Chapter Thirty-Seven Jack
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jack
I’ve spent most of the day on the phone with Jonathan and Denis, coming up with an official announcement and rebuttal to my dad’s video. I sent them a brief email yesterday after Emily and I talked everything through and basically said: I’ve seen it, and I give you permission to go forth with epic plans to reveal the way it should have been done in the first place. Denis is like a kid in a candy shop. He’s been training his whole life for this moment.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when on our call earlier he informed me that I’d be flying out tomorrow for a GMA interview, have several other interviews throughout the day, and then finish up at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Apparently people were more excited to interview me than I imagined. I guess I’ve been able to compartmentalize my success before with the pseudonym. It was never mine. It was always Ranger’s. But now, overnight…it’s mine.
Emily keeps telling me to absorb it. To let my heart have it. But it’s difficult and going to take some getting used to.
“I never asked you…” she says from the driver’s seat of my SUV as we cruise down Main Street. She’ll always love her truck, but she said she wanted to give my snooty Land Rover a try today. I think she likes it, judging by how she keeps running her hand over the leather console. “Are you going to keep teaching? Now that the news is out?” She says it so upbeat and easygoing—but God, do I know this woman. I hear the slight constriction in her vocal cords. The tightness around her eyes as she smiles. She wants me to feel zero pressure from her while making this decision—but clearly she has strong feelings about it.
Lucky for her, I don’t have to keep her waiting on the answer. I’ve already turned this question over in my head a hundred different times and every way I consider it, the answer is the same. “I’m going to keep teaching.”
Her lips let out a nearly undetectable sigh. “Are you sure?”
“Some things are going to change for me. Like having to get used to doing interviews and book tours. But not that. I love teaching—and I feel lucky to be at a school that makes it easy to love. I’m not ready to give that up yet. Also without me the teachers would have to drink your shit coffee every day and I can’t do that to them.” She smacks the back of her hand playfully against my chest. “Besides, I think I’m one of those authors who need a day job. If all I did was focus on my writing, I’m pretty sure my creativity would shrivel up and die.”
She laughs. “Me too.” And then she seems to stop herself. “I mean…I’m in no way comparing myself to you. You’re miles ahead of me, and I can barely call myself an author. I just meant—”
I lay my hand on her thigh and squeeze. “Don’t backtrack. I love hearing you refer to yourself as an author. Because you are. One book or twenty—it doesn’t matter. You put words on paper and created a world that readers are not going to realize they even needed until after they read it and it fills something up in them. Always own that.”
“Actually, all of this has had me thinking…if I ever get this book deal—”
“Pen name or real name? The age-old question.”
The wind tosses her hair because she may have traded her old truck for my SUV today, but she’s still got the window down, refusing to use the AC. “I’m leaning toward a pen name since I’m going to be writing explicit content and still teaching second grade. But…I don’t think I want to be completely hidden like you were.”
“Somewhere in the middle? You can absolutely do that. Parents still might recognize you or find you on socials…but that wouldn’t be the worst.”
“Wait,” she says, glancing briefly at me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you how you came up with your pen name. Why Ranger?”
“Oh.” I was hoping she wouldn’t ask. “Well, the AJ part is just my first and middle name swapped. Jackson Alexander. And Ranger…” I grimace, knowing she’s going to eat this up. “Ranger was actually the name of the stuffed bear I slept with as a kid. He was the first comforting thing in my life, and so it felt right to give that name to the next comfort too. My books.”
She presses her hand dramatically to her heart like she’s just been stabbed. “That is so sweet it physically hurts.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, swatting her hand playfully away from her chest. “Back to you. Do you have a pen name in mind yet?”
“No.” She grins and looks at me from the side of her eye. “But you know what this means? I might eventually have to tell Bart about my book…after all we went through to keep it from him.”
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” I pick up her hand and kiss her knuckles. “It let me sneak into your heart when you weren’t expecting it. Plus, I’ll never regret buying you more time to reveal your book on your own terms when you want.”
Her smile is sad when she looks at me. “Jack…”
“No, no. Don’t give me that face. I’m good today. I’m feeling confident about my next steps.”
“Good.” She pulls into the community parking lot and cuts the engine. Taking a little hairbrush out of her purse, she smooths it through her hair, because even though she prefers the window down, she’s still Emily and doesn’t want a hair out of place. Before we get out, I can’t help but lean over and steal a kiss. She steals one right back.
