Chapter 21 Good Enough
GOOD ENOUGH
There was something going on with Jocelyn and he didn’t know if he was the cause.
She was quieter than normal. Then she was asking questions and he could tell she was uncomfortable.
Wrong.
He was uncomfortable.
He didn’t need her sympathy.
He didn’t want her pity either.
It’s not like he got much of it as a kid and wouldn’t have wanted it then.
“Do you want to talk about your mother?” he asked. “You brought up that we had something traumatic happen to us both at the same age. They aren’t really the same in my eyes.”
Her mother lived. Her mother cared. They had a family.
He never had a proper family in his life.
Just him and his grandmother, and he always thought it was good enough.
When he joined the fire department, he got a second family. One he enjoyed, but it wasn’t the same thing as what the McCarthys had.
“It was a hard time,” she said. “I still struggle when I think back. Thirteen is a rough age.”
“All the teenage years are a rough age,” he said, laughing. He put more pasta on his fork and ate. “This is good. Thanks for cooking.”
“You can return the favor for me one day,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“I will if you really want to see my place.”
“I’d like to, but I didn’t mean it that way. You could cook for me here if you wanted to.”
“Whatever works for you.”
It’s not as if he was hiding his place from her. Not like she wanted to hide what they had from people they knew.
She busted his ass over what they had being just fun, but she was the one putting it in a box and closing the top, not him.
He supposed the fact that her family accepted him was a step in the right direction.
What the direction was, was anyone’s guess.
“As for my mother—it was hard to find out she had cancer. We, as kids, knew what it meant. She had to go through chemo for several months. Was tired, weak, lost her hair, got sick. She worked when she felt up to it. She didn’t want any of us to see her down.”
“I think you’re a lot like your mother and don’t want people to think you’re weak either.”
“Exactly. But we saw it. Gabe stepped up. He took over being bossy to me and Jayce.”
Chance snorted. “You would have hated that.”
“I did, but I also knew I needed to do things to help. I took over laundry. Gabe ruined the white towels once by having colors in the load and my mother was very particular about those things. My father had to go to the store and buy new towels before my mother could find out. It’s kind of a funny story now. ”
He didn’t have many funny family stories like that. His were more heart to hearts with his grandmother telling him to pull his head out of his ass more than anything else.
Or beating herself up over letting him down.
Not feeling as if she could give him the upbringing he needed since Rhea didn’t feel she’d done that great of a job with his mother.
His grandmother had never been married either. It was a cycle he was determined to break.
He didn’t even have any men in his life to learn from. If his grandmother dated, he never knew. No men came around. He asked her once and she brushed him off.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to know about her sex life, if she’d even shared anything personal. Which she hadn’t.
“I had more tough love,” he said.
“Come on, Chance. I’ve seen your grandmother around you. She loves you.”
“Of course she does. But there weren’t or aren’t a lot of warm, loving words.”
Jocelyn laughed. “There wasn’t a lot of them in my office two days ago with my mother. So don’t delude yourself into thinking we were some fairy tale family that never fights or has issues.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking. Obviously, your mother got better and has been fine for years, right?”
“Yes. Thankfully. But the fear still lingers. For years I worried she’d get sick again. That she’d die. I’m outnumbered in my family and the thought of being alone with all those men was hard.”
He could see her trying to lighten the talk. “You would have gotten through. Your father and brother would have made sure of it.”
“You’re right. But it hadn’t happened. Let’s talk about something not so depressing. You mentioned your grandmother had an idea for you to come up with monthly type specials. Got any ideas there?”
“I’m still working on it. Any suggestions?”
“I like the taco thing, but maybe have fun stuff. Like trivia or dart tournaments. I don’t know.”
“I don’t have dartboards in the place and I don’t have the room. Trivia might work, but it’s overused and not my thing. I don’t want to put more on my grandmother to come up with ideas for it. Food specials would be the chef’s domain.”
“You’ll figure it out,” she said. “I don’t want to step on toes, but I’ll let you know if I come up with something.”
“Thanks.”
They finished their dinner in silence. He didn’t want things to be awkward, but they were and he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He had planned to spend the night, but maybe he’d just leave soon.
Once dinner was cleaned up, she put her arms around him from behind and gave him a hug.
“I’m sorry if our conversation put you off,” she said.
“It didn’t. I thought it did for you?”
“Nope. I still want you in my bed. How about you?”
He turned. “Always that,” he said.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward her room.
“Then we should get to it,” she said. “Maybe we can make each other feel better.”
“That’s a given.”
She reached for the button on his jeans, undid them and pushed them down, then dropped to her knees.
So far they’d always ended up naked in bed and having intoxicating sex.
Fast, heart-stopping, thrilling moments he had shared little with other women.
