Chapter 30
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Dinner was perfect. I wasn’t very hungry after everything that had happened, but once I sat down at a table with two people who care so deeply about each other and me, my appetite came back full force.
After a deep talk with Jo Jo, Jake and I explained to her that I’d be staying with them for the time being, and that he and I would also be dating. Such an unusual situation, to move in while you’re still dating, to be madly in love without admitting it, to feel so connected to someone you’ve known for such a short period of time.
I did everything in order with Michael, and it was a fucking nightmare.
What I have with Jake is slightly messy, and definitely doesn’t conform to any norms, but it’s better than any other relationship I’ve ever had.
Already.
Imagining us a year down the road, two years down the road, five? My heart threatens to burst at the thought.
Jo Jo’s phone was ringing off the proverbial hook after dinner. The girls were concerned about me, and a few parents even called Jake to thank him and Jo Jo both for handling today so well. Some of the girls that teased and picked on her for not having her period yet have even apologized. A few haven’t, and it remains to be seen if they'll come around. I’m proud of the girls who have made amends, but who I’m most proud of is Jo Jo. She didn’t leap into their arms after their apologies—Instead, she was kind and thanked them, but now she’s asking if she can sleep over at Peyton and Cassidy’s house.
Jake called Mr. Brownstock, and after they got off the phone, he told Jo Jo she could go, and to pack her bag.
I’m sitting on the foot of her bed, watching her select things to stuff in her duffle bag while we chat.
“You forgive them?” I ask, nodding to her phone where it rings again, but she doesn’t answer.
Jo Jo shrugs. “The ones that mean it.”
I nod. “Trust me when I say that one day they’ll look back on making fun of someone for not getting their period yet and literally want to shrivel up and disappear.”
Jo Jo nods. “I know. And I know it’s not anything I can worry about. It’ll happen when it happens. I just… wish everyone didn’t know.”
“I know,” I tell her, empathizing. “Everyone at Bluebell High knows about my personal life now, and that I was in a relationship with someone abusive.” I let out a long, concerned sigh. “I came to Bluebell to leave it all behind, and he kind of followed me here and ruined things, didn’t he?”
Jo Jo studies me for a moment, and in that moment I question if she’s out of her depth. If my attempt at rebonding with her after our fallout is reaching too high for a fourteen-year-old girl. She tosses a satin pajama set into her bag, followed by a pair of socks.
“Maybe not. I mean, I told my dad about the photo of my mom finally,” she hedges, grabbing her makeup bag off her desk, zipping it before she tosses it in. “What if she wanted me to find that picture of her and join cheer? And joining cheer caused a lot of grief between me and dad, but it ultimately led to tonight, and we talked through a lot of things.” She adds a tiny stuffed bear to her bag before zipping it closed, taking a seat next to me, the mattress dipping from our joint weight. “What if mom wanted me to find the photo so that it would lead me to you, so that we could be close when you met my dad? All I ever wanted was my dad to meet someone and be happy, and for us to talk about my mom so that I don’t forget her. And now, all of that has happened.”
I nod my head. “That’s such a beautiful way to look at everything that’s happened, Jolene. I never considered fate an option, but who knows, right? The universe works in mysterious ways.” I bump my leg into hers. “Hey, you really do wanna sleep over at the Brownstocks tonight, right?”
Her eyebrows fall into a thin line. “Yeah. I told you, we’re good now. I apologized to them about ditching them. We made up.”
I nod. “Okay, just making sure you truly want to go and you’re not doing it just to give your dad and I time alone.” That sounded bad, so I quickly amend it. “You know, to talk.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Okay, I hadn’t even thought about the fact I’d be leaving you alone but thanks for that mental image,” she teases.
Jake and I drive Jo Jo to the Brownstocks, and I sit in the truck while he goes to the door to usher her inside.
Sighing, exhausted but also feeling lighter than ever, I rest my head against the cool glass of the passenger window, and watch the lilies sway with the lazy breeze. My eyes close, and a sense of peace washes over me.
Then my phone rings.
I consider not answering it, but I think of Jo Jo. If something happened to Jo Jo, even if she ended up being okay, I would want to know. She’s not my child, but still, I’d want to know. So when I see my father’s name on my phone screen, I answer because it’s the right thing to do, and I’ve always done the right thing.
