Chapter 31
DORI
Jami’s pained gaze stares back at me.
“Jami, I’m not saying I don’t want Aiden to know about us. I just want him to get used to the idea before we dump all of it in his lap. He’s still recovering, and he’s been uptight lately.”
Good God, I didn’t think I’d be so nervous about telling Aiden.
Jami nods and his brow furrows. “I didn’t think about that. Do you think I should wait to tell him?”
“Why? So we can wait for him to find out by accident? No, we need to tell him.” I suck up my fear and step into my bravery.
Jami’s gaze travels around the room. “Okay, so I’ll tell him how I feel about you first. Then how long before we tell him about us?”
“That’ll depend on how he handles it. If Aiden picks up everything and flies out here to confront us, then we do it at that time. If he calls me and asks, I’ll do it then. I just don’t want to lay it all out on one phone call.”
My belly flips with the realization this is really happening. Jami’s going to lay it all on the line and fight for me. It gives me reason to pause .
I’m soaking up the moment when my phone rings. I dig into my pocket and pull it out.
Jami gestures to my phone. “Who’s calling you so late?”
“It’s Hunter.”
Jami gets up and jogs to the staircase that leads upstairs.
I toss my phone on the coffee table. “I’m not going to answer it, so you don’t have to leave the room.”
“It’s not that. I left my phone in my office upstairs. I haven’t checked it in a while. My team works late and I’m usually available. I’ll be right back.” Jami takes two stairs at a time as he disappears upstairs.
I get off the couch and peek at the upper level. It’s spacious from what I can see.
I wonder if it is anything like Hunter’s apartment.
Dammit!
Why did he have to call and bring himself into this moment?
“What’s that look for?” Jami comes into view as he crosses through an open loft area.
“Nothing.” I turn away and try to ignore the pang of guilt that just appeared in my chest.
“It’s not nothing when I can tell you’re struggling with something.” He hops down the stairs. “If you want this to work, the first thing you’re going to do is learn to lean on me when something is bothering you.”
He reaches me and bends over, planting a kiss on my lips. My smile erupts at the gesture.
“That was sweet.” I take his hand and lead him back to the couch. “You’re right. I need to be honest with you. Hunter’s call just took me out of the moment and I felt guilty for a second.”
“Why are you feeling guilty?” Jami waits for me to take a seat, then joins me, sitting close.
He slides his arm around my neck and pulls me into his chest. I take a second to figure out how to phrase my thoughts .
“I don’t want to hurt Hunter. He’s been good to me.” My face is against Jami’s heart, and it pounds harder.
His arm tightens around my shoulder like he’s protecting me. “He’s also scared the living shit out of you on occasion, so don’t glamorize it all.”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t have faults, but after everything I’ve done to him, can you blame him?”
Jami tenses underneath me and I realize what I’ve said.
“Jami, I know I’ve done just as many things that have hurt you. Probably more over time.” I press off his chest.
We face each other and know it’s time to talk about how I’ve impacted both their lives.
“Dori, I can forgive you for everything. I have forgiven you. If you can’t give that to yourself, I’m not sure how we make it through this because you’ll always be wondering if you could’ve done something differently than you did.”
“I know and I’m working on getting there. But here’s the thing you need to understand. The intensity of what I feel for you pulls me to you. It always has. You’ve said it yourself. We have an intense magnetic attraction.”
“That we do.”
I place my hand on Jami’s heart. “You have me no matter where I am in this world. It’s always been you.”
“You don’t know how happy that makes me hearing that.”
“You own my heart, and it’s taken me a long time to figure that out. It’s beyond anything tangible. It has a life of its own.”
“I feel that way too.”
“Good, so please don’t doubt how I feel about you when I struggle with how Hunter will be affected by this. I still care deeply for him and feel awful I’m going to hurt him.”
Jami puts his hand over mine. “I know. Your compassion is one of the many things I love about you. You don’t have a true mean bone in your body.”
A warm smile grows across my face. “That’s sweet of you to say. ”
“You love hard, so I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. Just promise you’ll talk to me about it so I don’t get in my head and think you’re second-guessing yourself.”
“I promise I’ll talk to you about it, but I might need a day or two to get it figured out in my brain before I do. Can you handle that?” I intertwine my fingers with his.
“Yeah, I can do that for you.” His phone buzzes, so he glances at the screen. “That’s odd.”
“What?”
“I just got a message from Jonah.” Jami’s face screws up and he shakes his head. “He never reaches out this late. Let me call him real quick.”
“What did his message say?”
“He just asked me to call him.” Jami presses a few things on his phone and then puts it to his ear.
“Hey, Jonah. I just got your message. What’s up?” Jami turns to me and shrugs.
His forehead crinkles together as he listens to Jonah. “How can that be? Everything was running smoothly the last I checked. I haven’t assigned anyone to that part of the app, so there’s no reason it should give you an error message.”
He listens for a minute. His eyes squint and he huffs. “Give me a second and I’ll check it out on my computer.”
He hits the mute button and stands. “I’ve got to help Jonah with something. It seems there’s a glitch somewhere. Make yourself at home and I’ll be down as soon as I figure this out.”
“Take your time.” I blow him a kiss as he walks away.
I rest my head on the back of his couch and think about how I want to break the news to Hunter. My stomach twists and swirls guilt around. Acid eats at my insides.
I get up to burn off some of this anxious energy. I place my hands on the back of my hips as I wander around Jami’s apartment. He hasn’t given me a full tour, so I go from room to room .
