Book 25 Resilience After Dark #7
“Johnny,” she says, “we love you. We always will. I haven’t a doubt in my mind about that. Just do it. Get it over with once and for all so you can get on with living your best life.”
He pulls his phone from his back pocket and stares at the screen for a second before he finds their family group chat and begins typing as Cindy reads over his shoulder.
Talked to Mom tonight, and Cindy says I have to tell the rest of you what Mom already knew when I talked to her earlier… So, I’m gay. That’s all I wanted to say. Love you guys. Hope you still love me. Johnny
“What do you think?” he asks Cindy.
“It’s perfect. Send it. Be done with it.”
John takes a deep breath and holds it as he presses Send on the message.
Julia responds first. So what else is new? Have known that for years. Glad you’re doing you, boo. Love you always.
John tears up reading Julia’s message.
How did I miss this? Owen responds. No matter, good for you, love you.
Katie: Love you so much, Johnny.
Jeff: Duh. Carry on, bro.
Josh: I’m with you, O. Didn’t know, but whatever. Love you, J.
“There,” Cindy says. “All good just like I told you it would be.” She puts her arm around John and brings his head to her shoulder.
After the bar closes, Cindy waits for Jace to finish up so they can walk home together.
He mentions how cute she and John were with their heads together.
She tells him how John came out to their family tonight, so she was supporting him.
They talk about her father and how he took a plea deal in his case so people outside the family wouldn’t testify. She apologizes for going on about it.
“Don’t be sorry. I want to hear whatever you want to tell me, but I hate that you and your family went through that with him.”
Cindy shrugs. “It happened. We survived it, and we’re all doing well now. That’s what matters.”
Jace shuts off the lights over the bar and comes around to where she’s still seated on one of the stools, with only the light from outside illuminating them. He turns her stool toward him and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s not all that matters.”
Cindy’s mouth has gone dry. “What else matters?”
“You do. You matter. What you endured growing up… It’s made you strong and resilient, but you still hurt on the inside, don’t you?”
His insight startles her almost as much as his nearness does. “Most of the time, I’m okay, but yeah, it’s always there.”
“Yeah, it is. I think of my final minutes with Jess every day. It’ll never stop hurting.”
“I hurt a little less when you’re around,” she confesses, looking up at him as she says the words without taking even a second to consider whether she should.
“Likewise,” he whispers in the second before his lips meet hers in a soft, sweet, undemanding kiss that will go down as one of the most perfect moments of her entire life. He cups her face and strokes her cheek as he kisses her.
Still seated on the chair, Cindy strains to get closer.
Jace puts his arms around her and lifts her right off her seat and into his embrace.
This, she thinks in a second of complete clarity, is why I was born. He is why I was born. If a friend had told her that’s what they thought the first time a guy kissed them, Cindy would have laughed at them for being dramatic.
But it doesn’t feel dramatic to her. It simply feels true.
She loops her arms around his neck and opens her mouth to his tongue, which brushes against hers in a suggestive rhythm that immediately has her trying to get even closer.
His arms are like a vise around her, keeping her trapped against him as he kisses her until she’s breathless from wanting more of him.
Best. First. Kiss. Ever.
When they get home, Jace feels uncertain about how to pick up where they left off in the bar. Until Cindy turns to him, drops her purse on the floor and puts her arms around his neck.
“Okay, then,” he says, smiling.
“Are we going to pretend that we don’t want to continue the conversation from the bar?”
He places his hands on her hips and smiles down at her gorgeous face. “I’m not pretending.”
“Neither am I.”
“And this is what you want? I’m what you want, even with everything you know about me?” he asks.
“You’re what I want because of what I know about you.”
“I’m not sure I deserve you,” he whispers against her lips.
“Yes, you do. You deserve me, and I deserve you, and we both deserve to be happy.”
“How happy are we gonna get?”
“I think we’re going to be very, very happy.”
Smiling, he kisses her with the abandon he wasn’t able to surrender to while at the Beachcomber.
They end up in Cindy’s bed and make love.
Jace is up early the next morning to attend his meeting.
It’s Cindy’s day off, but he brought her coffee and told her how amazing their night together was.
They decide to go to the beach after she cuts her niece and nephews’ hair and before he goes to work.
Cindy invites her sisters over to discuss her night with Jace.
Katie and Julia are still at the house when Jace arrives. He wonders aloud if he’s the subject of their conversation.
“Your name might’ve come up,” Julia says.
