Page 59 of Falling Into You

“Ford!” Jessica scolded as Jacob’s face turned beet red. “I’m sorry. He has no filter.” With that, Jessica pulled Ford toward the dance floor, leaving Rory and Jacob behind.

In love with me?Rory thought, her heart pounding. She had about a million questions, but she knew better than to ask them all now. She raised her eyebrows at Jacob. “Diapers, huh?”

“Well, obviously that is logically impossible since I didn’t even know you until we were five, and I was definitely not still in diapers when I was five.”

“I really hope not,” Rory said.

“So what’s first?” Jacob asked, deftly changing the subject. “Punch? Food? Do you want to dance?”

“Um... I ...”

Rory couldn’t seem to string words together, because she’d just noticed Tucker near the back wall of the gym, and he had definitely, one hundred percent, noticed her and Jacob. His face was the color of the Woodmont-red banner behind him, and his jaw clenched and unclenched over and over again. There was a girl in a silver minidress hanging off of him, but he didn’t even seem to feel her there. He was too busy staring daggers at Rory.

And then, he shrugged the girl off of him and headed her way.

“Uh, incoming,” she said to Jacob under her breath, gaze following Tucker.

Jacob turned to look and immediately squared his shoulders. To his credit, he didn’t drop Rory’s hand. Most guys would have been so intimidated by the look on Tucker’s face and his clenched fists that they would have run for the hills. Or at least the nearest bathroom.

“What the hell is this?” Tucker snapped as soon as he was close enough.

“This is my date,” Jacob said gamely. “Rory, meet Tucker. Tucker, this is Rory.”

“Ha ha,” Tucker said, not taking his eyes off Rory. “Are you out of your mind? Or are you just trying to humiliate me?”

“Neither,” Rory said. “I’m just attending the homecoming dance with my... teammate? Partner?” She looked at Jacob, whose expression was amused.

“The person who throws you and hopefully catches you?” he supplied.

“Right. That person,” Rory said with a smile.

Tucker still didn’t look at Jacob as he said, “Reilly. I’m gonna need to talk to you. Outside.” His nostrils flared nastily, and Rory noticed a small smear of barbecue sauce near the corner of his mouth.

Jacob began to respond, but before he could get a wordout, the music faded to the background and a loud voice boomed through the speakers.

“And now it’s time for the homecoming king and queen to have their first dance!” It was definitely Kai’s voice, Rory realized. The crowd parted next to her, and she, Tucker, and Jacob all looked over at the stage, where Kai was, in fact, clinging to a microphone. “Rory Graham and Tucker Panagopoulos, if you’ll kindly take the floor?”

Tucker’s mouth slowly twisted into a smirk. Jacob finally dropped Rory’s hand.

“Let’s do this,” Tucker said.

Jacob

“I renounced the crown, remember?” Rory said.

“Yeah, well, because that was a completely insane thing to do, no one stepped up to take it, so you’re still queen,” Tucker said.

Rory didn’t move. Jacob said nothing. Whatever happened next was up to her.

“It’s one dance, Rory. Come on. Everyone’s watching,” Tucker said.

Jacob swallowed hard as Rory turned her eyes up to him. “I’m gonna get this over with, okay? Like he said. It’s just once dance.”

Unable to speak, Jacob nodded mutely. But when Rory took Tucker’s hand, something inside of him died. Hope, maybe? She didn’t even look back at him as she walked away with Tucker. The crowd applauded, watching themmove to the middle of the floor with smiles and choruses of “Awwww!” It was so odd, the way people just went with whatever happened. Hadn’t they all watched Rory basically deck Tucker earlier today and loved every minute of it? Now there they were, looking like a couple again, and the crowd was also loving every minute of that.

Jacob felt like he should do something, but he had no idea what. She was obviously only doing this because she felt like she had to. So should he... rescue her? Rory was the last person who needed rescuing. She’d proved that this afternoon. But he had to do something.

Maybe he should pull a fire alarm. Or dump that giant bowl of fruit punch onto the dance floor so people would start slipping on ice cubes. Could he possibly figure out how to cut the power?