Chapter 5 - The Hoodie
The hoodie was technically to blame.
So was the office AC being overaggressive and Penelope’s brilliant decision to wear a sleeveless top. She just hadn’t counted on the meeting room being cold enough to store beef.
By the forty-minute mark of a two-hour strategy session, her teeth were on the verge of chattering. She tried all her usual coping mechanisms: tucking her hands between her knees, wrapping her arms around herself, pretending she wasn’t slowly freezing to death while some guy from finance said “runway” for the sixth time.
Jack caught her visibly shivering.
He didn’t make a thing of it. No grand announcement, no, “wow, someone’s cold.” He just glanced over once, took in her goosebumped shoulders, then peeled off his hoodie in one smooth motion and tossed it into her lap.
She blinked down at it.
He didn’t even look at her. Just went back to his laptop, typing one-handed, forearms bare now, corded and warm looking against the chilly air, as if he hadn’t just casually detonated something inside her.
It took her a beat to move.
When she did, she pulled it on like muscle memory. The cotton was soft and heavy, still holding his body heat. It smelled like his laundry detergent and some faint trace of him–warm and clean, with just enough static cling to make her feel like she’d stolen something sacred.
Her shoulders dropped half an inch. The room was still frigid, but a new, different kind of warmth uncurled under her skin.
“Okay,” the PM said at the front of the room. “Let’s talk timelines.”
Penelope tried to focus on timelines.
It was difficult when she could see Jack’s bare forearms from the corner of her eye and everyone else in the room was acting like nothing seismic had happened.
After the meeting, she kept it on.
She told herself it was practical–the office was basically a walk-in freezer. But when Jack rolled up to her desk an hour later and arched an eyebrow, she knew she was caught.
“You’re not giving it back, are you?”
She didn't even look at him. His hoodie swallowed her, sleeves too long, hem nearly mid-thigh. It looked, annoyingly, like it was hers.
“Nope,” she said, popping the p, eyes still on her screen.
“Cool,” he said, mouth twitching. “I didn’t want it anyway.”
He pushed off her desk and rolled away. She waited until his back was turned before letting herself smile.
She wore it the rest of the day.
No one said anything. Nobody pulled her aside to ask, “hey, are you wearing Jack’s clothes now?” The world kept stubbornly turning.
But she noticed the way Jack looked at her when she leaned across the printer, hem riding up, sleeves pushed to her elbows. And he noticed the way she twisted the cuff between her fingers when she thought he wasn’t watching, like she was trying to anchor herself to something she wasn’t ready to name.
—
That night, “just one drink” after work turned into two, then nachos, then a passionate argument about the best (worst) movie endings of all time.
By the time they tumbled into her apartment, both buzzing on cheap margaritas and shared outrage, it was properly late.
“How is that your pick?” she demanded, kicking the door shut with her heel. “The movie literally ends with him just…walking into the ocean. That’s not profound, that’s poorly supervised.”
Jack rolled past her, laughing, front caster thunking over the threshold. “It’s open to interpretation,” he said. “You’re supposed to sit with the ambiguity.”
“He drowns,” she said. “That’s the ambiguity. Does he drown in the first thirty seconds or does the tide pull him out first.”
“Wow,” he said. “You’d be a joy at film school.”
She laughed at that and flopped onto the couch, legs folding under her like a collapsing lawn chair. The hoodie–still his–bunched up around her hips.
He pivoted, half-circle, and lined up next to the couch. The TV buzzed quietly in the background–some menu screen they’d never intentionally committed to entering.
They drifted out of the movie talk without meaning to. Into softer orbit: work stories, his mom’s Tik Tok obsession, her hilarious attempt at drawing eyebrows on her dog. The kind of conversation that had no agenda and never seemed to run out.
At some point, she turned her head toward him.
He was already looking at her.
There was a softness there that hadn’t been there at the bar. Less performance. Less volume. More…careful.
“You have something on your cheek,” he said, voice low.
She frowned instinctively, bringing a hand up. “What? Where?”
He didn’t answer.
He leaned forward instead. Slowly, like he was giving her time to bail. Like he was checking, on some level, that he was allowed.
She went very still.
The distance between their faces closed in increments. His chair creaked, his knee bumped the couch, her eyes flicked down for a second. The room shrank to the narrow strip of space where his eyes stayed locked on hers.
His hand came up, hesitated for a half-breath.
Then his thumb brushed her cheekbone.
Not in a dramatic, cinematic sweep. Just a light, slow touch, fingertips careful, like he was memorizing texture. Warm skin, cooler air, a faint drag of callus.
His thumb lingered.
Neither of them spoke.
The air in the room felt suspended. Not tense. Not even urgent. Just thick with something too big to name yet, hanging there between them like a held breath.
Penelope’s heart thudded so hard she was sure he could feel it through his hand.
Jack’s eyes flicked down, briefly, to her mouth. Back up.
His throat moved. “There.”
His hand dropped, suddenly, like he’d surprised himself. Like his body had gotten two seconds ahead of his brain.
He rolled back an inch.
Penelope didn’t move.
It would’ve taken so little.
