Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dani
I pulled the last box off the top shelf of my closet and wiped it with the dust rag. Early 2000s pop music filled my apartment from the portable speaker on my coffee table, and I bounced my hips to Britney’s voice as I flipped the lid off the box to see what was inside. I’d spent most of the day cleaning my apartment, getting rid of things I no longer wanted or needed while reconnecting with some hidden gems I’d forgotten I had.
In a normal way this time, not a nervous fit.
It wasn’t that there was nothing to be nervous about. HBC’s board had approved my virtual panel idea, so we were officially in hype-building mode. The first thing I’d done was post a single sentence on my social media: “Abortion is healthcare.”
As expected, the trolls who’d started following me after the interview took it and ran, which re-sparked the whole online debate so that by the time we made the official announcement, people were eager to take part. Hundreds had already registered to attend the panel, many sending in genuine questions for our speakers to answer. It was shaping up to be the highlight of the symposium.
Maybe that was why I was in such a good mood. Or it could be that I’d been at my apartment so scarcely lately that giving it some attention was grounding. And okay—it had the added bonus of keeping my mind off Jase and the baby shower.
It wasn’t that I was nervous about the shower. I didn’t really know how I felt. Weird, I guess. Mostly because I couldn’t be there with Jase.
I knew he felt weird about it too, but neither of us seemed to know what to do with that weird, so it just sort of existed between us, like when Baxter wedged his way between our legs to cuddle with us both on the couch—not bad , but something we had to maneuver around. Especially if we wanted to get closer.
I’d thought of texting him a few different times today, but I didn’t know if that would be helpful for him or add more stress—a reminder of the thing he was still keeping from his family. A thing we hadn’t yet defined or looked too closely at. We’d seemed to come to an unspoken agreement that if this bubble had to eventually pop, we wanted to enjoy it while we could.
So instead, I cleaned. I’d turned it into a ritual, with comfort music and a glass of wine, savoring the enjoyment of being in my space.
After I finished with the closet, I planned to shower and head over to Jase’s apartment. He wasn’t getting home until late and would probably be too tired to cook, so I thought I’d get something ready for him that he could quickly reheat before going to bed. He’d given me a key to take care of Baxter in case of an emergency, and I figured he wouldn’t mind me using it for this.
I removed the lid from the box and, one at a time, took the items out to sort through. It was mostly college stuff—an old paper I had been particularly proud of, some photos of me with my roommates from junior and senior year, the tassel from my graduation cap. I’d saved it to turn into a Christmas ornament, but I guess never having my own Christmas tree had limited my motivation on that one.
My hand smacked against something hard, and I pulled out a long, flat jewelry box. A memory came with it: my birthday during spring semester of my junior year, Alec and me studying on his dorm bed, him placing this box in front of me. I opened it now just as I had then.
The necklace looked exactly as I remembered. A thin sterling-silver chain with a single heart pendant, one side of the heart embedded with tiny diamond studs.
“It’s a promise charm,” he’d told me. “I know we’re not ready to get married yet, but hopefully soon we will be. And until then, this can let everyone know how much I love you.”
It was beautiful. The necklace and the gesture. Yet I’d lain there with no clue what to say, my brain spinning like the cursor on a computer when it freezes, a pinch of nerves or doubt or something pulling in my belly.
It was the first time I’d felt it about our relationship. The first time the smile for him on my lips had been forced. I’d just kept staring at the necklace, exactly as I was now, unable to shake the fact that it wasn’t a style I’d ever have picked for myself. It felt significant somehow, like if he didn’t know my taste in jewelry, how well did he really know me ?
More interesting was how I always forgot that detail whenever I fantasized about my relationship with Alec and what might have been if I hadn’t ended things. It hadn’t crossed my mind in over a month, but all the times before, I’d only ever seemed to focus on the ways he had been perfect for me. His good looks, and his warm smile, and how easy it had been to be with him.
