Starving, actually, but I’ve been too deep in my own head to even consider food. “You thought right.”
He smiles sheepishly and comes closer, setting the bag and a coffee on the desk in front of me. He arches a brow at my laptop. “Something up with one of your accounts?”
“No,” I sigh, the aroma of strong coffee and something sweet and fruity tickling my nose. “Just wanted to get a head start on next week.” And try to distract myself from my own thoughts, which I failed miserably at. “Thanks for this,” I say, peeling off the smiley face sticker on the coffee, so I can sip.
“You’re welcome.” He hesitates before taking a seat on the corner of the desk just a few inches away. “I owe you an apology for last night.”
“Me, too.” Maybe not for the things I said, but for walking away angry. Something we swore we’d never do.
“Nah...” He shakes his head and casts his gaze out the window behind me. “You were just being honest and I didn’t want to hear it.”
I take another sip and, for several long moments, we sit in silence. Until I can’t take it anymore.
“You’re a good dad, too. You know that, right?”
He gives a rueful smile. “I didn’t mean to sound like such a jealous prick, it’s just… it’s hard, you know?”
I sigh, shut the laptop, and swivel the chair to face him. “I do. And I wish I could make it easier, but I don’t know how.”
He nods and runs a thumb over the plastic cover on his cup. “We’ve got it better than most. I recognize that. And part of that is because Jesse is a decent guy, as much as it kills me to admit it.” Disheartened eyes meet mine. “Sometimes I wish he weren’t, Hay. Sometimes I wish he were one of those deadbeat dads, because then maybe I wouldn’t be second best to a kid I love like my own.”
A lump forms hard and fast in my throat. “He’s lucky to have both of you.”
Setting the coffee down, he reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m the lucky one, babe.”
It’s words like those that give me hope. Hope that someday, we can truly move past this.
“That said, I only have myself to blame for the past. Sometimes the anger I feel toward myself gets the best of me and I let my emotions talk me into saying shit I don’t mean.” His thumb strokes my cheek. “We had a vision, me and you, remember? A plan for the future. Solid careers. Financial success. A family someday.”
“I remember.”
“Shaking up the order of things hasn’t changed the big picture for me. I still want all of that. With you.”
Hope rises in my chest again. “I do, too.”
“I really am sorry about last night,” he whispers, pulling me to my feet and wrapping his arms around my waist. “I hate fighting like that.”
“Me, too.” I press my face to his chest and sigh. “I’m so glad we’re not going to spend the entire weekend avoiding each other.”
“You and me both.” He kisses my temple, his lips lingering. “If I’m not mistaken, we were planning a date before things went sideways. Maybe we could rectify that right now.”
“Today?”
“No time like the present.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Anything that helps you forgive me for being a jealous punk.”
I laugh against his hoodie. “Maybe you should surprise me, then.”
“Is that a challenge?” He rocks me from side to side, chuckling softly.
“I think it is.”
“In that case, I accept.”
Chapter 5
JESSE
“I gotta poop.”
Of course, he does. Wouldn’t be a normal Sunday morning church service if he didn’t.
“Come on, bud, we just got here.” I haven’t even made it to the holy water yet.
“But I gotta go.” And the pained looked on his face says he’s not lying. “Bad.”
Goddammit. I mean, dang it. Sorry, God.
“Daddy, it’s coming out!”
“Okay, okay.” I tug him to the basement stairs near the entrance of the church, just as my parents push through the doors.
“Grammy, I’m pooping!” Jett announces loud enough for the entire congregation to hear, as evidenced by the hushed laughter that breaks out in the pews.
“Oh, no!” my mother gasps. “Are you really?”
He nods and, before I know it, he’s in her arms and they’re flying down the stairs.
“Saved by the bell on that one, huh?” My dad chuckles as he moves toward the holy water, dressed in his best blue jeans and a plain button-down. He dips his fingers, makes the sign of the cross, and grabs a weekly bulletin before heading to our usual spot near the front.
I’m in the middle of debating whether or not I should go and help my mother when I spot Mikayla Kaminski grinning at me from the other side of the glass door, while her father pulls it open.
Dressed in a short white dress that is most definitely not church appropriate, with her dark hair hanging down to her ass, she’s a fast reminder that I need to go to confession.
“Hey, you,” she coos, looking me up and down like I’m a snack. Then again, there are two Twinkies in a pack for a reason—you can’t eat just one.
“Jesse.” Her dad lifts his chin, but thankfully keeps walking. There’s no way in hell I could look him in the eye and stand before God at the same time. Not knowing Mikayla’s been after that second Twinkie for a couple of months now.
As soon as we’re alone, she closes the distance between us and takes the liberty of adjusting the collar on my polo. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen you,” she whispers. “We need to remedy that.”
“Sorry. I’ve been busy with work.”
“I know, and I’ve told you on multiple occasions that I could help you with that. Among other things.”
Uh huh. And before I know it, she’d have wedding invitations ordered, too.
“Oh, honey, didn’t he tell you?” My mother steps from behind Mikayla, her icy blue eyes narrowed. She glances from my most recent one-night stand to me and back again, her scowl one-hundred percent I should have let him shit his pants, so you could clean it up. “He’s already hired someone.”
Mikayla blinks at me in confusion. “You did?”
“Uh huh,” Ma answers for me, pasting on a fake, saccharine sweet smile. “Nice girl from down south. She starts in a couple weeks.”
Wait a second. Did my very Catholic mother just lie for me? In church?
Holy shit, I’m going to hell.
The church bells sound above us and Mikayla thumbs toward the nave awkwardly.
“I should go. It was, um, nice seeing you again, Jesse. Call me if something changes.”
She’s barely out of earshot when my five foot two mother reaches up and smacks me across the back of the head.
“Not even a hundred Hail Marys will absolve you from that,” she spits, and I bite back a smirk. “But you’re going to try anyway.”
Oh, shit.
She points to the kneeler on the back of the last pew. “Better get started.”