I Wish You Were Mine (Oxford #2)

by Lauren Layne

  He forced himself to meet her eyes. “I told her. That day she came into my office, I told her that I’d been talking to Coach. That I wanted the job.”

  She bit her bottom lip so hard it turned white. “How long? How long were you trying to get back to Texas?” He said nothing, and she took another step back. “The whole time? This whole freaking time? Why did you even come to New York in the first place?”

  “Coach didn’t want me,” he said gruffly. “No one did. Every last contact said that with my rep, I’d bring a bad name to the team, that the guys wouldn’t listen to me. That the media would be focusing on me instead of the players. I was NFL kryptonite.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “And Madison was able to fix that for you. One phone call confessing her sins to Jerry, and you had your dream job.”

  “Not my dream job,” he said before he could think better of it. “Never my dream job.”

  She snorted. “Right. There is no dream job other than being a star quarterback, right, Jackson? That’s the only life worth living?”

  “Don’t,” he commanded, angry now. “Don’t belittle my entire life.”

  “Your entire past life. You had to have known it couldn’t last forever.”

  “Of course I knew!” he shouted. “Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell when it was taken too early.”

  “Fine,” she said, holding up her hands. “You wanted your football life to last a little bit longer. I can respect that, even if I don’t get it. But why not just tell me? All those late nights we spent talking?”

  He held out his hands, feeling helpless. “I was trying to avoid this. I didn’t want to see that hurt in your eyes.”

  Mollie lifted her chin. “Why? Why didn’t you want to hurt me?”

  Jackson clenched his teeth. He wanted to snap that he wasn’t an animal—that he didn’t want to hurt anyone if he could help it. But he knew that wasn’t what she was asking. What she wanted him to say.

  She was asking why he didn’t want to hurt her in particular.

  He could tell her that he cared about her, and it would be the truth. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not for Mollie.

  Mollie wanted love. It had been written all over her face last night. And while he could probably take the cheap out that they’d only been a thing for a few weeks, that wouldn’t be the full answer.

  The full answer was that he didn’t believe in love. At least not the lasting kind that Mollie was looking for. Not after his disastrous marriage. He’d loved Madison Carrington with everything he had, and it had turned his life upside down in the worst possible way. He couldn’t survive something like that again.

  His silence stretched on too long, and the hope in her eyes extinguished altogether.

  “Do you still love her?” Mollie asked in a small voice.

  “God, no,” he said savagely. “Is that what you think this is? That I’m still hung up on Madison?”

  Mollie pressed her hands to her head. “I don’t know! I don’t know what to think! You guys were together for so long, and she says these things—”

  Jackson reached for her again. “Forget her. This isn’t about her. I don’t know when it happened, but I want you. I want to figure out what this is.”

  She stared at him in misery. “And yet you’re moving to Texas. You’re leaving.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted them both. Mollie and the coaching gig. His old life back and Mollie.

  Jackson swallowed. “Can’t we just . . . we can figure this out. Maybe try long distance, or . . . Fuck, I don’t know what you want me to say! Football’s been my entire life, Molls. You know that better than anyone. And this thing with us, it’s new, and—”

  “It’s not new to me!” she shouted.

  Jackson took a step back, unnerved by the blazing passion in her eyes. “What?”

  “You’ve been seeing me as more than a friend for a few weeks,” she said. “I’ve been seeing you that way for years.”

  He felt joy mingle with disbelief and panic. “Mollie—”

  “Don’t,” she said wearily. “Please don’t tell me it was just a crush. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to convince myself that it would pass, but it didn’t, and it hasn’t, and—”

  Her voice broke off on a hiccup before she drew a deep breath and forged on.

  “I’ve always been in love with you, Jackson.” Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “I love you.”

  Her words tore through him, leaving Jackson feeling like someone had ripped his heart out. He’d suspected that her feelings had run deep these past few weeks, as his had, but she was saying . . . the whole time. The whole damn time.

