“Well, I don’t recall asking you for your opinion,” she snapped back at him.

“That’s the great thing about being her boyfriend. You don’t have to ask. It’s my privilege to protect her from harm, and that includes you if necessary.”

My aunt chose to ignore his comment. “Kaylie, I will be at your dorm in the morning, and I expect you to be ready when I get there.”

I took a step closer to Jackson, gathering strength from his presence at my side. “Here’s the thing, Kathy. You can show up at my dorm as early or late as you want tomorrow morning. It won’t do you any good because I won’t even be there. I’ll be over at Jackson’s place instead. So if you really want to spend time with me, then you can pick me up from there and invite him to come along with us.”

“But be prepared to be nice to Kaylie or it’s not going to be a pleasant meal,” Jackson warned.

“If that’s going to be your attitude, then I guess I’ll just go back home earlier than planned. But I have to tell you that I am even more disappointed in you than I was when I watched you dance earlier, Kaylie. Not only have you wasted your talent by going here, but it appears that you’ve decided to follow in your mother’s footsteps and allow a man to dictate your future,” she shot back at me before marching away.

I watched my aunt disappear into the crowd with mixed feelings. I was happy that I’d stood up to her again. I was angry that she’d given me yet another reason to need to be firm with her in the first place. And I was sad because it felt so final, like this was the end of our relationship. Even though it was a strained one, she was still family and I hated to think that we’d never be able to get past our issues and be close to each other. I missed having family in my life, but I didn’t think that my relationship with her was salvageable.

“You okay, baby?” Jackson murmured in my ear, sounding worried.

“Not really, but it’s not like there’s anything I can do about it to make things better unless I want to totally cave and do everything she says exactly when she wants me to do it. And I just can’t do that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t really make the situation any better. I think I made it worse,” he apologized.

“No, Jackson,” I reassured him. “That was all her. It really wasn’t about you. If you hadn’t been here, my conversation with her wouldn’t have gone much better. In fact, I was happy that you were here to take my back. I liked how we felt like a team. I’ve never had that before, and it’s kinda awesome.”

Jackson smirked at me. “A team, huh?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

He tilted his head like he was considering the idea. “I like the sound of that.”

“And teammates share stuff with each other—even the hard stuff. Right?”

His teasing expression immediately sobered. “Yes, Kaylie. Sharing is important if we’re going to be a team.”

Shit. I was totally busted. He already knew something was going on, so I must not have been as good at hiding it as I’d thought I’d been. “When we’re done here, we need to go somewhere to talk,” I uttered the dreaded words no guy ever wants to hear.

Jackson didn’t look too worried though. “I will always have time for you, sweetheart. If you ever have anything you want to talk about, I’m yours. Got it?”

I loved the sound of that, and I could tell that he wasn’t joking either. He really meant it, and he’d never done anything in the time we’d been dating to make me think otherwise. That was going to make our conversation even more difficult since he was an open book to me while I’d been less open with him. If our roles were reversed, I would be pissed. And my feelings would be hurt. Knowing that I might have made Jackson feel bad or doubt how I feel about him was not a good feeling at all, especially with how much care he’d taken with my feelings.

I glanced around the lobby and watched all my classmates chatting, looking excited. Between my aunt and my upcoming talk with Jackson, the evening had lost some of its luster for me already. There wasn’t anything keeping me here right now, so why wait any longer?

“I’m yours too, Jackson. So why don’t we just get out of here now?”

“Don’t you have people you need to talk to here before we leave?”

He made a good point. There was one person I needed to check in with before we could go. “Let’s just stop to say goodbye to my mentor, and then we can head out.”

We held hands as we walked through the crowded room over to my teacher. She was surrounded by a circle of people, so I waited until I could get her attention. She beamed a smile at me as soon as she noticed us standing there.