“Hello,” I answer softly, my head immediately starting to ache. I glance over at the front door where Jake, all six foot four inches of him, stands with Mr. Brownstock, intensely chatting. But, like he senses I’m watching, he glances back, and shoots me a wink that I feel between my legs.
“Oh my god, Riley, I’ve been trying to call you for the last few hours. Are you okay?” he asks .
“I haven’t had my phone on me until now,” I admit, because getting my cell phone out was not something I made a priority once I got home with Jake and Jo Jo. I called Leah from Jake’s land line when I was giving Jo Jo and Jake privacy, but I had no other phone calls to make. Everyone that mattered was there, and my only other friend had already been contacted.
“We heard about Michael. Brian called me after he got a call from Michael, down at the Bluebell police station. He was looking for bail.”
The line goes quiet. I don’t try to explain that innocent men aren’t typically arrested in a small town for taking a hostage and assaulting them. I no longer see a point in trying to convince my parents of reality. “Okay,” I say, because what else is there to say?
“Brian said his son charged down to your school, held you against your will in your office and demanded you two get back together,” my father says, my mom murmuring lines to him in the background. “Yeah, and mom tells me that Michael admitted he put his hands on you. That he choked you and held his forearm to your throat.”
He had to admit it because there were witnesses, and there are marks left on my body. “It would be true if he admitted or not, just like last time,” I say, no emotion in my tone whatsoever.
I want to put all this Michael shit behind me, and that’s what I wanted months ago when I came here. Tonight, in all his idiocy, Michael finally helped me get what I want. “I’m getting a restraining order,” I add, filling the awkward silence.
This exchange is not awkward for me. I’m not the one who didn’t have the back of the person that has loved me my entire life. That’s on them .
My mom gets on the line. “Are you okay? Where are you? Do you need us to come down?”
I can’t help but think that good parents would’ve shown up without a call, and been there to support and protect me. “No, I don’t. I’m... staying with a friend. I’m fine.”
“We’re sorry, Ry Ry, that we didn’t believe you before,” my mom ambles, her voice wobbly with emotion she doesn’t deserve to have.
“You’re crying?” I gasp just as Jake approaches the driver’s side door, his brow pinched in curiosity. He gets inside the truck but doesn’t make a move to drive. He looks at me, waiting patiently for me to wrap up my call.
This man has given me more grace in a handful of months than my own fucking parents in as many years.
“You have no reason to be crying. I should be crying. I should be crying and sobbing that my own parents believed and chose a fucking piece of shit over their only child, their loyal daughter. I’ve been there for you guys through everything! I’ve done everything you wanted me to do and the only thing I ever asked you both to do was believe me. And you couldn’t do it.”
“We believe you, Riley, that’s why we’re calling. To apologize and tell you, we believe you,” dad chimes in, sounding exhausted with the entire thing, as if he has any right.
“That’s great. But unfortunately, that came about six months too late. Listen, I gotta go. I’ll call you guys… sometime. I don’t know.”
“Riley–” mom makes a weak attempt but I end the call.
“Parents?” Jake asks.
I nod. “You got a good relationship with yours?”
He shakes his head. “No, maybe that’s why they live on the East coast. We were never close. They were functional parents, got me through school and kept me fed. But they weren’t really emotionally attached to much, including me. They didn’t fly out when Janie passed. They haven’t seen Jo Jo since she was three.”
I shake my head. “That really sucks, I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “I used to be hung up on it. In fact, I went through a solid year where I was so angry at them for not being there for me and Jo Jo when Janie passed. I obsessed over how selfish they were and how much I hated them almost every waking moment.”
My nostrils flare as heat stings my eyes, an emotional cramp forming in my gut. “How’d you get past it?”
“Dr. Tanner,” Jake says, unashamed of the fact that he’s in therapy. Getting help when you need it just may be sexier than muscles and a big dick. Fortunately for me, Jake’s got all three. “I eventually worked myself through the stages of grief in terms of my relationship with them. Letting go of expectation and emotion really set me free.”
A tear slips through my lashes, and Jake’s eyes tenderly trace it until it rolls beneath my chin. He takes my hands in his, pulling me across the bench seat to his lap.
“It hurts that they aren’t who you thought, but it will hurt for a lot longer if you keep hoping they’ll be someone else.” He smooths his hands up and down my legs and forearms, pressing my head to the crook of his neck. “C’mon, let’s get back home and unwind.”
