Chapter 8 Penelope
EIGHT
PENELOPE
PRESENT DAY
Jamie was acting weird.
He walked me inside, and now he was making dinner. I was inclined to let him, mostly because I was hungry and having an appetite was good for a change. Especially after what Dr. Beckett had said about my low weight gain.
My feet were propped up on the couch, crossed at the ankle as I watched Jamie move around the modest kitchen.
“Jamie, you know I can make my own dinner, right?”
His brown eyes lifted for a moment, landing on me and then drifting back to the counter. I always felt so cold in the wake of his gaze leaving me. It was like having a cloud move in when you’ve been craving the sun.
With a grunt, he plated the chicken and veggies and walked over to the couch. He placed the plate gently in my hands. I often used my stomach as a table of sorts, and tonight would be no different.
Jamie nudged my feet. “Let me sit here, you can tuck your feet under my legs.”
I did as he said, lifting them for him, and then tucking them under his thigh, relishing how warm they became.
I bit into the food, savoring how warm and perfectly seasoned it was.
“This is good.” I swallowed and went for another bite, when he suddenly paused and turned to look at me.
“I have an idea I need to run by you.”
My fork speared another potato as sunlight streamed in through the windows. It was December, but you wouldn’t know it by how warm the sun felt against my face.
“Okay,” I replied around another bite of food.
I was suddenly ravenous as if the past eight months I’d been skimping on meals and my body finally woke up and realized it.
“Is there more of this?” I held out my plate to him.
He handed me his. “Finish mine, I’m not really hungry.”
I smirked at him as I took his plate and began digging in. “Must be a big thing you have to run by me.”
I was blissfully taking more bites when suddenly Jameson turned and leveled me with that chocolate stare.
“I think we should get married.”
My fork stalled halfway to my mouth. If I were drinking anything, I would have spit it out.
“What?”
Jameson’s gaze flickered the smallest bit, revealing his uncertainty.
“The club isn’t respecting you…today was too close of a call. I can’t just hand you a patch and assume they’ll respect it. I need to do something more permanent. They need to know you’ll have my protection long term.”
Slow and tenuous emotions swept through me like a shockwave.
“So you want to—what, marry on paper? And assume it will force the club to be civil with me?”
He flinched. “They’d have to believe it.”
“But it’d be fake.” I needed to clarify.
His steady gaze revealed nothing as he nodded. “Behind closed doors, but in public, you’d be mine.”
Our eyes met, and I let the last part of his sentence soak into my chest as if the words were golden rays of sunshine.
You’d be mine.
The only thing I had ever really wanted, but it would be fake.
I handed him the plate. His eyes held worry as he inspected how much food was left untouched.
“Jameson, I can just leave…I think if I go to the West Coast, Luke won’t find me. Besides, I think his focus is on the club, not me.”
I watched as his jaw tensed before his eyes found the floor.
“You’re not leaving, Pen. He will come after you, if not for any other reason than to make sure you never come back for him.”
My throat was tight as a pathetic defense rested on my tongue. Luke hadn’t ever been malicious or mean, not at all in the years we’d grown up together. His rejection of me, and his son, was painful and hard to process, but he wanted me gone. I never got the sense that he’d come after me.
“If not him, then someone else will, Pen,” Jamie added, almost as if he were reading my mind.
I nodded.
“Look, I know the idea of being married to me doesn’t hold that much appeal, but it’s only temporary.”
“Stop it—” I snapped, “don’t act like I wouldn’t be honored to have you as my husband, Jameson. That was never our issue, and you know it.”
That steel cut jaw continued to work. Emotions I couldn’t name flitted across his face, until he finally cleared his throat.
“Then what is it?”
I wanted him to look at me, and to stop sulking, so I pushed my toes into his thigh. His eyes flew over.
“My concern is you. I can’t stomach you giving up anymore of your life for me, Jamie. I know you promised my mom, but this is going too far. This would mean you couldn't flirt or go anywhere that anyone could see you if you needed to…be with someone. This would mean you’d have to—”
“I’m fully aware of what it would mean for me, Pen.” Jamie cut me off with a severe glare.
I shook my head, looking off to the side. This would never work…there was just no way.
“We have a past…”
Jameson shrugged but a tiny bit of pink flushed against his cheek. “Hasn’t been an issue so far.”
