Tackled by Lisa Suzanne
CHAPTER 16
I take a quick shower in the morning, and as much as I don’t want Jack to see me without my make-up in place and my hair styled, I still hope I’ll run into him before I leave.
I don’t.
I see Brooke as she swings by to make JJ a bottle, but that’s it.
I know I’ll see him in a couple hours, but it’s still weird leaving this house. He’ll only be unsupervised for a short while. Usually I don’t even see him until breakfast time anyway, and he assured me he’d be fine.
Still.
It’s not all that.
I actually miss seeing him. I miss starting my day with a signature Jack Dalton smirk. Or his abs. I sigh dreamily as I think back to that day he was getting his Gatorade with just a towel wrapped around his waist.
I hop in the car with the garment bag carrying my dress in the backseat and head toward the salon where the bridesmaids are meeting the bride for hair and make-up. Shannon assured us we’d have a breakfast spread this morning, so I didn’t grab anything back home except a granola bar that I shoved into my purse as a just in case sort of meal.
I arrive at the same time as the bride, and we’re the first two there, standing in the salon parking lot before the doors have even opened.
“Happy wedding day!” I squeal with far too much enthusiasm. “You ready for this?”
Shannon smiles. “I’ve been ready since the first time he kissed me.”
“You two are relationship goals,” I say.
“It’s not always perfect, and it’s not always easy, but it’s always the two of us, and that’s all that matters.”
“I hope I can find that with someone someday, too.” An image of Jack pops into my mind, and my heart thumps.
Yeah, right.
Like my happy ending would ever be with someone like him.
The salon doors open and the other bridesmaids arrive, and we start the morning with the breakfast spread Shannon promised. I opt for a bagel with cream cheese and a banana, and we sip champagne slowly since we don’t want any drunk bridal party members before the wedding even gets started.
It’s Shannon’s sister Sara, the maid of honor, who asks the first question. “So what’s it like being Jack Dalton’s personal assistant? Do you just get to stare at him all day every day?”
“Basically.” I keep my tone light as I try to brush off her insinuation. “But he’s engaged to another woman, so it’s not really like that. It’s purely professional.”
Shannon gives me a look I can’t quite decode and I have a feeling she’ll bring that back up later when we’re alone—but obviously not in front of everyone else here.
Lauren goes next. “But you can’t act like you haven’t had those kinds of thoughts about him. I mean it’s Jack Dalton. He’s hot as hell, super talented...you’re telling me it’s all professional all the time?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you,” I say.
“Didn’t look that way at the bachelorette party last weekend,” Lauren mutters.
My brows shoot up as my hand flies to my chest. “Excuse me?”
“You just seemed...cozy with him, that’s all.” Lauren shrugs. “He didn’t want to dance with anybody except you.”
So she’s jealous because he didn’t pay her enough attention? That’s not my issue to deal with. It’s hers.
“That’s because he knows me,” I say a little defensively. “He’s used to being around me. I know his relationship status, and I’m not going to try to come onto him like some women who don’t know him the way I do might.” I throw her own insinuations right back at her.
She takes a sip of her champagne and looks away from me as if she doesn’t really know how to respond to that.
“What’s it like being his assistant?” Libby, another bridesmaid, asks.
“It’s just like any job. I help get him to and from his appointments. I manage his calendar. I...” I scramble to come up with responsibilities a personal assistant might have. I never thought about being grilled about what I do for him, and without him here to help me field these questions, I feel very much left out on my own.
My eyes find Shannon’s, and I must look like a deer caught in headlights because she jumps in. “She was telling me all these things he makes her do,” she says with a laugh. “Picking up his dry cleaning, making sure he has a stock of orange Gatorade.”
I nod and roll my eyes. “Jack and his orange Gatorade.”
Thankfully breakfast time is over shortly after that and it’s time for pampering. We split into two rooms, half of us to hair first and the other half to make-up. Shannon and I are with Sara in the hair area first. My stylist curls my shoulder-length amber locks and pins them up into a gorgeous twist. I don’t even have my make-up done yet and I already feel beautiful.
When we swap rooms, Sara heads outside to make a phone call while our make-up artists take a quick break before starting on us. That leaves Shannon and me alone.
“Thanks for saving me back there,” I whisper to her. “I’m not very good at fielding these questions by myself.” I make a mental note to look up what an assistant actually does so I’m never caught in a situation like this again.
“You’re welcome. So what’s going on with you and Jack?”
My head whips over in her direction. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on.” She rolls her eyes. “I saw the way you two were looking at each other last night at dinner.”
She noticed that? I figured she’d be way too wrapped up in her own wedding to pay attention to anything like that, but it also sends up a pretty big realization that maybe we’re being a little too obvious about it.
I don’t even know what, exactly, we’re being obvious about, since there’s nothing to be obvious about, but it’s something if Shannon noticed it at her own wedding rehearsal.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, brushing her off.
“I think you do.”
My heart races as I suddenly feel a need to be honest with my best friend. I stare straight ahead into the mirror in front of me. “I’m starting to have feelings for him.”
I glance over and find her eyes as they edge to meet mine in the mirror. “What kind of feelings? Do you feel like you want to be horizontal on a couch in a nightclub with him? Or feelings like your heart is getting involved?”
“Can it be both?” I ask.
She laughs a little. “Oh, you’re in deep, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. A little deeper than I was expecting this early in the game,” I admit.
“And how does he feel?” she presses.
“We haven’t talked about it. He’s engaged to marry another woman, and it’s all just a fantasy on my end. It’s not like the quarterback is going to ditch his fiancée who’s also his boss’s daughter to go for his babysitter.”
“I think you’re a little more than a babysitter at this point.” She raises a brow, and our make-up artists come back in.
“Let’s talk more later. This is your wedding day.”
She nods, and the make-up artists get to work on us, but I can’t help thinking she’s right. I’m definitely more than just his babysitter. But does it mean anything?
