31. Jason
31
JASON
“ H ey,” Mel said as she walked in the door and toed her sneakers off. Her voice was flat like a plateau. Monotone and robotic.
She started peeling off her scrubs piece by piece as she made her way to the washing machine.
I sat back on the couch, knees spread wide, and stared as she padded through the apartment in her skimpy little panties and sports bra.
The edges of her light blue underwear showed off the bottom of her ass cheeks as she bent over and dumped her scrubs into the machine.
Fuck. I loved her body. The curve of her strong calves. The lines of muscle on her thighs. And that ass… Damn, that ass.
“How was work?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Fine.”
The last thing a woman was when she said she “was fine” was fine.
“C’mere. ”
“I’m gross, Jase. I need to shower.”
“Come here.” I wasn’t asking.
She huffed and popped her hand out on her hip. “Jase—It’s been a day. I need to decompress.”
I pushed off the couch and stalked toward her. She backed away. “Decompress with me.”
The moment I touched her hips, she reared back like a wildcat ready to go on the offensive. “I just?—”
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into my chest.
Mel struggled, arguing and thrashing to get out of my arms, but I held her tight until the fight fizzled out of her. Finally, she slumped into my chest and closed her eyes.
“Good girl.” I gathered her braids in my hand and firmly tugged her head back, forcing her to look up at me.
I leaned in and kissed her. Mel’s lips tasted like cherry ChapStick, so I went back for seconds, sliding my tongue down the pouty line that split her lower lip into two plump pillows.
“Now. How was work?”
“Fine.”
I leaned down and grazed my lips against her earlobe. “Do I need to spank a truthful answer out of you?”
Her lips parted, breath quickening.
“I can tell when something’s bothering you,” I said, prodding again. “Whatever it is, it’s not gonna scare me away.”
She closed her eyes and rested her temple on my chest. “Shower with me?”
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, humming, “Mmkay.”
I took her hand and led her to the shower. After turning the water straight to lava, just the way she liked it, I peeled my t-shirt and shorts off.
I stood in front of her in my boxers and pulled her panties down. I hooked my thumb under the tight elastic band at the bottom of her bra and stole a swipe of her nipple with my thumb. It was already pebbled like she had been waiting for me to touch her.
“Arms up.”
She did as she was told and raised her arms, allowing me to slide her bra off. Steam billowed around us as I stepped out of my boxers. She didn’t seem like she was in the mood to talk about whatever had happened at the hospital.
I decided not to push it as long as she wasn’t pushing me away.
There was a kinship she had with Steve and Chase. The three of them saw the worst of humanity on a regular basis. I’d had my fair share of that in war zones, but there was something different when it happened in your own backyard. It hit a little harder.
There were some days when you had seen too much. Mel looked like she’d had one of those days.
I grabbed her shower cap from a hook by the sink. I did what I’d watched her do a few times and gathered her braids in my hand, then tucked them underneath the cap.
“Careful,” I said as I stepped into the shower and took her hand. “Watch your step.”
Mel still had her toes painted from Hannah Jane’s wedding. The way they wiggled as she tested the water was so fucking cute.
I soaped up a loofah until foamy bubbles had it puffed up like a cloud. Slowly, I worked gentle circles all over her body. “How’s that feel?” I murmured as I ran it over her breasts, down the line of her abs, to her pussy.
“Good,” she whispered, bracing her palms against my chest. With her eyes closed, it gave me a chance to study her without her pitching a fit about it.
The corners of her mouth, her eyes, and brows were all turned down. Bowing under the weight of responsibility .
Melissa Jacobsen shouldn’t be bowing to anything. She was a goddamn force of nature.
I turned her away from me and scrubbed her back. When bubbles covered every inch of her, I dropped the loofah and massaged her shoulders.
She fucking melted, groaning as I worked the knots on her shoulders.
I let her have the hot water and suffered through feeling as cold as a polar bear’s nuts. But damn if I wasn’t going to make my girl feel good.
I grabbed the shower head, pulling it out of the cradle.
Mel once made a joke about how she had to replace the original shower head with the handheld kind because she was so short. It was about to come in handy.
“Turn around and spread your legs,” I said as I washed the soap from her body. Droplets of water glimmered off her skin like stars in the night sky. Ethereal.
