Chapter Twenty-Nine Emily
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Emily
Now that Maddie has officially decided to go back to New York and finish her degree, she’s only here for a quick trip. Basically long enough for us both to wallow and pump each other up and then fly back out tomorrow morning.
It’s been so good to have her here, though—I’ve smothered her with hugs every five minutes and given her a manicure because her nails were chipped within an inch of their life. I helped her balance her checking account, which had been grossly unattended for far too long, we squeezed in a Hearts tournament with Noah and the girls last night, and now we’re having our sister hangout/Audrey Hepburn movie night. Or technically movie afternoon since we’re also doing a family dinner tonight on James’s back porch.
We’re even watching the movie in James’s living room to consolidate time. Also because James has the nicest house out of us all. His gorgeous farmhouse is situated on the Huxley farm and was inherited from his parents when they downsized to something more manageable. The house looks like it was lifted right from a Nora Ephron movie set. His mom has always had a love of interior design, and it shows in how she helped him refurnish this place after they moved their stuff out.
There are softly striped fabrics, luscious thick drapes, and a big couch so plush you’ll give your soul up for a chance to sit on it just one more minute. Warm oak hardwood floors and the kind of lighting that soothes something buzzing inside you. You would never expect a place like this to belong to a man like James. A farmer through and through.
I wonder if I’ll still get to help Jack shop for his house when it’s finished.
And that’s been happening today too. An all-day mental Jack-a-thon (which sounds much dirtier than I’m intending). It’s basically just a frustrating nonstop loop of I love him, I’m scared to love him, but I love him. Round and round it goes.
“My God, Emily! You had him get down and dirty by the front door?” Madison screeches from the couch, knees up to her chest, oversized T-shirt draping her shorts, making her look pantsless. Her eyes are glued to her phone.
That’s the other thing I did today: I told each of my sisters about my book.
I’m glad I did. They’ve spent a solid chunk of time full-on squealing, which has helped me replace some of my it’s trash because Colette thinks it’s trash feelings into she can go to hell feelings instead. Well, not completely, because after looking over her notes, like Jack predicted, I’ve found two points she made that I do agree with and will change. But overall, I’ve decided, as my grandma used to say, someone must have peed in her Cheerios that morning.
The time with my sisters has been healing. When I first unloaded the truth to them, there was a lot of feet kicking and screaming, and then several minutes of oohing and ahhing over my plot. And then a moment I’ll always remember for the rest of my life when Annie looked me straight in the eyes and said: Emily, I’m so proud of you. Annie and I are close, but we’ve never had quite the connection that Madison and I have had, just simply because of our age proximity. But in that moment, I felt the strongest tether to Annie. She’s learned to step into herself over the last year, even when it’s been uncomfortable, even when it meant confronting each of us sisters about the way we’ve treated her with too much fragility in the past. And today, that woman looked me in the eyes and said she was proud of me.
I didn’t, however, have the heart to tell them about accidentally sending my manuscript to Bart, though. Not because I’m ashamed anymore, but because it’s my and Jack’s secret. Something that’s just ours in this world where nothing makes sense, and our futures are uncertain, but…at least we’ll always have the manuscript heist.
“I only emailed it to you five minutes ago, Maddie. How are you already to the sex scene?”
She looks at me like my head is a potato. “I searched the document for the word ‘nipple’ so I could get to the good stuff quickly. Do you guys not do that?”
“No!” Annie says in outrage from where she’s curled up on the other side of Maddie on the couch. “That’s terrible, Madison. The steam hits so much better if you let the story build around it. Build the connection first.”
Madison laughs like this is the most hysterical thing she’s ever heard. “Maybe for you three delicate flowers. But for me…I don’t care when the steam hits, I’m here for it.”
Amelia bonks Maddie in the face with a pillow. “Yes, we gathered that when you FaceTimed us from the bathroom because there was a man in your bed.”
