Chapter 78
Seventy-Eight
On days like today, I love my job at the boatyard more than usual. The late April temps are climbing toward the low seventies, and the sky is painted such a vivid turquoise, it’s like working in a Van Gogh seascape. The ocean breeze cools my neck, still a foreign sensation since cutting my hair.
The mainsail needs replacing, but I complete a check of the other sails just to be sure. I stretch out my back then begin removing the sail from the mast track.
“Hey, stranger.”
I glance up, and my heart jolts, my pulse tripping over itself. A massive smile erupts on my face. “Jax.”
My eyes scan her top to bottom, categorizing how she’s changed, shocked she’s standing before me. I leap from the bow onto the pier, unsure whether to hug her or let her take the lead, but everything screams to fold her in my arms.
Goddamn, she’s gorgeous. More gorgeous than my memory allowed me to preserve. And that hair I love is billowing in the wind, reminding me of that first day I saw her when she looked like an angel.
“I’m leaving,” she says. “California, I mean.”
“Yeah?” I rake a hand through my crown, anything to distract me from the sting that brings.
“I just wanted to say goodbye. We didn’t…” Her gaze drifts to the horizon, then back to me. I couldn’t look away from her if I tried. “I didn’t want to split without letting you know.”
My buzzing heart rate steadies a fraction with the warmth of that statement. “Where you headed?”
“East coast. I’m going to work for a magazine in Virginia. The Travel & Culture section, if you can believe it.”
I’m so fucking proud, and the satisfaction? Fuck yes. This is what I wanted for her all along. “That’s great, Jax. Good for you.”
She offers up a small smile. “A wise man once told me I should be proud of myself. And I am.”
My grin splits wide. She’s quoting me. Me.
“Will you tell your mom, and say goodbye to her for me? She inspired me so much.”
I nod, still beaming the grin I can’t seem to wipe off. “She’ll be stoked to hear the news.”
“How’s Remy?” she asks.
I stroke the whiskers growing on my jaw and answer her honestly.
“He’s clean…but struggling. He slips sometimes.
His wife is a fucking saint and sticking by him.
So am I. He’s trying.” I never dreamed we’d still be navigating Remy’s recovery two and half years later yet here we are.
Even more reason I was right in cutting Jax loose from this tether.
Myriad expressions cross her face, but she doesn’t comment further. She motions toward the office. “Not that it’s any of my business, but are you seeing her? Her stare’s boring a hole into my back.”
An impish smile crosses Jacqui’s lips, and I cuff the back of my neck, not wanting to answer that awkward question.
And I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.
Julie is the first person I’ve even entertained dating and that was only recently.
My heart’s not in it, that’s for sure, but fuck.
When I meet her stare, it craters into me, throwing me way off balance.
“Do you love her?”
I gape at her incredulously. “No.” I swear she seems relieved. Or am I reading too much into it?
“Are you happy, Mick?”
“And we’re back to your favorite question. You know what I think about that one.” My mouth hikes on one side. This girl will never let that happiness shit go, and I fucking adore it.
Her eyes shimmer, and she stares at the ground.
“Hey,” I say softly, stepping close enough that her familiar scent hits.
I lift her chin and just one touch drives a stake through the pain already humming at my core.
She chokes back a sob and all I want to do is hold her.
The air thickens between us. “I’m glad you stopped by.
Jax…I’m sorry. About everything. If I could go back in time and change our circumstances, fix this, I would. I care about you. Still. Always.”
That sounds so fucking lame, so wholly inadequate.
Certainly inaccurate—I more than “care” about this woman.
But there’s nothing I can do about it now.
Nothing’s changed. What I predicted has happened, with no end date in sight.
I’m eking by trying to make the best of a shit situation.
This only reaffirms she deserves better.
“I loved you with my whole heart,” she admits. “You’ll always have a piece of it.”
Our eyes clash, the truth transparent and raw between us. I shove a hand through my hair, debating how to answer. I still love you. I will always love you. I’m a broken shell of a man without you. I don’t dare speak it aloud. “Same, heroin.”
Our gazes remain locked, neither of us wanting to disconnect.
“Goodbye, Mick.” She takes my hand and it sets off another charge in me, every cell in my body leaping, remembering, reignited.
I don’t hesitate another second, pulling her into my arms. She sinks into me without an ounce of resistance. God, it’s fucking heaven. Like coming home. She is my home.
“Be happy,” she murmurs.
My embrace tightens, acknowledging her wish, before compelling myself to let her go. “Good luck, Jax.” Stowing my reluctance, I pull away with a smile. “Go kick some ass.”
She graces me with her own grin. “You know it.”
I watch Jacqui walk away until she’s out of sight, even as it lances me open, creating a searing, fresh wound. My regret hangs like an anvil around my neck, an ever-present, omnivorous grief that refuses to heal. This is my cross to bear for the price of her freedom, her future, her happiness.
My happiness is a joke, one I’m dubious will ever exist.
It takes every restraint not to run after her, fall to my knees, and beg her forgiveness. Plead with her to take me back.
Because she would…and I can’t be the asshole that clutches her in my tentacles and drags her into the murky depths that is now my lot.
So, I don’t.
I let her go. Again.
Ignoring the sullen glare emanating from Julie behind the office window, shoving all the emotion threatening to spill out into the place where all my worst shit lays buried, I force myself back to the task at hand and just try to fucking breathe.