Page 29 of A Dark Fall

“I know,” he replies.

“You could do some damage with a temper like that.”

He looks very serious then. “I’d never hurt you, Alex. Ever.” His voice is quiet but strong with sincerity.

“Okay.” I nod.

He mirrors it.

We sit in silence for a little while longer before I catch sight of something in the corner of my eye. I turn to see Fred saunter into the living room with his tail in the air in greeting. He doesn’t hesitate before walking straight over to Jake, stopping with his paws turned out to stare up at him. Jake smiles softly and reaches down to scratch Fred behind his ear and then smooths his hand over his back, soliciting an almost immediate chorus of purrs from my normally moody tortoiseshell. Fred is indifferent to nearly everyone and regards everyone else with a quiet disdain, so his reaction to Jake makes my mouth part in shock.

“He’s Fred,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “He isn’t usually so friendly.”

Jake looks up at me briefly before returning his attention to Fred. He knows how to stroke a cat, which surprises me because few people do. Does that also mean he likes cats? In my head, I tick off another box on the pro list.

“I like how cats give nothing away,” he muses, still stroking Fred. “How you never know what they’re thinking. Well, normally ...”

As I look from Jake to Fred and back, I marvel at how far we seem to have come in ten minutes. A thought enters my head then—something I wanted to ask him if I ever saw him again. Something that completely slipped out of my head at the deli when he blindsided me.

“Why did you call your club Surgery?” I ask quietly.

“You know why,” he says.

A rush of warmth floods my cheeks. I can’t breathe.

“Do I?” I ask, my voice thin and barely-there.

He lifts his head and offers me a small half-smile. “Okay. I liked the name. It felt ... right,” he says, watching me intently.

I still can’t breathe properly. It is a good name, I have to admit. That’s why it felt right. Because it’s a good name.

“What is it you want from me, Jake?” I ask.

He stops stroking Fred, and his stare intensifies. It’s that hungry stare of his—the one that strips me away to nothing. I feel raw and naked and wide-open, stripped bare of everything.

“You know the answer to that too, Alex.”

I laugh nervously. “Oh, yes, that’s right. You want to make me fall ridiculously in love with you so we can live happily ever after with our reams of children.”

He straightens up, eyes darkening again. “Is this all a fucking game to you, Alex? ’Cause I don’t react well to people playing fucking games with me.”

I harden my stare on him. “Jake, the game was your idea. You wanted to chase me, remember?” I can see his mind ticking over as he bites the inside of his cheek furiously.

“Chasing you wasn’t a fucking game, Alex. It was a means to an end.”

I’ve noticed that when he wants to make a point, he says my name at the end. Like a punctuation mark.

“What end?” I ask.

“Catching you. Having you. Being with you.” The shrug almost makes it look nonchalant, but the look in his eye is anything but.

I can’t breathe again. He’s watching me closely—too closely—and I wonder what my face is saying. It feels bright hot.

“Those good-girl reasons catch up with you then?” he asks with a note of playfulness. “Why else would you have canceled on me and not him?”

I can’t take my eyes off him as I consider what to say to make myself sound less pathetic than I am. “It seemed sensible,” I say finally.

“Standing me up? Messing me about? That seemed sensible?” His voice is laced with something dark.