One breath. One lean. One reckless choice.
Instead, Jack sat back, palms resting on his thighs, still turned toward her, still watching her like he was waiting for her to say something first.
She wanted to. God, she wanted to. Wanted to make a joke, or close the distance he’d left, or say the truth out loud in a voice that didn’t sound like hers.
She didn’t.
She didn’t trust herself to.
“Thanks.” She swallowed, looked away first, and reached for the remote with a hand that wasn’t quite steady.
“Do not put on anything ambiguous,” she said tossing it in his lap. “I swear to God if a single character walks into open water...”
His laugh came a beat late, a little frayed around the edges.
“Copy that,” he said. “Only movies where everyone survives and no one feels feelings.”
She pretended to focus on the screen.
Neither of them really watched it.
—
The next morning at work, Penelope was at the vending machine pretending to debate between trail mix and whatever passed for a granola bar when a voice behind her said, “Hey, Penelope?”
She turned.
It was Brandon, one of the guys from legal. Harmless. Handsome, in a very buttoned-up kind of way. Everything about him looked…tidy. Hair, shirt, expression.
“Hey,” she said.
He shifted his weight, smiling sheepishly. “So… this is weird,” he began. “But would you maybe want to grab a drink sometime? Just us?”
Penelope blinked.
Not because she was shocked he was asking–people asked her out sometimes. She knew objectively she was…ask-outable.
It was that for a moment, it didn’t register that he meant her.
Her brain was still half on Jack’s thumb on her cheek, the warmth of his palm, the way he’d looked at her like he was working something out.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s…”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Jack’s laugh echoed down the hallway right then, from somewhere near the kitchen. The sound cut through the low office hum like a familiar song you didn’t know you missed until it started playing.
Her chest tripped over itself.
Brandon smiled, hopeful. “Totally fine if not,” he added quickly. “Just thought I’d ask.”
She dragged her attention fully back to him.
He was looking at her like she was a possibility. Like there was a version of the next few weeks where they sat at a bar and talked about law school and Netflix shows and nothing that made her nervous.
Safe. Easy.
Not the hand-on-cheek, almost-something that had left her awake an extra hour last night, staring at the ceiling and replaying every half-second with Jack in full HD.
“Thanks,” she said, forcing a polite smile. “I’ll think about it.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, of course,” he said. “No pressure.”
He wandered off, leaving her alone with the hum of the vending machine and the sudden awareness of her own pulse.
She stared at the row of snacks, seeing none of them.
Her reflection in the plastic looked back at her in Jack’s hoodie. Hair up, cheeks a little pink, eyes slightly too wide.
Trail mix fell with a heavy clunk when she finally pressed a button. It sounded weirdly like a gavel.
—
She didn’t tell Jack.
Not because she was hiding it. She told herself that several times as the morning went on and she didn’t mention it.
It was just…when he rolled up beside her desk later, balancing two coffees like a show-off–one on his lap, one in his hand, pushing his wheel with his forearm–and grinned at her like she was his favorite part of the day, she didn’t want to break it.
“Look at this,” he said, stopping next to her. “I come bearing offerings.”
She swiveled toward him. “Is that my usual or did you freestyle?”
“Medium, two pumps vanilla, splash of oat,” he recited. “And a sprinkle of my continued willingness to enable your sugar addiction.”
“Perfect,” she said.
She reached for the cup as he extended it. For a second, their fingers brushed along the cardboard sleeve.
Neither of them moved.
His hand lingered a little too long.
Hers didn’t pull away.
They both felt the pause. The tiny, weighty beat where something should have snapped. Where last night’s almost could’ve picked up right here, in the open-plan office, between a coffee and a Jira board.
Instead, she curled her fingers fully around the cup.
“Thanks,” she said.
He let go, late by half a second, like he had to remember to.
“Anytime,” he said lightly. His eyes held hers just a fraction too long. Then he cleared his throat. “You coming to the 11:30?” he asked. “Or are you going to fake a dentist appointment again.”
“That wasn't fake,” she said. “It was a valid fear of gum recession.”
He smirked, pushing off. “I’ll save you a seat, gummy.”
As he rolled away, she watched the lines of his shoulders, the easy way he navigated the cluttered aisle. The ache that had started in her chest the night before stretched, found new space.
She opened her email.
There, at the top of her inbox, sat Brandon’s follow-up.
Hey again- No rush, but if you are interested, I was thinking maybe next Thursday? If not, totally cool, just let me know so I don’t weirdly hover 😅
Penelope stared at the blinking cursor.
She thought about Jack’s hoodie. His thumb on her cheekbone. His hand on hers around a coffee cup. The months of this slow, sideways orbit they’d built, all pull and no label.
She also thought about how, if she kept standing perfectly still, eventually the floor would open up on its own.
Penelope closed her eyes briefly and groaned.
When she opened them, Jack was rolling back down the aisle, coffee in hand, talking to someone from UX. He glanced over, caught her eye, and tipped his cup at her in a tiny salute.
She tipped hers back.
He smiled.
And the ache settled.
Not smaller. Not gone.
Just…deeper.
And nowhere near done.
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