I’d never stopped to consider how it had probably been so easy because I’d let him make my decisions for me. How we’d never fought because I’d brushed off the things that bugged me, discounting them as trivial. How the necklace wasn’t the only gift he’d gotten me that I’d had to pretend to like more than I actually did. Like the milk chocolates he’d gotten me for Valentine’s Day when I preferred dark. And the geometric patterned scarf he’d given me for Christmas in colors I never wore.
In my head, the important thing had been that he’d gone through the effort of getting me gifts at all. The fact that they weren’t perfect shouldn’t matter. But looking back now, it had never really been about the gifts; it had been about me not feeling seen. And as comfortable as I’d thought I felt with him, I hadn’t been comfortable enough to mention it, to tell him I liked nutty chocolates better than cream fillings, or that I wanted to be in a job for two years before I started thinking about marriage.
I’d felt like the bad guy for so long, the heartless monster who’d broken up with the perfect guy for no good reason, who couldn’t even put the why into words. How good a reason could it have been if it was that obscure?
Maybe that was why I’d kept the necklace for so long. Not because I was hanging on to Alec but because getting rid of it would feel like equating our relationship to trash or signifying that what we’d shared had meant nothing to me. Like it might hurt him in some way, and I didn’t want to do that again after he’d done nothing wrong to deserve being dumped in the first place.
But none of that was true. I could get rid of an item from my past without minimizing the importance of that time for me. I could say goodbye to Alec and still be grateful for everything we’d shared.
Above all, getting rid of this necklace didn’t hurt Alec. Whether I held on to it or not had no effect on him. My guilt didn’t impact his happiness. He’d moved on. And here I was, hanging on to things that kept me from doing the same because, why? I was afraid letting them go would somehow add to his pain or hurt him again? I didn’t have that kind of power over him. Not anymore.
The only person I hurt by not letting go of the past was me. Maybe that had even been the point, some demented part of my subconscious punishing me for hurting a good guy, for letting him go for reasons I didn’t believe were “good enough.” Like maybe I didn’t deserve love again after throwing it away so carelessly before.
No more.
It was time I stopped punishing myself.
Better yet, it was time I forgave myself altogether.
Maybe it had been a mistake to end things with Alec, although more and more, I was starting to think Jase was right about that not being true. I’d made the best decision I could for myself at the time, and as much as those dreams about Alec had haunted me, I didn’t regret where my life had ended up. It wasn’t always simple or picture-perfect, but it was one I had built for myself, one I no longer felt the need to constantly measure against someone else’s standards.
That was worth just as much as any relationship. Maybe more.
I traced over the necklace with one final touch, appreciating it for the gift it was before closing the box. Then I put it in the pile with the rest of my giveaways and headed for the shower.
I’d just removed the lasagna from Jase’s oven when the door to his apartment swung open. I jumped so hard the casserole dish nearly slipped through my oven mitts. Jase froze in the entryway, his keys dangling from his hand.
“Oh, hey.” I slid the hot dish onto the stovetop. “I didn’t think you’d be back this early.”
His eyes tracked my movements as I took off the oven mitts and dropped them onto the counter, his gaze flicking briefly to the dirty pots on the stove and the dishes in the sink before returning to me. “What are you doing?”
I couldn’t tell if he was angry. He seemed oddly blank, almost shell-shocked, like he wasn’t all here, and it occurred to me that his being home so early might have something to do with why.
“I figured you’d be tired when you got home, and I wanted you to have something to eat.” I glanced at the lasagna still bubbling in the dish, a few dark patches scattered around the edges that would crisp up as it cooled.
He followed my gaze. “You cooked for me?”
I trailed my fingers through my ponytail, suddenly self-conscious. “It’s not five courses or anything, but I got the recipe from Sal, so it should be okay.”
Assuming I’d followed the recipe correctly. Jase seemed to like the lasagna well enough when we’d eaten at Josie’s, and I figured comfort food was a good call after a family event.
“And sorry about the kitchen being a mess,” I continued when he didn’t say anything. “I’d planned to have it cleaned up and to be gone before you got home, but if you give me like ten minutes, I can get it done and be out of your hair?—”
He gripped the back of my neck and devoured my mouth with his kiss. I hadn’t even noticed him move. One second, he was across the room, frozen in what I’d been sure was horror at my clinginess, and the next, he was surrounding me, filling my lungs with the scent of him that my body seemed to need more than air.
