Chapter 39 Emmy
Chapter 39
Even better than Firefly .
Emmy
WE LEAVE THE kids with Josie and help Margarita into the car when Rhett pulls up. As she takes her purse from me, I’m surprised at the rush of compassion I feel for her. How must it have felt being pregnant with Mattie, knowing it was never going to work out between her and Jason? What’s it like raising a child with a man you don’t love, who doesn’t love you, either, and you both know it? I guess sacrificing for your kids is always hard, no matter how famous you are.
“Do you think Rhett suspected it was his?” I ask Jason as they speed off.
He wraps his arms around me under the oversize Christmas balls and shiny icicle decorations. The smell of his leather jacket and the way he rocks me gently from side to side give me a sleepy, safe feeling.
“I don’t know,” he replies, “but is it wrong if I still want to kill Margarita over that nanny cam?”
“It wasn’t her.” I nuzzle into his chest. “We had a talk about it, and I believe her. But if you want, we can still push them both down a hill and keep the baby for ourselves.”
He lifts my chin and kisses me gently on the lips. “Nah, we don’t need their old baby. If you want a baby, I’ll give you a baby.”
There are a lot of ways I could respond to that super-loaded statement, but gazing into his eyes, I ask, “Are you sorry that Margarita’s baby isn’t yours? Were you getting your hopes up?”
He tilts his head, and a red Christmas light blinks on and off, throwing his perfect face into shadow one second and illuminating it the next. “No, I’m not sorry. Honestly, I’m relieved not to have that job anymore. I’m glad she has someone. Maybe he’ll do better by her than I did. Because there’s somebody else I want to do better by. You.”
My organs settle into their jump seats. The dashboard is quiet. Everything is perfect, so perfect, except… “We fly home tomorrow.”
He shrugs. “You don’t have to. You could stay.”
He’s right. Peyton just met her dad. Margarita is having her baby. School break is right around the corner. There are so many reasons to just… not leave. See how this plays out.
When I don’t say anything right away, Jason goes on. “Or I could come with you.” His face lights up, excited. “We could drive your trailer cross-country! I don’t have a job right now. We could travel with Mattie and Peyton. Have an adventure!”
Great. Now he’s added a crazy road trip to my decision tree.
“What do you say, Emmy?” His eyes are shining. “Let’s move you out here to California! You see how good we are together, not just us, but our kids, too. Let’s take all our broken pieces and make something beautiful.”
I blink under the colored lights. The picture of the one-way trip he’s painting forms in my brain. A life with the four of us seems perfect, but moving here would also mean dealing with Margarita, and maybe letting Peyton see Rhett, too. As scary as that feels, it’s also exhilarating, in a real-life, non-Hollywood way.
I think about how Jason promised to love us, not just me but Peyton, too. For the first time, something like that feels possible.
Jason cradles me in his arms, waiting for my answer. He’s holding the wormhole open for me; he’ll hold it open as long as he can, but just like in season three, episode nine of Lost Star and every single other sci-fi show involving wormholes, it’s up to me to take the plunge.
I tilt my head up to him. “We’ll have to stop and see the Grand Canyon.”
His fingers smooth the hair out of my face, his touch deliciously tender, his smile even more so. “My family in Ohio, too.”
“The biggest tumbleweed in Texas.”
“A nude RV park.”
“Eww, not with the kids!”
“Oh yeah, I forgot they were coming.”
I giggle, but I can’t let this conversation end on a joke, because there are serious matters at hand. “It’ll be complicated.”
He turns off all the faces. “I’m not afraid of complicated.”
“Won’t this be bad for your career? Hollywood’s hashtag bad boy in a relationship with the greedy author who played him for book sales?”
He looks pensive. “My ex-agent says there are plenty of porn producers who would be happy to have me.”
I grimace. “Jason, no .”
He squeezes me. “In all seriousness, though, I don’t care about any of that. I want to be with you.” His voice cracks, and his gaze is filled with the same tragic certainty of our night together.
I hold my breath. I’m pretty sure I know what he’s going to say next because, well, I happen to be an expert in Jason Connor expressions.
“Hashtag I love you, Emmy Ellison.”
My heart swells with something I don’t entirely recognize. Maybe it’s the feeling of finally reaching the top of the mountain. Of my cup runneth-ing over. Of having everything I ever yearned for with no empty spaces. Nothing left to want. The feeling of being, for once, satisfied, even without a red carpet.
“Hashtag I love you, too, Jason Connor.” I push up on the tips of my candy apple–red boots and ambush his open mouth with a kiss so deep and long that my insides go liquid. He pulls me against him like he’ll never let me go. It’s perfection. Even better than Firefly .
Suddenly, a blinding whiteness assails us. We break apart as a car pulls up to the curb—a luxury SUV with a vanity plate that reads PRINZR33SE.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jason mutters, folding in on himself. “Is he here to take you, too?”
Zach Tay steps out of the car in a tux and the shiniest shoes I’ve ever seen. “Jay- son !” He presses his key fob, and the lock beeps. Then he pumps Jason’s hand energetically and nods to me. “I know I’m late, but Margarita invited me.”
“She went into labor,” I tell him. “She’s gone to the hospital.”
“I really came to see you anyway.” Zach’s gaze settles on Jason, and he shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “The Hadron thing isn’t really working out for me. You know?”
Jason shakes his head. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s not my speed. I’ve been trying to reinvent myself, you know? Go more serious. Less… music-y, if you know what I mean?”
Jason looks like he’s catching flies in his mouth. “I really don’t.”
“Anyway, the part’s yours, man, if you still want it. The network’s willing to have you back. They’ve been trying to get a hold of you. You gotta answer your phone from time to time, sport.” He claps a speechless Jason on the shoulder and winks at me. “You are taking it, right? Because I already picked up another gig—this Rocky Mountain true-crime series with a paranormal twist. It’s”—he makes a sword-slicing motion through the air—“ edgy !”
I elbow Jason.
“Yeah! Of course!” he chokes out.
“Great. Next season tapes in the New Year. Tell Margarita congratulations for me.” They shake hands again, and then Zachary Tay pumps mine so hard I’m afraid I might get tennis elbow. “You two let me know if you ever need anything. You need anything—I’m there. You got that?”
He gives us double finger guns.
“Thanks!” I double finger gun him back.
As Zach zooms away, I grab the front of Jason’s jacket and shake him. “You got your job back! And Zachary Tay is such a nice guy!”
Jason wraps an arm around me, still looking shell-shocked as we trudge back to the skating rink. “Yeah, Zachary Tay’s not so bad, is he?”
“Maybe I should have gone with him,” I muse.
“Ouch, Emmy.”
“You know I don’t mean that.”
“I wouldn’t blame you, honestly.”
“Oh, shut up.”