Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Fiona
The coffee shop was nearly empty at two in the afternoon.
An elderly couple occupied the corner table, speaking quietly over matching cups of coffee, while Beth Brewer wiped down the espresso machine behind the counter.
I sat at my usual table by the window with my phone in my hand, staring at the picture Jasper had just sent.
A baby girl slept against his chest, her tiny fist curled into his shirt. Jasper looked down at her with one hand cradling the back of her head, and there was something so gentle in his expression that I barely recognized him.
Not because I thought he was incapable of being gentle.
I’d felt it in the way he fastened my corsage before prom and heard it when he asked what I needed instead of deciding for me.
But this was different. There was no teasing smile or charm waiting beneath it.
He looked completely content to sit there as long as that baby wanted him.
I enlarged the picture with my fingers and studied it again.
Maybe the strange part wasn’t seeing Jasper like this.
Maybe it was how natural he looked.
Me: She looks very possessive
Jasper: She screamed when someone tried to take her.
I smiled, imagining the scene.
Me: Maybe she knows you’re comfortable.
Jasper: Or she enjoys controlling men.
Me: Smart girl
Jasper: You two would get along.
My smile lingered as I looked at those words. A few months ago, I probably would’ve taken them apart looking for some hidden meaning. Now my mind went somewhere far simpler, and somehow far more dangerous.
I pictured myself in the same room.
Jasper holding the baby. Me beside him. Maybe reaching over to straighten the blanket around her. Maybe laughing when she refused to let go of his shirt.
It was such an ordinary image that I immediately tried to shove it out of my head.
Me: Are you saying I’m controlling?
Jasper: I’m saying you both expect my full attention.
My breath caught, and I read the answer again before responding.
Me: I don’t expect your full attention.
Jasper: No?
The annoying man knew exactly what he was doing.
I’d gotten used to having his attention without ever asking for it. If something happened during my day, Jasper was one of the first people I thought about telling. If I texted him, he answered when he could. Even when the club pulled him away, he came back.
Maybe that was why I noticed so quickly when he didn’t.
Me: You give it to me without being asked.
His response took longer this time.
Jasper: That sounded dangerously observant.
I smiled as I looked down at the picture again.
Me: I notice things
Jasper: I’ve noticed.
The warmth spreading through my chest had very little to do with flirting.
Jasper noticed things too. Probably too many things.
He knew when I was avoiding a question and when I said something was fine because I didn’t want to talk about why it wasn’t.
He remembered ridiculous details that I’d forgotten sharing.
And apparently, he knew I did the same to him.
Me: You look different holding her.
Jasper: Better or worse?
I enlarged the photograph again. The baby’s cheek rested against his chest, and Jasper’s fingers covered nearly her entire back.
Me: Softer
Jasper: Don’t spread that around.
I laughed quietly.
Me: Your reputation would never recover
Jasper: I trust you with my secrets.
My fingers stilled.
It was such an easy sentence. So... Jasper. He could probably type something like that without understanding how it might land on the other end.
Except I was beginning to think he always understood.
Me: Is this a secret?
Jasper: Depends.
Me: On what?
Jasper: Whether you like this version of me.
I looked at the picture for a long moment before answering.
There was something almost vulnerable in the question, though Jasper would probably deny that until his last breath.
He’d spent months letting me see different pieces of him.
The man who flirted because it came as naturally as breathing.
The Cajun who called his mother and aunts regularly and had somehow decided the way I drank my coffee was worth remembering.
Now there was this man too.
I liked him.
Maybe more than I was ready to say.
Me: I might
Jasper: Might?
Me: I’m still gathering evidence
Jasper: I’ll send more pictures.
Me: That feels like bribery
Jasper: Is it working?
I smiled.
Me: Maybe
I put the phone down and looked out the window, watching a car pass slowly along Main Street. For months, I’d been terrified that Jasper would discover something about me that changed the way he looked at me.
It hadn’t occurred to me until recently that he might be taking risks too.
Maybe his secrets weren’t the kind that kept me awake at night, but he was still showing me pieces of himself and waiting to see what I did with them. The difference was that Jasper seemed to do it without fear.
Or maybe he simply hid the fear better.
I picked up the phone again and returned to the picture.
His attention wasn’t what frightened me anymore. I’d already accepted how much I liked having it.
The frightening part was how completely he had mine.
Jasper had slipped into the spaces between everything else in my life.
I thought about him in the morning when I reached for my phone.
I wondered what he was doing while I worked.
When something funny happened, I found myself storing it away so I could tell him later.
When something hurt, he was usually the person I wanted before I even understood what I needed from him.
Somewhere along the way, he’d become part of the rhythm of my life.
And I’d let him.
That truth didn’t make me want to run anymore.
It only made the other truth harder to ignore.
If Jasper trusted me enough to show me the parts of himself nobody else saw, eventually I’d have to do the same. Eventually, Charlie’s name couldn’t stay on the safe side of the line I’d drawn between my past and Jasper.
I looked at the baby sleeping against his chest.
Maybe that was why the picture affected me so much.
I wasn’t wondering whether Jasper liked children.
I was wondering what his face would look like when I finally told him I already had one.
The house was quiet when I climbed into bed Thursday night.
Granny had gone to sleep hours ago, and the only sound came from the ceiling fan turning lazily above me.
My phone rested against my chest while I stared into the darkness and tried, for what felt like the hundredth time, to figure out how to tell Jasper about Charlie.