“Once or twice,” Katie adds.
“They were just leaving,” Cindy says, giving them a “get the hell out of my house” look that makes her sisters laugh.
“Why, do you have something—or someone—you need to do, Cin?”
Jace chokes on his coffee.
“Get. Out. Now.”
“You bring a girl a muffin, and this is the thanks you get,” Julia says. “Jace, it was great to see you. I hope we’ll be seeing lots of you, and if you’re anything other than sweet and kind to our baby sister, we will kill you.”
“Julia!” Cindy glances at Jace. “Don’t listen to her.”
“Yes, listen to her,” Katie says. “She means it, and she’s speaking for both of us. Well, all of us.”
Jace extends a hand to Cindy. “You ladies—and your sister—have nothing to worry about where I’m concerned.”
With knees gone weak from the way he looks at her, she takes his hand.
“I want only the best of everything for her,” Jace adds, his gaze set on her face, which instantly heats.
“Well, I’d say we’re not needed here, Jules,” Katie says, taking Julia by the arm to lead her out as Pupwell trots along behind them.
Soon after the girls leave, Jace’s phone rings with a call from Seamus.
He tells Jace the boys are okay, but they need to talk.
He asks Jace to meet him at his office. Cindy offers to go with him, but he sends her on to the Surf to meet Laura, Owen and the kids for their haircuts. He’ll meet her back at the house later.
Jace arrives at the ferry landing office, where Seamus and Carolina are waiting for him, looking troubled.
They were going through Lisa’s belongings when Jackson snuck up on them and saw a picture of Jace and Lisa. He has questions about how Jace knew his mom. They think it’s time to tell the boys the truth about who he is. Jace wants them to know the whole story.
“You’re sure about that, mate?” Seamus asks.
“No, I’m not sure of anything except I love them and want the best of everything for them.”
They decide the boys should be told right away, and since Jace has to work later, Seamus and Carolina leave to pick up the boys.
They plan to meet at the house in thirty minutes.
Jace, feeling out of sorts about telling the boys his story, texts Mallory, asking if she can talk.
Mallory calls him right away. He fills her in and says he’s trying not to freak out.
She makes sure he isn’t looking to use drugs again, and once she knows he’s okay in that regard, she advises him to keep the truth simple, reminding him that the boys are still so young.
She also reiterates that he’s a good man, and the boys will recognize that he’s turned his life around and respect him for that.
He texts Cindy that he won’t make it back home before work, so she doesn’t worry. He’ll catch her up later on what’s going on.
Cindy receives his text as she walks to the Sand and Surf to see Laura and Owen. She worries he is hiding something. But that inner voice telling her to believe the worst always sounds like her father. She refuses to let Mark Lawry have a say in anything she does or who she likes.
“Why are you looking so stormy, Cin?” Owen asks as he comes down the stairs from the hotel to the sidewalk.
“I’m thinking about things—and people—who are best forgotten.”
“Yeah, don’t do that.” Owen hugs her. “Too many better things to think about these days, for all of us.”
She goes upstairs to see the kids. They spend forty-five minutes wrestling the three toddlers, so Cindy can cut their hair.
When they’re finished, the kids are full of energy while the adults are wiped out.
Cindy cuts Owen’s hair next, but he tells her to keep it longer.
“Take more,” Laura says from the sofa. “So it lasts longer.”
“No more,” Owen says. “She’s trying to fully domesticate me, and it’s not going to work.”
“I hate to tell you, brother, but you’re already fully domesticated.”
“I’m hanging on to my shaggy hair with everything I’ve got,” Owen replies.
“But you’re so hot and sexy when it’s short,” Laura says suggestively.
“Maybe a little more wouldn’t hurt anything,” Owen says with a dopey grin for his wife.
Cindy laughs. “You two are so cute. What’s the secret to keeping it going after being together a while?” That’s where things usually fell apart for her. She tends to lose interest after the initial glow wears off and reality sets in.
“We laugh every day,” Laura says.
“Mostly it’s her laughing at me, but it’s still laughter,” Owen says.
“And sex,” Laura says. “We have a lot of sex.”
“Children!” Sarah, who has joined them, places her hands over her ears. “There are parents present!”
Laura laughs at the face Sarah makes. “Oh, please, like you’re not getting busy on the regular over there in your love shack.”
“Do something about your wife, son,” Sarah says, her face bright red.
“She’s incorrigible,” Owen says, “and I wouldn’t have her any other way.”