“Why are we here, Jack? Why couldn’t we have had this date at the bakery, or at home?”
“Home is too tempting,” he said. “And at a bakery, I’d have to share you. I just…wanted to talk for once.”
“About what?” she asked, tilting her head back to look up at him.
“Everything.”
Jessica laughed. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that. We’ve got almost four years' worth of life to catch up on.”
“Okay, fair enough,” he said. “I’ve been dying to ask this since Valentine’s Day, and you totally don’t have to answer because I know it’s not important, but…how many people have you been with besides me?”
“Two.”
“That…explains a lot,” he said. “You and Silas never…?”
He wasn’t sure how he’d been about to finish that question. Never experimented? Never brought whipped cream into the bedroom? Never had marathon sex that lasted for hours?
“For all his outward charm and frat boyishness, Silas is pretty straight-laced in the bedroom. We…we only ever had sex in missionary, and he never seemed to care about getting me off. There was more than one occasion where he’d pass out and I’d get myself off with my hand.”
“I hate that guy,” Jack said through gritted teeth. How someone could’ve looked at Jessica, had her in his arms, ready and willing to let that wild part of her heart free, and had never taken the time to give her what she wanted was unforgivable in his eyes.
“He’s not all bad,” she said. “He just wasn’t the guy for me.”
Jack pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s really lucky for you that you found the right guy, then.”
“It’s weird,” she said. “How safe I feel with you. But it’s also not? I don’t know if that makes any sense at all, but with you, wrapped in your arms? It’s the safest place in the world to me. I gave you my virginity because I knew you’d take care of me. Losing it was never as big a deal to me as other people make it out to be, but I couldn’t have dreamed up a better scenario than getting to experience that with you. I think…”
“What?” he prompted when she trailed off.
“I think I’ve been holding every relationship since then to those same standards. And thatreallydoesn’t make sense, given we had less than a week together, but…everything in Mexico was heightened, you know? It’s like I completely let go of all of my inhibitions and reservations and just let myselffeel. Even if we hadn’t found our way back here, I’d forever cherish what you gave me that week.”
“That makes perfect sense,” he said quietly. And he meant it. He’d had these exact same thoughts, had spent their years apart yearning for that connection with someone. All that time, he’d been willing to settle for something even a fraction as magical because he knew he’d never find the real thing again. Not without Jessica.
“Even though he was the one to say he was in love with someone else first, I still feel bad for how everything went down with Silas. We had broken up and gotten back together a lot over the years, and I think subconsciously, that was just me pushinghim away when he didn’t measure up to you. I tried to move on and forget you, but I don’t think I ever would’ve been truly happy if we didn’t end up right here, together again.”
“I looked for you in every girl I gave myself to,” Jack said. “Your smile, your laugh, the way your hands felt on my body, how it felt to have you wrapped in my arms. It was torture, knowing you were out there somewhere and I couldn’t even look for you. And you’d been here the whole time. It’s…fucking insane to me, some cruel twist of the universe’s sense of humor, that we didn’t cross paths until October. We could’ve spent a few months apart instead of several years. Think of how happy we would’ve been all this time.”
“I can’t let myself focus on that,” she said, twisting in his arms to straddle his lap, capturing his face between her palms. “And I don’t want you to, either. We can’t change it, Jack. And I think that we were brought back together when we were because we weren’t ready before now. I firmly believe it was good for us to go out and experience other relationships and life outside of this. We might not have ended up here otherwise.”
Jack studied her face, the shape of her brows, the fringe of lashes outlining her crystal blue gaze, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the fullness of her lips. Everything about her was infinitely precious to him, and he realized she was right. He had been crazy about her in Mexico, and that feeling would have remained the same had they found each other again that fall. But the years apart had taught him a lot about himself and relationships, had allowed him to grow as a man—had let him become the perfect man for her. And the same could certainly be said of Jessica, who was still that same girl from Mexico, but not. The boy he’d been four years ago cared deeply for Jessica, sure, but the man he was now?
That man knew how to care for her, to be the man she deserved. That man loved her with everything he had.
“It’s all about timing,” Jessica said, pulling him from his reverie. “You’ve always been the right person for me, but Mexico wasn’t the right time, and neither was any day across those years before we reunited. Remember how you asked me in Mexico if I believe in fate?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t then,” she reminded him. “And my opinion of that hadn’t really changed until that day I walked out onto the patio upstairs and heard you say my name. That was the day you tipped my world upside down—again. That was the day the stars finally aligned for us.”
NOW: March 23, 2024
The connection Jessica andJack had formed in Mexico only strengthened now that they were older and wiser and in the “real world.” The last few months together had been pure bliss. She couldn’t imagine how she’d gone so long without him, but it also felt as if no time had passed at all.
It made sense, then, that the universe threw a wrench into the whole thing on a Saturday in late March.
The day started like any other. Jessica woke up that morning, planning on applying for more jobs and pulling together some lesson plans for student teaching, as well as for her tutoring clients.
And she had accomplished quite a bit of that. By early evening, right as the sun disappeared from view for the night, she closed her laptop, intent on getting some housework done. Jack had late practice before playoffs started next weekend, so she thought she’d pick up her room while she waited for him to be done.
