74. Chapter 74
One thing was actually a string of many things leading to the moment he’d set the small box in front of Theresa and wait for her answer.
He wanted her to say yes. He also wanted her to throw the box in his face and tell him he was crazy.
It was crazy. The craziest, by far, of anything he had ever done, and he’d tangled with the Demons, for Christ’s sake.
In a hotel room with crisp white sheets and a color TV, Jason showered, shaved, splashed cologne on his throat, and dressed in the new jeans and button-down shirt he bought that morning.
He’d already cleaned the blood from his leather jacket and washed his new bike.
In the mirror above the dresser, Jason Young was a new man.
A man who was scared shitless.
He flipped his collar up and folded it back down. What was he supposed to do with a collar anyway? All he needed was a bow tie and he’d be as hoity-toity as his lawyer.
Whitlock. Jason couldn’t rib the man the way he wanted with Whitlock to thank for the paperwork in the envelope on the bed.
Three weeks ago, he left Saul at the hospital in California. Bear’s offer to run the Demons had expired. The door leading to all things Billy McClean was closed forever. He tried not to think about it.
Jason buttoned the top button, felt strangled and unbuttoned it again.
He rocked in his boots and shook out his sleeves and his nerves, dying for the drink he’d have to find on the way.
He was stalling and he knew it. Tonight was the night, and tomorrow things would be different.
Either way, whatever she decided, life would not be the same for Jason or Theresa.
He put on his jacket. It didn’t smell like her anymore. Sometimes he thought he caught a whiff; thank Christ it was all in his head. It was easier to keep his wits without her smell in his nose.
He opened the small box and studied the contents for the hundredth time, wondering what she’d say, wondering what he wanted her to say, and shoved it into his pocket.
On the bed was an envelope with the new papers from Whitlock.
The attorney cost a small fortune, but he did good work.
Jason owed him a drink, whichever way it went tonight.
He tucked the envelope inside his jacket before he could change his mind.
On his new bike that didn’t sputter and shake and might actually impress her, Jason rode to Theresa’s house. It was dark, and he was both relieved and annoyed. He’d finally worked up the gumption to see her, and she wasn’t home.
Using the key under the planter beside the door, he let himself in.
Standing in her kitchen was a different kind of relief when he thought he would never set foot inside her house again.
He’d tightened the screws on all these cabinets.
They’d had sex on the floor in front of the sink. The things they’d done in the bedroom…
He stopped in the doorway. Her bed was made up like the king at the hotel he was staying at, with the comforter even on all sides and tucked up tight around the pillows.
They had never bothered making the bed when he was staying with her.
That was a good sign. She probably wasn’t shacking up with anyone else yet.
Then he spotted it. A man’s watch on the bedside table.
Jason picked it up, jiggled it in his fingers, and dropped it with a thud that echoed through the quiet house.
Fuck.
He was too late.
He dropped to the edge of the bed and pulled the envelope out of his jacket and the box from his pocket. She wouldn’t want what was inside either one of them.
She wouldn’t want him.
He rubbed at his jeans, warming his thighs through the new denim. The wrenching in his chest making it hard to breathe was a feeling he was only recently familiar with. He recognized it from the hospital with Saul and waking up alone without a way to reach Theresa. What the hell did it mean?
It means she’s my woman, idiot.
If she really was his, a hunk of cheap metal wasn’t going to stop him from going after her.
He glared at the watch and dared it to take him out. His woman didn’t belong with any other man.
Jason stood and swore it wouldn’t be the last time he touched her bed. He used the phone in the kitchen to call the Springfield Sip. A voice he didn’t recognize answered and told him she heard Theresa had taken a job at Blue’s, a diner near the University of Dayton.
He thanked the woman and hung up. Dayton, huh? Jason was starting to believe in fate and Theresa was getting closer to home.
She just didn’t know how close she was.