Chapter 25
SHELBY
A warm summer morning greeted me as I stepped outside Jake’s house in my joggers, barefoot and feeling twitchy.
After a restless night spent on Jake’s couch, half worried about Jake and his mom and half worried that Sophie would have another nightmare (she didn’t), I had called it quits and showered in the early hours of the morning.
Sophie woke up not long after, so I could only be bothered to throw my hair up in a messy top knot.
Once she had eaten breakfast, I settled her in front of the TV to watch cartoons while I called for an update at the hospital.
I had just found Jake’s name in my phone when I glanced up and stopped short.
Jake’s truck was parked outside his house. He stood next to it, his hand on the door, and he was staring at me, almost like he’d seen a ghost.
Which led me to wonder exactly how bad I currently looked.
“I came outside to call you,” I said.
He was wearing a wrinkled, old Colorado State University shirt of Cade’s, which Kelsey had brought to the hospital for Jake to borrow.
His hair looked disheveled and he had three days' worth of stubble on his face. Other than his unnerving gaze still on me, he had the look of a man who’d been through hell and back in the past twenty-four hours.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, sinking down onto the top porch step.
He blinked, and after a moment, he trudged toward me.
“Where’s Soph?” he asked.
“She’s watching cartoons.”
The answer seemed to satisfy him, and he made his way forward, sitting down next to me on the step. His arm pressed against mine slightly, sending a wave of memories from two nights earlier. It felt like we’d lived a whole lifetime since we shared a sleeping bag.
“How’s your mom?”
“She’s alright. They’re keeping her there for a while to make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”
I waited for a beat, eyeing the defeated slump of his body.
“How’d you sleep?”
He shot me a teasing smile. “It wasn’t any worse than camping with you.”
“Hey, I slept great camping.”
“I know. My shirt is still lined with your drool marks.”
I nudged his arm, hoping he was joking.
He looked exhausted. I wasn’t sure why he was still sitting here and not sleeping in his bed.
“So…what did your dad say? Is he going to buy you another truck?” I asked.
A slow and reluctant smile crept across his lips. Slowly, he turned, and without warning, his hands found my hip as he slid me away from him, to the edge of the stairs. Before I could react, his head was in my lap, his face turned away from me, and ever so slowly, his arms wrapped around my legs.
I hesitated for a long moment before I dropped my hands on his head and felt his visible sigh of relief when my fingers began toying with his hair.
“You need a haircut,” I said lightly.
“Not if you’re going to do that.”
The morning breeze lifted the strands of hair against my cheek while my fingers rhythmically strayed through his locks.
It was the way he casually clung to my legs that had me not moving an inch.
We went on like that for so long that I wondered if he’d fallen asleep.
The lower half of my body was growing numb, but there was no way I was moving.
If Jake needed me for a pillow right now, then a pillow I would be.
“My dad wants to pay for her medical bills.”
His voice came soft, almost detached in a way. For me, my mind was stuck on all the information I was still missing.
“Wait. What? What did he say?”
“That it wasn’t about me. He had to do it for himself. And for my mom.”
“And you’re thinking about it?”
“Layne thinks I should let him.”
The words sat in the air between us for a quiet moment.
“What do you think?” he asked, as he adjusted his position on my legs.
“You’re the only one who can decide that. But I’ll be behind you one hundred percent, either way.”
“That’s a cop-out answer,” he protested, his hand landing on my knee, squeezing it until it tickled. I squirmed away, laughing.
He peeled himself off of me and sat up, to my great disappointment, and stretched, looking like he needed to collapse on his bed.
“What was it like with him?” I had to ask. I’d been dying to ask that question.
He shrugged. “I really wasn’t in the mood to be talking.”
“What happened?”
“I wanted to hit him.” His gaze was stuck on something in front of him as he spoke. “So bad. But something kept holding me back.”
I kept waiting for him to continue, but he didn’t.
But I had been around Jake Evans plenty of times after a disappointing interaction with his father.
He played everything off with a joke and a casual attitude that never felt right.
He needed something from his dad, but he would never get it by hitting him. Or hating him.
“I’ve got a thought.”
He turned toward me, and my breath caught.
There was such a softness in his eyes when he looked at me just then.
