Chapter Fifteen
Jamie
The cab of Eric’s truck should’ve been thick with heat. Instead, guilt slid up beside me and buckled itself in.
He still looked unfairly good behind the wheel. Forearms flexing as he shifted into gear, jaw set, eyes focused.
If not for the steady hum of the engine and the fact that we were about to merge into traffic, I might’ve been tempted to climb straight into his lap. Consequences be damned.
But the voice in the back of my mind wouldn’t shut up.
It started as a gentle whisper, reminding me to be careful. Then quickly, that little voice became a loud, impatient bitch, shaming my carelessness.
Eric was brushing off time with his brother for me, while I forgot about my own responsibilities. The guilt had been easy to mute when he was touching me. We hadn’t even pulled out of the parking lot before I was calculating how long it would be until his hands were on me again.
But that nagging voice wasn’t wrong. We couldn’t just pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist because it felt good to get off with each other.
“If we’re not stopping at the hospital. I should probably call and check in.”
“Good idea. Set your mind at ease. See if you can get an update for me too.” There was no resistance or frustration in his tone. Only support.
And that only made the guilt sharper.
The nurse who answered seemed bored by my concern. My father’s condition was the same. He was stable, she said, and they’d call if that changed.
I put the phone on speaker so Eric could hear about Caleb. If he was carrying the same guilt clawing at me, he didn’t show it.
Before I could linger on it, his hand settled on my upper thigh. His fingers spread slowly and squeezed. The pressure pulled me right back to thoughts of what we’d been doing earlier, to the way those same fingers had owned my body.
But I still had one more call to make, and I couldn’t do it with my mind on sex.
I eased his hand away, not rejecting him, just reclaiming enough space to think. He didn’t fight it, understanding more than I said out loud.
Calling Hunter always settled me. Right now, it made the guilt worse.
He answered with his usual explosion of energy. I barely managed a hello before he launched into stories about school, Minecraft, band practice, and subtle campaigning for the dog he was convinced we needed. His voice was bright, and for a moment, the chaos of the past week faded.
Then he asked about me. About the hospital.
“Everything’s fine.” I hated how automatic it sounded. “How about you? Everything still good with Jackson’s parents? Maybe I should speak with them again.”
“Everything’s fine, Mom. I’m tired though, so I think I’m just going to bed.”
My stomach pulled tight.
It was too early. My kid negotiated bedtime like it was a hostage situation. He didn’t volunteer for it.
“Okay, bud. But you know, if there’s anything you need to talk about, I’m here for you. No matter what. Okay?”
“I know, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you too, Hunter. Have a good sleep. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.”
But before I could hang up, he called out, “Mom?”
A lump formed in my throat. “Yeah, sweetie. What’s the matter?”
“When are you coming home?”
My heart was already cracked from being away from him, but his question finished the job.
All the earlier guilt, the quiet shame about the hospital, about Eric, about distraction, splintered into something jagged. Raw, twisting anguish.
With a tear trailing down my face, I answered, “I don’t know yet, but I really miss you. Maybe you should come here for the weekend.”
“No, I don’t want to. I just miss you. A lot.” The smallness in his voice hollowed me out.
“I miss you too. So much.”
For a second after the call ended, I just stared at the screen, like I could somehow pull him back through it.
Eric’s hand closed around my knee. “You okay, beautiful?”
“Yeah.” My voice cracked anyway. “He misses me.”
“Of course, he does.”
“This is different. I shouldn’t have left him there. I’m a horrible mother.”
“I have a hard time believing you’re anything but a damn good mother.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know that.”
“I know you. And I know you wouldn’t have left him unless you had a reason.”
A reason.
What was the reason? I couldn’t find it. My thoughts spiraled, fast and vicious.
Hunter was my world. My whole entire world. And I’d walked away from him. Left him with people I barely knew. For a week. A fucking week.
My chest tightened.
Oh God.
How long did I have to stay here? What if he needed me right now? What if something happened and I wasn’t there?
The tingling started in my fingers. Then my toes. My heart raced, tripping over itself, as my breath came too fast, too shallow.
“Jamie.” Eric’s voice cut through the spiral. “Goddammit, beautiful. Don’t make me pull this truck over. Just breathe.”
Shit.
I’d spent years making lists, planning contingencies, worrying about every possible disaster. I hadn’t expected anxiety to be the thing that took me down.
