Chapter 39
ZACH
Dinner at Jesse and Jacqueline’s house just outside the city limits was still weird for me. They’d been married for a few months now, but as I sat at their dining table and listened to them argue like an old married couple, it really sank in for me that this was it for them.
They were deliriously happy, even while arguing about whether Hubert, their dog, was emotionally manipulative or simply misunderstood.
It was crazy, but even Jesse, who’d been the loosest of cannons once upon a time, had left behind his crazy parties and jet-setting lifestyle in favor of settling down with the woman he loved.
Jacque had knocked him straight off his feet the very first moment he’d seen her. He’d been like a dog with a bone—or a limp, apparently.
“He fake limps when you’re holding the food,” Jacqueline said, clearly exasperated. “It’s because you’re spoiling him so much.”
“That’s not manipulation,” Jesse argued. “It’s a survival instinct.”
“The vet said there was nothing wrong with him.”
“The vet is a judgmental asshole who’s never suffered the kind of trauma Hubert did. I thought you loved Hubie. I stole him back from the other side of the world for you. Why are you fighting me on this?”
“I’m not,” she argued. “All I’m saying is that you need to learn how to set boundaries with him.”
I snorted into my drink. “That seems to be a problem with the men in our family, setting boundaries with things that are smaller and cuter than us.”
Jesse’s phone started ringing on the table and he glanced at it.
“It’s Alex. I should probably take it. Stand up for us, Zach.
Tell my gorgeous wife, who I adore more than anything in the world, that Westwood men can’t be blamed for our predisposition to be overly caring.
” He swiped his thumb across the screen and picked up the call.
“What’s up, Alex? You should know that you’re interrupting a very important argument. ”
Jacque rolled her eyes and turned to me. “You shouldn’t side with him. He’s turning the poor, perfect dog into a spoiled brat.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the expression taking shape on Jesse’s face as he listened to whatever Alex was saying stopped me dead in my tracks. Jacque must’ve noticed it too. Her brow furrowed right along with his, her spine straightening as she sat up a little more.
“Are you sure?” Jesse asked. “Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah, no, Zach is here. I’ll let him know.”
My stomach tightened, but then he laughed, relief evidently slamming into place and relaxing his entire being. “Oh, thank God. Okay. That’s awesome, man. How is she?”
Jacqueline’s eyes widened. “Did Charlotte have the baby?”
Jesse’s gaze flicked to hers and he nodded, grinning like a loon as he listened to Alex. “Another boy? That’s not really much of a surprise, is it?”
Although relief and joy were fighting for dominance deep within my own soul, I still groaned and shook my head. “The Westwood Y chromosome is becoming a real public menace.”
“So far, Charlotte and Emma are carrying the entire female bloodline on their backs,” Jesse said to us and to Alex. “I feel sorry for Emma. If no reinforcements are born soon, she’s going to have a hell of a time, keeping all the boy cousins in line.”
“She’s a tiny queen,” Jacque said solemnly. “She’ll be fine. She’ll rule over them with an iron fist. I’m willing to bet on it.”
I smiled as Jesse started relaying updates from Alex, but I also felt a fresh pang of regret over my situation with Adeline. How is she so worried about boys when that’s all we’ve got? Why does she even think it’d matter to me? To Louis, fine, it mattered, but this is me.
“Charlotte and the baby are both healthy,” Jesse said. “Apparently, Trent is crying more than the newborn, but it sounds like they’re tears of happiness. Probably. Yeah, okay. I hear you. Definitely.”
A few minutes later, he finally hung up the phone, looking smug but happy. “You know, I didn’t realize how stressed I was about her until right now, but our little sister is a mom. Can you believe that?”
I shook my head. “I really can’t. At all.”
“What’s the baby’s name?” Jacque asked.
Jesse winced. “You’re going to hate it.”
“That means it’s another Tiberius.” She sighed. “It’s another Tiberius, isn’t it?”
“It’s another Tiberius,” he confirmed. “Sorry, baby.”
She dropped her head into her hands. “Why must your family be like this?”
“Tradition,” Jesse said proudly. “To be fair, though, this was probably Trent’s family, not ours.”
She lifted her head back up for the sole purpose of rolling her eyes at him. “That doesn’t make it sound any less like he emerged from the womb already owing taxes to the Roman Empire.”
I laughed into my whiskey, though my mind was still drifting around Adeline and her girls as Jesse groaned. “If it makes you feel any better, they’re calling him Tyler for short, not Tiberius.”
“Thank God,” Jacque muttered.
Jesse chuckled. “Yeah. Alex wants to know if we’re going to be flying out to Texas to go meet him. He and Jane are trying to rearrange their schedules to go.”
“We should too,” Jacque said thoughtfully. “Charlotte’s going to be exhausted. Let’s try for next weekend?”
Their conversation turned to logistics and I tried to listen, but as I watched Jesse reach for Jacque’s hand across the table so naturally that it was almost like he wasn’t even aware of it, that familiar ache started up in my chest again.
I hadn’t expected to miss Jennifer and Lu as much as I did. I hadn’t expected to become attached to them at all, actually.
“What do you think our baby is going to be?” Jesse asked, yanking me straight out of my thoughts and sending me crash-landing right back into their dining room. “Yet another boy, or the unicorn of the Westwood family, a girl?”
My eyes narrowed slowly. Hold on. Just hold on one fucking second. “Oh my God. You’re pregnant?”
Jacqueline burst out laughing, covering her face with both hands. “He could’ve been talking hypothetically.”
