Chapter Twenty-Six #2
At the entrance, Hurley crosses his arms and puffs out his chest, glaring at us down his nose. The size of him, he’d make a half decent tight end. ‘Gentlemen, you are barred from entering these premises forthwith.’
He looks to Gramps when he says ‘forthwith’, as though he’s trying to prove he was paying attention back there in the office, but perhaps to say he was impressed by my grandfather’s legal jargon.
Outside, I look at Gramps nervously in the parking lot, heading for the pickup. ‘What now?’
‘We wait,’ he responds. ‘Let that sink in.’
‘Why didn’t you open your binder?’
‘There’s nothing in it,’ Gramps says. ‘Just a few sheets of blank paper. I carry it around to make me feel like I can still pass as an attorney.’
‘Believe me,’ I smile. ‘You still do.’
At one a.m., when Serenity calls me, I’m lying in bed, wide awake.
‘I’m parked on Oak Trail. Is that near your place?’ she says.
I bolt upright. ‘I’m on Rockwell Drive. I can get in the car. Don’t go anywhere.’
‘I’m outside number 408. Near the corner of Boston Avenue.’
The house is quiet when I slip out the front door. The pickup is in the driveway. It takes me less than five minutes to drive to her location. Serenity’s opening the car door before I’ve even parked up.
When I get out, I slow my pace. In the shadows of the trees, it’s hard to see her face. My breath hitches when I finally see her, black eye makeup smudged down her face where she’s been crying so much.
‘Oh Jesus, what happened?’ I growl. ‘Did he hurt you?’
More tears leak down her face. ‘No.’
I take her hands in my mine. ‘Then what happened?’
She breaks out into a broken grin. ‘He let me go.’
My heart is thrumming hard in my chest. ‘What?’
She nods her head. ‘He said I wouldn’t go back if I knew what was good for me. I managed to say goodbye to the other girls… then I left.’
I’m speechless. I grab her in a bear hug and squeeze her to me, burying my face in her hair. Then I lift her off the ground and she squeals in genuine delight. ‘Are you serious?’ I ask, when I put her down again and cradle her face in my palms.
She’s trembling. The tears are still streaked down her face and she’s as breathless as I am. ‘Jake. My father’s debt is fully paid. Kale said I don’t have to work there anymore. I’m free.’
At the realization, I pull her back to me, crushing my mouth to hers, the moan coming out of my mouth one of intense relief, not for me, but for her, that she doesn’t have to take her clothes off for anybody else but me, and she didn’t have to pay a dime to Kale McCoy to say sayonara to that whole goddamned outfit.
I love kissing her. I would die kissing her if I could.
When she breaks our kiss, she wipes continuous tears, shaking her head in disbelief and pacing on the sidewalk in the dark.
I want to reach for her, but she needs this.
I know she needs to process. And we’re the only ones out here.
No one is gonna see us together tonight.
‘You don’t understand,’ she says, her voice quivering, more emotional than I’ve ever seen her.
She pulls her sleeves up over her hands, wiping her cheeks.
‘My whole life, no one has ever done anything like this for me. I never thought this would happen. I never believed… And I don’t know what you said to him…
and I know I said I didn’t need a hero… but you…
you came along and crashed into my world.
You did this for me, Jake. You and Mac. You’re both my heroes. ’
I smirk. ‘I’d settle for being your boyfriend.’
‘Shut up!’ she teases me, and within seconds she’s back in my arms, just where I want her. ‘You are my boyfriend.’
We kiss for some time. ‘I wanna take you home,’ I whisper against her mouth. ‘You can leave your car here. Spend the night with me.’
‘I want to,’ she whispers between kisses, my fingers sliding into the waistband of her jeans. ‘But I need to check on my dad and tell him the good news. But soon, I promise you.’
‘The whole night,’ I say, resting my forehead against hers. ‘So that I can wake up with you in my arms.’
‘I want that,’ she says, but then her mood shifts, and she looks down to where our fingers are entwined.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘One problem down,’ she says with a heavy sigh. ‘Two to go.’
‘You mean Brody Conway,’ I grit out.
She raises her eyes to me. She’s not crying anymore, but her eyes are glassy.
‘You could just tell him you don’t work for Surly’s anymore,’ I say. ‘So the deal is void. Or… you could send me to tell him. In my mind, I’ve been cooking up ways to remove his face from the planet.’
My words make her smile, and I can’t help but kiss her again.
‘I never told Kale about Brody’s ultimatum,’ she says.
‘Why not?’
She gives a shrug. ‘I think I thought I could handle it. That I could handle him. But if I don’t show up to his apartment Friday night, he’s gonna tell people what I do… what I did anyway.’
I search her face. It seems that unless she complies with Brody’s demand, she’s screwed no matter what she does.
‘Then we stay one step ahead,’ I say.
‘By doing what?’
I move my hands to her waist. ‘It would mean telling a few people about you and I.’
Her shoulders droop. ‘That was problem number three.’
I stroke her hair. ‘You and me. This is not a problem. It’s the terms of your contract that’s the problem.’
‘Who would we need to tell?’ she asks.
‘People that we trust,’ I emphasize. ‘Plus, I told River already. She kinda guessed something was up.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Well, she’s desperate to meet you.’
Serenity smiles. ‘Likewise.’
‘Will you let me set something up?’
She nods her head. ‘But that still doesn’t solve the Brody problem.’
‘Trust me. I have an idea how we deal with that piece of shit. Come here.’
I wrap my arms around her, and she presses her cheek into my chest. It makes my heart do crazy things. Like I wanna say those words to her again, like when I was in my truck on the phone to her, but I was too damn scared to say them out loud.
‘Serenity,’ I whisper.
‘I love you,’ she says back, pressing into me, holding me tighter, and every muscle in my body tenses up, like I’m about to explode. ‘I know it’s only been a short time. I know we’ve only slept together twice. I know it’s probably too soon, but I do,’ she murmurs. ‘I love you, Jake.’
I pull back and search her face. If I could bottle how she looks at this moment, I would. Dewy-eyed and beautiful in the moonlight. She bites down on her bottom lip and looks like she might start crying again, or like she might have said something wrong.
‘I love you so much,’ I say roughly, because the words are raw at the back of my throat, and because I’ve never felt this way before her.
I didn’t know a person could feel that strongly for another human being until she was standing there in that grocery store that day, and those feelings have only gotten stronger every second I’ve spent in her presence. ‘I would do anything for you.’
Her face lights up. In my heart, I know she feels the same way. ‘You already did,’ she says.
My heart swells. That we’ve exchanged those three little words only strengthens my resolve. And I know exactly who I need to call.