No, I can’t let my mind go there. I’ll drive myself crazy.
“Do you kiss a lot of girls?” I spit out the question I was just thinking about.
Jace’s chest vibrates underneath me, and I curl my head down so he can’t see my face. But that doesn’t stop him from tangling his hand into my hair and pulling my head back so he can look into my eyes.
“If family counts, fewer than twenty.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Fewer than ten.”
“Oh.” That’s more than me. Jace was my first kiss. My first caring touch.
“After today, one.” I don’t know how to respond to that. Does he mean me? Or does he mean he’ll never kiss another girl until he intends to marry? I’m overanalyzing this, I think.
“Tell me about your mom, Calla.” A bucket of ice water washes over me, and I feel slightly ill.
I sit up. I can’t talk about her when he’s touching me. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything you want to tell me.”
What a loaded request. I could tell him a million things about the woman, but none of them would be good. They’d be terrible. Horrifying. And he’d want me to spill it all to Petal. Or he’d go to Cade.
“I don’t have anything to tell you, Jace. Nothing you want to hear about.”
“Try me.”
Turning away from him, I face the room. Anything I say will only disgust him. And when he leaves, not wanting to bother with me anymore, I’m not sure I can handle that.
“You’re so afraid I’ll reject you that you can’t say anything?” he asks, and I shake my head. He’s right, but I won’t admit it.
When he stands up, my heart grows wild, beating so hard I can feel it in my eardrums. He’s leaving, and I didn’t even say a word.
His shirt drops to the ground, and my head swivels to stare at him. Shocked at his bold move, stunned at his physique.
“What are you doing?” I squeak out as he toes off his shoes and socks. Pulling out his wallet and keys, he tosses them on the table too.
“You think I’m so damn eager to leave you, so I’m settling in for the night. Tell me, don’t tell me, I’ll still be here in the morning.” Dropping back onto the sofa, he puts his feet up and leans his head back. Arms crossed over his chest, Jace closes his eyes, and despite his relaxed state, I see his bulging muscles twitching.
Covered in tattoos that I want to trace with my fingertips, I move closer when I see a clustering of flowers on his shoulder and down his bicep. Seeing a calla lily amidst the other lilies, my eyes water.
“When did you get this?” I whisper, caressing the flowers.
His eyes don’t open, and he barely moves. “The day after Lily was born. I’ve been Uncle Jace her entire life, but sometimes she’s like my own daughter. I helped Cade raise those kids until Petal came along.”
His openness to loving a child so profoundly warms my heart. “Why the calla lily?” I choke out the question.
This time his head turns to look at me, his hazel eyes snaring me, capturing my complete attention. “I don’t know. It was a last-minute instinctual decision. I saw one on the wall as the artist was drawing this on and told her I needed one right in the center.”
I’ve never believed in fate before. None of the written in the stars, horoscope, tea leaf reading, but this…it feels right.
Opening up about my mother has never happened before. I’ve never spoken of the atrocities she put me through because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I was just a kid. Why should they?
Jace makes me want to purge all these demons following me around. “My mother was manic,” I finally say.
“Bi-polar?” Jace sits up, watching me.
I keep my focus on the lilies on his arm; it makes it easier. “No. Maybe? We were in a car accident when I was eight or nine and, in the hospital, I overheard the doctors talking about it. Diagnosing her. She was always so moody that I had just thought it was who she was. I thought it was my fault.”
“You have to know it wasn’t.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t really matter now. Back then, though? They gave her medication, asked her to come in for follow-up appointments. She was agreeable, concerned, but it was all a show. We moved to Wisconsin the next day. Every time we relocated, she would always say, 'time for a new adventure'. It wasn’t. It was never fun. Never anything I wanted to be a part of.”
“She abused you.” It’s not a question. Of course, she did. All the time.
“Sometimes, she would be sorry, and things would be normal for a while. But those episodes, they lasted far longer each and every time that she would be plagued with one.”
“Why are you afraid of me, sweetness?” I glance up at his question.
Blowing out a breath, I knew it would come to this eventually. “There was this boyfriend once. I was eleven, I think. He was huge. Nearly as big as you, but to someone like me, he was a giant. I went to school, I came home, I hid. Every day of my life, I hid. But they always found me. It was a sick game they played.”
“Fucking hell,” he growls as I feel his fingers on my biceps, pulling me into his lap. Dragging the cozy blanket off the back of the couch, Jace wraps it around me while holding me tight to his chest. “Sshh, you don’t have to say anything else, Calla.”
But I’ve started, and I can’t seem to stop now. “One day, I fought back. They used to throw mousetraps at me, so when they hit, they’d snap closed. I have scars. So many scars.” Not just from the mousetraps, either. “I kicked him once, right between the legs. He hit back. One punch to the side of my head, and he gave me a concussion and a broken cheekbone.”
“Jesus, Calla. I’m so fucking sorry you had to go through that.” I feel his lips kiss along my temple and revel in the comforting action.
I don’t respond to his comment because there’s nothing to say. It is what it is, and it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t have prevented it.
“Instead of taking me directly to the hospital, he stole a car, and they faked this kidnapping scenario where they wound up tossing me out of a moving vehicle in front of the hospital in the middle of the night. To this day, I have no idea if authorities even know what really happened. Or if they ever looked for me after the next day when I was snuck out of the hospital, and the three of us moved again. I don’t even remember where because it didn’t last long.”
His arms seem to be holding me tighter. Tilting my chin up, his finger delicately traces along my cheek. “That’s where this scar came from, isn’t it?” I nod, surprised he even noticed it. I was fortunate enough to be seen immediately that night, and the doctor on call had finished a rotation in plastic surgery not long before.
“I have a lot of scars, Jace. Inside and out. More than I can ever heal from.” My chin quivers at the small fact I've revealed. It’s a harsh reality knowing that my internal battles are always going to be reflected on the outside as well.
His eyes soften, and Jace looks at me in a way nobody has before. With understanding and compassion. “I know you think all this shit is going to scare me off, Callalily Davies, but it’s not. I’m a straight-shooter, and when I tell you I want to explore this connection between us, the only thing that will ever force me to quit is you saying no. But you haven’t done that yet. You do and say all these shocking things, expecting me to run, but that’s not me, sweetness. I’m not running, and you need to stop running too.”