Rufus: Wow, jealous. Not about the bus, though, obvi, lol.
I smiled at his hint of humour, and we continued chatting for a little while before I had to get back to work. Rufus seemed like a nice guy, albeit, a little safe. But safe was what I needed. I’d had the opposite in Jace and gotten my heart irreversibly broken.
Before I knew it, Zara was home from school, and my stomach tightened when the front door opened and shut. I was expecting Jace to appear with her, a flurry of anticipation in my stomach, but then when she came into the room, she was on her own.
“Hello, honey,” I said, leaving my desk to go and give her a hug. “How was school?”
“It was great! Everyone was talking about how good my solo was at the concert,” she beamed, and her happiness sparked my own. There was nothing that gave me more pleasure than knowing my daughter was content.
“You were brilliant. Is your dad not coming in?”
“No, he said he had to go to see Bren,” Zara replied as she went to the fridge to grab a snack.
“Bren?” I searched my memory for the name but couldn’t place it.
“Dad said he’s his sponsor. I asked what that means, and he said they basically talk a lot.”
Jace had a sponsor? Well, I guess it was good he’d found someone to help him through his recovery, but I was concerned at the pinch of disappointment in my belly that he’d left without coming in to at least say hello. God, I was completely hopeless. I’d been so determined to convince myself that I wanted to see as little of Jace as possible, but there was obviously some part of me that still craved his company, even after all he’d put me through.
4.
Jace
The curtains were twitching again. While I sat in my car outside Shannon’s house, I shut off the engine and considered knocking in on her neighbours and introducing myself. They were clearly curious about me since they were peeping through the curtains for the second morning in a row. Confronting them was the sort of thing I’d normally do since I didn’t often have much of an inner voice telling me the negatives of an action. My inner voice was more like that kid we all knew at school, the one who got overexcited whenever there was a fight, egging other people on.
I’d gotten much better at ignoring the little prick in recent years, thankfully. There was also the chance that they were just fans who’d recognised me and were building up the courage to come out and ask for a selfie. In that case, I’d be happy to pose for a picture, but no, it appeared they were going to stick to peeping.
I reminded myself that Shannon would probably be pissed at me if I interacted with her neighbours. She could be pretty uptight about those sorts of things, and although I used to get fiercely turned on at the challenge of getting her to like me again after I’d made her mad, that wasn’t the goal here. I just wanted her to accept me back into her life or at least tolerate my presence in it for now. Besides, I’d already pushed things too far yesterday with my flirting. I couldn’t help myself sometimes when it came to her, but I knew I needed to ease off. It had only been my first day taking Zara to school and already I was trying to push Shannon’s buttons.
Grabbing the reusable mug from yesterday, I headed out and knocked on the door. Shannon answered only a few secondslater. Unlike yesterday, she was fully dressed in black trousers and a pale grey top, her dark hair tied back in a neat ponytail. This was Shannon to a T. You might catch her off guard once, but it wouldn’t happen twice.
One of the things we often argued about when we were together was her need for control. She couldn’t stand to be even a minute late for things. If there was a tiny speck of dirt on her top, she’d obsess over it until she could change into something clean. And she especially hated when unexpected visitors turned up first thing in the morning before she had the chance to get ready, her hair a sexy mess that just made me want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her back to bed.
That was the thing that I always found so irresistible about her, dirtying her up when she was prim and proper.
Some of it was her natural demeanour, but a lot of her need for perfection came from her parents. When Shannon was a kid and she’d get muddy knees from playing out in the garden, her mother would frown with such disappointment you’d swear she’d stolen the car keys and crashed their BMW into a tree. She’d even been sent to etiquette lessons as a kid, with all these unnecessary rules being drilled into her. Hell, the first time we’d met was when we were twelve, and my dad had invited her over for pizza. Shannon had sat at our table with perfect posture and requested a knife and fork while the rest of us folded over slices and shoved them into our mouths.
I’d always encouraged her to be a little more easy-going, fuck her parents and their ridiculous disapproval over the tiniest unimportant thing. Unfortunately, she’d found solace in it, like if she could control her appearance and her day to day routine, she could control the universe. In the end, I’d accepted that it was just who she was, and I’d fallen in love with that person.
“Morning,” I greeted her with a smile, and she nodded, briefly looking me up and down before a faint flush stained hercheeks. Even though I only wore my usual hoodie and jeans, I could tell Shannon found me attractive. She was so easy to read in that way.
A rush of pleasure swept over me as she quietly replied, “Morning, Jace, please come in.”
God, I loved it when she said my name.
I followed her into the kitchen, then set the clean mug on the countertop. “Brought this back for you.”
“Right, thank you. Would you like another one? For the drive?”
My features softened because she seemed antsy, just like yesterday, and clearly making me coffee gave her something to do, which she seemed to need.
“Sure, that’d be great.” I sat down to wait for Zara. How many mornings of me being here was it going to take to get her to relax?
“She should be down in a minute.”
“Cool.” A moment of quiet fell. Shannon picked up her fake vape and took a hit while she waited for the coffee to brew, shoulders stiff.
“Oh, before I forget,” I said, breaking the quiet, and her eyes lifted as though in relief that I was filling the silence. “Roan has an art show tonight. He said he sent you an e-vite a couple weeks ago, but you never RSVP’d. It might’ve gone to your junk mail. He wanted me to ask if you’re going?”
