Chapter 26 Jesse
TWENTY-SIX
JESSE
“Finish that,” Luc says, gesturing to my still mostly uneaten omelet. “I’m going to have a quick shower and borrow some clothes if that’s okay.” I nod. His lips quirk. “You wouldn’t happen to have any more of my hoodies lying around, would you?”
I narrow my eyes at him. If he thinks he’s getting all his clothes back, he'd better think twice. “Top left-hand drawer,” I admit. Wait until he sees what else I keep in that drawer.
“Thanks.” Luc kisses the top of my head before loading his plate into the dishwasher and reaching for the pan.
“I’ll do that,” I say, sending him off to the shower. I can’t decide if I need space to think before we talk about things, or if I’m not ready at all. I watch him walk away, the muscular globes of his round ass and thick thighs testing the limits of my sweatpants.
My mother’s silence catches up to me, and I tentatively flick my gaze to her. She pointedly looks down at her cup of coffee, rolling her lips in.
“I can see why you like him so much,” she finally says.
We both crack, laughing for the first time in weeks.
“In all seriousness, baby, I like him for you.”
“But?”
“No buts. Well, his butt, obviously. It’s a nice butt.” She grins and pumps her eyebrows.
“I’m not letting you hang out with the guys anymore,” I grumble, but her antics never fail to make me feel lighter.
“Anyway,” she says, “You’ve changed. It started with rehab, I think.
But since you’ve started seeing Luc, it’s even more noticeable.
Look at what’s happening around you. All of this stress and what the media is putting you through.
I’m not sure you would have cared this much before, or if you did, you wouldn’t have owned it.
You would have made light of it and even forced the bad boy narrative to cover whatever hurt you felt.
You’ve always taken the price of fame with a grain of salt, but you’re taking this seriously. ”
“It was easier when I could brush it off,” I admit. “I could convince myself I didn’t care that much. But when it comes to Luc, it feels like something was stolen from me. From us. And I’m terrified we can’t come back from it.”
“It seems like he might be willing to make some pretty big changes himself. Hear him out. Decide where your priorities lie and do what it takes. If this is going to work, you both have to face it head-on and do the work.”
I finish most of the omelet in silence. Mom shoos me away from the kitchen when I start cleaning up.
When I open the door to my room, Luc is standing at my dresser with his back to me.
I step in quietly and shut the door behind me with a soft click, turning to rest my back against it and just look at him.
He’s just out of the shower, hair damp and his wide, muscular back dotted with drops of water.
The towel he’s got wrapped around his waist looks like it’s holding on for dear life.
I can’t decide if I hope it loses the fight, or if I want to keep a clearer head for this.
It wouldn’t be fair to fuck him when we’re trying to make decisions about our future, would it? I can’t trick him into staying with my body, and I want him to prioritize me–us–without sex being the motivator.
I want him to love me the same way I love him. I want him to be willing to give up the quiet, comfortable life he’s built and step outside his comfort zone. I want him to know that I’m willing to give it all up to keep what we have safe.
Luc turns to eye me, a pair of black lacy panties hanging off his finger. “You have an entire stash of my clothes, and you keep them in your panty drawer?”
My lips twitch. “It’s the drawer of all the things that make me feel beautiful.”
His chest expands with a deep inhale, and he steps towards me, crowding me against the door. He tips my chin up to look down at me, and breathes, “You’re always beautiful.”
Priorities be damned, I can’t not kiss him when he’s looking at me like that. Not just hungrily, but like I’m something precious.
When his lips meet mine, his kiss is almost reverent. He doesn’t deepen the kiss or open to let my tongue do more than lick at the seam of his lips. I think we both understand that this conversation is more important than how carried away we can get when our bodies do the talking for us.
He steps away, but it looks like it costs him. I do everything in my power not to notice the way the front of the towel is slipping, pushed away from his body by his rising erection.
Luc finds an entire set of clothes, including underwear, in the drawer of things I’ve squirreled away. He seems amused but not like he minds.
“Don’t think you’re leaving here with those,” I say, watching him pull a pair of joggers over his thighs and ass. “Those are mine.”
“Are they now?” He chuckles.
“Yes. And you have to admit it’s convenient that I keep such things.”
“It’s cute is what it is.”
“If you keep calling me things like beautiful and cute and keep looking at me like that, it’s going to make this conversation a lot harder.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like you love me,” I blurt without thinking. “The way I love you,” I add, figuring I might as well get it out there.
Luc looks pained, and it’s a good thing I have my back to the door otherwise I might feel like I’m careening backwards like I’ve been struck. What is that look for?
He reaches for my hand and leads me to sit on my bed. I perch on the edge, but what I really want to do is run far, far away.
Luc drops to his knees on the floor in front of me, settling his hips between my knees.
His hands move from my thighs, up my hips and waist, all the way to my neck, where he cups my head and keeps me facing him.
He waits until I can bear eye contact. Once I look, I can’t look away, sucked into pools of deep blue emotion.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I tense, ready to bolt, but he holds me there, anchored to him.
“Hear me out,” he says, pleading with me. “I need to say this.” I don’t want to look him in the eye while he tells me this is too much for him, so I let my eyelids fall shut, a tear escaping down my cheek. Luc kisses it away.
“I screwed up, big time. Not just because I let you down when you needed me the most, but because if you really don’t know, then I was an idiot for far longer than just the last couple of weeks.”
His lips brush mine gently, and I taste the salt from my tears. I want to open my eyes and beg him to just put me out of my misery, but I don’t think I can hold back the barrage of tears behind my eyelids.
“I love you so much,” he says, unlocking a flurry of butterflies that thrash violently in my chest, forcing me to breathe in short, panting breaths.