There’s a beat where Madison tosses me the quickest look. They’ve been a needed distraction from my loneliness. I’m so glad she let me into that part of her heart. And I am nothing if not faithfully loyal, which is why I don’t call her out when she smirks at Amelia and says, “Don’t be jealous just because you’re locked down to my snoozy brother and I’m free as a bird.”
The microwave beeps in the kitchen, signaling that the popcorn is finished, but I’m too engrossed in this conversation to care yet. I also like to stand by in case I need to play referee.
Amelia puts her foot in Madison’s face. “Noah wasn’t snoozy this morning.”
Madison gags. Annie covers her face with her hands. I, too, am barely holding down my lunch at the thought of my brother not-snoozing anyone. But good for them. Healthy relationships and all that. I just don’t want to hear about it.
“Annie,” says Madison, swiveling her face to our baby sister. “How is your sex life with our favorite bodyguard? Wait—why am I even asking? I know it’s incredible. In fact, don’t tell me. I’ll be too jealous.”
“What happened to Ms. Free as a Bird from a minute ago?” I ask, saving Annie from her pink cheeks and having to respond to Maddie’s intrusive question. She’s changed a lot over the last year, but she’s still Anna-banana in a few ways too.
Madison shrugs. “I implied I was having sex. I never implied it was good sex.”
And of course, that’s the moment that James walks into the living room holding a bowl of popcorn. His eyes—I notice—lock on Madison. He steps up to her from behind the couch and sets the bowl of popcorn directly in her lap. “Here’s your popcorn you made that I told you not to make. Thanks to you my kitchen is going to smell like it for a week.”
“Aw, Jamesie,” Madison says, raising her hand to playfully pat his cheek like an old granny showing affection in church. “Admit it, you miss me around here!”
The look James gives Madison makes my insides constrict. He does miss her.
Does Madison know what she’s doing to him? I don’t think so since she’s always playfully antagonizing him. The rest of us know, though, judging by the way we all seem to be wearing matching expressions of discomfort as we observe James’s longing look for Maddie as she pops a piece of popcorn into her mouth with seemingly zero awareness.
“You know what I miss, Madison? My T-shirt.” His eyes drop to the article of clothing in question. “Have you had it in New York this whole damn time?”
And then something flashes in her eyes for the briefest of seconds that makes me wonder if she’s not so clueless after all. Considering how much she’s missed home too…I can’t help but wonder if she’s been holding on to his T-shirt because she misses him. “I found it at Noah’s place before I left. Finders keepers….” Her brown eyes slide up to him. “Losers weepers.”
He can’t fully hold back his grin. “Annoying little shit.” He flicks her nose and then steals a handful of popcorn before walking out his back door. Madison watches him go, swallows, and then turns toward the TV and watches Audrey Hepburn zip through town in her little red car wearing a fantastic monochrome white outfit. Complete with white sunglasses and hat that sort of resembles a bucket but on Audrey is painfully chic.
“We can all agree that Peter O’Toole was one of Audrey’s sexiest heroes, right?” says Amelia, deftly changing the subject away from the awkwardness that just unfolded in front of us.
“Definitely…he actually reminds me of J—” I stop myself before I finish that thought out loud. All three ladies heard it, however. They heard it and they look like wolves starved for dinner now.
“Ladies,” says Madison, sitting up straight. “Notice the goofy smile!”
“Hey!” I say, and lob a pillow across the room that doesn’t quite make it to her.
“The bright dopey eyes!” Amelia adds.
“ Again. Hey!”
“The flushed cheeks!” Annie tacks on while cupping her hands around her mouth to assure everyone heard her.
Madison’s expression is greedy. “You were going to say ‘Jack,’ weren’t you! Because you love him! Because he stole your heart right out from under you.”