It was new and he wondered if that was part of the appeal and excitement or if it was Jocelyn.
Normally he took control and she let him, but sometimes, she took steps like this.
Her fist wrapped around his shaft, giving him a few strokes he didn’t need to get ready. The liquid pebbling out of the top got on her palm as she spread it around.
She dipped her head, her tongue coming out to taste and lap up the wetness she had his body creating.
“You taste good,” she said. “Silky and salty. It’s a tasty combination.”
Her breath was just a whisper on his skin while she talked. The same as he did to her when they were fucking.
No, not fucking. That put a harsher word on what it was, but he wouldn’t say making love. Never that.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever done that with a woman.
But when he looked down at Jocelyn’s ponytail swinging about her head, he knew this might be the woman who could give him his first experience.
She wasn’t going slow, she wasn’t savoring him, she wasn’t treating him with love.
She was demolishing him as if he was the dessert she’d been waiting for all night and dove in face first to lick it all up and claim it as hers only.
Her fist was squeezing him tight, following her mouth up and down, the tension in his balls building.
In the past, he wouldn’t give any warning that he was going to come. He figured if they started it, they knew what they were getting.
With Jocelyn, he gripped her hair with his fist and jerked her head back some. “You’re going to get something soon.”
“Yep. That’s normally the result.”
She dropped back and he let her go. Guess he didn’t need to be a gentleman, but at least he wouldn’t doubt himself either now.
Both her hands wrapped around him, her fingers interlacing as she pumped up and down and sucked hard enough that he thought she was trying to empty him before he was ready.
A few strokes like that with the wetness of her tongue and he was shooting in her mouth, her sucking it up like a straw at the end of a milkshake and not stopping.
He looked around for a wall or a bed to support him, but they were in the center of her room.
Jesus, if his legs gave out on him, he’d feel like an idiot.
Thankfully, she sat back on her heels, then he reached his hand forward to help her stand.
She let out a groan and grabbed her thigh. “Muscle cramp.” She hopped for a second and then rubbed that spot.
He burst out laughing. “Glad you complained first, now I won’t feel like a wuss, but I need to sit.”
She pushed him toward the bed with both of her hands on his chest and then dove on top of him. “It’s your turn.”
She certainly had a way of getting him to laugh.
But he wasn’t laughing hours later when the fire alarms were going off and he was up and out of bed in a flash.
“Get up!” he yelled. “Get dressed and get out.”
“It’s just a false alarm again, I’m sure,” she said.
She tossed the covers back and they were both grabbing clothes and throwing them on, finding shoes, snagging their phones, Jocelyn her purse with it, and out the door.
People were slow to move and it was driving him insane not everyone was taking this seriously. As they sprinted toward the stairs he was pounding on doors for people to move.
“Chance,” she said. “People are going to be pissed.”
“I’d rather they be pissed than dead,” he said firmly. “Jocelyn, this is my job. Get everyone down those stairs now.”
He turned after he had pushed her toward the stairs. “Where are you going? I’m not leaving your side. There isn’t any smoke. Not that I can smell, can you?”
He couldn’t, but that meant nothing. “Move.”
He went back to the other side of the hall and pounded on more doors, saw people coming out and not happy over the middle of the night alarms.
When he turned to go back toward the stairs, assured everyone was leaving with him, even slowly, the doors opened on the floor they’d just passed, someone wet and cursing.
“Damn sprinklers are on on my floor.”
He went to turn and go back to that floor to check it out, but Jocelyn grabbed his arm. “Don’t you dare. You’re not in gear and the sirens are getting louder. The trucks are almost here. Let them do their job.”
He’d had no one other than his grandmother care about him before. He wanted to argue with her but let her pull him down the stairs knowing she’d stay if he did.
“It’s hard for me to walk out.”
“Too bad,” she said, yanking his arm to follow her. “I’ll stick to your side if you go back in unprepared. I already get skittish over it now and that will make it worse. Is that what you want?”
It was the first she’d made a comment that his job bothered her. He wasn’t sure how to carry that weight.
“I still don’t smell smoke, but there has to be some if the sprinklers went off.”
When they got outside, him yelling at people to move faster a few times, Jocelyn grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her garage. He knew she’d go stand in there out of the elements since it was chilly out and the middle of the night.
The firetrucks came barreling in, the manager waiting for them and not in a hurry, which said again, it wasn’t anything major.
Chance stood back some but not in the garage where Jocelyn wanted to go. He wanted to hear what was going on.
But by standing there, the firemen on duty noticed him right away, and Jocelyn standing by him.
“Guess you did kind of announce it in your way, didn’t you, by not following me to the garage?”
Which told him exactly what she thought of what they had.
She really didn’t want anyone else to know and he wondered if he could be with someone long term who was embarrassed by him.