Seven
Willow I’m-the-Stupid-One? Tate
Bemused, I listened to Jameson’s voicemail for the third time since getting up this morning.
Willow, you know I love you. Can we please stop playing games and just get hitched already? You’re being really stupid. Call me, okay?
Sipping my decaf, which, yes, did taste different from regular, I pressed play again. The phone was halfway through the almost amusing message when someone hammered on my apartment door. The same voice as on my voicemail, only much grumpier, bellowed my name from the other side.
“Willow! Open up!”
My amusement fading, I scowled and marched for the door.
“What the hell is your problem?” I demanded as I yanked it open and he almost fell inside.
Straightening, he took in my fuzzy pants and baggy T-shirt, horror dawning on his face.
“Oh God, did I wake you up? I know you pregnant ladies need all the sleep.” He captured my arm and started herding me back toward my room.
“Oh my lord, you’re still drunk.”
“Probably,” he admitted. “My brothers and I went to the bar…and I drank it. Drunk it. Drinked it.” He shook his head. “Got fucked up.”
“So I break the news to you, you just leave, go get skunk-ass drunk and show up here still impaired? Oh and called me stupid. Not winning a lot of points, Cassel.”
“I took a cab.”
I pulled my arm from his grip and headed back to the kitchen and my coffee. In my small apartment, that was about six steps. Jameson followed on my heels and plopped down on the stool beside mine at the breakfast bar.
“Do you have more coffee?”
“In the pot. It’s decaf, though. I’m not sure it will do you a lot of good.”
He made a face. “I think right now, anything will help. So look,” he said as I grabbed him a mug, filled it with brew then slid it toward him, black like he preferred it. “I think you and I should go away somewhere. We can be alone. See if we can work—which I know we will because you love me and I love you, damn it. And…then…I don’t know, I’ll prove I love you. Where can we go that I can fight a bear for you or something?”
As he leaned on his elbows, cup in his hands, he looked absolutely sincere, and it took everything in me not to laugh. “I don’t know that we’re compatible, Jamie. Fire and water could love each other, but they’ll also destroy each other.”
His eyes squinted. “You give me a headache.”
“No, whiskey is giving you a headache. Also, I just started my job. I can’t go off on a vacation with you.”
“I know the bosses,” he whisper-yelled. “I can arrange it. Worked for Fray and Emerson and for Luke and Laura, too.”
“Luke and Laura didn’t go anywhere.”
“They didn’t leave their penthouse for a long time, either. But your apartment is too small, and the neighbors will complain about all the screaming I’ll make you do. Good screaming.”
I stared at him, just riveted by the directions of his inebriated mind.
“And my place…too many memories of fighting. Lots of good fucking there, too.” He made a karate chop motion with both hands. “But no. This can’t be about that. We need neutral ground. Like Switzerland. You still have a passport?”
“Yes…?”
“Good. Go pack. We’re going to Switzerland. I’ll get my pilot to prepare the plane.”
I just stood there and took another sip of my coffee. For twenty years, I’d fought with Jameson, played tricks on him, been his partner in crime and stood up for him—because I was the only one who got to pick on him. He was exactly the same way with me. And because of that, I knew this would be the ultimate one-up prank. I had zero doubts that he’d fall asleep minutes into the flight. And when he woke up halfway over the ocean, I would take great pleasure in letting him know where we were and that no, we would not be joining the mile-high club.
And besides, as drunk as he was, he was right about one thing. We needed to work out things between us. Maybe, some neutral ground was a good idea.
“So how long are we going?” I asked in amusement.
“As long as it takes,” he replied, staring into his coffee cup. “This is some really shitty coffee.”
“I know. Tell you what… It can be your job to find me good decaf for the rest of my pregnancy, okay?”
“Good idea. Right, let me make a note,” he said, opening an app on his phone. “Good stuff coffee,” he muttered to himself as he typed.
Shaking my head, I went to pack.
* * * *
“Oh my God, shoot me,” Jameson groaned across from me where he slumped in his seat while we jetted across the Atlantic.
I put my tablet on my lap and looked over at him. “Nope, no deal.”
“You’re here,” he said, the faintest of smiles curling the edges of his lips as he opened his eyes. “Wait…where is here ?” He looked around. “Are we on my plane? What are we doing on my plane?”
I smirked at him. “What do you remember?”
His brow furrowed, and he winced. “Being in your office. Leaving. Going to the bar with all my brothers then… Damn it, Willow! Why are we on a plane? Should you even be flying?”
“You don’t remember promising to take me on my dream trip? You even said you’d fight a bear for me.”
“Willow…” he warned.
“You’ve been asleep awhile.” I glanced out the window. “By my calculations, we’re somewhere over the Atlantic. You said you’re taking me away somewhere that we could hash things out. Somewhere neutral.”
“I’m taking you to fucking Switzerland!” he exclaimed. “Jesus, I must have been really drunk. But you agreed?”
I shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Don’t think I don’t know why, brat.” He pointed vaguely at me. “I know you.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who was swilling whiskey last night.”
“You better not have been. You’ve got my kid in there.”
“That remains to be seen,” I snarked.
“You and I both know it is. And I’m going to be there every fucking second—don’t you try and stop me. Ballgames, dances, wedding, whatever. We don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl yet, but it doesn’t matter to me. I already have more feelings in the tip of my pinky for that little bean than your father had for anyone his entire life. So don’t you make a mistake about that.”
Tears pricked my eyes at his adamant declaration.
“Little bean,” I whispered. I called the baby that, too.
“Aw, fuck,” he swore, tearing off his seatbelt. He stumbled across to me, scooped me up then sat with me on his lap. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’ve never, ever wanted to make you cry—well, except back when I was a crappy six-year-old maybe, and even then, not really.”
“You’re really cute when you babble,” I said, leaning into his chest.
“I just want to do the right thing with you.”
I closed my eyes, fighting a tremor. My fingers fisted on the edge of his rumpled suit coat. “Don’t say that.”
“Not like that. I don’t mean it that way. Fuck, if you think I’ll marry you just for the kid, you’re wrong. When I get married, it will be because of love. Do you understand me?”
I shook my head. Then nodded, sadness swamping me. My thoughts instantly went to him finding another woman and falling for her. Pain sliced into my chest so deep that I almost gasped. Was that how he’d felt when he thought I was with another man?
“I’m sorry I let you think it was someone else,” I sniffled into his shirt. His hand buried in my hair, and he cradled me there.
His chest lifted as he sighed. “Yeah, that fucking sucked.”
“If you want to try to figure this out, see if we can stand each other at close quarters for more than a couple hours at a time, I’m willing to try,” I said.
“You were the one who always ran away.”
“Jamie…”
“I have my work cut out for me, don’t I?” he muttered.
“I think we both do.”
Jamie and I knew how to fight. We knew how to screw. Now, we had to define what else we had between us.