I roll my eyes, even as their words hit like direct missiles. “Please. I wouldn’t even care if he packed up all his bags and moved to Australia.” It’s a blatant lie. I’d be devastated. I’d race to the airport without luggage and beg the person behind the ticket counter to send me wherever Jack Bennett went. But for the sake of getting my siblings to drop it, it’s off to Australia with him.
It would be so much easier if I didn’t care about Jack. Instead, I’ve been wondering nonstop how he is after our fight. Why his SUV has been missing since yesterday morning. Sometimes I wish I could go back to hating Jack and living my safe little life of solitude. But of course I’d have to go and fall in love with him instead. And I really, really do love him.
The problem is, I don’t know if I can give him what he wants. There seems to be a broken, jagged disconnect between what my heart wants and what my body will allow. Each time I mentally walk myself down the path of telling Jack I love him, and that I also want the kind of relationship he described, my body tenses up. Fight or flight kicks in and a thousand memories rush to the surface.
People I love die. Or they hide things from me and leave. Or they simply outgrow me and move on. The one constant in my life has been me, at the end of the day, alone in my bedroom. And if I let myself love Jack fully with arms outstretched wide and he leaves me, it will break me.
“Oh! Not to change the subject,” says Annie, popping up from the couch. “But this reminds me of something!” We watch her disappear into the kitchen, and when she comes back, she’s holding an old piece of paper. No. Not an old piece of paper—an old photo, I realize as she hands it to me. “I found it taped to the wall in one of James’s greenhouses. I asked him if I could have it and of course he said yes.”
The picture trembles lightly in my hand as tears flood my eyes.
“I guess their garden did grow,” Annie says, leaning down to kiss the top of my head.
In the picture, my mom and dad are standing together, his arm around her shoulder and hers around his waist, smiling hugely to the camera. Behind them is a flourishing garden full of sunflowers and dahlias.
My heart jumps into my throat. It feels as if my mom and dad are reaching through time and hugging me when I need them most. Reassuring me that even in unfavorable circumstances, even when it feels like all odds are against me, with hope and care, good things find a way to thrive.
“Thank you for finding this, Annie. I needed it more than you know.”
—
“The pancakes will be out in a minute!” Amelia yells from James’s kitchen to where the rest of us are already gathered on the porch.
We all groan.
“I heard that!” she yells again. “But this batch is going to be good, I can feel it.”
We—meaning me, James, Annie, and Will—all look to Noah. He shakes his head no with a quiet frown. We groan again. Amelia has been trying to perfect these pancakes since she and Noah met and they somehow have gotten…maybe not worse (because I’m not sure that’s possible), but different. Noah offered to finally give her his recipe and sadly for all of us, she declined. Her desire to make the perfect pancake is personal now. She doesn’t want his sorry old recipe; she wants to create her own.
Which means we’ve had to try every chewy, burned, crispy, and oddly gooey pancake under the sun. I’m convinced she’ll never accomplish it. And that’s not just pessimism, it’s history proving my point. The universe simply dumped too much talent into the singer/songwriter/performer part of her brain and had none left over for baking. This keeps life fair.
“Don’t worry,” James says, kicked back in his seat at the end of the large porch table. “I made scrambled eggs, biscuits, and bacon too.”
“And I”—Maddie jumps in, leveling James with a saucy look—“made grown-up food. A salmon and spinach quiche.”
“Yeah, and you destroyed my kitchen in the process. You better clean up before you leave.” Any of their earlier tension seems to be gone. They’ve sunk back into their normal routine of bickering over nothing.
She lifts an eyebrow at him. “Make me.” She then shoves his booted feet to the floor. “No feet on the table, Jamesie. Why can’t you be more civilized like Tommy.” Tommy is James’s younger, more selfish brother.
His boots hit the floor with a thud, and he sits forward so his face is a few inches from Madison’s. “Civilized, meaning an asshole who’s obsessed with his own reflection in the mirror? No, thanks.”
