Jackson’s silence breaks with the sound of his chair scraping back over the stone floor. He drags the damn thing to my side of the table, turning it toward me so that when he sits down, he’s effectively straddling my chair. He’s shielding me from anyone who might be watching. The thought alone makes me want to hug him. “Keep goin’,” he rasps, one hand coming to meet mine on the table again. He twines our fingers together. It feels so wrong to look at our clasped hands and see that our ring fingers are bare. “I’m here, sweetheart.”
