Chapter Eleven #2
There was more emotion in them than she had ever seen before. It was raw, and unprotected, like he wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore.
Willow suddenly felt as though she were witnessing something very few people had ever been allowed to see.
She started to shift to stand up. “I should—”
His arm tightened around her waist. “Stay. Please.”
Those two words settled something inside her, and she slowly relaxed back against him. For a while, they just sat with her legs angled across his lap, and his arm around her waist.
Willow rested her head against his shoulder while the baby monitor sat quietly beside them.
After a while, Jay Bird spoke again.
“I think that’s why you and Lily have fucked with my head so much.”
Willow lifted her head.
“Jay, if Lily and me being here bothers you, just tell me. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable in your own home.”
Jay Bird’s expression tightened. “No. That’s not it.” His gaze held hers. “I like having you here, Willow. Both of you. More than I should.”
“What?”
He ran one of his hands through his hair. “I didn’t think I would ever want that kind of life again. I thought it would just be me and my job.” He smiled faintly. “Then Lily grabbed onto me outside that gym and decided I belonged to her.”
Willow smiled. “She can be persuasive.”
“That’s an understatement.” Then he looked at her. “And then there’s you.”
Her heart sped up. “What about me?”
His gaze held hers. “I think about you when I’m at work. I wonder if you’re okay. If you’ve eaten. If something scared you and I wasn’t there. I come home and see you in my kitchen, and it feels...” he paused. “Right. And that’s fucking terrifying.”
Willow laughed softly, though her eyes were filled to the brim with tears. “At least you’re honest.”
“With you, I’ll be honest.”
He shifted slightly, careful to keep her comfortable on his lap.
“I don’t want to scare you.”
“Strangely, you don’t.”
He shook his head. “I mean with this.” His fingers moved lightly against her side. “The feelings, or whatever this is.”
Willow stared at him. This was the moment she could have protected herself by pulling back, deflecting, and telling him she wasn’t ready.
And part of her genuinely wasn’t ready. But another part of her, the one she had kept buried for three long years, was exhausted from pretending she didn’t want anything at all, just because wanting something had started to feel like a risk she wasn’t allowed to take.
“I talked to Mia about you today.”
Jay Bird’s eyebrows rose. “Should I be worried?”
“I told her I didn’t understand how I could have feelings toward a man after Chen. I spent three years being controlled by someone who treated me like I wasn’t human.” Her voice softened. “You would think every instinct I have would tell me to stay away from someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Look at you. You’re huge, and whether you know it or not, you are very intimidating. You’ve got that Navy SEAL badass vibe.”
He looked offended. “That’s not my fault.”
She laughed, and then grew serious again.
“But I feel safe with you. I trust you. I feel peaceful when you’re around.
” Willow looked down briefly. “You listen to me. You don’t make decisions for me.
You ask before you touch me.” Her gaze moved back to his.
“And Lily…” She felt a slip out of her eye.
“I can already tell that she loves you. And you’re incredible with her.
That matters more to me than I can explain.
” She took a deep breath. “Is this too fast?”
Jay Bird’s hand shifted on her waist, while his other came up to wipe the tear from her cheek.
“Maybe it is,” he said quietly. “But that doesn’t change how I feel.
Somewhere along the way, that little girl got wrapped around my finger, and her mom got under my skin.
” His thumb brushed gently over her cheek.
“I don’t know what this is going to look like yet, Willow, but I know I want the chance to find out.
With both of you. I’m not going to push you.
Whatever happens here happens at your pace. ”
“Our pace,” she corrected.
Jay Bird stared at her.
“If we’re talking about being equals, then it can’t only be my pace.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Fair enough.”
“My pace might still be very slow.”
“I can handle slow.”
She smiled.
Jay Bird’s expression turned more serious.
“My career isn’t easy either. Sometimes we leave with no warning. There are times I’m gone longer than planned, and the majority of the time, I can’t tell you where I am.”
“That’s scary.”
“It is.”
He didn’t sugarcoat it, and Willow found she appreciated that more than she expected.
“But one thing I can guarantee you is a support system when I do have to leave.” He lifted one hand and carefully brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. “You and Lily aren’t alone anymore.”
Willow leaned slightly into his touch before she could stop herself.
“I don’t need someone controlling my life. But I don’t mind someone standing beside me.”
His eyes softened. “That I can do.”
She smiled. “Slow?”
“Slow.”
Willow laughed softly, then shifted a little closer and settled more comfortably against his chest.
Jay Bird adjusted his hold around her automatically.
For the first time, sitting on a man’s lap didn’t make Willow feel trapped. She could move whenever she wanted. And somehow, that simple certainty was exactly what made her stay.
Her gaze drifted toward the dock. “You know what this area needs?”
Jay Bird groaned. “Don’t.”
“A planter. Right there.” She pointed toward the corner. “A big one. Something colorful.”
“You are literally redesigning my property while sitting on me.”
“Our relationship is moving very fast in some areas.”
Jay Bird laughed. The sound vibrated through his chest beneath her cheek.
Willow smiled. “Maybe flowers.”
“No pink.”
“We’ve established that pink is a no-go for you.”
She relaxed again.
The moon had risen higher now, its reflection stretching across the dark water.
Jay Bird kept his arms around her, strong and warm, yet never restrictive.
Willow listened to his heartbeat beneath her ear.
For years, she had believed safety meant keeping her distance from everything. But tonight, she was beginning to understand that safety didn’t have to feel like isolation at all.
It could be sitting beneath the moon with a baby monitor quietly humming nearby, laughing together over something as simple as landscaping plans, or just being with a man who held her without ever trying to claim her.
A man who had trusted her enough to show her the part of himself he’d kept buried for twelve long years.
Willow closed her eyes and let herself rest against him.
Maybe neither of them knew where this was going, and maybe they didn’t need to.
For tonight, slow was enough.
And wrapped safely in Jay Bird’s arms, Willow let herself believe that maybe new beginnings didn’t always arrive loudly.
Sometimes they looked like white orchids, sometimes they sounded like a little girl calling Jay across a house, and sometimes they were as simple as finally finding someone whose arms felt safe enough to stay in.