“While I appreciate the beautiful words… we’re done, Jax. We never really got started. It was fun… it really was, but we’d never really have worked. Not in the real world.”
Ouch.
“Helen, I messed up and while I’m not using my past as an excuse, surely it’s a good enough reason for you to give me another chance.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I wasn’t going to let her say no. I couldn't. Instead, I placed two fingers against her lips, which stopped her in her tracks. Her eyes fluttered closed for a split second, giving me a glimmer of hope that I clung to like a drowning man adrift in the ocean.
“Give me one night. One chance to show you I’m serious. Let me give you every part of me… even the missing parts and the bits that don’t work like they should. I mean, can you really say no to a man with one testicle who can’t ejaculate?”
She popped her brows, her lips falling into anOshape.
“What?” I replied, batting my eyelashes. “The counselling is helping me be able to talk about it… and apparently, make jokes to shamelessly win back the woman I’m in love with.”
Helen shook her head, chuckling softly.
“Seriously. One night,” I lowered my fingers from her lips so she could reply.
“You know, when my marriage ended, I was sad because it was all I’d ever known, but that was all it was. The loss of something familiar. But when you left…” She puffed out her cheeks, before letting out a long sigh, as if she was trying not to get emotional. “It hurt. It physically hurt to lose you, Jax.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know I fucked up.”
“No, I’m sorry. I know I said we were over before we began, but honestly, I’ve never felt anything like the feelings I had for you. And if I’m doubly honest, I’m terrified you’re going to hurtme again. So, it’s better if I keep my distance, then I won’t have to risk feeling like that again.”
I hated how sad she looked.
“Tell me the other things you felt for me.”
Her gaze dropped to the table between us. “I can’t tell you stuff like that… I’m not some lovesick teenager.”
I gave in to my compulsion to touch her and cupped her cheek as I lifted her face to mine. “Close your eyes, beautiful, and tell me how I made you feel.”
Helen let her lids close.
“Tell me,” I repeated.
She leaned into my touch. “Happy, beautiful, fun to be around, younger, sexy, you made my body light up, excited, nervous.”
Her eyes popped open.
“Alive.”
Fuck.
“And is it worth giving that up because you’re scared? Is it worth living a life without those things in case it goes wrong? Is that how you imagine living your life? Avoiding the good things in case you lose them?”
She shook her head.
“I promise, beautiful. I’m all in. You can have every part of me. I will never keep secrets from you again. I will talk to you and be honest about my fears and my dreams. Give me one night to show you that we’re meant to be together. At the end of that night, if you still don’t want to be with me, then I will respect your wishes. Do we have a deal?”
She paused for a second, making me believe she was about to turn me down, but then she gave me an answer that brought a smile to my lips. “Fine. One night.”
Helen
It had been a week since Jax accosted me in the coffee shop, declaring we were having a meet-cute—which is apparently a thing, I checked—but since then it had been radio silence and I hated it.
I’d expected an invite pretty quickly, but after a couple of days, I wondered if he’d changed his mind. After five days, I started to think I’d made the whole conversation up in a desperate peri-menopausal fever dream and now, on day seven, I was just annoyed.
“So, there’s this pop-up cinema in the park tonight, Ma.” Conner’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “They’re showingArmageddon. You want to go with me?”