I moved the shower head between her legs as the sides of her feet hit the edge of the tub. With my free hand, I cupped the back of her neck and pressed my thumb to the spot where her pulse thrummed. I drank in her mouth, sliding my tongue against the seam of her lips until she let me in.
Mel moaned into my mouth as I let the streams of warm water from the shower head massage her clit. She braced her hands on my waist, holding on for dear life as her knees quaked.
“I want you to come for me,” I murmured into her mouth before sliding my tongue beside hers.
Her lips parted, breath stalling. A strangled sound escaped her mouth as her brows drew in. Her fingers curled into my skin as the orgasm washed over her.
For a moment, she stood paralyzed. Then—slowly—she wrapped her arms around my waist and rested her cheek on my chest. I dropped the shower head, letting it thrash around the bottom of the tub like a python, and held her.
“I love you,” she said softly.
I laughed, because standing naked and freezing my balls off in a shower wasn’t how I’d planned to say those three little words to her. But, of course, she beat me to it.
“I love you, too.” I cupped her cheeks and kissed her. Simple as that.
Sometimes love didn’t have to be complicated and dramatic. Sometimes it was just two people who realized that they didn’t want to live life any other way. Sometimes it was leaning on each other. Trusting the other one to be strong in a moment of weakness.
We toweled off, taking turns drying one another. I grabbed a clean pair of gym shorts out of the dresser and pulled them on before rummaging around for a pair of socks.
“Hey,” I called over my shoulder. Mel was pawing around for something in the closet. “Put your shoes on. I wanna take you somewhere.”
She gave me a petulant look that told me I was throwing a wrench in her plan to spend the rest of the night binge-watching New Girl or The Mindy Project.
To my surprise, she went along with it, sans argument.
We made a quick stop into the Kangaroo for cherry Icees and gas station hotdogs. Both of which we’d thoroughly regret tomorrow.
I headed toward Beaufort, driving over the bridges with the windows down.
Mel’s black-and-white Converse were up on the dash. Her elbow was propped on the window. Splayed fingers surfed the air that whipped by. The sun was setting as I pulled into the airfield, painting the coast in brilliant oranges and reds .
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning.
I helped Mel up to the roof of the empty apartment that was above Pops’ office. She took in the view for a moment, then settled between my legs to watch the sunset. There were a few single-engine planes out for dusk flights. But, up on top of the building, it felt like we were the only two people on earth.
Even after the shower orgasm, she was still quiet. It took a bag of Zapp’s VooDoo chips and half her Icee before she perked up.
I wasn’t bothered by it. We sat and ate in companionable silence, watching the planes take off and land.
“What did you do today?” Mel asked as she washed down a bite of hotdog with a slurp of artificially red slushie.
I picked at the onions on my hotdog, my stomach turning slightly sour. “Worked here for a while, then, uh… I called my mom.”
She turned her head, looking at me over her shoulder. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
She stabbed her straw into the ice crystals, not bothering with another sip. “How, um… How’d that go?”
“’Bout as good as could be expected.”
“Is this the first time you’ve talked to her since you came back?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Told her I got out of the Navy. Told her about you and me.”
Mel tangled her fingers in mine. I shoved our impromptu picnic aside and laid back on the flat roof. She snuggled up against my side, laying her head in the corner of my shoulder and chest. “I bet she was happy to hear that you retired.”
I knew Mel was walking on eggshells. Everyone around here knew what kind of people my parents had been. Bridget had a modicum of compassion for them, but I didn’t .
All I saw was a mom who should have kicked my dad out on his sorry ass, but didn’t. When both Bee and I were legal adults, she practically skipped town, ready to be rid of us.
That didn’t even begin to cover the vile hatred I had for my dad.
I didn’t call my mom out of love. It was just a heads up. I would have sent her a notarized letter with my life updates, but she wasn’t even worth the five-dollar notary fee and the cost of a stamp.
“I guess.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“College graduation.”
She craned her head up to look at me. “Really?”
I nodded. “I was surprised she showed up for that. To her, Maryland might as well have been on the other side of the world. I think that’s the last time Bee saw her, too. Thank God my dad didn’t show up. That would have been a shit show.”
“Was he on the road when you graduated?”
