Devin #2
It was in the little things he did around the clubhouse when she was there. He always made sure red berry fruit leather was stocked, even though she was the only one who ate it.
She’d mentioned once in passing how much she loved the smell of fresh baked cookies and desserts, but the synthetic sweet, scented candles and air fresheners gave her a headache.
Shortly after that, she’d noticed the ones in the clubhouse and RBMC offices slowly switching over to a more forest scent. She assumed it was one of the ol’ ladies changing it up, until she saw Jasper changing them out one day.
Even though her brother and Hook listened and knew her favorite foods, scents, authors, none had bothered to act on it.
She’d been visiting Lucas on a Valentine’s Day weekend some four years back, before the shitshow, and had a touch too much to drink.
Before Lucas had shuttled her off to a room to sleep it off, she’d announced to the club as a whole that it was no surprise she was there drinking while they were getting their dicks sucked because she didn’t have a Valentine.
Had never once so much as gotten a Valentine’s Day card.
Even in elementary when most kids brought one for everybody.
She’d had no chalky ass candy hearts either.
Not a single BE MINE was hers. She’d slurred most of it but had mumbled the last in her inebriated state induced pity party as Lucas had led her away to a room.
The next day, a big red glitter card was waiting for her on the bedside table, along with a baggie of only BE MINE candy hearts. It was signed a secret admirer, but it wasn’t her brother’s handwriting. She’d just assumed it had been Hook.
However, she was starting to think she’d been wrong. “Do you remember that Valentine’s Day I got drunk at the club and spilled my guts about Valentine’s cards and candy hearts?” Jasper nodded, she felt it above her head as she lounged on his chest, his hand lazily stroking her bare back.
“It was you.” It wasn’t even a question. She knew it without a doubt now.
He chuckled. “Cost me fifty bucks in candy hearts to find enough BE MINE ones to fill that bag. You said you never got a single BE MINE, so I gave a hundred. And for the record, you were right, I ate the others and they are dusty as fuck.”
“Ate the others, as in all of the others?”
“Yeah. It was like eating sand that had been compressed into a shape.”
“Why not just throw them out once you tasted them?”
“Because I ain’t no quitter, Sweetness.”
There it was that was it.
The moment she realized the lengths he’d gone through to make her smile without taking credit, she knew her heart belonged to him.
Any man who would choke down forty-nine dollars of KISS ME and XOXO chalky candy hearts just to give her one hundred BE MINE was worth taking a chance on.
“No, you’re not,” she agreed with a chuckle.
“You’re a keeper.” She spoke more to herself than him, but he heard her anyway.
“Damn right I am.”
Jasper tilted her face up toward his and fused their mouths together. It wasn’t like the desperate kisses of earlier, this was a slow claiming kiss of connection and love. It reminded her of their first kiss.
She realized that he’d poured himself into that one too, even if she’d held back.
Devin wasn’t holding back now. She wanted her kiss to say what she admitted to herself but couldn’t voice yet.
He needed to know everything before she shared that information.
That way, he could still step back without guilt if it was too much for him.
Jasper had his own issues; he didn’t need to be tethered by hers simply because she said she loved him.
He was a good man, one who would stay rather than listen to his heart if he needed to.
Ending the kiss, she stared into his eyes for a while and just existed in the space between them. When he tucked her hair behind her ear, he looked like he was going to kiss her again and she needed to speak before that. They’d get lost in each other and she’d chicken out.
“It’s time I tell you everything.” She shifted off him to create distance, but he didn’t let her.
It felt as if he knew his presence would lend her strength, but that she couldn’t stare into his intense gaze, so he settled her back on his chest, not breaking their connection, but giving her space all the same.
It was exactly what she needed, and the truth came spilling out but not in the order or detail she’d expected.
“My mother shamed my body for as long as I can remember. She hid it from Lucas, he never knew. She was the reason I started self-harming. At first, it was shallow, barely scarring. Then…” She swallowed hard, bracing herself. “She auctioned off my virginity to Lucas’s friend.”