His lips met mine with urgent presses, and I melted into it, letting him consume me as eagerly as I consumed, hungry for him in a way I’d never been for anyone.
He backed me into the island and pressed more fully against me, his hard bulge grinding into my belly. Goose bumps broke out along my body as his hands slipped beneath my tank top and unclasped my bra.
“I need you,” he breathed, skimming his mouth down to the sensitive skin below my ear and sucking. My legs threatened to give out.
I nodded enthusiastically, throat tight with arousal, and he wasted no time pulling my shirt over my head and tossing my bra aside like it should never have been there in the first place.
That was how I felt about his shirt, currently in the way of my hands that craved his skin. The material was stiff and somehow wrong across his shoulders, too constrictive and unyielding. I tore at the buttons, wanting it off, wanting him free of whatever else clung to him that didn’t belong.
There was more. I could see it in the pain of his gaze, taste it in the desperateness of his kiss.
Whatever it was, I’d take it from him. Let him pour it into me and find comfort in my body, take from me what he needed in kind.
His shirt gone, he worked down the zipper of my jean shorts and tugged them off as he sank to his knees, pressing kisses along my stomach. I braced myself on the island behind me, head falling back as his tongue teased my core over my panties. His hands slid under the elastic to squeeze my ass, pulling me to his mouth.
“Please,” I whimpered, breaths ragged. It was almost too much to watch him on his knees, cool blue eyes gazing up at me with something close to reverence as he eased my underwear down my thighs one agonizing inch at a time.
The next pass of his tongue was a shock of pleasure. I dropped to my elbows on the island, legs already shaking as he lifted one knee over his shoulder, then the other so my lower half was suspended off the ground and splayed open to him while he feasted.
There was no other word for it. His mouth was relentless, moving over me like he couldn’t get enough but planned to die trying. His tongue filled me, teasing a spot that had me grinding against him, soaking his lips with my arousal. I moaned in protest as he retreated, but only until his mouth closed over my clit, sending me into a new kind of madness.
I came once, a slow-building wave that had me crumbling beneath its swell, continuing to break me apart until I was a trembling mess.
Jase rose to his feet and gently set me on the island, pulling my legs wide for him to step between. He reached for his wallet as I dropped kisses to his chest, scraping my teeth along his nipples and roaming my hands over his shoulders, my every touch an attempt to express how completely I wanted him.
Admired him.
Was grateful for him.
He rolled the condom on, then lifted my chin and kissed me again, just as deeply and fully as before, communicating the same to me. At least it felt that way, even if he didn’t mean to say it.
Then he tilted my hips forward and sank into me, and there was nothing left to say. No words to describe how good he felt, no phrases that could capture his fullness inside me, no way to encompass this absolute truth of us together.
He moved, slow and deep, grinding our pelvises together with each thrust. The friction sent me to another plane, then somehow higher as he leaned me backward in his arms to take my breast in his mouth. He drew the nipple to a peak, swirling and sucking before moving to the other.
“Jase.” It was barely a whisper. My next orgasm was already building, gripping me too tightly to speak. Sweat coated our skin, sticking my hair to my neck, making me slide against the counter as I helplessly rocked my hips.
He steadied me with his palms on my ass, his muscles flexing beneath my touch as he moved inside me and pressed his forehead to mine. “I’ve got you.”
My fingers threaded through his hair, eyes squeezing shut against the approaching onslaught.
“Look at me,” he breathed against my lips. “Please. I want to see you.”
I forced my eyes open as the pleasure swelled, gaze locking with his, and that was it. Everything ceased to exist except for ecstasy and him. There was no escaping it, no navigating it, no way out.
There was only the tightening of his arms around me as he snapped his hips faster, pumping into me with abandon, and the agony breaking over his face as he found his own pleasure. Groans fell from his lips, filling my head like a prayer.
“Dani, fuck. Dani .”
