Melissa's P.O.V.
It was a silent drive back to the Shady house because, honestly I was just in shock.
Everything that had just happened, I'm still surprised that I'm alive.
No one ever gets out of the Dome alive. Sometimes even the spectators didn't even get out alive. We went in as participants and won a rigged game.
Evelyn doesn't do rescues.
But I survived the Dome and that was only because Evelyn came to rescue me.
But probably the most shocking of all was that Jack had stayed with me. Right there, right by my side. The whole time.
He had fought for me, beside me and when the others had turned on me, he had jumped to my rescue.
Quite literally out a window.
I honestly didn't know how I felt about it, but I definitely was looking at Jack with different eyes.
All this time I thought he was one of those Dukes that just wanted to own me. That he just wanted some fun and then when he got what he wanted he'd throw me aside and move onto something prettier, younger, better. But now, now I was starting to think that maybe, just maybe he actually liked me.
When we got back to the Shady house, I had to get out of Evelyn's Jeep to enter the code for the draw bridge. Once it was down and we were on the property I found myself not wanting to leave.
Normally I couldn't get away from Jack faster but not today. I didn't ask him to drop me off at the door, I didn't ask him to drive up that driveway faster, I wasn't counting down the seconds until he'd be gone. For the first time I was nervous around him and that was a completely new feeling for me.
"I... I wanted to say thank you," I told him and he turned to me. "You know... for staying with me."
Jack smiled that debonair grin of his. "Wasn't gonna just abandon you," he said but he could have. He just... didn't. Which I was pretty sure went against everything the Drifters stood for. You know, that all-for-one-and-that-one-is-me mentality.
"Well... thanks..."
"You're welcome..." he cleared his throat and turned his eyes back to the house. He took the garage door opener that Evelyn had clipped to her visor and used it to open the garage door so he could park.
He cleared his throat before trying to talk again. "I'll have to wait here for someone to come get me... cause if I drive off with Evelyn's jeep, I'm fairly certain she'll..."
The second he had the jeep parked I jumped him. Just launched myself across the center console and the distance between us and pressed my lips to his.
It had been so long since I had done something like this, it was definitely pre-apocalypse the last time I tried something like this. Jack clearly had more practice, cause a hand went to my waist to hold me close, and the other when to the nape of my neck, keeping me still so he could go about kissing me with all the skill he possessed.
And he possessed a lot.
After a moment of just kissing, where my mind went black and my knees went all wobbly, I pulled away.
"Uh... that's enough... for now..." I panted out sounding like an absolute lunatic.
Jack just smirked at me. "Well... you just tell me when you'd like to uhm... take this up again and I'll be sure to come on down if Evelyn's okay with that..."
"I'd be fine with it. You coming back to visit... me... whenever you want... if you want that is."
Oh my god I sounded like an idiot. Like one of those strong female characters written by a man who falls to pieces the second a pretty boy is introduced into her life. I never thought that would be me, but I just wasn't as confident as I usually am.
I was fully ready to blame the shock of the whole situation finally hitting me if someone asked me about this.
"You uhm... you want to go inside... or... do you want to uh... I mean I'd be up for..."
Well it was nice to see that Jack was just as nervous as I was.
"No, I think we should go in, see if Evelyn is here."
"I don't know how she would have beaten us back, but if anyone could have it would have been her," he said with a bit of a nod and we both left he car.
But when we got into the house Evelyn wasn't there. I figured that everything would be okay, I figured she'd waltz in at some point as if nothing had happened and we'd go back to hibernating and just stay inside until the snow melted.
Jack was picked up not some time later, and the hug good-bye was so awkward I wanted to die inside. But in the morning, Evelyn still wasn't back and I knew something had happened.
I just didn't know what. Or what that would mean for us.