the first one • j. hughes

14

I love people. I truly do. However, the people I love the most (and Trevor) make it quite impossible to do little things like read or focus on anything intellectual. So, this morning while they've been at some workout or whatever they call it, I was doing a Soduko book. I managed to get nearly three-quarters through before I had a boy leaning down on the back of the couch, looking over my shoulder.

"Can I help you?"

"Such a nerd," he says.

I turn my head and am met with a very close Jack. "I like numbers, sue me."

He's leaning on the back of the couch with his forearms crossed. He shifts from looking at my book to me. Holy shit, our faces are pretty damn close. I mean can't be even half a foot apart.

"What do you need?" I say.

"Wanna run some errands with me later?" He rolls his eyes as Trevor shouts somewhere else in the house. "Just us."

It's my turn to roll my eyes as Luke turns on his music. That kid does not get that there are plenty of volumes that can be heard over the shower that also don't include blasting it to the whole house. I nod, saying, "Sure."

"Great, I'm gonna go shower and then we can head off." His eyes scan over my face, everywhere but my eyes. Then a small smile creeps its way onto his lips. "Wanna join?"

What? What? Let me say this again: What? I can feel my breath get caught in my throat. How do I even respond to that shit? Who even says that shit out of nowhere? What the fuck? Now I'm totally thinking of Jack in the shower and I don't need that. That does not help my case at all.

"No," I say. "Go shower."

He stands back up with a bigger grin. "Liar."

"Bless your heart," I retort, channeling my grandma as best I can.

"You better be ready to go by the time I am," he says.

"That's easy. You take longer to get ready than I do."

* * * * *

I sink into the passenger seat while Jack laughs. It was possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life. The waiter offered to top off my water and as I went to grab it to hand it to him, I knocked it over completely. Ice and water went all over the table because it was like the tiniest table that could fit two people ever.

"It wasn't— I mean, it wasn't that bad," Jack tries. "It could've been worse. Could've been like one of the Draft Incidents."

"Rowden, don't even go there," I say.

The Draft Incidents are some of the most embarrassing moments I've ever had. Worse than what just happened in the restaurant. No, the Draft Incidents happened because I must have wronged someone in another life really badly. There was no other explanation for something embarrassing to happen on all of the Hughes brothers' draft days.

Jack shakes his head. "I'm sure nobody involved but us even remember them."

"Trevor does. We could have forgotten them too if you didn't insist on giving them a title."

"Zegs is part of us. Even without giving them a name, I could never forget the way you reacted to Matthew Tkachuk."

I got to go to Dallas for Quinn's draft mostly out of Quinny taking pity on me. Penn was on some trip with his friends in Europe at the time and Holly was at some softball thing. I was stuck alone. Then at some after-celebration kind of thing, Brady came over to Jack and me with his brother. Safe to say I got a little starstruck. By that I mean I basically forgot how to speak and then Brady called me out for it and Jack said I got what Ellen calls my "heart eyes".

"Trust me, Brady can't forget either," I grumble. "He texts me every so often with the picture he got of the four of us asking if I remember how in love with his brother I was and if I still am."

"It's not like the dude cared at all. He literally saved you from getting made fun of more. And he thought your whole being crazy good with numbers was sick as hell," Jack says. As if I could forget the time Matthew Tkachuk himself fended off the two idiots making fun of me.

"You made a song up to make fun of me later that night," I remind him.

He laughs as if it isn't one of the worst things he's ever done to me. "How'd it go again?"

"Cut it out."

"I can remember the one from you and Trevor's incident."

"I will leave this car," I threaten.

He knows I'm bluffing but reaches over and grabs my wrist anyway. "That one could have been worse."

"Even that was better than the dress incident at Luke's."

"I warned you not to wear that dress."

"You also told me to right after that."

The idiot laughs, his hand squeezing my wrist as he does. "Quinny's Draft Incident takes the cake though."

"You told a grown-ass man that a fifteen-year-old girl had heart eyes for him to his face. Honestly, if anything it's more embarrassing for you."

"I only pointed that out because I was mad about it," he admits. Pretty sure the place his hand grips my wrist gets its own fever.

"What?"

"Prez."

My jaw drops. "No."

"Yes," he says, mimicking my shocked tone. I'm trying hard to ignore the circles he's started tracing on the inside of my wrist with his thumb.

"I was with Rainer at the time."

"Yeah." A little scoff from him. "'cause he was such a boyfriend."

"Three months of one."

"Three months of a bad one."

I shrug. "No argument there."

"He was a dick," he says as if it was a fun fact, not an insult. His hand is still holding my wrist, tracing those circles. "Whatever though. Past is the past. We gotta get some gas and then we can head back to the house."

"Do you think you can freeze gasoline if you wanted to?" It's one of those comments that slip out every once in a while. "Little gas ice cubes?"

Jack squeezes my wrist quickly before letting go and leaning back in his seat. He smiles so widely it's contagious. "Sometimes you say such dumb shit it makes me want to kiss you or something."

I practically flinch. First the shower thing this morning, now this? What is this guy on? Whatever it is makes me think of s'mores and a campfire and the way the firelight fits him perfectly. A too big UMich hoodie with the sleeves pushed up. I'm worried that it'll end the same way as that moment.

So I force out a laugh and say, "Really? 'Cause all it usually does is make Luke want to hit me."

"You want to stop by a grocery store and get stuff for s'mores on our way back?" Was he thinking about the same thing as me? Or is it only a coincidence?

"As if I'd ever say no to s'mores."

"If you're lucky, I'll let you wear one of my hoodies so you don't freak about getting anything on one of yours and it not washing out." Oh, he so was. He so knows.