Chapter 25 Ivan
The drive home takes forever. I keep replaying the moment. The look on Jay's face when I grabbed his shirt, the way time seemed to slow down in that instant before our lips met. The way he kissed me back.
I can't believe I kissed Jay. I kissed him and he kissed me back and nothing will ever be the same.
My phone buzzes in the cupholder. I glance down at a red light, see Jay's name on the screen.
Still on the road?
I type back quickly, one-handed: Yeah. Traffic slowed me down.
He texts back: Text me when you get home. I need to know you made it.
I will. Promise.
The light turns green. I put the phone down, but I'm smiling so hard I probably look insane. A woman in the next lane at the stoplight definitely looked at me weird.
I don't care. I can't stop smiling.
When I finally pull into the driveway at the Reyes house, it's late afternoon.
I sit in the truck for a minute, my hands still gripping the steering wheel, trying to compose myself.
Trying to make my face do something other than this manic grin.
I need to look normal. I need to walk in there and act like I didn't just have my entire world rearranged in a motel parking lot.
I fail spectacularly.
Rosalyn takes one look at my face when I come through the door and her eyebrows shoot up. A smile tugs at her lips. "Well. Someone had a good weekend."
"Yeah." I can't stop smiling. It's like my face is broken, stuck this way. "I did. Really good."
She's stirring a pot on the stove, smells like her homemade soup.
She watches me as I drop my keys on the counter and grab a glass from the cabinet, filling it with water from the tap.
Caleb runs in from the living room and hugs my legs with both arms, nearly knocking me over, and I ruffle his hair with my free hand.
"You're back!" he squeals. "Did you bring me something?"
"Caleb, leave him alone," Rosalyn chides. "He just got home."
"It's fine." I crouch down to his level. "I didn't bring you anything this time, buddy. But next time, I promise. Deal?"
"Deal!" He runs off again, satisfied.
"You want to tell me about this friend?" Rosalyn asks when Caleb is gone. "The foster brother you found?"
"His name is Jay." Just saying his name out loud makes me feel like I'm glowing from the inside out.
"Jason, really, but everyone calls him Jay.
He's—" I stop, trying to figure out how to describe him in a way that won't give everything away, in a way that sounds normal.
"He's the one who took care of me. Back at the Hendersons.
The one I told you about. He protected me. "
Rosalyn's expression softens immediately. She knows about the Hendersons. Not everything—I've never told her about the belt, about the beatings, about the worst of it. But she knows it was bad. "And you finally found him after all these years? After all that searching?"
"He was in a news article online. There was a—" I hesitate, not sure how much to share. "There was a bar fight. He got arrested. That's how I found him. His name came up in the arrest records."
The softness in Rosalyn's face shifts to concern, her smile fading. "A bar fight? He was arrested?"
"It wasn't his fault," I say quickly, defensively. "Some guys were harassing him and he defended himself. They started it. He just finished it."
"Ivan—"
"He's had a hard time, Rosalyn." I set down the glass of water, meeting her eyes. "After we got separated, after the system split us up, he didn't have anyone. No family, no support. No one to help him. He aged out of the system with nothing. Not even a place to sleep."
"Where does he live now?"
"A motel. In Macon. The Vista Inn." Just saying it makes my chest ache.
"He works at a motorcycle shop. He's really talented.
You should see what he can do with engines.
The things he builds. But he's been on his own for years, since he was eighteen, and it's been—" I shake my head, remembering the whiskey bottle, the bruises, the exhaustion in his eyes.
"It's been rough for him. Really rough."
Rosalyn is quiet for a moment, stirring the soup in slow circles. I can see her processing, can see the worry settling into the lines around her mouth, the crease between her eyebrows.
"Ivan," she says carefully, slowly, like she's picking her words. "I'm happy you found him. I know how much you've been searching. How important this was to you. But a bar fight? Living in a motel? That sounds like someone who might be in a difficult place. A complicated situation."
"He is in a difficult place," I agree. "That's exactly why I went to see him. Because he needed me."
"I don't want you to get hurt," Rosalyn says. "Or pulled into something. Into a situation that's too heavy for you to handle. Sometimes people who are struggling can pull others down with them, even when they don't mean to. Even when they're good people. I've seen it happen, Ivan. Too many times."
