Chapter 39
Lauren
Two years sounds like a lot until you’re living inside them.
Then it’s just mornings, dishes, laundry, and somebody’s coffee mug always turning up in the wrong sink. Usually Jackson’s. He kept leaving his at Kevin’s and acting like he had no idea how it got there.
It was learning who slept hot, who stole the blankets, who needed to be left alone after a fight, and who followed you from room to room because silence made them nervous.
Kevin made schedules and pretended they weren’t schedules.
Jackson acted like serious conversations gave him hives, right up until one cornered him. Then he stood there and took it, even when it cost him.
And me, I had to learn that love didn’t fix everything just because you wanted it to. It didn’t erase what happened, didn’t snap trust back into place. It kept us at the table when walking away would’ve been easier.
Fairview talked.
Of course Fairview talked.
Mrs. Henderson nearly swallowed her own tongue the first time she saw Jackson kiss my cheek in Kevin’s driveway.
Pastor Williams stopped asking Kevin to help with the clinic fundraiser.
Three women at the grocery store went quiet every time I turned down their aisle, like I hadn’t heard them whispering ten seconds earlier.
Bill Taylor stayed away for a while. Jackson pretended not to care, which meant he cared so much it hurt to watch. Kevin gave him room to lie about it until Jackson got tired of lying.
The first time Bill walked into Hayes’ again, nobody knew what to do.
He didn’t apologize. Didn’t make some big speech. He ordered coffee, sat at the end of the bar, and told Jackson the new tap handles looked cheap.
Jackson looked like he might throw him out.
Then Bill added, “Place looks good, though.”
Jackson stood there for a second, jaw tight.
Then he poured the coffee.
Once our relationship was out in the open, things moved fast. Haley gave notice after everything went sideways. Jackson didn’t try to talk her out of it. I think he wanted to, but there wasn’t a version of that conversation where he didn’t sound like an asshole.
By then, I could run a Friday night shift without crying in the walk-in, so there was that.
Kevin and I got married quietly at the courthouse on a rainy Thursday. Jackson stood beside us with the rings in his jacket pocket. He’d pulled the box from his desk drawer that morning for the first time in eight years. To everyone else, he was the best man.
To us, he was part of the vow.
There weren’t legal words for what we were. Explaining it to people who’d already decided got old fast. So we stopped. The people who needed to understand already did.