“He’s not an asshole,” Madison says, and we all roll our eyes because even I can admit that he’s a little bit of an asshole. But he’s a gorgeous asshole, and for that reason, Maddie has had the biggest crush on him since she was little. Thankfully, Tommy rarely ever comes around Rome because he’s too busy doing whatever it is he does. (Mainly women, according to James.)
My brain immediately vaults itself back to another gorgeous man that I can’t get off my mind. Ugh. But every time I close my eyes, we’re back in my room and he’s looking at me like I’m the first sunrise after winter.
“Now, children,” says Will, putting his butterfly hand on James’s jaw and turning his scowling face away from Maddie. “Let’s not bicker at the table. It’s impolite. Whose turn is it to try Amelia’s pancakes, anyway?”
We all immediately hold up our thumbs and slam them down. James is the last one to get his thumb on the table. We point and laugh at him like the mature adults we are.
“Dammit!” He groans, hanging his head. It pops back up just as quickly. “Emily—you owe me ten bucks for the beer Friday night. I’ll call it even if you’re taste tester tonight.”
“No way.” I would pay him a hundred dollars right now just to ensure I didn’t have to take a single bite of that pancake.
He’s hunting for more prey around the table. “Annie…you know that flower discount I give you?”
“Don’t you dare try to take that from her!” I say, laying my palms flat on the table and leaning toward him. “You lost fair and square!”
Everyone continues to banter and bicker and poke fun at each other around the table and for a minute, all I can do is sit back and watch with a smile on my face. Sometimes I wonder what my parents would think if they could see us all grown like this, sitting on James’s porch overlooking the vast farmland that’s been in his family for decades. The same farm my parents worked on when they first married and where my mom planted her flower crop.
I look at each of my siblings’ laughing faces (James included in that statement) as the string lights around the porch sparkle in each of their eyes—the sound of summertime crickets and some old country music playing in the background with Amelia cooking up something atrocious inside in the kitchen.
I live for nights like this with these people. They create the illusion that I’m within reaching distance of those comforting childhood days. But I can’t let myself dwell on that feeling too long anymore. I need to see this moment for what it is. Beautiful. Ever changing. We’re not kids, and Mom and Dad are not somewhere off in the distance. Annie is a woman with a thriving career and a man she loves. Noah is married with a wife (a world-famous one at that) and is soon going to support her on tour for a year. Maddie is out there getting her dreams and conquering the culinary world. And for the first time, while not trying to keep them hooked to a fishing line, I can think of the changes in their lives with some joy.
It’s okay that time is moving and changing. Maybe it’s okay if I move and change too.
“Aha!” James shouts, suddenly pointing at the porch door at my back, making us all startle. “He’s the last to arrive, so he has to be the pancake guinea pig.”
He?
Everyone turns and looks over my shoulder, and for some strange reason, I feel a change in the air. A chill runs down my spine like the warning of impending danger. Impending delight.
“You made it!” Maddie says happily, standing up from the table and going to greet—
Jack. My Jack.
And I watch as my traitor sister is giving my Jack a hug.
“Everyone, I assume you’ve met Jack by now? Jack, everyone! Grab a seat. There’s one over there by Emily.” My gaze connects with Madison’s, and she winks at me and mouths You’re welcome.
How dare she! How dare my family meddle in my life like this. How dare they love me this much. And how dare my face betray me with a smile at a time like this when I should be upset to find him here. I don’t have my answer for him yet! I haven’t had enough time to perfectly craft the words to convey: I’m afraid of how much I love you.
But as my eyes connect with Jack and his retro orange-and-white-striped crew-neck shirt, I’m so relieved he’s not in Australia.
He walks closer to the only available seat at the table, which I’m just now realizing has been added purposely! They all knew? I will kill them all after I finish hugging them furiously, because Jack is here and even though nothing is settled, my heart feels at home.
“Hello, Emily.” God, just the sound of his deep, smooth voice melts me.
I can’t help my grin. “Hello, Jack.”