Crappy daughter. Horrible mother. Now I couldn’t even keep my own body under control.
I dragged in a shaky breath, forcing myself to focus on him.
“It’s alright. I’ve got you. Just keep breathing.” His hand stayed firm on my thigh, thumb moving slowly back and forth in a steady rhythm.
I latched onto it, using the consistent motion to help me focus. To center myself. I did what he told me and breathed.
In. Out. In.
“I’ve got you,” he repeated.
Gradually, the pressure in my chest eased. The tingling faded. The world stopped tilting.
When I looked at him, he was still driving, still calm. Simply unwavering.
“Thank you,” I whispered as the last tear slipped free.
He shot me a sideways glance. “No need. I can’t have you passing out on me again.”
Despite everything, a breathy laugh escaped me. “I didn’t pass out.”
“No. But you’re carrying too much. You need to let someone help you with it.” His hand squeezed my leg once for emphasis. “You don’t have to do everything alone.”
I stared out the windshield. “Maybe you’re right. I’ve just always felt like it was up to me. Like if I didn’t hold everything together, it would fall apart.”
“What about Dylan?”
“What about him?”
“Hasn’t he taken care of Hunter? Brought him here for visits? Been involved?”
I shook my head. “He visits us three or four times a year. That’s about it. He’s not exactly father of the year. But to be fair, I haven’t made it easy.”
“Bullshit.” His hand tightened on the wheel, knuckles going white. “If I had a kid, nothing would keep me away. Not distance. Not pride. Not a complicated relationship with his mother. You don’t check out on your kid because of inconvenience or hurt feelings.”
From the way Eric had dropped everything to be there for Caleb, I didn’t doubt him. Family wasn’t a talking point for him. It was action.
Hunter deserved that kind of devotion from someone other than me. He deserved a father who showed up without being chased.
“Dylan and I have had similar conversations. But I think it’s harder for him. His parents had a rough marriage—his dad left eventually, and his mom didn’t handle it well. She got remarried, but Dylan’s never been close to his stepdad. He never had the best role models—”
“Don’t make excuses for him,” Eric cut in. “You didn’t have a perfect blueprint either. You still stepped up. You raised your kid. On your own. That’s not an accident.”
The conviction in his voice steadied me more than the earlier breathing exercise had.
“And wasn’t he part of the reason you ran?”
“Yeah.”
“Then stop protecting him from the consequences of that.”
How did he always manage to cut straight through the noise in my head? He didn’t coddle. He didn’t judge. He just…anchored. Being near him felt like stepping into something solid. Like my thoughts lined up better when he was around.
The panic had burned off. The sexual tension had quieted. But he was still there, under my skin in a different way now.
He eased the truck into the resort parking lot. “So, are you bringing Hunter here this weekend?”
“He didn’t want to come. So, I don’t know.”
He killed the engine and turned toward me. “Jamie, if you need help—with anything—you just ask me. Okay?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to hold steady.
“No matter what happens between us, I’ll do what I can for you.” He held my gaze. “I mean it. We’re friends first. I don’t have many. The ones I do, I take care of. That’s not conditional.”
There it was again. That unwavering thing in him.
I offered him a small, grateful smile, and slipped out of the truck before I did something reckless like reach for him and never let go.
I’d almost made it through the front doors to the lobby when Eric caught up beside me.
“Don’t disappear on me yet.”
“I’m not disappearing. I’m collapsing.”
He huffed a faint laugh. “The bar’s open, and my cousin Zane should be on shift.”
“Your cousin works here?”
A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face. “Yeah. My family owns the place.”
Owns.
The word snagged in my head.
The entire sprawling resort with its polished stone floors, sweeping lake views, and staff who moved like a synchronized orchestra? His family owned all of this?
I slowed without meaning to, suddenly hyperaware of the marble beneath my feet, the crystal chandelier overhead, the understated luxury I’d been too distracted to fully notice before.
He’d said it casually, like mentioning the weather. Like it wasn’t a monumental detail that reframed everything I thought I knew about him.
But I was too exhausted to process the implications. Too emotionally scraped raw to follow the thread of what that meant about money, about security, about the vast chasm between the world he came from and the one I’d clawed my way through.
“I am not up for meeting any more of your family right now.” Although a drink didn’t sound terrible.
“It’s not meeting family. It’s one drink at the bar with me. And a man who thinks he’s God’s gift to women. You’ll be entertained. I promise.”
“Fine. One drink.”