I take her hand once we’re out of the SUV, and hand in hand we walk from the parking lot toward the flower shop. It’s surreal to look to my left and see a reflection of Emily in her cream linen summer dress and me in my bright-blue-and-green-striped knit tee, holding hands—two people the universe constantly threw together until we realized we were meant to be.
And today I get to go to my first family function with her as her boyfriend. It’s Will Griffin’s birthday and Annie is throwing him a surprise party in her shop. Except…
“Emily, this doesn’t look like a normal surprise party,” I say as we step inside.
There are warm string lights all over the place, and hundreds of magnolia flowers dotting every surface. It’s the most romantic surprise party I’ve ever seen.
Emily doesn’t have time to answer me because Annie pops up in front of us.
“Hi!” she says, giving Emily a kiss on the cheek and a quick hug to me. She’s wearing a floral sundress, and her hair is braided in one thick rope over one shoulder.
“You look so beautiful, Annie!” says Emily with misty tears in her eyes. “Do you need anything?”
“Nope. I’m good,” says Annie, looking at Emily with an expression so full of underlying meaning it makes my chest ache. Emily feels it too because I can see her throat working to keep her tears back.
Annie lightly pushes Emily’s shoulder. “Now get back there with everyone else and be quiet!”
“Okay, we’re going! Just let me know if you need—”
“EMILY! GO!”
Laughing, I take Emily’s hand and pull her toward the back of the store, where I see Amelia’s head peeking out from the storeroom.
And suddenly, it all clicks. “This isn’t actually a surprise party, isit?”
Emily smiles with her lips closed and shakes her head side to side. We just barely make it into the back and greet Noah, Amelia, James, and Mabel (and Madison through FaceTime on Amelia’s phone) before the front door is jingling open.
Will’s voice fills the space. “Anna-banana, are you—” His voice stops. Emily is vibrating with energy beside me. She can’t take it anymore and peeks out from behind the curtain separating the main space from the storeroom. Everyone else quickly does the same and I imagine we must look like six floating heads stacked on top of each other this way.
But there he is—Will, with his butterfly tattoo that I’m incredibly jealous of, is standing at the entrance of the shop, surrounded by magnolia flowers and faced with Annie Walker, down on one knee. She begins with “Wilbur, William, Wilton, Griffin…I am so deeply in love with you….” And the man is all flexing jaws, misty eyes, and a bobbing throat as the love of his life proposes to him.
“You’ve asked me a few times already, but my answer was always not yet, ” Annie says, taking his butterfly hand. “But now, I’ve never been more ready in my life. Will…would you pretty please with sugar on top marry me?”
He has her off the floor in less than a second, sweeping her into his arms, tears racing down his cheeks and kissing the daylights out of her. We wait until he pulls away just enough to mutter, “ Yes, Annie. A million times, yes. I would love to marry you.”
We all shout and whoop and rush out of the storeroom. Amelia and Emily are nearly tackling Annie and Will to the ground with hugs. He doesn’t give a shit about them, though. He continues kissing Annie like this is his sole purpose in life.
And later, once we’ve celebrated at the flower shop for a while, we move to Hank’s to keep it going. The bar is much less crowded than it was the last time I was here, so we commandeer a few tables and push them together. Everyone is gathered around, loose-limbed, laughing, and looking so content together. And I get to be part of it.
While Noah and James tell me they heard about Ranger and congratulate me on my success (something I’m going to have to get a lot better about receiving), Emily goes up to the bar. I’m trying to focus on the conversation with the guys, but how can I when a woman like Emily exists and is leaning over the bar top? Impossible. I want to take her home right now.
She walks back a few minutes later with her red-tipped nails wrapped around two ginger beers, bangs curling up from the humidity, and long legs extending out from her short dress, making me absolutely eat my heart out. She kisses me, and I tell her again that I love her—because I’m not sure I can say it enough—and then she takes the seat beside me. I grab the chair leg and tug her even closer.
With my arm around her shoulder and her hand on my leg, we sit back and savor the night. After a while when her elbows have moved to the table and our stomachs hurt from laughter, Emily glances over her shoulder at me, a smile lingering on her lips from something Noah said. When she catches me watching her, she leans back in her chair, winding her arm around my shoulder and threading her fingers through the back of my hair.
“What’s that look for?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I kiss her cheek.
Just deciding I’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure I get to spend the rest of my life with this woman.