He drank in her words and turned unseeing eyes back out over the water, pondering what he wanted to say next. "I guess I'm more scared than I thought," he finally said, looking at her. "I worked through my feelings for you back when you had your accident. I knew full well what I was doing and charged full steam ahead. And while you weren't quite yourself, it was easy to imagine what it would be like if you ever came back. I had it all worked out in my mind. But as is true with most things, reality is far different from fantasy."
"You have fantasies about me?" she asked, popping her hand over her mouth in mortification. "Um, forget that. I, um, didn't mean it, I meant to ask, um, I mean, I meant to say, I'm going to bed." She stood up to make a hasty retreat, but was caught by the wrist.
When she refused to look up, she felt his finger under her chin. Finally risking raising her eyes as far as his lips, she saw his smile before he spoke. "I believe you asked me a question. Don't you want to stick around for the answer?"
Sue looked around nervously, her tongue slipping out to moisten her suddenly dry lips. Frantically trying to form a reply, she missed the flaring of Jack's eyes at her innocent gesture. "Um, now that I, um, know you are okay, um, I think I'm going to go back to bed. Yeah," she exclaimed, latching onto that idea, "I'm very tired." She feigned, stretching and hoping to work up a yawn. "Sweet dreams," she piped, hoping to get away this time as she twirled and bolted.
Hands around her waist hauled her back against his strong chest. When he appeared in front of her, he was openly laughing. Keeping hold of her, he raised his right hand and circled the U hand shape by his forehead.
She was totally confused. "Huh? What do you mean 'UNCLE'"
Jack's eyes crinkled even more, a contrast to the ire rising in hers, as he nodded. "Yes. I didn't want to take the time to fingerspell T-R-U-C-E," he tried to explain.
"But you just did," she said in exasperation. "Why didn't you just do that the first time? And what does a truce have to do with an uncle?"
He surveyed her lovely face, wrinkled in confusion. "SORRY," he began, "But sometimes people say UNCLE to mean they give up, kind of like calling a truce."
"Oh, okay. So are you saying that you are going to drop the previous topic of conversation?" Her eyes pleaded with him to agree.
"I will...for now," he consented, "But that's not to say we won't revisit it sometime in the future."
"Okay, I'll consider myself forewarned." She looked back at the swing. "Can we go back and sit down?"
"I thought you were going back to bed."
"That was before. This is now," she said challengingly, with a little sass. "Really, Jack," she asked, all kidding set aside. "Can we sit? I'd like to tell you something, before I lose my nerve."
"Okay," he agreed following her back to the swing, his mood slipping back into the trench, his heart dreading the next few minutes.