  Holy hell.

  He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what to say.

  He knew what he should say: that he loved her back. It was the expected response.

  But he couldn’t.

  Couldn’t risk that he and Mollie would end up like him and Madison. That he would lose her and go through the darkness again. Because if that happened, there’d be no Mollie to pull him out of it, and he needed her . . . he couldn’t risk losing her.

  “Shit, Mollie—”

  The fire in her eyes slowly faded to flatness. She shook her head tiredly as she bent to pick up her purse. “It’s okay, Jackson. My heart’s a pro at handling unrequited love.”

  She headed toward the door, and he moved to stop her. “Don’t. Don’t go like this.”

  “You know,” she said, spinning around, her eyes snapping with anger, “I should actually be thanking you for your whole secret Texas job. I think it’s exactly what I needed.”

  “What do you mean, it’s what you needed?” he asked, already dreading her answer.

  “We are not the Schistosoma mansoni worms. We are not mates for life, or even a year.” She lifted her chin. “You’ve finally given me exactly what I need to get over you.”

  Mollie opened the door and was gone.

  And by the time he heard the door close with a final click, Jackson was hit with a searing, awful realization.

  He didn’t want Mollie Carrington to get over him.

  Chapter 29

  “Riley, your collection of junk food is impressive.”

  “I know, right?” the brunette said as she came back into the kitchen. “Some people collect stamps, I collect chips.”

  Mollie accepted the pair of folded sweats Riley held out, even as she continued to stare at the cupboard stocked with chips, candy, cheese crackers, and chocolate-covered pretzels.

  “Not quite the shelf life of stamps, though,” Mollie mused.

  “Pretty damn close,” Riley’s husband muttered from the kitchen table, where he sat bent over a laptop. “That crap is so full of preservatives it could withstand a nuclear holocaust.”

  Riley made a crude gesture at his back, and Mollie smiled in spite of her ravaged mood.

  She still wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up here. Upon walking out on Jackson a couple hours earlier, she’d found herself standing on Park Avenue, on the verge of a complete breakdown and with absolutely nowhere to go.

  She’d nearly called Kim. But while Kim was her best friend in the whole world, her friend had a teensy problem with the phrase “I told you so,” and that so wasn’t what Mollie needed to hear right now.

  So instead she’d called a newer friend—one certain to give it to her straight, even if straight hurt.

  She’d called Riley Compton.

  Mollie had said all of ten words on the phone before Riley had interrupted and asked where she was. Directions on which subway train to get on had followed, and an hour after leaving Jackson’s place, Mollie had found herself standing outside Riley and Sam Compton’s brownstone in Brooklyn.

  It had been the right decision. Riley had opened the door, opened her arms, and tightly squeezed Mollie before telling her she’d made up the guest room.

  “You know, normally I don’t share my goods,” Riley was saying,
“but I make exceptions for friends whose hearts have been trampled by boys. Take your pick. Sweet tooth? Salty tooth?”

  “Actually, I’m not all that hungry,” Mollie said. She should be. She hadn’t eaten breakfast. Certainly hadn’t eaten at her disastrous lunch with her sister. But she couldn’t fathom the thought of eating right now. Couldn’t really fathom the thought of doing much more than curling into a ball and crying.

  Riley shrugged. “Suit yourself. Now, what do I want? Sour cream and onion, or salt and vinegar? . . . It’s a bit like Rosemary’s Baby, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, Ri, how about something from the fridge? Carrot sticks? A salad?” Sam said, turning around in his chair to give his wife an exasperated look.

  “Don’t be silly, honey. We don’t keep any of that nonsense in the fridge.”

  “We do now. I went shopping.”

  “Ooh, did they have any of those powdered-sugar donut holes that I like?”

  “Riley!”

  “You know, maybe you were smart to get out when you had a chance,” Riley said to Mollie out of the corner of her mouth. “Stick with ’em too long, and they start getting weird.”