As soon as I enter his bedroom, the lights flick on. It startles me, causing me to peek over my shoulder. A framed picture of us on his dresser comes to my attention. I pick it up.
His arms are around my shoulders as I lean against him, taking a selfie. We’re both facing the camera. We’re soaking wet, standing in the meadow with Mount Sopris in the background.
“Holy shit. Where did he get this?” I search my brain, trying to remember if he had his phone that day.
If he has this photo of us, he must have had it. I put it back in its spot and go upstairs to find him.
At the top of the stairs is an open loft with a bathroom off to the side. There’s a room on either end of a long platform-type hall. Jami’s voice travels down one side, so I stroll in his direction.
I enter the room, which turns out to be a decked-out computer office. It puts the one at work to shame.
Why does he put up with the one at work when he has this?
His back is to the door, so he doesn’t notice me in the room. He’s got the phone on speaker and talking with Jonah. I don’t want Jonah to hear me, so I quietly leave.
I get to the loft. Something under the love seat near a side table catches my eye. I walk over and pry it out from under the little sofa. It’s a picture of Jami and a beautiful brunette woman.
Who the hell is this?
He hasn’t said a word to me about dating anyone since he’s been here, so I assume it’s an old girlfriend from Miami. I bring the photo closer to see if I recognize her, but I don’t.
My chest catches on fire. How he’s staring at her has me wanting answers to questions I have no right asking.
I place it down on the side table and shake out my hands. It’s like the picture was going to burn my fingers off.
My mind quickly goes through anything I can remember about Jamison and his past girlfriends. My brother’s words slam against my heart.
With everything that happened, I forgot to talk with Jami about it. I replay their conversation from that night at the restaurant.
“Speaking of dating, have you heard from your girlfriend?” Aiden asks.
“I don’t have a girlfriend. Where do you get this stuff from?” Jami leans back with guilt hanging in his eyes.
Aiden shrugs. “You were just fighting with her. You spent fifteen minutes before we went to Dori’s texting her.”
Jami turns white, and he shifts in his chair. “The woman I was fighting with through text messages is not my girlfriend.”
I bring myself back to the current reality. “Then who was she, Jami?”
My world spins as a creeping black smog rises around me, causing my mind to go blank. A massive lump crawls up my throat as I sit on the love seat. I catch my breath and decide to talk to him about it when he’s off the phone.
Is she why he’s in this mess he keeps warning me about?
I get up and walk to the opening at the top of the staircase. Before I step down, I glance at the door at the other end of the platform hallway.
The door’s closed. My curiosity gets the best of me. I have to see if it’s another state-of-the-art office, so I go to check it out. I open the door and scan the room, sure I entered another world.
“What the fuck?” It comes out of my mouth, but it doesn’t sound like me.
From this second on, everything happens in slow motion. My gaze sweeps over every inch of the seafoam-green painted room. I could be imagining it, but I swear the aroma of baby powder fills the air.
My suspicions are only confirmed when the first piece of furniture comes into view. It’s a cream-colored diaper-changing table. My breath hitches and I grab my chest.
“This cannot be real.” My feet move on their own, taking me closer to it.
Various baby lotions and shampoos are on top of the table. My vision distorts, so I squeeze my eyes shut, brace myself against the table, and then force my eyes open.
I turn my head only to have a glider rocking chair in the corner of the room come into my line of sight. Baby books and toys are stacked next to it against the wall.
I have no idea what I’m looking at; my brain won’t register it. My body goes numb. I trip and tumble into the footrest at the base of the glider. I take a minute to catch my bearings by sitting on it.
Maybe I’m having a flashback from the night I was roofied. I bury my face in my hands, sure I’m hallucinating.
I gasp for air and raise my head. Behind the door is an entire baby suite with an oval canopy crib and all. It’s the most beautiful baby room I’ve ever seen.
My eyes fill with tears. They fall from my lashes and land on my cheeks.
My focus gets pulled to the wall behind the crib. There’s an elephant painted on one side of the crib and a giraffe on the other. Between them are letters hanging at different angles.
I can’t make them out, so I move to it without realizing I’m even walking. My heart pounds as blood races through my ears. Burning hot rivers flow from my eyes.
As soon as I can make the letters out, I spell it out.
A.R.I.C.I.N
I say it out loud to myself. “Aricin.”
It’s such a unique name and I’m sure I’ve heard it before. I flip through my memories as fast as I can. The day I went to Chuck’s farm with Jami settles front and center in my mind .
His woodwork and leather crafts. He made a piece with the name Aricin on it. Jami told me it meant eternal.
“Why didn’t I ask you to explain it to me?” I hold on to the edge of the crib as my entire world turns upside down.
My head falls forward, only to bring a blue baby quilt with the name Aricin stitched on it into my field of vision. I reach into the bed and pick it up. I bring it to my nose. Baby powder infuses the material.
It’s clutched in my hands as I amble to the opening of the room. As I approach the door, my name echoes in my ears like I’m in a tin can.
A second later, it’s Jami’s voice calling out my name. “Dori. Fuck! Dori!”
I step out from behind the door, gripping the blue baby blanket in my fists. Jami runs down the hall toward me. He stops dead in his tracks when our eyes meet. Everything halts and the world stands still.
It’s now I come to terms with the fact that I’m not dreaming. This is really happening. We stand staring at each other for what seems like an hour. Neither one of us makes a move.
The End…