~ Chapter 4-10:30am~

She watched Jake as he sat there for a few minutes, quiet before he got up to go to the kitchen. He needed space, she knew that, and she was going to give it to him. But she wasn’t going to let the question go without an answer. He had pestered her then she can pester him. He claimed they weren’t friends, but that wasn’t quite true either. They maybe didn’t always confide in each other, but they did talk and they did care about one another, even on a low level. 

Finally, she got up, tossed the blanket down, and made her way into the kitchen. She crossed her arms as she leaned against the doorway and watched him. He was such a good-looking guy and she often wondered what kept him from having a decent relationship.

“What?” he grumbled, causing her to smile.

“You don’t scare me, Jake, so the big bad wolf can happily trot his little ass away.” She almost smiled as his lips quirked up at that.

“Funny reference because the big bad wolf should scare you.” She just shrugged but didn’t walk away like she knew he was hoping.

“You pried into my life, into my wonderful relationship with Tim and though we barely scratched the surface I still told you. So why not share? It could be a hot minute before anyone comes and it does us no good to not talk.” Jake sighed and took another drink of his water before turning to look at her and leaned his hip on the counter.

“Her name was Tanya. And she just felt that I should be giving her more than I was. We had only been dating for like six months, maybe a little less, and she was thinking I should have already put a ring on her finger.” Rachel crinkled her brows together. She had never understood how a woman thought of that. She was with Tim for two years and hadn’t even thought about marriage. Sure, it was important to her, but it wasn’t something she deemed she needed right now. She had always figured things like that would happen in their own time and when it was right.

“Did she break it off or did you?” Rachel walked further into the kitchen, grabbed a water, and then hopped up on the counter to talk to him. Jake turned to look at her, shaking his head.

“I’m seeing you won’t give this up?” She shook her head as she took a sip. “I broke it off. I don’t deal well with clingy ladies, and she was that. Add on the demanding front and I’m over it. She was beautiful; a hell of a fuck, but that doesn’t always make for a happy relationship.” Rachel covered her heart and dropped her jaw.

“A man just said sex isn’t everything, what is this world coming to? What am I missing?” Jake laughed as he gave her a slight shove. She wished he smiled more. If there was anything she loved seeing, besides his deep brown eyes, it was that smile. And when it was a genuine smile, a little dimple appeared on his right cheek and she had to remind herself that it was okay NOT to swoon over him.

“I know men are horn dogs, and even more so those that are younger age, but I’m still not one that buys sex fixes everything. I do believe, though, that sex plays an important part in any relationship. You need to be attracted to your partner; otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for failure.” Rachel watched him, really watched him, and frowned.

“You’ve had relationships like that?” It was a question, yeah, but she actually saw it more as a statement because that confused her.

“Yeah, I have Rachel. Which is why it’s a lesson I learned the hard way.”

“Wait, you weren’t attracted to someone, or they weren’t attracted to you?” Jake walked over to her, rested his hands on either side of her hips, and smirked.

“Believe me, this is going to shock the hell out of you when I look as good as I do, but I actually had a girlfriend who wasn’t attracted to me.” Rachel’s jaw dropped, and not because she forced it. Who the fuck was dumb enough not to think this man looked good? Who the hell wouldn’t want to fuck him? A few of her best friends even laid bets on claiming they could fuck him first. Of course, little did they know that she actually won that bet, but she won’t ever take claim to that. “Pick up your jaw princess; it doesn’t look good on the floor.”

“Wait…who?” Rachel had to coach herself to pick her jaw up and not let it drop again.

“She was some chick in college, not one I dated for very long. But I was attracted to her. I guess the muscles turned her off. The last I heard, she married some nerdy type after we graduated.” Jake shrugged, not caring, but Rachel was still stunned by that. Yeah, okay, sure, not everyone liked the athletic type, she got that, she wasn’t all into it, but Jake, on top of being good-looking, was a sweetheart. He was also smart, and funny, and could be caring when he wasn’t being a dick to her. But she had known about incidents with Jay, and even a couple of other friends, so she knew he wasn’t bad. In fact, she recalled one time in her senior year when Jay forgot to get her after school and Jake was driving home. He had seen her and offered her a lift, something he didn’t have to do, especially since he claimed she always annoyed him.

“Well, that chick was stupid. You’re not a bad guy Jake, in fact, you’re a good one.” Jake lifted a brow at her and she shook her head. “Not that I mean I want anything to do with you, I’m just saying, you have good points. You also have bad.” With that, she shoved him away but she couldn’t fight the smile. Yeah, it was moments like this, where it was just them, that she loved. He could claim they weren’t friends, and that she annoyed him, but when Jake let down his guard, she knew it wasn’t true.

“I’ll take it, Rachel, thank you.” She took another swig of her water before glancing outside.

“You want to go check the wood in the fireplace in the living room? That snow is piling and I know we’re going to want a fire soon to keep the cold at bay. And I’ll grab us some more blankets.” Jake nodded and then offered his hand to help her down.

“And I think I’ll take you up on your offer to sleep in your room. The living room is great, and the couch is cozy, but it won’t stay warm,” he told her.

“Oh, just using me for my body heat, are you Jake?”

“Well, if you don’t want me to take you up on that, don’t offer.” She shoved him as she got down and before she walked away. But as she went to the room to grab the blankets, she couldn’t stop smiling. He could make her laugh, there wasn’t any doubt about that, but he could also make her hurt, and that had been proven time and again throughout the time she had known him.

Looking back, it wasn’t hard to see how she had grown attracted to him, regardless of what her brother thought. Not that she had ever mentioned she had feelings for Jake; she buried that shit far down because she could only imagine what her brother would do with something like that. Well, besides kill him, and maybe her. She checked the wood in the room’s fireplace before she gathered up the blankets. Rachel shook her head as she walked back to the living room, already feeling the chill.

“You would think a space this nice would be equipped with some type of heating unit,” Jake grumbled as she handed him a blanket and it caused her to laugh.

“It does it has fireplaces. Actually, the times the family has come up, we don’t get blizzards. But because it’s so far off and secluded, we never put in a generator for the heater, there’s just no point. It’s enough monitoring the one for the refrigerator.” She sat down next to him and pulled the blanket over her legs. “I’ll have to make sure to turn it off too when we leave.”

“Do you have enough stuff to last a few days, in case it takes that long?” Rachel played with the edge of the blanket, not bothering to look up at him. She had plenty of food, even for two people. “Rachel?”

“Yeah?” she asked softly.

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t want to, Jake.” He lifted his brow as she finally looked at him.

“Am I going to starve to death because there’s not enough food or something?” She cleared her throat before shaking her head.

“No, you won’t, that I’ll promise. Actually, I have more than enough food. Not all of it is cold, but quite a few cans and bagged stuff.” His brows came together in confusion for a beat or two before he cleared and his eyes opened wide.

“You had no plans of coming back home with us when we left Monday, did you?” What could she say, that was the truth. And she didn’t want to confirm it because it would only piss Jake off, and she knew that.