When I found my way back to the present, my back was flat against the island, his forehead resting on my sternum, both of us heaving in air like we’d just burrowed our way out from below ground and drawn our first breaths. I held him to me, one hand buried in his hair, the other gripping his shoulder, not wanting to let go.
But more than that, something told me this was what he needed. For me to run my fingers through his hair, rub my palm over his back, and make him feel cared for. Loved.
I didn’t analyze how easy it was for me to do. I just did it.
“Well? How is it?”
We were sitting on his couch, me in my tank top and panties and him in his gray drawstring pants, each with a plate of lasagna on our laps. I hadn’t touched mine yet, too concerned with watching him finish his first bite, trying to tell if he liked it.
I’d rate my cooking skills somewhere around average; I could usually follow a recipe to a decent result, but it was nothing to write home about. Sal had assured me this recipe was foolproof, but I suddenly doubted every step I’d taken. Had I overcooked the noodles? Was there enough sauce?
If the way Jase’s eyes fell closed was any indication, I’d done okay. Then he confirmed it by leaning over to kiss me, a short and sweet press to my lips. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”
I tried to suppress my smile as I cut into my own piece. “And the shower?” I asked, hesitating a little. “How was that?”
My plan had been not to ask. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was fishing for gossip about Alec and Stephanie. Especially after today, when I felt like I’d finally made true progress toward closure. But there was no ignoring that something had happened to upset him, and I wanted him to know he could share it with me.
He let out a deep sigh. “Not good. My mom…” He shook his head.
“What?”
“She invited my ex.”
My spine snapped straight as something ugly swept through me. Something eager to pull hair and scratch faces. I tried to hide it by cutting another bite out of my lasagna. “Why would she do that?”
“Basically, she thinks I’m a loser who will never be able to trick someone else into being with me, and since my career is doomed to fail, I need someone who can carry me through life so my parents don’t have to continue to be embarrassed by me. I’m paraphrasing, but that was pretty much the gist of our conversation.” His tone aimed for flippant but came up short. There was pain there—old and deep-seated.
I lowered my fork to my plate, bite of lasagna still on it, and put the plate on the coffee table. “How could she possibly think that?”
He shrugged one shoulder, poking at his own lasagna without moving to eat more. I’d be worried he lied about liking it, except I didn’t think he was actually seeing it right now. He was back at his parents’ house, reliving whatever that conversation had been with his mom.
“I never…fit into their world. No matter how much I tried as a kid, I just always liked different things and thought in a different way. By high school, I’d stopped trying.”
“And Alec?” I didn’t have any siblings, so I couldn’t know firsthand, but I imagined that Alec’s relationship with their parents had to have an impact on Jase.
“He fit.”
It was the way he said it, like he was somehow a failure for not being his brother, that cleaved my heart in two.
I took his plate from his hands and set it on the coffee table next to mine, then climbed onto his lap and straddled his legs. His eyes fell to my collarbone, and I took his face in both hands and forced him to meet my gaze.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known.” I held his stare so he could see I meant every word. “One of the best people I’ve ever known.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“And if your parents can’t see that, it’s their loss.” I bit back the other words I had for them. They’re fools. They should be ashamed. They can go fuck themselves. Something told me Jase wasn’t ready to hear those. He still wanted a relationship with his parents, still sought their approval despite all he’d already accomplished not being enough to get it. And it wasn’t for me to tell him not to want that, as much as I wished I could.
A tear rolled down his cheek, and his eyes fell closed as I brushed it away with my thumb. I kissed his cheek where it had been, wanting to replace his hurt with something gentle.
He pulled me to his chest, locking his arms around me as my head came to rest on his shoulder. We stayed like that for a while, the steady beat of his heart against mine, our chests rising and falling in tandem as we breathed.
I would have given almost anything to stay like that forever, at peace in his arms. Would have given just as much for him to feel that same peace with his family. For him to no longer believe his place was along the edge of the room, looking in at the party from the outside.
I didn’t know if that was possible. Parents didn’t always change. Mine hadn’t.
What I did know was he’d never find that peace with his family with me at his side. And for every moment like this we shared together, it was going to be that much harder when I had to let him go.