Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Staying for dinner wasn’t the bad part.
Oh, no, that was wonderful, though later I would explain to Jase I’d made dinner for him and his family and had planned to leave them to it as soon as he got home.
Not because I didn’t want to have dinner with them, but I didn’t want him to think I was being pushy, trying to horn in on his family’s dinnertime.
The bad part.
The part that made me curse technology and whoever invented Bluetooth and if they were two different people, whoever made it possible to sync a phone to a speaker.
That person should be flogged.
Because suddenly the music I had playing on low from my phone, through Jase’s speaker cut off to announce in a robotic voice—a message from…Mom’s cell.
I jumped up and made a mad dash to Jase’s built-ins next to his fireplace.
I wasn’t fast enough to stop the same flat digital tone to read the message—out loud—for everyone to hear.
Of course you still love him. You never stopped. And of course he still loves you.
Holy shit!
Holy shit.
I stubbed my toe on the corner of Jase’s table which unfortunately slowed me down enough to let the message finish.
Now I want him and those beautiful babies of his at my table as soon as you can arrange it. Janis brags about how wonderful they are.
I snatched my phone off the shelf and fumbled to find the setting icon.
I’ve been waiting a lifetime to meet those children and I’ve missed him. It’s time—
I disconnected the Bluetooth.
But it was too late.
The damage was done.
Done.
D.O.N.E.
And I knew how much damage when I turned around and saw four sets of eyes staring at me. Three sets were wide. One set was warm and soft.
The three that were wide, were the children of course.
All of them had just learned I was in love with Jase.
Two of them had just learned that a strange digital voice thought their father was in love with me.
Awesome.
Perfect.
“Um…” I started but had nothing to say after that so I shut up.
Jase didn’t have anything to say but he had a reaction.
And that was to bust out laughing.
Now my eyes were wide.
“You love my Daddy?” Juni excitedly asked.
At least I thought it was excitement—she was smiling, but her eyes were still round, so I wasn’t sure.
“Um…” I muttered still not knowing what to say.
“Yeah, Juni, she loves your Daddy,” Jase answered.
Oh, shit.
I did, of course. But I’d been in his children’s presence twice.
Two times.
One, two.
That was it.
“And you love my mom?” Lucas asked.
I didn’t need to wonder how my son felt about this. I knew him. I knew all the inflections in his voice. I knew every nuance of how he held his body.
So, I knew what I heard in his question was not only excitement but hope.
“Yes, Lucas. I love your mom. I’ve loved her since I was fifteen.”
For the love of all things holy.
I can’t believe he said that in front of his children.
The children he fathered with another woman—their mother. Which meant he just admitted he loved me while he was with her.
This was going to go bad.
I knew it.
I could feel it in my bones.
I just didn’t know it would be my kid who would make that happen.
“Does that mean you’re not gonna see Bob anymore and Jase is going to be your boyfriend?”
Ohmigod.
Shitting my pants would’ve been a more pleasant alternative than my son asking me about my vibrator.
“Bob?” Jase asked.
My face flamed red.
Five-alarm-fire red.
I could actually feel the flesh melting.
It took Jase approximately ten seconds, give or take two seconds on either side, to understand who B.O.B. was.
This time Jase didn’t bust out laughing—he exploded with it and it lasted way longer.
I stared at him in mortified shock.
The kids stared at him in confusion.
Awesome.
Perfect.
Nothing said we’re all gonna be one big happy family like a monotone declaration of love through a speaker and talk of vibrators.
“Um…” I mumbled again but petered out, because I still had nothing to say.
However, Jase did.
“Yes, Lucas, I’m gonna be your mom’s boyfriend. Is that cool with you?”
“Totally.”
“Cole? You good, bud? Have any questions?”
“If Rainy’s your girlfriend does that mean when it’s taco night, she’s gonna make the tacos? No offense, Dad, but she doesn’t use box shells.”
“No. Rainy being my girlfriend doesn’t mean you get a personal chef.”
If Colson wanted me to fry him corn tortillas for his tacos, I’d fry him as many as he wanted.
“Rainy, will you teach me how to fry them? Everyone knows box shells aren’t as good as the real thing.”
With my heart pounding against my ribs, I nodded.
“Yeah, Colson, I’ll teach you how.”
“Great. Now that we have the tacos covered.” Jase chuckled. “Juniper? Do you have any questions?”
“Yes,” she said somberly. “Since Rainy’s your girlfriend, and everyone knows that girlfriends marry their boyfriends, does this mean that when Rainy and Lucas marry us that Lucas can’t be my best friend because he’ll be my brother?”
Girlfriends marry boyfriends.
Marry us.
Marry.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to cry or laugh or pass out.
“It’s not one or the other, Juni. Lucas can be your best friend and your brother. You’re friends with Cole, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes. When he’s not being bossy.”
“I’m not bossy,” Colson shot back.
“You totally are,” Juni rebuffed.
I couldn’t know for sure, but since Colson was all Jason, my money was on Juni telling the truth.
“Dinner,” Jase cut into the bickering. “Boys, finish setting the table. Juni, finish up what you were doing but don’t get near the stove.”
The kids scrambled.
I stayed rooted in place.
Jase didn’t. He made his way across the living room and stopped just shy of touching me.
“You still love me?”
Oh, shit.
“Um…”
“Rae, right now I need you to be brave. I need you to remember I’m here, right here, and I will never let you fall. You’re safe with me and you always will be.”
I was safe with Jase.
He’d never let me fall and he never would.
“Yes, I still love you,” I whispered.
“Did you ever stop?”
“No.”
I saw the pain chased by relief slash across his features.