"He's not going to hurt me. Jay would never hurt me. Never. He's the reason I survived long enough to end up here with you. He's the reason I'm alive."
Rosalyn holds up her hands in a placating gesture.
"I'm not saying he's a bad person. I can tell how much he means to you.
I'm just saying that sometimes people who are struggling can pull others down with them, even when they don't mean to.
Even when they love you. I worry about you, baby. That's all."
"That's not going to happen."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. I know Jay. I know who he is, what he's capable of. And yeah, he's struggling right now. He's having a hard time. But that doesn't mean I'm going to abandon him. I spent seven years looking for him. I'm not going to walk away just because his life is messy. That's not who I am."
Rosalyn studies me for a long moment, her dark eyes searching my face. Then she sighs, a small smile tugging at her lips despite the worry still creasing her forehead. "You're stubborn. You know that? So stubborn."
"I learned from the best," I say, and manage a small smile back.
She laughs softly and pulls me into a hug, her arms strong around me. "Just be careful, okay? Guard your heart. And bring him here sometime. Soon. Let me meet him. Let me see for myself what kind of person he is."
"I will," I promise against her shoulder. "When he's ready. When things are a little more stable."
She pulls back, cups my face in both hands. "You really care about him, don't you?"
More than I can say. "Yeah. I really do."
***
I escape to my room after dinner, pleading exhaustion from the drive.
It's not entirely a lie. I am tired, bone-deep tired from the emotional rollercoaster of the weekend and the drive.
But mostly I just want to be alone. I want to lie on my bed and think about Jay and text him without anyone looking over my shoulder, asking questions.
My phone is already buzzing when I close the door, lean back against it.
You home?
I smile, typing back: Yeah. Just got done with dinner. Rosalyn made soup.
Jay: How'd it go? With Rosalyn?
I think about how to answer, how to explain without worrying him. She's worried about you. About the bar fight.
Jay: She should be worried. I'm a mess. A disaster waiting to happen.
Me: You're not a mess. You're just going through a hard time. There's a difference.
Jay: Same thing.
Me: It's not.
I lie back on my bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars I put up there when I first moved in.
Me: She wants to meet you. Eventually. When you're ready.
Jay: That's terrifying. What if she hates me?
Me: She won't hate you.
Jay: You don't know that.
Me: I do. Because you're important to me. And she'll see that. She'll see how much you matter.
A long pause. I watch the three dots appear and disappear several times. Then: You're important to me too. More important than anything.
I press the phone against my chest, grinning like someone who's lost their mind completely.
***
The week crawls by. I go to work, I come home, I eat dinner with the family, I do all the normal things I always do. But underneath it all, running like a current beneath everything, I'm counting the hours until Friday. Until I can get in my truck and drive back to Macon. Until I can see Jay again.
We text constantly. Obsessively. In the morning when I wake up before my alarm, during my lunch break when I should be eating, at night when I'm lying in bed unable to sleep.
Sometimes it's just stupid stuff—what we ate for dinner, something funny that happened at work, a picture of a motorcycle or a weird electrical panel.
Sometimes it's deeper. Sometimes Jay tells me about his day in a way that makes me feel like I'm there with him, watching him work, seeing through his eyes.
Mick gave me shit today about the Triumph, he texts Tuesday afternoon. Said I'm taking too long. That the customer is getting impatient.
Are you? I type back from the break room at work. Taking too long?
Jay: Probably. I keep getting distracted.
Me: by what?
A pause. You know what.
My face heats up. I'm distracted too. I keep zoning out in the middle of jobs, thinking about Jay instead of the wiring I'm supposed to be testing. I almost cross-connected a circuit yesterday because I was replaying the parking lot kiss in my head instead of paying attention to the schematic.
I can't stop thinking about you, I type, and then I stare at the words for a full minute, my thumb hovering over send. It feels like too much. Too intense. Too honest.
I hit send anyway.
His response comes fast: Same. It's a problem.
Me: A good problem?
Jay: The best kind.
At night, when the house is quiet and I'm alone in my room with just the glow of my phone screen, the texts get different. Not explicit, exactly. Neither of us seems to know how to do that, how to put these feelings into words, but charged. Heavy with things we're not quite saying.