Chapter Twenty-Four
We drive out of town and keep going for over an hour until we’re at the Delaware border. Jenson pulls off at a gas station and shifts to face me. His eyes shine with emotion, and his mouth turns up in a lopsided grin.
“That didn’t happen the way we’d planned it,” he says.
“Not exactly.” I unbuckle my seat belt, and he pulls me onto his lap. “Okay, not at all. But I don’t care.”
“Are you sure?” His hand rubs my back gently. “I know we said we were going to wait. But our moms were driving me so damn crazy with their set-up plans. I finally lost it. And God, it felt good to just be open and honest about our relationship.”
I lean my head on his shoulder. “For me too. When you kissed me, it was like we were the only two people in the room for that moment.”
“I felt that too,” he says. “I care so much more about you than their verdict, Olivia. I’m sorry we didn’t figure that out when we were younger. But maybe we just weren’t ready.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t think we were. I look at Daphne and how she and Todd were so young when they got together, and they didn’t have to go through the outside pressures like we have. And it’s still hard for them. For me, having gone through all the stuff I did on my own first, it makes being with you now even better. We’re stronger together.”
“Nothing can come between us now,” he says to me. “Nothing.”
“Are you okay keeping the story of your father a secret still?” I study his expression as it turns from calm to stormy.
Jenson clears his throat. “It’s my mother’s story, Olive. But mine is in there, too. My birth father lives twenty minutes away in a high-rise in Philly, and the man who raised me is on Elm Street in Liberty Falls. And they used to be friends, but Dee has no idea about my mom’s night with Donald. What if I want my sons to meet Donald? Am I going to keep the truth from them forever? Or from Dee?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me hard and urgently. “But you and me—this—is ours. No one can touch it, okay?”
I nod and rest my forehead against his. “We did it.”
Jenson slips his hand underneath my shirt and I shiver. “We did. And we’re going to celebrate all night long. Sound good?”
Sounds perfect.
* * *
We go to my house and make love all night long. And it’s…intense. Some of it’s a reaction to death, I think, to try to feel as alive as we can for as long as we can. I hold him in my arms and tell him how much I love him, and he kisses my face as he drives into me over and over again.
I moan at the intensity of him inside me as his thrusts touch me deeper than I’ve ever been touched before.
We come together, something we’ve been making into an art lately. And it’s bliss.
His sexy sounds drive me wild, and I come one more time as he finishes moving.
“J. I love you.”
* * *
When I arrive at Union Bank the next morning, Vivian immediately calls me into her office.
I walk in, trying hard to act casual, but inside, my heart is pounding.
But she surprises me when she immediately says, “I’m so happy you’re happy.”
I exhale in relief. “Well, you’re in the minority. My mother’s left me three voicemails explaining that it’s urgent I get back to her so she can talk to me about ‘the kiss’ she witnessed and can’t get out of her head.”
“Even when love should be easy,” Vivian says, “we make it hard. Or the people around us do.”
* * *
Mom shows up at the bank at lunchtime, and I can no longer avoid her. But I still try. I run behind the teller cages, but Mom calls out, “Olivia, I saw you run back there. Come out because your mother needs to talk to you now!”