“He’s not,” I said confidently. “You’ve both been acting weird for weeks. Jesse’s been way too happy, dishing out advice, and being oddly Zen, and he nearly tackled me when I offered you whiskey earlier. Also, you’re drinking sparkling water. I know that’s not champagne in your flute.”
“I told you he’d figure it out,” Jesse muttered but tightened his grip on her hand. “Especially the sparkling water thing. That’s a dead giveaway, baby.”
Jacque lowered her free hand to her still flat stomach. “It’s early, so we haven’t told anyone yet.”
All the heaviness in my chest evaporated as I glanced between them, genuinely, overwhelmingly happy for them.
“Congratulations,” I said, then stood up to hug Jacqueline before clapping Jesse hard on the shoulder. “This is awesome news. Seriously.”
Unfortunately, happiness wasn’t the only thing I felt. Jealousy also hit me so hard, it nearly knocked me on my ass, but it wasn’t about the baby. Well, it wasn’t only about the baby. It was more about the fact that they’d conceived one together at all.
Alex’s words in his office the other day came flying back into my head, how he’d said that he’d never regretted fighting for Jane and neither had any of my brothers when they’d had to fight for their wives—and they’d all had to fight at some point. For one reason or another.
Jesse had taken one look at Jacque and fallen in love with her, and now here he was, building a life with her. God, he’d thought they were related at one point and he still hadn’t given up.
Meanwhile, I’d spent eight years orbiting around the ghost of a girl I’d never stopped loving, convincing myself it was noble to suffer quietly instead of actually doing something about it.
Theo would have a field day with that realization. Hell, Alex probably would too.
My brothers had fought tooth and nail for their respective wives and I’d just been sitting around, waiting for something I wouldn’t have until I just… took it. Fuck, I probably only have to actually say it.
I pushed back from the table so abruptly that Jesse jumped. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I answered honestly as I grabbed my keys. “I think I know how to fix it, though. Seriously, congratulations, but I have to go.”
Jacqueline smiled like she knew exactly where I was headed and Jesse pointed at me with his beer bottle. “If you chicken out again, I’m telling Adeline you cried during—”
I was already out the door before he could even finish the sentence.
My pulse was hammering so hard by the time I reached Adeline’s building that any cardiologist would have a stroke.
Frankly, I didn’t even really know how I’d gotten here, feeling a little delirious as I raced up the stairs to her apartment and started banging on the door.
It opened a moment later and Adeline stared at me in obvious shock, blinking much too hard and much too rapidly. Her strawberry-gold hair was down and slightly messy, like she’d been lying on the couch, and she had on leggings and an oversized sweater that shouldn’t have been sexy but really was.
“Zach?” she finally asked. “What are you doing here?”
When I realized that I’d been able to hear her despite the fact that she’d spoken in a hushed, shocked, almost whisper, I frowned and looked past her.
The TV was off, no demon hunters kicking ass on the screen.
There was no K-Pop blaring and no arguing, singing, or obvious sounds of dancing emanating from deeper inside the condo.
“Zach?” she repeated. “Are you okay?”
For the first time in my life, I understood why people in movies so often declared their love in the rain like absolute lunatics. Rational thought clearly left the body in these situations.
“I was nearby,” I said, and it was probably the dumbest sentence ever spoken in the history of mankind considering I lived nowhere near here. “I thought I’d pop in.”
“You look a little…” She trailed off, her gaze sweeping across my face with curiosity burning in her eyes, but then she stepped aside and swung the door open a little wider. “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes.” I didn’t even try to sugarcoat it, stepping past her and looking around while she shut the door and locked it behind us. “Where are the tiny terrors?”
“Amber took them camping this weekend.” Adeline slid her hands into the large pocket on the front of her sweater and tilted her head at me. “They’ve been a little down recently, so we’re hoping the trip is a bit of a pick-me-up.”
“A camping trip?” I repeated lamely. “The only thing people pick up from those are mosquito bites.”
“She brought industrial-grade bug spray and enough snacks to survive the collapse of modern society,” she said on a slight smile. “Kids love camping, so there’s a possibility it’ll lift their spirits.”
“Right.”
Her smile faded as she drifted past me further into the condo, her eyes never leaving mine. “So, uh, what are you really doing here? I know you weren’t just in the neighborhood.”
She leaned against the kitchen counter, studying me as I tried to come up with a grand, romantic speech. What came out instead was, “So Amber took the girls camping to try to make them happy, but are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Happy.”
When her eyebrows swept up, I could’ve kicked myself. I didn’t even know why I’d asked. Obviously, I wanted her to be happy. I would never wish for her not to be, but I also didn’t really want her to be happy without me, and I doubted she was happy but not because of me.
God, my brain has officially left the building.
Adeline didn’t question me, though. Instead, she just looked down at the floor for a long moment before slowly lifting her gaze back to mine.
“I was happy,” she said quietly. “For a minute there. Back in Wisconsin.”
Hearing her admit it stole the air from my lungs and the uncertainty from my chest. “Me too.”
After that, we just stared at each other for a few seconds, even the mountain of history between us suddenly seeming less important under the weight of the look we were sharing.
I honestly couldn’t tell who moved first, but the space between us disappeared in record time and we crashed together out of nowhere, her hands gripping my shoulders while I kissed her like I’d been starving for it.
Frankly, I had been and I was so fucking sick of pretending otherwise. Maybe my brothers had been right and it really was time to just sit down and talk to her, but not right now. Right now, I just wanted to keep kissing her for at least a little while longer.