Now #2
As I go down the steps, I realize just how much I can still feel him between my legs.
I haven’t felt this sore in a very long time.
Well, since I left him, actually. But with all these years apart, I’ve lost my touch, and something tells me I’ll still feel the aftermath of his powerful ramming in two days.
I’ve barely gotten the food out of the fridge when he joins me, wearing only the boxer briefs I threw at him. That man is so ridiculously fine … How did I ever muster the strength to leave him?
“Take a picture, princess. It’ll last longer,” he cockily says, noticing my stare.
“I was just wondering how a pro athlete can let himself go like this.”
The teasing earns me a sneaky pinch on the ribs, and when I try to get away with a squeal, he grabs my hips and keeps me close.
I melt into his powerful torso as he lays a kiss on my neck, releasing a contented sigh. It probably isn’t a good idea to allow myself to enjoy his touch so much, but I’m high on endorphins thanks to him, and I fear it’s too late to be reasonable.
“Mmm … You smell good,” he appreciatively rasps.
“I reek of sex.”
“Exactly. You smell the same as you used to.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts. I’m hopping in the shower as soon as we’re done eating.”
“Then I’ll work on making you all sweaty again.”
With a giggle, I rip myself away from him and open the food containers. Jax grabs a cold falafel and chucks it into his mouth. “Wait until it’s been in the air fryer at least, you animal.”
“I’m too hungry to care. I skipped dinner. And I don’t know what my mom was cooking, but it smelled great.”
“Oh, you were at your parents’ house?”
“Yeah. Fuck, I should probably call them. After my lawyer told me, I crashed out and left without an explanation.”
I wince, sorry that the filing of our divorce affected him that much.
As I put some things in the air fryer, Jackson goes upstairs and returns with his phone. “Shit, they’ve been trying to reach me the whole evening,” he explains before dialing someone and bringing the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Mom,” he says after a few seconds. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. No, I’m all good. I know, sorry.” He looks up at me while she says something, then answers, “No, I don’t think I’m coming home tonight. I’m with Evie right now. At her place.”
Oh crap. Now his mother will get her hopes up as well …
“Mom says hi,” he tells me. “What? Oh, she wants to talk to you, actually.”
I shake my head, definitely not ready for this. But Jax ignores my reluctance and shoves the phone into my hand. “I need to take a piss,” he mouths. Without another word, he heads back upstairs to use the only bathroom he knows of.
A little panicked, I bring the phone to my ear. “Hey, Jada.”
“Evie, sweetie! It’s so good to hear your voice again.”
“Uh, yours too. How—how have you and Mitchell been?”
“Oh, we’re good. Jackson bought us a nice house in Denver.”
“I know, he told me.”
“You’ll have to come visit us one of these days. You’ll see, it’s so much bigger than the old one.”
I mask my discomfort behind an awkward laugh. “We’ll see.”
“Listen, sweetie, I know things were rough at the end. But I’m so happy y’all found a way to make it work again.”
“Oh, Jada, no. We’re not—we’re not getting back together.”
“You ain’t?”
“No. I’m sorry if you were under that impression, but … I can’t do all that with your son again.”
The pause that follows is so long that I check the phone to make sure we weren’t cut. “Does he know that?” she aptly asks.
“I’m not sure. I—I don’t think so.”
Another few beats pass before she sighs and says, “You know, he was never the same after you left him.”
I close my eyes, focusing on not letting my emotions overwhelm me. “I couldn’t stay, Jada. I had to leave.”
“I know it was hard, sweetie. And you’re scared it’ll be just as hard now. But no matter what they say, people can change. I watched my son change in the years after the separation. He isn’t the boy he used to be anymore. And the man he has become would never make the mistakes he did back then.”
I don’t know what to answer, so I don’t.
“You were his entire world, Evie,” she continues.
My throat is tight with emotions, but I do my best to sound normal as I answer, “Me and racing.”
“No. Racing was his dream, you were everything else.”
“Did he know that?”
“He did, sweetie. And I’m so sorry he was bad at showing it.