A gentleness that weakened me. Jake was a man now.
It was easy to forget that, in the middle of our back-and-forth jokes and teasing.
A maturity had etched itself into his features.
There were soft lines on his face, the marks of worry and love for someone greater than himself.
It nearly blinded me. Sophie had grown him up in the sweetest way possible.
“What do you got?” he pressed.
I took a deep breath, wondering how Jake would receive my idea, even as the truth of my words burned in my chest before I spoke them.
“Well…from what I can tell, you’ve tried hating him.
You’ve tried ignoring him. You’ve tried hitting him.
You’ve tried pretending he never existed.
But none of that’s worked. There’s always been this part of you that couldn’t let go of the anger.
For good reason. But deep inside, he still has such a hold on you. ”
Jake leaned forward, head bowed, with his elbows resting on his knees as I continued.
“So, maybe…we can try for something closer to forgiveness this time. See if that does anything.”
He paused before he turned to me. “We?”
My face heated even as I smiled sheepishly. “I’ve been hating him on your behalf for years. So it would probably be good for me too.”
There it was again. The softness. Like it was the first time he was seeing me. My heartbeat began pounding erratically while my toes curled. His eyes drifted to my lips, and my breath caught.
Just then, the screen door came flying open, jerking us both out of something Jake would no doubt regret when he wasn’t so tired.
“Daddy!”
Sophie came flying into Jake’s arms, and her princess nightgown she’d insisted on wearing last night was nowhere to be found. Instead, she wore what looked like an old Halloween costume of a black cat.
“Hey, runt.” Jake squeezed her into him.
“I’m not a runt. I’m a kitty! See! Meow.” She meowed and licked her paw, which had a suspicious-looking brown substance smeared across it.
Jake furrowed his brow in mock confusion. “What has your Aunt Shelby been feeding you this early in the morning? That looks an awful lot like chocolate.”
Sophie beamed a glance in my direction. “She said I could have a treat if I ate all my pancakes.”
A smile lifted Jake’s face. “A treat after pancakes drenched in syrup. Aunt Shelby’s eating habits are top-notch as usual.”
I put my finger to my lips. “You promised you wouldn’t tell.”
Sophie squealed proudly as I tickled her.
Looking once again at Jake, I was alarmed to see the exhaustion on his face once more.
“Soph, should we go put your dad to bed?”
“I’ve got to go feed the cows.” Jake stood up, albeit a bit shaky.
I grabbed his arm. “Logan’s taking care of all the feeding today, and Briggs volunteered to take the guests fishing. You’re under strict orders to take a nap. Soph, grab his other arm before he escapes!”
She giggled, and together, with coaxing and prodding, we propelled Jake through the doorway and past the couch, where Sophie immediately became distracted by cartoons and the coloring page she was in the middle of.
I continued pushing Jake toward his bedroom, opening his door and smiling at seeing the rumpled bedsheets and handful of clothes tossed around the floor.
“Even as a grown-up, you’re still as messy as ever,” I commented lightly.
“You just fed my kid syrup and chocolate in the same meal.”
“She told me you do it all the time.”
He turned away from me, but not before I saw a hint of a smile flash across his face.
“I saw that.”
He paused to kick off his boots. Just when I thought he’d fall into bed, he looked at me expectantly.
“What?” I asked.
“You said you were going to put me to bed. I’m wondering what all that entails.”
Tingles raced up my spine, and heat burned my cheeks. I cursed my pale skin for the millionth time this summer.
My hands found my hips, and I gave him what I hoped was an intimidating side-eye, though the smile growing on my face was probably giving mixed signals. “I’m learning that you’re kind of a flirt when you’re out of your head. I don’t want you to do something you might regret.”
“I don’t regret anything.” He held out his arms. “Now put me to bed, woman. I’m tired.”
“How do I do that?”
“Help me get this shirt off. You’re always trying to get me out of it for your dang pictures, I thought you’d jump at the chance.”
My eyebrows shot upward. “All of a sudden, your arms are broken?”
“They’re just so tired.”
“Liar.” I shook my head while my heart rate spiked. “If I do that, you’ll go to bed?”
“Yup.”
“Is this some flirting test I’m supposed to pass or something? Coach?” I ventured cautiously.