“What?” I don’t get it. How would my death make Jake a seventy year-old man?
He takes a step toward me. He’s so close I have to tip my head back to keep eye contact, and the drops of water falling from him are hitting my shoulders and face now as he looks down at me. “If you died … I would spend the rest of my life longing for you.”
My heart and soul have spent the last twenty-four hours trying to find a path for us. A way we could hold onto what I thought we were building. Never in a million years did I ever dream he’d say this. Because now … now there is no path to take. I’ve been teleported directly to the destination. No matter what has happened or will happen in the future, I’ll be Jake Maverick’s forever.
“I am madly in love with you,” I whisper as I blink back tears.
“Then will you let me inside? I’m about to drown out here,” Jake says softly and I laugh. It’s wildly jarring but so is this entire conversation, in the best possible way. I move to the side, and Jake’s giant body slips into my hallway. I close the door behind him and then I walk right up to him and wrap myself around his soaking wet body. My arms loop his neck and pull his lips down to mine but before the kiss can start, he speaks. “I love you too, by the way.”
“I got that message. Loud and clear,” I reply. He’s so wet and now I am too, and I don’t care. I kiss him, slowly, languidly, and it’s perfect, just like we are. He wraps his arms around me and hugs me tightly to his body, my feet lifting off the floor. My stitches start to ache and I wince against the kiss so he puts me down.
When our lips slip apart, he buries his face in my neck. “I have to let you go. We both need dry clothes now. And to talk about the whole Aspen thing.”
“Or no clothes. That’s always an option,” I tell him, my lips ghosting over the side of his long, thick neck. “And we can talk after.”
“See Tink, you’re full of good ideas,” Jake replies arms still holding me up as he walks us back to my bedroom.
We undress each other, and touch each other’s naked bodies, with a new level of intimacy. Because we’re both laid bare in so many new ways. And as we tangle in the sheets, the rain water making our skin slick, turning to sweat as we lead each other to climax with our hands and our mouths.
An hour later, I’m curled up beside him, my head on his chest listening to his heartbeat, and my fingers trail across his abdomen. My heart clenches every time it glides over one of the puncture-type wounds healing from the operation. If we stay together until we’re old and gray, I don’t know if that will ever stop happening, that pinch of gratitude and guilt.
“So… Aspen…”
“I know the baby isn’t yours,” I say and tilt my head on his chest to look up at him, hooking my leg over his massive thighs as I do. “Aspen and I talked it out.”
“All of it out?” Jake questions.
“Yeah. I … I think I forgive her,” I say quietly. “And I forgive you. I mean you don’t need it, actually. I understand you couldn’t violate her trust.”
“Thank you for understanding,” Jake says softly. “It’s her whole life that gets changed by this kid. And yeah, it would be mine too but only by choice. That’s how it is for men, so I couldn’t flip the switch on that change before she was ready. And I trust you, Terra. Even though you two had issues, I knew you wouldn’t say anything, but if I told you I was scared I’d lose what we were starting.”
“I’d have been hurt, angry, jealous. But I would have found my way back to you,” I confess, my voice a whisper. “I belong with you, Jake.”
“You do,” he pulls me up, closer to his face and kisses me. Our tongues tangle lazily. When he breaks the kiss, he reaches up and pushes my overgrown bangs out of my face. “Also, I belong to you, Terra. I always have even when I was too scared to admit it. A child wasn’t going to change that.”
“Are you sad the baby isn’t yours?” I ask, holding my breath because I don’t know what I want the response to be.
His hand stops making lazy circles on the base of my spine. His eyes hold mine as he speaks. “No. Terra, I’ve never wanted children. I would have been there for this kid one hundred percent if it was mine and I would have loved him or her, truly I would have. But I don’t feel loss because it wasn’t something I was hoping for or trying for. Does that make me an asshole?” He’s searching my face, nervous energy radiating off of him.
“Do you remember when I was almost kicked out of school because I refused to do that stupid baby project?”
Jake smiles. “The one where they gave us those creepy electric dolls that would cry and fuss and we had to pretend we were parents for seventy-two hours? And you refused to participate even though they threatened you with suspension and your mom grounded you.”
I nod. “I didn’t want kids back then. That was why I did it. I didn’t think it was fair to force someone to do something, to pretend they were a parent, when they knew in their soul that they would never be.”
“But you were sixteen.”
“Yeah. When did you know you didn’t want kids?”
“Always.”
“Exactly,” I climb up so I’m lying flat on top of him skin-to-skin. “In the end, they didn’t expel me because I gave them some five page research paper I wrote filled with the statistics and complications of women with lupus having children. Mom even ungrounded me when she read it. But that was just a convenient excuse. Fact is, I just never wanted them. I still don’t.”
He kisses me again, slowly, lightly, but it lights a fire in me anyway.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean I want to stop going through the baby-making motions.”
“Oh no, we shouldn’t stop that. It’s a good skill to have,” Jake says laughing. “We should practice it a lot as soon as the doc gives us the go-ahead, which better be soon, or I will lose my Terra-loving mind.”
