“Jessie,” I whisper, as I wrap both my arms around her and squeeze like my life depends on it.
And maybe it does. Our lives depend on me never letting her go.
“What’s wrong? What is it?”
“I don’t want to spoil this,” she weeps, holding me tighter.
I take her shoulders and look down at her firmly. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? I can tell.”
Her nod comes after a pause. It’s like she’s pondering what I just told her.
I can tell.
Maybe she’s wondering how I can tell, and I’m relieved when she doesn’t ask me how I can possibly say that. How could I explain my ability to look at her and know something is wrong? When I can hardly explain it to myself?
“We really don’t have to talk about this.”
“About what?” I prompt, taking her hand.
She holds on tightly. Perhaps she never wants to let me go, either.
“It’s just this… this scene, it reminds me of something. That’s all.”
I try for a smile as I lean down, bringing my face to hers. “That sounds just a tiny bit cryptic,” I say sarcastically.
It sounds a lot cryptic.
“Honestly, Jax, it doesn’t matter.”
“It made you cry, so it does. And if you don’t want to talk about it, fine, I won’t force you. But I know you do want to. So why don’t we cut the crap, my gorgeous little angel, and get to the point?”
She bites her lip, stirring the carnal beast inside me. But then she lets it go and paces over to the roof’s edge, her footsteps stirring rose petals, the same way she stirs a thousand things inside me each second we’re together. And every moment we’re apart.
Following her, I wrap my arms around her from behind, gripping the railing, so she’s trapped by me. This is where I need to keep her, forever. Right here, her body pressed against mine… until it’s time for her to go to work and kick ass in the business world, or feed our child, or simply spend the day lounging around with the kids.
Whatever she wants, I’ll support her.
“I haven’t told you about my parents, have I?” The question is rhetorical, so I wait, stroking my lips across my woman’s hair and inhaling her scent. “Well, basically, okay… here it goes. I’m kind of glad I’m not looking at you right now. I never talk about this.”
“You can share anything with me,” I say with conviction.
She trembles for half a second, making me wonder if I imagined it. Is it how forward I’m speaking to her, as though I’ve already painted a future she hasn’t even imagined yet?
“My mom had a one-night stand. That’s how I was born. I never really knew her. Well, I didn’t know her at all. But my aunt told me about the one-night stand, about how she tried her best to be a mother, but apparently, it just wasn’t in her nature. I never understood that. If you bring a child into this world, make it your nature to care for them.”
“I agree,” I say passionately, as my insides stir.
She feels the same about family. I want to punch the air. But then I’d have to explain why and shatter the moment.
“Anyway, when I was one and a half my mom ran out and left me with my aunt. I later learned she’d gone to live on the West Coast and she… she died out there, Jax. An overdose. Apparently, she was into some pretty hard drugs.”
“I’m sorry.”
She coughs back a sob. “It’s okay. I didn’t know her.”
“She was still your mother. And I’m still sorry.”
She shifts back against me. “I’m getting the story all jumbled. The truth about what happened to her – the overdose – I learned all of that when I was fifteen and demanded the truth from my aunt.”
“What was she telling you before that?”
“That’s the thing,” Jessie murmurs. “I think she was trying to protect me. She told me that my parents died in a car crash. I only thought to question her when she fumbled the story once. But that’s not the point. The point is, she used to tell me this story about how my dad proposed to my mom.
“She said that he took her to the tallest rooftop in the city and covered the floor in rose petals, and there were candles everywhere. She made it sound like a fairytale. And for years I held onto that idea of them, of these pretend people, of the rose petals and the candlelight and the tallest tower in the city, in the world. And when I walked out here…”
“It brought all of that back,” I say. “Fuck. Jessie. I didn’t mean…”
She spins on me, looking up as she smiles through the tears. “No, it’s not a bad thing. It’s good to remember. It’s good to talk about it. And when those doors opened, it was like I could believe again.”