Page 21 of The Do Over
She nodded and they did a quick job of stripping her bed and laying fresh sheets on them. Sophie sighed as she lay down and Jack smiled at how carefree she was. He walked back to his bed and sat down, hoping to fall asleep in minutes.
“I—” Sophie sat up. “I don’t think I can allow you to sleep on that bed, on those sheets knowing that you gave me clean ones.” She patted the space beside her. “Come sleep beside me.”
Jack shook his head.
“It’s fine. I don’t mind. I can handle the possibility of people doing the nasty on these sheets.”
But Sophie would not budge and he found himself agreeing and going to lay next to her. Jack did his best to keep some space between them though, turning his back so he wouldn’t reach out to touch her and have a repeat of that night. Also…after the conversation they had in the car, he had been thinking about a lot of things.
The room was silent for a while until he felt Sophie’s breath on his skin. Jack stilled, holding his breath.
“Do you ever think you can ever find love again? Give it a second chance?” She asked.
“Why do you ask?”
He felt the bed dip a bit when she shrugged.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m curious about what it feels like for someone who has been in love with a person so deeply that they got married. If you lose that kind of love, do you ever want to try again?”
Jack hadn’t thought about it before. At least in the active sense, where he had to give an answer. He had people at work talk about setting him up with women they knew, but none of them asked him outrightly if he ever wanted love again. If he could deal with commitment.
It was also unnerving that Sophie, the person he wanted to sleep with, was the one asking. Her earlier talk about trying with the next person ran through his mind again.
“I don’t know,” he tried. “I don’t…I’m occupied with caring for Aidan right now, that I don’t think I have time for anyone else. Anything that might make me either divides my time or choose between the woman or Aidan.”
“In essence, you’re not ready for commitment.”
“Yeah,” he said and nodded after a while. “I think that’s it. I think about Aidan all the time and how my wife was a better parent than I’ll ever be. I took a chance at life when I met her, found out she was the one I wanted to spend forever with, and then lost her.
“I don’t think I can open myself to that kind of hurt again.” The words that he didn’t even think about, came rushing out so fast that he couldn’t stop them.
When he was done, Sophie was quiet. He could no longer hear her breath on his skin, though. Jack thought about turning to check if she was behind him, but he had just been his vulnerable self to her and didn’t know how he felt about seeing her face. Seeing pity written on it.
So he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
CHAPTER9
JACK IS FINE, AND I AM, TOO.
Sophie gruntedwhen she felt Andrew’s big arm around her neck and tutted when the chair dipped as he—not so elegantly—collapsed on it. Their parents had gone out with Emily to get some gifts that she bought for them. And her parents who were flying in the next day.
Emily had insisted on going alone, but Mary wanted to tag along in case there was too much to get. And where her mother went, you’d find her father there too. With Jack taking care of Aidan that morning, she decided to pay her brother a little visit.
“You get your meaty hands off me,” she complained, pushing it away.
Andrew took his hand off and settled with patting her on the shoulder.
“What’s got you all riled up? Jack?”
She shook her head.
“No. Not at all. Jack is…fine. I’m fine too. I thought I could come and spend some time with you since we only have a few days before your time permanently belongs to your wife and then your kids.”
“You know that’s not completely true,” Andrew corrected her. “You’re my family. I’ll want to see you from time to time, too. Especially when you find someone that you love and you decide to get married and have your own happy family.”
Sophie scoffed at his words. Her brother made it sound so easy. Maybe it was because finding love, for him, wasn’t a hard ordeal. Here was someone who didn’t want commitment, finding Emily on a random occasion. They decide to keep in touch and he finds that he wants to spend more time with her.
Love comes naturally and with it, the assurance that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He did not have to go through the process of selection to figure out that she was the woman he wanted to share his life with, because he did not want commitment or a future with anyone else.
