I love you, I love you, I love you.He’s said it so many times that I find myself wondering if I’m dreaming. It feels too soon, too fast, and yet not at all. It’s as if this state of affairs was always there, like a pool of water I could have dived into at any time, but I chose to stand at the edge instead, convinced it was too dangerous to take a swim.
I’m fully submerged now, and the water is blissful.
This morning, Jack is wandering about the kitchen in just his boxers. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to seeing him bare-chested and up close this way. He’s jaw-droppingly ripped, and I can’t believe it’s me who gets to be here when he takes his suit off.
“Hey,” he says to grab my attention.As if he doesn’t already have it.“Your album came back from the studio. Listen to this.”
He holds his phone to his mouth and instructs, “Play Elly’s Album.”
He smiles and tips his head at the speakers in the ceiling, wordlessly instructing me to listen as the chords of my first song ring out.
“Elly’s Album?” I ask.
“I didn’t know what you wanted to call it, so for now, it’s just Elly’s Album. Do you have a title in mind?”
“Nope.” I hadn’t let my imagination go to the place where I had a full album, let alone a name for it. I was accumulating songs without a fixed goal, as if they might magically coalesce into something worthy.
Yet again, Jack has pushed me where I couldn’t go alone.
He stands still and we listen for a few seconds until my voice trails over a high note at the emotional climax of the song. I’ve sung it a million times, but it still gives me shivers to hear it. “That, right there. That is fucking genius,” Jack says, pointing upwards, as if my song is a visible item in the air around us.
He sways to the melody. “You have a gift. Not many people can take feelings out of the ether and turn them into something other people can understand. You’re translating a language that has no words, but that everyone recognises. It’s like magic.”
My heart soars, but Jack instantly goes back to the phone, completely unaware that he’s just doused me with the best compliment ever. He swipes his phone screen, and the music reverts to the first track on my album. He points both index fingers at the speakers in the ceiling. “You’re gonna be big. You have to start believing it.”
He’s always saying these things to me. Little sound bites, telling me how good I am. How talented. How beautiful. He’s re-writing my script, day by day, and I love him for it.
“You haven’t posted anything on social media for three days,” he says, still scrolling through his phone. “Why not?”
Jack set up my social media channels a few weeks ago, while I sat by his side, and although it made it easier to face the writhing fear in my gut when he was there, as soon as he wasn’t, I ran away from it again. If I put myself out there, people can laugh. People can say I’m crap. I can fail.
“It’s embarrassing.”
“You believe this is good?” He gestures once more to the speakers.
“Sure.” I can hear the hesitation in my tone, so I’ve no doubt Jack can too.
He comes towards me, right up close until he puts his palm right between my breasts and my breathing shallows. “In here. Do you believe it in here?”
I look deliberately at his fingers. “It’s hard to think with your hand on my tits.” Looking chastened, he removes his hand, but he cups my cheek with it instead and I rest my face there for a moment.