But he would call me when he was doubting himself.
He would tell me how hard it was, how he wanted to quit everything and come back home.
But he used to say, ‘I gotta do this for her, Mama. I promised her, so I can’t give up. Not when we’re so close.’”
A tear spills over to roll down my cheek, and I quickly wipe it away.
“I loved your son so much, Jada. I loved him with all my heart, and you know that. But it got to the point where I had to choose between my love for him and my own survival. And for once, for the first time in our entire relationship, I chose myself.”
She must hear how much the admission hurts me, because she doesn’t argue. Instead, she gently says, “I understand, sweetie.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m so sorry you two couldn’t make it work. And I’m so sorry it ended the way it did.”
“Me too.”
“But you know you’re still welcome to come visit us, right? Mitch and I love you like our own daughter. And we’ve been missing you a lot, Evie.”
Her kind words bring a smile to my lips. “I’d love to come visit, yes.”
“Good. Let me know when, and I’ll make that oxtail stew you used to love so much.”
“With cornbread?”
“And even my famous pecan pie, if you want.”
“I’ll come for lunch tomorrow if you don’t stop sweetening the deal.”
“We’ll have you any day of the week, Evie. Just let us know when.”
Jackson’s bare footsteps down the stairs distract me. “I will. Jax is back, I’m handing him the phone again.”
“Alright. It was nice talking to you.”
“You too. Goodbye, Jada.”
“Bye, Evie.”
I give his phone back to Jackson and then turn to the air fryer, hoping he didn’t notice the redness of my eyes. He talks with her for a couple more minutes, pacing around in my living room, then hangs up and returns.
Apparently feeling very comfortable in my kitchen, he randomly opens a few cupboards until he finds the one with the glasses.
He takes out the two biggest ones he can find, fills them up at the tap, and comes to offer me one.
I take a few sips of mine while he empties his, and we then stare at each other from opposite sides of the kitchen, leaning on the counters.
“Are you doing anything this summer?” he casually wonders.
“Yeah. I usually take a couple of weeks off by myself. And all my projects are in between phases right now, so I might even get more than that.”
“What’s your favorite project at the moment?”
“It’s for a friend, actually. She owns a daycare center, and we’ve been working on improving the space for the kids.”
“How is that going?” he wonders with a crooked smirk.
“You’d be surprised at how many precautions have to be taken. Toddlers have a dangerous balance of no survival instinct and chaotic creativity. Keeping one alive is already a challenge, so imagine forty of them …”
“Yet it’s your favorite project.”
“Yeah, I get to hang out there a lot. Kids at that age are adorable.”
“You were always great with children. I remember your babysitting days … All the parents wanted your services.”
“Well, I still got it.”
He chuckles but quickly turns pensive. “You would have made a great mom, Evie.”
Now it’s my smile that dissipates, flooded by a surge of painful memories. The sting in my heart is all too familiar, and having him here with me makes it a little worse, I think. A question burns on the tip of my tongue, one I’ve been holding back since our reunion.
I know I shouldn’t, but I still ask, “Do you ever think about—”
“All the time,” he answers, already knowing exactly what I was going to ask. “Not a single day goes by that she isn’t on my mind, Evie.”
I nod, eyes on the floor between us. “Same for me. Every single day.”
He pushes himself away from the counter and walks up to me. His big, strong hands rise to frame my face, and he gently pulls me up, forcing me to meet his eyes. The pain I’m feeling is right there in his mismatched gaze, laced in the emotions I can read in it.
When he lowers for a kiss, it’s tender, sweet, and soothing. Nothing like the kisses we’ve exchanged so far this evening. My heart feels slightly lighter when he pulls away. Still cradling my face, he brushes his thumbs over my cheekbones.
“Come to Monaco with me,” he murmurs.
Surprise throws me completely out of the tenderness of the moment. “What?”
“Come back with me to Europe. We’ll celebrate your birthday together, I’ll spoil you the whole time, you’ll watch me race … It’ll be like the honeymoon we never got.”
“I’m pretty sure honeymoons become void after a divorce gets filed.”