“Is it okay that I’m here?” he asks quietly.
We have a lot to talk through and figure out after how we left things the other night, but oddly, I’m glad this is how we’re seeing each other again for the first time. Hidden emotions inside my Treasure Chest of Doom scream that he belongs here with me and my family. That whatever conversation we have on the horizon, it’ll be okay. Because I can trust Jackson Bennett. Maybe I can even trust what we have together.
“I’m happy you’re here,” I say with gut-wrenching truthfulness.
Suddenly aware of eyes on me, I turn to see my entire family watching. But when my head aims in their direction, they each do some version of whistling and looking around into outer space.
“Okay, guys, they’re—Oh, hi!” says Amelia, the screen door snapping shut behind her. “Jack, right?”
“That’s me,” says Jack. “And you’re…” There’s a moment where he looks unsure of which name he should call her by. And I have to admit, I love seeing him flustered. Who knew Jackson Bennett could get starstruck?
“Amelia,” she supplies, carrying her tray of death-cakes to the table. “All my friends and family can call me by that name.”
“I’m honored for the privilege, then.” God…I love when he talks like Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Amelia approves too. She widens her eyes at me before she goes to the table. And now Jack is lowering himself into the chair beside me and I’m momentarily drugged off his scent. He smells fresh from the shower. Like a white bar of soap has recently glided over his taut, tan skin.
Amelia sets the tray of pancakes in the center of the table.
Noah grins. “James, I believe you get the honor of the first—”
“Jack should get the first pancake!” I fire out, making everyone jump from how loudly I blurt it. “He’s the guest, after all.” And yes, maybe it’s unfair, but suddenly I feel like putting him under a little test. A final quiz before I officially make up my mind about us.
Jack looks at me—calculating. He knows something is going on here, but still he says, “Sure, thank you.”
“Great!” Amelia beams. “Tell me how they are. I tried adding a little more sugar to this batch.”
Oh no, that’s never good.
The plate of pancakes gets passed around the table, and Jack seems to study everyone’s faces as it passes through their hands without anyone taking a pancake for themselves. But when the plate makes it to me, I don’t hand it to him. Instead, I serve him myself—forking pancakes onto his plate one by one.
After three pancakes, and when I’m loading up a fourth, he stops me. “That’s plenty, thank you.”
I blink innocently at him. “Oh. Sorry. Is that too many?” I slap a fourth on because no matter how close Jack and I are, I will always needle him. It’s our love language. “Syrup?”
“ Please, ” he says in a way that intentionally brings the memory of the last time that word was used between us to the front of my mind. His own brand of needling.
Once he notices everyone watching closely, and because Jack is Jack and has to try to charm the pants of everyone in attendance, he ventures into polite conversation while cutting into his pancakes. “James, your farm is incredible. Did you always want to take it over?”
James adjusts his dirt-stained Carhartt hat and sits forward, like he’s just turned on a big game and can’t miss a second of it. “We’re not in summer school, Mr. Bennett. We don’t do ice-breakers at this table. Let’s see you eat the damn pancakes.”
I stifle my laugh behind a napkin and Jackson just cuts his eyes to me.
With hesitation, and everyone staring a hole through his face, Jack cautiously lifts the fork and takes a bite. Only because I know him, I can read the minuscule hesitation, the spark of disgust in his eye that, to me, reads as plainly as words on a page: Oh god. What is this shit? But Jackson is a master, so in a blink, he’s chewing his way through that pancake like it’s the finest filet mignon. Judging by how much he’s having to chew, I’m betting that was one wild bite.
“So?” Amelia looks hopeful as she watches, and of course he can’t bring himself to let her down with honesty.
“Mmm.” He swallows, and Jackson should be a damn Emmy-nominated actor for the part he just sold us. “It’s… wow. ”
I’m going to perish from restraining my laughter so hard. Noah and James look like they’re in similar boats. They know there’s no way this shit is good.