  “Are you a health food guy, Sam?” Mollie asked curiously, looking over at Sam.

  He ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “No. Not really.”

  “Oh.” Mollie frowned, a little confused as to why an apparently easygoing guy was trying to influence Riley’s eating habits. Based on what Mollie had seen, that seemed a bit like trying to roll a square boulder up Everest.

  “Sam, honey, we need whisky and girl time,” Riley said, grabbing a bag of chips and closing the cupboard.

  “Oh no, I don’t want to intrude,” Mollie said quickly. “I can just . . .”

  Sam was already moving, closing his laptop and going to a bar cart along the far wall.

  “You drink whisky, hon?” he asked Mollie.

  “Uh, not really.”

  “Well, you do now.” He poured a splash of amber liquid into two crystal glasses and brought one to her before holding up his own glass.

  “What are we toasting to?” he asked.

  “To men being shits,” Riley said.

  He gave his wife a look. “I’m not drinking my own whisky to that.”

  “You made this?” Mollie asked, bringing the glass closer and sniffing.

  “I did.”

  “His distillery is called ROON. It’s won like a dozen awards this year alone, and what he won’t tell you is that it’s the best damn whisky you’ll ever taste,” Riley said, moving closer to her husband and resting a hand on his back as she kissed his cheek.

  Mollie’s heart twisted at the easy affection. She wanted that—wanted it with Jackson.

  Just like that, the pain came rushing back over her. The pain of telling him how she felt, only to have him stare at her.

  “Oh, honey,” Riley cooed, coming up beside her and ushering her toward the kitchen table. “Come. Sit.”

  She did as she was told before lifting the whisky to her lips and taking a small sip. It burned in the best way possible. She liked the burn. Needed it.

  She lifted her head to tell Sam she liked it, but he’d disappeared, only to reappear with a box of tissues a moment later.

  He set it in front of her, resting a big hand on her shoulder for a moment. It was a kind touch—a comforting gesture.

  And all she needed for the tears to start coming in earnest.

  She put her hands over her face, too torn up to be embarrassed at sobbing in front of people she barely knew.

  Riley made soothing noises, along with frequent comments along the lines of “Men are the worst.”

  When Mollie pulled her hands away from her face long enough to grab a tissue, she saw Sam wrestling the chips away from Riley, replacing them with an apple before quietly leaving the room.

  Riley threw the apple after him and didn’t even flinch at the dull thud of it hitting a wall somewhere.

  “That was organic, Riley!” Sam’s voice called.

  Mollie choked out a messy, watery laugh. “You’re sure he’s not a health food guy?”

  “He didn’t used to be,” Riley grumbled, staring longingly at the barely touched whisky in front of Mollie. Mollie nudged it toward her, but Riley merely shook her head with a long sigh.

  Mollie frowned in confusion. Then her eyes went wide as she put the pieces together: Riley saying no to a drink she obviously wanted, Sam’s determination to get Riley to eat better . . .

  Riley was pregnant.

  At the expression on Mollie’s face, Riley let out a long, weary sigh. “See, the thing that Sam doesn’t get is that it’s not that I want the chips, it’s that the baby wants the chips. If I try to put an apple down there, I guarantee he or she is going to send it right back up again.”

  Mollie let out a happy squealing noise as she wrapped her arms around Riley’s neck in an awkward hug. “You’re having a baby! Congratulations.”

  Riley laughed and patted her arm. “I am. It’s early yet, so no one outside of the family knows. And the girls, of course, but they are family.”

  Mollie rested a hand on Riley’s stomach. The gesture was probably too familiar for a woman she barely knew, but she couldn’t help it. The thought of a little mini Riley or Sam was just too cute for words.

  “How do you feel?” Mollie asked.

  Riley shrugged. “Not too bad . . . yet. Mostly just excited. And, you know, terrified.”