Jake dishes up ice cream as I sit by the fire, warming my toes and face. He comes to sit down next to me, passing me a bowl of raspberry cheesecake. I take a bite .
“You know, I’m usually a chocolate girlie but this is pretty good.”
Jake nods, licking ice cream from the corner of his mouth. He’s wearing sweats now, black and loose, and a gray t-shirt that isn’t meant to be tight but his muscles allow nothing less. He strokes a hand through his dark hair. The fire flickers gently against his swollen profile. My stomach squeezes and my body grows warm, though not from the fire. Butterflies take off in my chest, and I have the sudden urge to fall to my feet for him, this man who saved me today, who loves his daughter with his entire being, who faithfully supports his community, and who takes care of those around him. I want to strip to nothing, bow my head and be his, absorbing his angst and pain, turning them into his most heightened orgasm, his deepest desires.
Before I do that, I need resolution from what happened between us recently.
“Jake,” I start, “I just want you to know, I understand why you asked me to leave that night. I understood it completely. It devastated me, and the next two weeks without you, without hearing from you, that’s when I realized…” I trail off, not intentionally teasing out my thoughts but feeling suddenly insecure to put words to what I've been feeling.
He sets his bowl of ice cream down, giving me all of his focus. I love the way he does that, to both me and Jo Jo. He’s so good at making the people he loves feel cared for and special, and I never realized that was something I was starved of until now. “What?”
“I realized that I’m falling in love with you. And so while I understood needing time to work things out with Jo Jo, every day that passed that I didn’t hear from you, I started to think maybe it was all in my head. Maybe you didn’t feel the same way. ”
Jake bobs his head, threading our fingers together to bring our joined hands to his lips, dusting kisses along the curve of my knuckles. “I never wanted to break it off with you, Riley, I swear to you. But I didn’t know what to do. I’d spent my whole life being single thinking that I was protecting Jo Jo from instability, but I came to find out I’ve done a few things wrong.” His eyes hold mine, the emerald near his irises glittering against the fire. “One of those things was letting you leave that night. The three of us should’ve sat down then and talked it all out. But… I handled it all wrong, and I’m so sorry.” He pulls me into him, and I wind up draped across his lap, my arms around his neck.
He kisses me, our tongues rolling together in sizzling silence, his erection pressing into the underside of my calves. “I’m sorry for the way that all went down, Riley, I truly am. And I want you to know that I want you to be my girlfriend, to live here in the guest room until you’re ready to come to my room. And if at any point it all feels too fast–”
I press my lips to his. “I want to be your girlfriend, too.” I kiss him again. “And everything between us has happened crazy fast, but… in other ways, the timing has been just right.”
“You know, I kind of agree with you,” he says with a wink.
I pinch his sweats and give them a tug. “Are you wearing lingerie since Jo Jo is out tonight?”
He tosses his head back in laughter. “Sweats do it for you, huh?’
“You do it for me,” I admit, “but you in sweats is just a hot little bonus.” I tap my chin. “Well, nothing is little, so I guess it’s a huge bonus.”
He tugs on a loose strand of my hair. “That bonus is enjoying you being on my lap, blondie. ”
I waggle my eyebrows. “I feel it.” I kiss him again, this time collecting his face in my palms, keeping our faces together in between kisses. “Thank you for today. Thank you for showing up for me. You and Jo Jo showed up for me so big today, and no one ever has before. Not for me, not like that.”
He takes over, his mouth carving kisses down my neck and along my collarbone. “I will show up for you every day, Riley,” he promises, his hands finding their way under my t-shirt. “You look real hot in my clothes, you know that,” he adds, tugging the shirt off, tossing it onto the floor. He lays me down in front of the fire, kissing my bare chest and bare belly, and as good as it feels, we’re missing something. I sift my fingers through his hair and tug to get his attention, to temporarily stop him.
“Get your toys,” I urge, my request rattling in my chest, a little nervous to be so brazen.
Hovering over me, his eyes search mine. “It’s been a day, I don’t know if–”
“I do,” I say. “I want it, Jake. I want you. I want you to drive me into that place of pain and pleasure, because it makes me feel so good. You make me feel so good. So please, sir,” I beg, my eyes going dark as the flame between my legs licks higher and higher with each passing second. “Please, whip me, gag me, and fuck me. I need it, sir.”