Jack shrugged and stepped back.
I started for the door again.
"I figured you should find out," he said.
I glanced back. He was still standing in the middle of the room, hands stuffed in his pockets.
"Find out what?" I said.
"If it was over."
"Well, it is."
He nodded. I swung the bedroom door shut behind me. As I made for the couch, I thought I caught the faint murmur of a voice. Had he turned on the TV again? I slumped onto the sofa, stretched out on my back, and stared at the ceiling.
A moment later, Jack came out. He lifted my legs, sat at the end of the couch, and lowered my feet onto his lap. And I wanted to jump up. Tell him to stop doing this. Stop giving signals that weren't signals at all. Stop confusing me.
I did try to pull my feet back, but he only laid his forearms on them, as if he hadn't noticed.
"Did he do something?" Jack said. "Quinn?"
I shook my head.
"What happened?"
I resisted the urge to glare at him. Did he really expect me to share the details? Confide in him? Cry on his shoulder?
Yes, he did. Because he hadn't done anything wrong. Not intentionally. If he'd been sending mixed messages, it was partly because I was open to receiving them and partly because, let's face it, Jack wasn't exactly an expert on relationships. He had contacts and clients. He didn't have friends. Certainly not female ones. So he didn't realize that what he saw as giving me comfort, I might see differently. And he didn't realize that I might feel awkward discussing my relationship woes with my hitman mentor.
If I was pissed at Jack, then that really was my own problem. I might be good at interpreting his speech patterns, but I still had a long way to go before I figured out how to interpret the man himself.
"What happened?" he asked again.
I shrugged. "It didn't work. It's not going to work. And I feel shitty about it."
"Why?"
"Because this wonderful guy that I care about wants to spend his life with me. After all the mistakes I've made in the past, I should count my lucky stars that someone wants to give me a picket fence and babies."
"Bullshit."
I sighed. "I know. It's not the nineteenth century. I'm not sitting on a shelf, anxiously watching my best-before date. I don't feel that way at all. But part of me thinks I should. I like Quinn. I could spend my life with him and be quite content."
"Like? Content?" He snorted. "Those your goals?"
"I don't mean it that way. I . . . I feel as if I'm giving up something valuable, and it should bother me more than it does."
"So it's over?"
I nodded. "I'll keep feeling bad about that, but it won't change anything."
A knock sounded at the door. I scrambled up.
"Just room service," Jack said, rising.
I checked my watch.
"Twenty-four-hour menu," he said as he walked to the door. "Hold on."