It was though. I had just been suppressing how painful it was to have him this close, and attentive. My hand went out toward the room. “We have one bed, you’d have to start sleeping here.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll sleep on the floor if it bothers you so much, but this is happening, Pen. I can’t think of any other way to make the club see you as someone who has my protection.”
It was like he wasn’t hearing me. I knew he was only doing this for my mom…probably a little bit for his dad too, but it was all some hero bullshit that wasn’t needed.
“Luke will come around, Jameson…we just have to give him time. No one is going to come for me if I just slip away for a while and—”
Jameson suddenly stood and started pacing the room.
“Why can’t you understand this, Pen? I honestly don’t get it. Luke not only rejected you, but he fucked other women in front of you. While you were pregnant with his kid.”
He was scolding me like a child, and I felt fire burn from my ears all the way to my toes.
It took a second, but I stood too, staring off with him.
“I was there, you don’t have to speak to me like I’m an idiot, Jamie.”
He scoffed. “Apparently I do if you honestly think he’s just cooling off or some shit.”
“I don’t think that…I think this took him by surprise and he’s trying—”
Jameson shook his head back and forth. “Stop defending him. Just fucking stop, Pen. I have been there for you. Me. I have sacrificed.” He pointed at his chest, walking closer.
“I have given up my club, my home, everything I know, all to keep you safe. Yet at the mere idea of marrying me, you start making up some bullshit about Luke.”
With an incredulous laugh, he finally sagged his shoulders in defeat. “I should have known that’s how this would go. You’d rather be tied to him, even after everything, than be in a fake marriage with me.”
“No.” I reached out and gripped his wrist. The muscle in his jaw tensed once more as he held still, his fists clenched tight. “That’s not it, Jamie. I’m sorry…fuck, I always say the wrong thing.”
He needed to know why I always seemed to slip up around him. Why my nerves were always so raw when it came to him.
“The truth is…the idea of you settling or sacrificing any more of your life for me is so unacceptable to me that I would literally rather be homeless or throw my hope at the very man who rejected and humiliated me, just to save you the trouble of giving up your freedom for me. I’m not worth it, Jamie. I never have been, why do you think—”
I stopped because he really didn’t need to know how pathetic I’d been all this time.
“I’m not waiting for Luke. I don’t want Luke, but I also don’t want you to give up your life, and you shouldn’t have to tie yourself to a sinking ship or lose your club just to keep me safe. There has to be another way.”
My grip loosened now that the panic of having him leave melted away. I hated when he left before I had a chance to explain myself.
“You have to just trust that this is what I want, Pen. I’ve never done anything I didn’t want to do.
I could hand you off to someone else or find someone to keep you.
Hell, I could leave now and just trust the Stone Riders to keep you safe.
I want to be here, and I want to do this. Please trust that.”
He lightly gripped the backs of my arms, only hesitating for a second before he pulled me closer, until I was directly in front of him, and his forehead was lightly pinned to mine.
I nodded, trying to accept what he was saying.
“So, when would we do this then?”
The way my heart hammered in my chest was probably not a good sign, but the reality of this discussion still hadn’t sunk in.
Marriage…I was going to get married to him.
“Honestly, the sooner the better. I think we should let everyone see us together for a week, then just do it in the backyard or something.”
I tried not to feel deflated at his easy dismissal of such a monumental day…or what I always assumed would be a monumental day. He was talking about this like we were planning a random barbeque.
Keeping my eyes lowered, I nodded my agreement.
His finger trapped my chin and lifted my gaze.
“Don’t do that.” His whisper seemed to have fingers, digging through our past to that first night Jameson kissed me. “We could get married in a church if you’d prefer?”
I laughed, trying to dislodge the feelings of him lifting my chin stirred in me. “As if any of these bikers would step foot inside one.”
He laughed with me, and for some reason, I wanted him to hug me.
“I’ll accept that this is where you want to be, Jamie, but you have to do something for me.”
His lip quirked. “I’m open to creating a chore wheel.”
I smiled, pushing his shoulder, then muttered, “Sleep on the bed…there’s plenty of room and it will help me feel safe. I’ll sleep. Just don’t be uncomfortable, that’s a big deal to me.”
“What if sleeping next to you makes me uncomfortable?” His tone was joking, but memories of our fleeting moments flashed through my mind, making his comment seem jaded.
He pulled me closer until I was being pressed to his chest.