“What’s your favorite thing about the pancake?” Amelia asks, endearingly hopeful.
Noah clears his throat and with a deadpan expression says, “I’m honestly dying to hear as well.”
Jack nods and effortlessly gives everyone else at the table a heads-up about what to expect. “Definitely the Tabasco sauce…that’s a unique touch.”
“Ah! You could taste it? I was trying to go for one of those sweet and spicy flavors like Madison is always doing with her recipes.” She then turns and slaps Noah’s bicep. “See. He likes them. Will you try it now?”
Noah grins at Amelia and wraps his arm around her shoulder to pull her into his side and kiss her temple. “I’m devoted to you in every way. But do I really have to eat that pancake?”
“Yes.”
He smiles tensely and makes a casual gimme gesture with his fingers in my direction. I send the plate back his way happily.
“Anyone else want one?” Amelia asks.
There’s a quick and furious mutter of no s and not me s. “Oh, come on! He liked them.”
Madison cackles. “And the poor man was clearly lying through his teeth judging by the way Emily was about to combust from laughing at him! No, thank you. We’ll wait and see on the next batch.”
Amelia looks like a puppy kicked out in the rain on a cold winter’s night, which is no doubt why Jackson raises his hand to get her attention. “Actually…I do like them. They’re different. I’ll take another if no one is going to have one.”
I have to grip my thighs, because something about the look on his face has my stomach clenching and swooping at the same time. Jack is giving everyone a dad look. He’s quietly reprimanding my siblings for not supporting Amelia—a job that is normally mine. And it’s going to make me cry.
Madison scrunches her nose. “No—actually. I do want one.”
“Me too,” says Will with a valiant attempt at a smile. “I’m not scared of Tobasco sauce.”
James narrows his eyes at Jack, disliking this new show of dominance in our family circle but seemingly respecting it all the same. “All right, dammit. I’ll take a pancake too.”
Amelia is beaming now even though she knows everyone was heavily influenced by Jack. And it’s hard not to let my voice betray my emotion as I finally ask for the plate to be sent my way too.
The conversation flows back to normal as plates of eggs and bacon and Madison’s breakfast quiche get passed around family style. But Jack’s eyes float in my direction, where I’ve been sitting here trying to choke back tears because…he fits perfectly here.
He nudges the side of my thigh with his knuckle. “Emily…I need you to know…I’m so sorry for pushing you the other night. I was…” He pauses. “I was worried about you, and I didn’t know what else to do because I could see you shutting me out and it terrified me. But I was wrong for not giving you space when you asked for it. For going back on my word of being okay with going slow…” He breathes out and shakes his head, turning more fully in my direction, seemingly unworried by the fact that anyone could be watching or listening. “You make me feel wild, Emily. I’ve never cared about anyone like I care for you. But I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for all of it, including trying to fix how you felt about that email.” He pauses. “If you’ll let me, I’ll figure out the right balance of taking care of you and pissing you off when you want me to.” His smile is promise. “I’m a quick learner. Whatever you want out of the relationship, I’m happy with that.”
Emotions clog my throat. “So you really do still…” I glance around the table to make sure no one is listening. “You still want me? Even after I pushed you away and then made you eat shitty pancakes?”
He looks at me like he’s genuinely confused. “Emily…when I told you I care for you, I mean it. It’s not that I care for some aspects of you, not that I care for you when you’re in a good mood…I care for you always. I want you, always. The good, the bad, and the in-between. I. Want. You. Sharp edges, hot tempered, fiercely protective, gooey heart…all of it. All of you. But I’m not going to rush you again or push you into anything you’re not ready for either. In the end, if all you want is friendship, I’ll take it.”
“I…” My breath is an earthquake. “I need to…” I don’t finish my sentence. I can’t because these tears that always seem to be hovering on the edges of my skin lately are about to break through.
I push back from the table and run to the kitchen.