Nash had been right at the graduation party.
I couldn’t ask Jasper to keep trusting me while I withheld one of the biggest pieces of my life.
Knowing that and actually telling him were two very different things.
I could tell him I’d gotten pregnant at fifteen. That part was simple enough to say. A fact. A number. Something that had happened years ago.
The rest was harder.
I’d have to explain Billy. The foster home. Being kicked out. Sleeping wherever I could while I was pregnant because admitting I needed help had felt more frightening than being alone.
Then Charlie.
Giving birth without anyone who loved me standing there.
Choosing Claudia.
Signing papers because loving my son meant admitting someone else could give him more than I could.
I knew I’d made the right decision.
I also knew I could still remember exactly what it felt like watching Claudia pick him up and walk away with him.
Both things could be true.
Jasper deserved to know that.
What I didn’t know was whether I could survive seeing his expression change once he did.
My phone buzzed against my chest.
Jasper: Honest question.
I frowned at the screen. Jasper’s honest questions had a habit of finding whatever thought I was trying hardest to avoid.
Me: Those are usually dangerous
Jasper: Do you want kids someday?
For several seconds, I did nothing but stare at the words.
Kids.
Of course that would be tonight’s question.
My fingers hovered over the keypad. The obvious answer was that I already had one, but Charlie’s story wasn’t something I could drop into the middle of a text conversation and hope the rest sorted itself out.
Still, Jasper was asking about a future.
Maybe not ours specifically.
But after months of him slipping me into hypothetical Sunday mornings, pretending I couldn’t hear what lived underneath the question would’ve required more denial than I had left.
Me: That was unexpected
Jasper: You don’t have to answer.
There it was again.
The open door.
He asked, but he always left me somewhere to go if the answer felt too difficult.
I didn’t want to take it this time.
Me: I think so.
Jasper: Think so?
I stared toward the ceiling.
How did I explain that motherhood wasn’t some abstract possibility to me? I knew what pregnancy felt like. I knew what it was to hold a newborn and count ten tiny fingers because I couldn’t believe something so perfect had come from me.
I also knew love didn’t guarantee you could give a child what they needed.
Me: I’d want to know I could give them stability first.
Jasper: You would.
No hesitation.
No qualifier.
Just certainty.
Me: You sound certain again.
Jasper: I’ve seen how you talk about Charlie. You’d build your whole life around making a child feel safe.
My eyes burned and I lowered the phone for a moment, swallowing hard.
He’d noticed.
Not the truth. Not yet.
But something close enough that the words landed in the exact place I’d been guarding.
Charlie was loved, completely. Frank and Claudia had built their lives around him, and I’d done everything I could to make sure my own complicated feelings never touched his security. He would grow up knowing me as Aunt Fiona unless the day came when his parents decided he deserved the full truth.
I’d agreed to that because it was what Charlie needed.
Jasper didn’t know any of it.
Still, somehow he’d looked at the way I loved that little boy and seen the mother I wasn’t allowed to call myself.
Me: What about you?
Jasper: Yeah.
I smiled faintly.
Of course his answer would be that simple.
Me: How many?
Jasper: Depends on the woman.
Me: Convenient answer
Jasper: Practical answer.
I shifted against the pillows, curiosity pushing some of the emotion aside.
Me: What if she wants a house full?
Jasper: Then I’ll build a bigger house.
A laugh slipped through the tightness in my throat.
There was no dramatic declaration in his answer. No hesitation either. He simply adjusted the imaginary house.
Me: What if she wants one?
Jasper: Then one.
Me: What if she isn’t sure?
His answer took a little longer.
Jasper: Then I wait until she is.
I closed my eyes.
That might have been the most Jasper answer he could’ve given me.
Months ago, I’d wondered whether his patience meant he didn’t want me enough.
Now I knew better.
He wanted me.
He just refused to make that my problem until I knew what I wanted too.
Me: You make everything sound simple
Jasper: The important part is.
Me: Which part?
Jasper: Choosing the right woman.
My heartbeat stumbled.
I stared at the answer, every instinct telling me exactly what he meant while the cautious part of me insisted there was still enough room to misunderstand.
Maybe I was finally tired of giving that part so much control.
Me: Have you?
Jasper: Ask me later, Cher.
I smiled despite myself.
Me: Coward
Jasper: Patient.
I rested the phone against my chest.
Patient.
He’d been that from the beginning, even when I didn’t understand why. He’d flirted, teased. Pushed just enough to let me know he was there.
Then stopped whenever I needed him to.
Maybe the answer to my question was already sitting inside all those months.
Maybe Jasper had chosen and was simply waiting for me to catch up.
That didn’t make telling him about Charlie easier.
It made it necessary.
I picked up the phone again.
Me: Goodnight, Jasper
Jasper: Dors bien, Ma Belle. Dream of the future.
I closed my eyes.
For most of my life, imagining the future had meant preparing for the next thing that could go wrong. Even now, college felt less like freedom and more like another test I had to pass to prove I could stand on my own.
Jasper talked about the future differently.
Coffee and breakfast. A bigger house if the woman he loved wanted it. Waiting if she wasn’t sure. Ordinary things that to me felt enormous.
I thought about Charlie, about Jasper holding the baby in the picture, and about the truth still sitting between us.
Someday soon, I was going to have to trust him with all of it.
For the first time, I could almost imagine doing it without automatically imagining him walking away afterward.
That felt like progress.
Maybe even hope.