  “You’re going to make the best mom.”

  Riley smiled. “Says the girl I just met last night.”

  “Yeah, well,” Mollie muttered darkly, slumping back in her chair, “I think I’ve aged a decade in the past twenty-four hours.”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Riley asked. “If not, it’s okay. You’re welcome to change into comfy clothes and wallow in the guest room as long as you want. There’s a ton of ice cream in the freezer that Sam won’t let me eat.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it,” Mollie said slowly. “It’s just . . . I don’t even know what to say.”

  “You two seemed so right last night. You couldn’t take your eyes off each other. What happened?”

  Mollie pulled the whisky toward her, cupping it between her hands without taking a drink. “He’s moving back to Texas.”

  Riley’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa. Did not see that coming.”

  “Yeah. Me neither. Although I keep thinking I should have, you know? There was a time when I knew him better than anyone. And yet somehow, it’s like after we started sleeping together, he became more of a stranger.”

  “It works that way sometimes,” Riley said. “Sex complicates things.”

  “Why didn’t he just tell me?” Mollie said, more to herself than to Riley. “I would have understood.”

  “Would you have?” Riley said with a little smile.

  “Maybe. I mean, on one hand, I knew he wasn’t completely over the loss of his football career. But on the other hand, I really thought he was moving forward.”

  “That’s why he’s moving back? Football?”

  “He got an assistant coaching job on his old team.”

  “Ah. Those who can’t play, coach?”

  “Apparently.” Mollie rested her elbows on the table and rubbed her temples. “I keep thinking I should have been more understanding. If this is what he wants—”

  “What do you want?”

  Mollie gave a harsh little laugh. “I don’t know that that matters. For the first time in my life, I did what I wanted. I moved to New York. I made a move on Jackson. Which my sister now knows about, by the way. Went over super well. I did what I wanted, and I’ve never been so miserable.”

  “Do you think you would have been happy if you hadn’t? Would you be happy if you were still keeping your feelings all bottled up?”

  “At least I wasn’t hurting,” Mollie whispered.

  Riley shook her head. “That’s not what I’m asking. Would you have
been happy?”

  Mollie turned her head and met the other woman’s piercing blue eyes. “I’ve never been so happy as I was the past couple weeks. It felt like my heart was flying.”

  “Love can do that.”

  “Yeah.” Mollie took a sip of the whisky. “But having that love unreturned feels a bit like crashing and burning.”

  “That too.”

  Mollie blew out a breath. “I don’t think I can face him. Not after I basically threw my heart at him and he just let it fall to the ground at his feet.”

  “You don’t have to,” Riley said, setting a hand on her arm. “Not today, certainly. Not tomorrow. If the man’s too stupid to see what’s right in front of him, maybe it’s better that he slinks off back to Texas. We’ll find you another guy. A better guy.”

  Mollie’s eyes watered again. “There is no better guy.”

  Riley nudged the tissues toward her with a sigh. “I figured it might be something like that. He’s the one, huh? The only one?”

  Mollie nodded and blew her nose.

  “Sweetie, I don’t know Jackson. Or you, for that matter. But the man I saw last night, the way he looked at you . . . I don’t think this is easy for him. I’m sure he wants his old life back, but he wants you too. I really believe that.”

  “I know,” Mollie whispered. “It’s just . . . I wanted him to want me more. More than he wanted Texas, or football.” Or Madison, she added silently.

  Not that she believed he was moving back with the intention of reconciling with his ex. But intention might be irrelevant. When Madison wanted something, she got it, whether or not the other person intended to cooperate.

  “So what do we do?” Riley asked.

  Mollie took another drink, the motion mechanical. It was as though she could feel herself turning cold inside, even as the whisky burned hot in her throat.

  “I need my own place?” Mollie said wearily.

  “Sure. I know a great broker if you need a rec. But sweetie, are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

  Mollie snorted. “What choice do I have?”