Jasper’s breathing picked up and his arm around her tightened almost painfully. She could tell he was biting his tongue; he wanted to explode. She knew him well enough to know that, but he also knew her well enough to not speak yet. To let her get through it.
“I heard him after with Mom, she’d waited in the living room. He mentioned my thunder thighs. After that, it became her favorite insult. So, that’s where all that scarring came from. Every time she said it, I cut or stabbed at them.”
Jasper gasped then kissed the top of her head. Not only could she feel his angry breathing against her hair, she heard what sounded like a sob he was holding back.
He’d touched those marks, kissed them, he knew there were a lot of them. How many times her mother destroyed a piece of her.
When she didn’t continue, he spoke. “Thank you for telling me. I’d carry it for you, Devin. If I could, I’d carry every fucking scar and memory, so you didn’t have to. I can’t erase what happened, but I can erase them.”
By his menacing tone, she knew who they were. It was spoken through his emotion-clogged throat, but she heard the truth of it. The finality of it. It was something she’d had to come to terms with before telling him, because she knew that would be the end result.
In some weird, twisted way, she was okay with it. It was one of the reasons she’d never told Lucas. She didn’t want her brother to bear the weight of killing his own mother and one of his oldest friends.
“I need to speak to her first.”
Jasper nodded. They were on the same page and understood one another with few words.
“And… I need it finished before I tell Lucas. He shouldn’t have to… you know.”
“I know, Sweetness, and I agree. No man should have to do that.”
They lay there in a comfortable silence while each processed their emotions individually, but together. It was then that she understood how she didn’t have to be alone to do something herself. Sure, he’d said it to her, but she didn’t get it until just then.
“I’ve been selfish, Jasper.” She felt the protest he was about to launch.
“I appreciate what you’re going to say but it’s the truth.
I have disconnected from everyone and only cared about my own feelings.
Not considering anyone else’s or how my rescue impacted the club.
My refusal to give them the information to act.
Even my reckless trip here. I owe a lot of people an apology when I get back.
I owe the club, both chapters an apology as well. ”
She took a deep breath. “And you, Jasper. I owe you too. The other night, I was using you to try to unblock something inside me. Something I thought sex would help. It didn’t, but you did.
You saw me. Actually, saw me. You turned my biggest fears into positives and helped me see myself too.
Even after that, I left and lied to everyone to go on this fool’s errand. ”
She dared to look up into his eyes. If she saw his refusal to acknowledge her mistakes, it would crush her. That would mean he didn’t really see her at all, not like he had then. But that’s not what she saw. She saw pride, warmth, and acceptance. Plus, a little hurt.
“I am truly sorry for not seeing you when you saw me.”
“I accept your apology, Devin.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “You did see me though. It scared you and you pulled back, but you did. I know you did. I felt it. In here.” He took her hand and placed it over his heart and held it there with his own.
“Most importantly, you chose me. Even though you snuck out, you chose me. I knew it, even if you didn’t.”
He gave her a wicked grin and ran that silver ball across his top lip and she almost moaned aloud.
“It was the dick, right? It’s always the dick.”
Slapping his chest playfully, she dropped her head back down. “Nope, it was the pudding cups.”
His laugh vibrated through his chest and into her soul causing the three words she’d never said to another man to dance across her lips, but she couldn’t let them free. There was still more to tell.
After what felt like forever, she broke the silence.
“The reason I came back was for Ida. She’s Thom’s bedridden mother.
That was why he kept me. Her insurance lapsed and the home health care was canceled.
” If he weren’t such an asshole, she might have been able to admire the lengths he’d been willing to go through to try to help her.
But holding someone against their will was a hard line.
“He kept me chained in the room with her during the day. He used threats and proximity to control me when he was there. Ida didn’t defend his actions, said he was a good boy once, but turned into a right shit.
She’d tsk him every day at treating me like that.
Between us, we had him skeptically believing I was his girlfriend and would willingly stay and care for her.
I was going to run, I think. I really hadn’t decided.
Maybe I was going to put her in her wheelchair and take her with me.
I remember the confusion and indecision…
the possibilities assaulting me at breakneck speed when I heard him back out of the driveway, and I wasn’t tethered. ”