I understood the pain; the years I’d stolen from us.
The relief I saw was a balm to my soul.
“I never stopped loving you either, Rainy. I wanted to give us this time, go slow, ease the kids into what’s happening between us. But it would seem Barb had other plans and I can’t say I’m not grateful. Because the week I was taking—”
“A week? That’s not slow, that’s warp speed.”
He dropped his forehead to mine. “Baby, I’ve waited sixteen years to come home to you. A week was gonna be pure torture.”
Those words seared through me, leaving a warm, sweet glow in their wake.
And because Jason had always made me feel safe and he was open and honest with me always, I thought he deserved the same from me.
“You should know, tonight you walking in the door coming home to your family. That was a dream come to life and I’ll never forget it.”
Jase lifted his head so he could press a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth.
“You get this isn’t testing the waters to see if we work. We know we do. We know what we had. We know what we lost. I don’t need to fall in love with you because I’ve always been there. Together, we’ll finesse with the kids what we need, but we’ll be doing that together as a family.”
“Yes,” I pushed out through a shallow breath.
Was this it?
Was this what it felt like to get back the one thing in life you never thought you have?
This breath-stealing, heart-pounding, giddy, scared, elated, happy feeling?
“Later. Not now, but we’re gonna have a lengthy discussion about Bob.
But that’s gonna happen when my kids are back with Shay and you’ve arranged a sleepover for Lucas with your mom.
For the record, this discussion is going to include a demonstration.
That will be lengthy as well, though Bob will get kicked to the curb after I’m done playing. ”
Jason Turner was the worst.
“Just so you know, Bob has been my only relationship in eleven years. So, did get—”
“No shit?”
Oh shit.
“Um…”
“Rainy,” he growled.
Goodnight, the man had perfected the growl since he was twenty.
“No shit,” I confirmed.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them, they were blazing and I couldn’t stop the full-body quiver.
“Not a workday. Saturday or Sunday sleepover, baby. Saturday would be better so you’re not dragging ass Monday morning.
We had catching up to do.” His hand went to my hip and his fingers dug in.
“Now I gotta put in extreme effort into making sure I take care of my woman. That’s gonna take time and energy, baby.
Plan accordingly. And while you’re making those arrangements, tell her me and my kids are available anytime this week for dinner.
Next week, they’re back with Shay. But the following week’s good, too. ”
I was totally calling my mother as soon as Lucas was in bed.
“Okay,” I whispered.
I thought since we had that settled, he’d let me go and step away since we had kids to feed. But he didn’t, he stayed close.
“Dream come true, for me, too, Rae. Coming home to you.”
I closed my eyes so I could freeze this moment in my mind for all of eternity.
But Jase wasn’t done, and in true Jason Turner fashion, he gave me more.
“In a few minutes, when we sit down for dinner as a family, that’ll be another dream come true.”
“Same,” I croaked.
“We’re gonna keep feeding the dream, Rae. You with me on that?”
Heck yeah!
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Let’s go get these kids dinner.”
He started to pull away but I had something else to say so I stopped him.
“Thank you for forgiving me.”
“Rae—”
“I know you said we both made mistakes. But we didn’t. I did. So, please let me have this.”
“Okay, baby, I’ll let you have this as long as you understand, I did make a mistake.
A big one. I let you get away. I let you push me away.
I perpetrated my own brand of stupidity and let my pride stand in the way of going down to Florida and explaining to you what you saw in the bar that night was not what you thought you saw.
That was ego. Pride. Immaturity. We’re no longer kids fumbling through life.
We know what we lost. And baby, neither of us will make that mistake a second time. ”
He had that right.
“Are we eating or are you planning on starving the children?” Colson yelled from the kitchen.
Jase rolled his eyes.
“We good?” he asked.
“So good.”
He still didn’t let me go.
He only did so after he dipped back in for another kiss. This one full on my mouth, lasting longer than the other lip touches, and he ended his with a smooth glide of his tongue over my bottom lip.
“I love my kids more than my own life, and there’s not a day during Shay’s week I don’t miss them,” he weirdly mumbled against my mouth. “But right now I wish like fuck they were with her, so I could drag your ass upstairs and celebrate properly.”
I did, too.
“Saturday,” I promised.
“That’s six days away,” he grumbled as he stepped away from me.
“Five days,” I corrected. “Monday’s almost over.”
Jase grabbed my hand and held it as he walked through his living room, me trailing beside him.
“Fucking torture,” he groused.
I couldn’t argue his assessment, so I didn’t.
With Jase sitting to my left, Juni to my right, the boys across the table, I experienced something profound.
Something I never dreamed would happen, but like Jase said, it was a dream come true.
Family dinner.
Our first.
It had happened by accident.
Or maybe it was divine intervention.
Or maybe this was just the way it was supposed to work out for me and Jase.
Maybe if we’d stayed together, I never would’ve learned how to be me, Rainy Cross, instead of who I had been, Jase’s girlfriend, Rainy Cross.
Maybe I never would’ve learned how to be strong on my own.
There would be no Lucas and that was something I couldn’t fathom.
Ditto about Juni and Cole.
Maybe I never would’ve truly understood how much I loved Jason if I hadn’t experienced losing him.
However, it happened—it happened.
There was no going back.
The past was the past.
The future was promised.
I felt Jase put his hand on my thigh and looked up from the taco mess on my plate. As soon as he had my attention, he did a careful study of my face before he smiled.
“So good,” he echoed my words from earlier.
Yeah, Jase could read me. He knew my thoughts were happy.
What he didn’t know was he was wrong.
They weren’t happy.
They were ecstatic.