Chapter 27 Jovie
Nash gently kissed my shoulder as he spooned me from behind.
After a few more hours swimming with his brothers, we’d retreated to my bedroom, unable to keep our hands off each other as Nash eased into me once again. It’d been different this time, now that our arrangement was out in the open. I’d thought the sex had been passionate the night before, but Nash was insatiable tonight and we’d gone three rounds until his cock seemed to hit the pause button, as he pulled me close.
“Tell me about your mom,” I whispered into the dark.
“She was incredible. A kindergarten schoolteacher. The kindest woman I’ve met. You know how some people think they are good listeners but don’t really hear you when they claim they are listening? Well, she was an amazing listener and heard you, too. I wish that Clay had gotten to know her in his teen and adult years,” he sighed. “I have a lot of regret around how I handled things after her passing.”
“You did the best you could. You were grieving, too,” I reassured Nash.
“Yes, but I should have been there for Clay, for my dad, even for Wylie. You think he’s wild now? He really went wild back then,” he chuckled. "The sad part was that he never really addressed those emotions he'd felt, choosing to medicate them instead. I think that's why he can't seem to end things with Lana. She’d come into the picture around the time my mom died and it’s almost as if he’s holding on to her in order to remember a part of who he was before then..." Nash sighed, “I wish you could have met my mom,” he said as an afterthought, but my heart froze, listening to his words.
Nash was quiet too, and I wondered if he’d regretted saying that out loud. That was a dangerously close to relationship territory statement.
“I wish I could have too,” I said after a few minutes of silence.
Nash grabbed my waist and spun me around to face his front as he gazed into my eyes. “I’m glad you’re here, Jovie. Clay has really opened since you arrived, and it’s a good thing for him to have a nurturing presence in his life. You even make things better for Wylie. You make things better for all of us.”
My heart swooned at Nash’s tender words, and I wondered if he even realized just how sweet he could be.
I needed to remind myself this wasn’t a relationship, just a short, friends-with-benefits situation. But as Nash pulled me tight against his chest, the rhythm of his heart being the sound machine for my sleep, my mind began to panic, wondering how I was going to survive my impending departure when my heart was falling for him.