He settled beside me, our elbows brushing as we looked out at the view from the pool edge. It really was a pretty place, just soured by our circumstances.
“Angel will come back to us, Rose,” Jace said after a long moment of silence. His voice was soft and sincere, his gaze moving to my face as he rested his cheek on his arms. “I wouldn’t even be surprised if he freed himself before Gray got there.”
I gave a weak smile back. “Sounds like something he’d do,” I agreed.
We lapsed back into silence for a while, then Jace nudged me with his shoulder. “What’s on your mind, Billie Bellerose? Talk to me.”
I knew what he was asking… not that he had no clue what I was thinking about, but which issuespecificallywas on the front of my mind right now. I wet my lips, resting my wet hair on my forearms so I could look at him properly.
“Can I, though? Talk to you, I mean. Without sparking another fight or sending you running away to fuck me out of your head with groupies?” It was a low blow, but there were a lot of scabs on our relationship that hadn’t yet healed.
Jace, to his credit, didn’t flinch away from my accusation. “I don’t always deal with my feelings as maturely as my bandmates,” he admitted, “and when it comes to you… I fuck up more than ever. But you must know I didn’t fuck anyone else that night, don’t you?”
I drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Yeah. I do… that time. But what about—”
“No one, not even once, not since that night at the farmhouse… Once we crossed that line, Rose, I was entirely yours. Whether you wanted me or not. WhetherIwanted to be or not, for that matter.” He gave one of those sexy half smiles that made my stomach flip. “I was an idiot for ever believing you’d stopped loving me. Back then I was so hurt, so heartbroken, and my ego was totally crushed. If I’d been older, if I’d had the years of missing you to reflect on, it’d have been so fucking obvious you were lying.”
“You’re right,” I murmured, unable to look away from his deep blue gaze. “But I guess everything happens for a reason… somehow. We were just kids then, Jace. There’s no way we could have known what we had without first losing it.”
He took a few deep breaths, then hummed a sound of agreement. “You’re probably right, though I wish more than anything I could turn back time and do it all differently. Even just a few months. There are so many things I wish I could take back, so many cruel comments that you didn’t deserve, Rose.”
I smiled, trying to lighten the emotional weight sitting between us. “And some I definitely did deserve.”
He grinned back, then sobered up as he gave me a cautious look. “How are you coping with the whole… Bruce Bellerose back from the dead thing?”
I shifted in the water, raking my fingers through my wet hair as I considered his question. HowwasI coping? Not well. Or maybe better than expected? How was one supposed to react when their dad comes back from the dead as a gangster who aims a gun at their head and kidnaps their second-chance lover? Was there a rule book?
“I’m maturely choosing not to really think about it,” I finally said, “except when the most annoyingly intrusive thoughts force me to. But I have some questions for Bruce Wilson. Fucker doesn’t get the name Bellerose any longer. It’s mine.”
“Ours,” Jace murmured, and I turned fully to face him, keeping just the one hand on the pool wall.
“Ours? As in yours and mine?”
“You are mine,” he said with a shrug. “So, logically, it stands to reason that what is yours is mine.”
This fucker and his logic. Logic that was a painful thud in my heart, making my body feel heated and odd. Floaty.
“I’m scared to let myself fall fully for you, Jace,” I whispered. “You were my first love. The first boy to wander into my yard and heart—”
“And panties.”
A snort of laughter escaped me. “Shut up, I’m trying to be fucking serious here.”
His expression sobered as he moved closer so there was almost no space between us, and the heated water felt near jacuzzi temperature now. “I’m being serious too. I’m all in, Rose. All the fuck in. And I will wait as long as it takes for you to believe me. The love between us never went anywhere, but it was the trust that ended up damaged. And whatever the fuck it takes, I will rebuild the trust between us.”
“How?” A choked sob of a word, but every part of me was broken and bleeding. Once again. Still, it didn’t feel as fatal as usual. Maybe because I suddenly had so much hope as well.
“By never letting you down again.”
He was dead serious, his eyes blazing with sincerity and truth.
“I will be there to celebrate every high in your life, Rose, and when there are lows, I will lay in the ditch with you and protect your soul and heart with my own. No grief or loss will you face alone, and if there’s a chance for me to take the burden, I will do so with zero regrets. My heart is yours. My love is yours. I am yours.”
This might be the reason I always fell in love with musicians. Their words are poetry, and they are filled with so much passion. When it’s focused on you, you feel like you could do any fucking thing. It’s just when you lose it that the world turns drab and gray.
A gray that had almost destroyed me multiple times.
“I’m not sure it’s going to be as easy as that,” I said, choking up. “There are some words that can’t be unsaid. Some actions that remain between us, no matter how many times I try to push them aside.”
