CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Grayson
The moment had come. I’d just asked Ernie if I could speak to him alone and he’d brought me into Jovana’s old bedroom. Since his and his wife’s bedroom was the only other room, I assumed this space was less personal.
As soon as I stepped through the doorway, I wasn’t shocked to find more romance novels on the shelves across from her small twin bed. There were a few pictures of her and Sloane and some with her parents—most of those taken at the beach. I assumed it was Nantasket, the same one my dad had always brought me to. There was a corkboard where she’d pinned her achievements, along with multiple acceptance letters from colleges she must have applied to. All the way to the left was a letter from Tufts University. Followed by Boston University and Northeastern University. The last one was from Boston College.
Fuck them.
I hated that school for what their newspaper had published about me.
I was happy as hell she hadn’t gone there.
I shifted away from the board and checked out the few framed photographs on her walls that were of sites I wasn’t familiar with, but they were just like the ones that had hung in the bedroom of her apartment.
The biggest thing I noticed was that this room lacked character.
Warmth.
Color.
Things I now associated with Jovana.
Either this had been just a place for her to crash or Jovana hadn’t developed her own sense of style until after she had moved out.
I took a seat on the bed while Ernie positioned himself in the chair in front of her desk. My hands folded in my lap, my lips parted, waiting for the right thing to say, planning how to best approach this.
It didn’t matter how many times I’d rehearsed the words in my head or how I’d discussed it with the guys, which was supposed to help me lead up to this moment.
I’d forgotten everything—everything I’d planned to say, everything they’d coached me on.
And staring Ernie in the face, knowing the circumstances that surrounded Jovana and me, the revelations we’d recently had in our relationship, the contract that was still signed, the requirements that were necessary—those made it even harder.
My hands were sweating.
My feet were tapping the floor.
My heart was fucking racing.
“I have a feeling I know what this is about.” He made a noise that sounded like a half cough, half clearing of his throat.
Taken aback by his comment, I said, “You do?”
“I saw the way you were looking at my daughter and the way she looks at you. I’m no dummy. I know what comes next, and given that I was once your age and felt the same way about my Caroline, I can say I’ve been in your shoes.”
But he hadn’t really.
He saw signs, I could agree to that.
But did he see the fear?
The apprehension?
The fact that I had no choice but to marry his daughter?
“Ernie ...” I couldn’t sit in this man’s house and lie to him. I couldn’t look into his eyes and feed him bullshit. He deserved respect and I was going to give it to him. “You’re right. I asked to speak to you because I want to ask your permission to marry Jovana.”
“But?”
I felt my forehead wrinkle. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I feel a but coming. Am I wrong?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Explain yourself.”
My pulse was beating even faster.
This was when I was either going to make him understand or ruin any hope for a relationship.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for marriage—I know that sounds strange, given what I just asked you. I want to be with her. I want to take care of her. I want to promise her things I haven’t even thought of yet.”
He smiled, air slowly leaving his nose, whistling as it came out. “Like I said, I’ve been in your shoes.”
“You had doubts?”
“I was a lot younger than you when I proposed. Nineteen compared to, what, you’re around thirty, I’m guessing?”
I nodded.
“But I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen, and even though on paper I was still just a kid, in my head I was your age. I was having fun with the ladies. I was going out drinking with my boys. What I’m trying to say is that I was having a good ol’ time. I wasn’t looking for a woman, especially not a wife. I only knew how to take care of myself. I didn’t know how to take care of anyone else.” He scratched his forearm, the noise like Velcro as his fingers brushed over the hair. “At that time, I knew nothing about women—what they wanted, needed. What they were looking for. I just knew how to work and pay my bills and make just enough to score myself a twelve-pack on Friday nights.” He glanced out the window, the inside clean but the outside so dirty, I could barely see through it. “Did I want to bring a woman into that life? Shit, no. I wanted to keep doing my thing and having fun and not have to worry about anyone besides myself. And then I met my Caroline.”
His voice changed when he said her name.
His expression did too.
It softened him in a way that I hadn’t seen before.
“She changed everything?” I asked.
“Everything.” He twisted the gold band around his finger. “She wanted a family. She wanted to feel loved. She wanted a home. Things I didn’t know if I could provide.”
I pressed my thumbs together, stopping my hands from fidgeting. “Is that what you wanted?”
“It certainly wasn’t what I was looking for. No, sir, I was content with the way things were. But you know what I learned the second she paid for that bottle of Coke and walked out the door of that 7-Eleven? That once the glass door closed, I already missed her. And whether we’d be drinking cans of soda for the rest of our lives because there was going to have to be sacrifice—I couldn’t give her everything—it didn’t matter. I’d be better off with her than without her.”
My head dropped and I exhaled.
There was no question. Jovana Winters made me a better person.
She made me feel.
Want.
Need.
Desire.
Aspire.
“Let me tell you something, son. Something I learned within those three dates before I married Caroline was that we can give our heart and life to a woman and that doesn’t make us weak. It doesn’t make us feel weak either.” He lifted a photo off Jovana’s desk. It was of the three of them. He rubbed his hands over it. “We don’t lose ourselves in women. We find ourselves. And that’s what I did. I found myself in Caroline and she gave me my daughter—the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I glanced up, and that was when I saw the emotion in his eyes.
“We’ve had our ups. We’ve had plenty of downs. We’ve had to fight like hell. But you know what never changes, what stays the same, always?”
I saw the answer and whispered, “How much you love her.”
“Exactly.” He crossed his legs, hugging his hands around his knee. “I know you care about Jovana. I saw it when you walked in, and I see it right now.”
I swallowed, a rough, knot-like rock settling right in my throat. “I’ll never let anything happen to her.”
He nodded. “I know that too.”
Why did it feel like this conversation was pressing against my chest, like it weighed a million goddamn pounds?
“You know what else I know?”
I waited for his response, adjusting myself on the bed, feeling hot even though the room wasn’t.
“I know that you’ve already found yourself in my daughter. You just don’t know it yet. You will, though. Trust me.” I went to look away and he added, “Gray.” I locked eyes with him. “You have my permission to marry my little girl.”
“But?”
He chuckled. “Now we’re going to shift modes a bit and I’m going to tell you what happens if you hurt my baby.”