“I’ve loved you for far longer than the three months we’ve been trying to get to know each other.
But…” The word makes my throat close up, choking the butterflies trying to make their escape.
My face grows hot with the effort of holding my breath.
“I’ve been so stupid and so fucking selfish from the beginning.
All I’ve ever worried about was myself. How being with you would impact my life, my family, my skewed sense of security. ”
I want to open my mouth and tell him I never blamed him for that. All his worries and the fear over how his life would be impacted by being with me were all valid. But he presses a thumb over my lips so he can continue.
“When you called me to tell me about the leak, you called to warn me, and to apologize when you didn’t do anything wrong.
The violation of your privacy wasn’t your fault, Jesse.
You were a victim. And what’s more, all you were worried about was how it was going to impact me.
Again, it was my feelings, my future, my welfare.
Instead of being present for you and holding your hand, facing the storm together the way it should be, I froze and only thought about myself as well.
You’re in those videos too, and unlike me, you weren’t anonymous.
The world has picked you apart, kicked you down, and dealt you blow after blow, and you’ve not only continued to protect me, you opened up about the pain and struggles you’ve held close to your chest. And that’s not fair. It’s not okay.”
A slow tide of heat spreads through me. At first, it's a relief, because he doesn’t blame me.
He said he loves me. Then it twists into something like grief, because it feels like a bad omen that we let the first real threat to our relationship tear us apart and send us to opposite corners, leaning into our own panic instead of each other.
We could have been, should have been, weathering it together like he said.
His hands flex, thumbs wiping away more tears. I give up trying to hold them back and blink my eyes open, seeing his eyes red and leaking heartache just like mine. He seems smaller, kneeling on the ground and looking up at me. Human-sized instead of the towering mythical god I think of him as.
“I meant what I said this morning, and it’s not something I take lightly.
I feel the same way I did before the leak, Jesse.
I want to be with you, and I don’t want to hide.
I’d like to talk to Mr. Holland and the PR team about how to do this right so I’m not a burden when the narrative has been taken from us like this.
” His eyes bore into mine, pleading and sincere, a deep ocean of regret and pain and hope all at once.
“I love you, Jesse. Please let me make this right.”
I don’t even remember what I wanted to say to him. I’m too overwhelmed with a mixture of relief, gratitude, and fear that something bad will happen to change his mind. All I can do is sob and nod. The fight and tension leave my body, leaving me feeling wrung out and limp.
When Luc presses his lips to mine again, I cling to him, desperately trying to fuse our bodies together. Luc stands, lifting me with him, and lays me across the bed, his large body blanketing mine.
“I love you,” he repeats, over and over, between frantic kisses and tears and snot and me trying to climb inside his skin.
To burrow there and never come up for air.
I finally tear my hoodie and shirt off and press my chest to his, the skin-to-skin contact calming some of the restlessness clawing through me.
“Whatever happens from here on out, I’m with you. I’m not saying I won’t have moments of fear or nerves, but I will never leave you to face it alone again. No matter what happens, I’m fully in this with you, and nothing will change that.”
I believe him. I can feel the honesty in every word, the thought and sincerity behind them. This isn’t some grandstanding apology to stay in my good graces. He means what he says and intends to charge forward, hand in hand, into whatever battle is placed before us.
I wish I could promise him things that I can’t be sure of–safety, a tidy fix that will erase headlines and allow us to live our lives with a modicum of peace.
All I can give him is my forgiveness and gratitude and my own steadfast promise that I’ll do everything in my power to protect him and the love we’ve found together.
We lay there, kissing and touching, putting our broken pieces back together.
Despite both of us being hard and clearly desperate for each other, we hold back and focus on just being there for each other.
Eventually the exhaustion of the emotional release catches up to me, and I fall asleep in Luc’s arms.
Where I belong.
Luc stays for two more nights, spending the days in an odd sense of domestic bliss.
He orders groceries to be delivered and teaches me and Mom how to make gumbo.
The guys come over to eat, and we watch some of our favorite movies.
Luc picks Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I pick Amelie, and Naz chooses a Star Wars film that I end up sleeping through.
I also sleep through whatever Will and Ari picked, and so does Luc.
We wake up after the guys have gone, covered in a blanket, and a picture of us sleeping waiting in our group chat.
It’s ordinary, and miraculous in its own way, because I don’t know that either of us knew we could have this.
We have a video meeting with Blake and the PR team, who confirm that holding back until the worst of the flames are out is our best bet.
With my management team’s help, we come up with a realistic plan for the near future that allows Luc and I to spend the most time together without risking media attention.
Luc agrees to allow the label to discuss added security and privacy arrangements with his building’s management company.
To my surprise, he even agrees to hire a driver from our security firm to help manage crowds if or when it comes to that.
He leaves late Thursday to fly home overnight when it’s less noticeable. Paparazzi and news vans are still surrounding the property, but Cory sneaks Luc out by having him dress in the security firm’s uniform with a hat pulled low over his eyes.
“It’s not fair to leave when you look that hot.” Not gonna lie, I’m starting to understand Naz’s fixation with his bodyguard.
Luc chuckles and kisses me deeply. “I’ll see you Monday night, okay?”
While Luc is in Atlanta for a Monday night game, I’ll be sneaking into his condo under the cover of night to be there when he returns home.
The rest of his games this month are all home games, so he won’t have to travel.
The plan is for me to lie low at his place and then go home with him for his holiday break until I have to fly to Nashville for a private concert on the 26th.
“Call me when you get home? And good luck in Atlanta,” I say, smiling at the memory of the last time he played there. “No surprise visits this time, unfortunately.”
I’m a little less afraid than I was the last time Luc had to fly home in the middle of the night. We have a plan, and we’re both in this. That's all I can ask for.