I shrugged. “Either on the road or drunk off his ass.” A pang of emotion gutted me, causing my words to burn my tongue like acid.
Her breath was warm against my neck as she pressed a gentle kiss to my throat.
“I should be over it,” I muttered. “I’m too goddamn old to be fucking choked up about that shit.”
She slipped her hand under the hem of my shirt and rested her palm on my stomach. Just her touch was enough to calm the tumultuous waves inside me.
“There’s no time limit for getting over being hurt. No age where it just disappears. No statute of limitations to define when you have to let something go. You don’t have to abide by a theoretical timetable. ”
“You’re lucky, you know,” I said, shifting the focus away from me. “Your folks are awesome.”
She laughed and shook her head. “They’re something alright.”
“I’m serious. I know they were hard on you when you were younger, but it’s because they actually loved you.”
“Your parents loved you, Jase. They…” She paused, sighing. “They just probably had their own issues that they never got over.”
“Isn’t it ironic? We go to therapy to deal with the actions of people who should have gone to therapy.”
“That’s the damn truth,” she muttered. “You go to therapy?”
“Mhmm. Started going after my first deployment.” I shifted to pull her closer as the citrus sunset turned to twilight. “Turns out, it’s good for more than dealing with PTSD. I need to find a therapist here to keep it up.”
We laid together, holding hands over my stomach and battling it out in lazy thumb wrestles.
“Regardless of your parents,” Mel said. “You, Jason McGrath, turned into a good man.” She dropped a kiss on the edge of my jaw.
“All because of your dad,” I admitted.
Her brows furrowed, lips turning into a frown. “What do you mean?”
“Do you remember when someone broke into my house and robbed it?”
She blew out a breath. “Yeah. That was so scary. I remember you running over with Bridget and banging on the door. It was right before you left for the Naval Academy.”
I pulled her closer. “Your parents told me that Bee and I could spend the night after it happened. The cops came over and took our statements. When the dust settled, and you and Bee were in your room, your dad called me into his study to talk. He told me I’d done the right thing. That I took care of Bridget and kept her safe. I kept my head on straight and didn’t make rash decisions that would have put us both in danger. He was praising me for doing the right thing, and all I could think about was how guilty I felt. My dad had been passed out drunk in his recliner, and I didn’t try to wake him up.”
Her voice was soft, drowned out by a plane flying low, circling the runway. “I didn’t know that. Bridget never said anything.”
“I didn’t tell her about it for a while, but she’s good at keeping things tamped down and slapping on a smile.”
Mel muttered something under her breath, but I couldn’t make out what it was.
“Your dad called me into his study and told me that I was the man of my house. I tried to argue with him, but he shut me up and told me that my dad was nothing more than a leech. A bottom feeder. I’d never heard another adult be so blunt about it. Usually, they just tiptoed around the subject.”
Mel laughed softly. “He’s not one to hold back.”
“That’s an understatement.”
The stars above us began to twinkle in brilliant twilight as the sun faded over the horizon. Crosswinds that made takeoffs and landings a bitch kept us cool from the summer heat.
Up here, away from the world and the mess of it, it was simple and calm. The way life should be.
I had confessed to Mel that I had harbored feelings for her for a long time, but there was more I needed to come clean about. She deserved the whole truth.
“A few days before the robbery happened, I’d been over to cut the grass. Your dad caught me looking at you when you came home from something and told me straight up that I wasn’t the kind of man he wanted for his daughter.”
She tensed and tried to argue, but I cut her off. I didn’t want her thinking her dad was out to make her life miserable .
“When I heard the glass shatter and brought Bee over, I answered all the questions the cops had so she didn’t have to. She was fucking terrified. When everything cooled down, and then he called me in for a conversation, he told me that if I stayed on the path I was heading, maybe he’d change his mind about me.”
“That’s why you left?”
“And why I stayed away.” I kissed her head. “But I never stopped thinking about you.”
“Why didn’t you call? Write?” She pushed up onto her elbows so she could look me in the eye. “You knew I came back to Beaufort. That Bee and I were still friends…”
“I didn’t want you holding on to the idea of us. I wanted more for you than a figment. I wanted you to live your life.” I sat up and cradled her cheeks. She was so damn beautiful. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel worthy of you, but I will spend every day I have left on this earth trying to be.”