CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

James

I’ve been gone for six days packing up the rest of my house and signing the paperwork for the sale. I’m grateful it sold but hated being away from Carly and Jack, especially with knowing Vince is in the area. It’s been the longest six days of my life.

It may be awful of me to say, but I’m praying Jack isn’t at her house when I get there. Not that I don’t love the kid. In the short amount of time I have known him, we’ve built a good relationship. He’s an amazing kid, someone who’s fiercely protected his mother from things no kid should ever see. But instead of it breaking him, he used it to make him stronger. To make her stronger.

I still can’t get over how well he handled hearing the news of Vince being back. After we took Carly’s new car to her house, we knew we needed to tell him. She showed me a picture of Vince and sure enough, it was the same guy I sparred with at Tate’s gym, which means it’s the same guy who was sitting outside Carly’s house at Christmas. After finding her car tire not just flat but what looked like possibly slashed, we felt like Jack had to know.

“Hey, kiddo, James and I have something to tell you.”

“What’s up?” he asks us wearily.

“First off, I need you to understand something.” I look at him square on and wait until I have his eye contact before I continue talking. “You and your mom… you’re with me, you know? I would never let anything happen to you. I want you to really get that. To really understand it, okay?”

He nods his head. “I get it, but you’re kind of freaking me out,” he admits.

“Jack, son, Vince is in Michigan.”

We both wait for the news to register, and when it does his face goes pale and his body rigid.

“What?” he whispers. “How do you know? Has he been here? Has he hurt you? Did you see him?”

He asks questions in rapid succession then stands up and paces around the room.

“Relax, kiddo, we haven’t seen him. Well, I did. At the gym – when I went to bout with the guy. Figured out it was him. But… He hasn’t hurt your mom. We don’t know how much he’s been here. The how we know is a little weird. Tate and my buddy Will from the shooting range actually ran into him at a bar a few towns over. He came around with a picture of the two of you, asking everyone he saw if they knew you guys. No one admitted to knowing either of you, so we were hopeful he wouldn’t stick around. But lately, well, there’s been a few…”

“A few what?” He turns wild eyes to his mom, so I let her take over.

“Instances. Nothing major, I promise you. James ran into him at Tate’s, like he said, and we’re pretty sure Vince knew who he was. We think he was parked by the house on Christmas, and the morning we bought my new car? We came out of James’s and one of my tires was flat. You need to know, okay? He would never hurt you. Ever. I know that deep in my bones. And I know how to protect myself. My amazing son made sure of that.” Carly winks at him when she grabs his hands in hers.

“But…”

“I don’t want you to worry, okay? Just… be aware. If you see something you think is fishy. If you hear anything… if you start getting weird phone calls or whatever. Just be alert and know that we’re taking care of it.”

He sits in the chair, quietly taking it all in. His shoulders rise and fall once before he looks up with determination in his eyes. “What do I do if I do see something weird?”

And just like that, we moved from Jack being scared, to Jack wanting to be prepared.

There’s no sign of Jack’s pickup in the driveway, which makes me reach for the door handle a little quicker. I’m barely out of the car when I hear something that makes my stomach drop and heart pound.

“Ahhhhhh!!! Too much! It hurts! Mdfoghsjeruhajn!!”

Carly’s pained voice pierces my ears as I bound up the stairs and burst through the unlocked front door.

“Carly!? Baby!?” I holler, praying that I didn’t somehow miss seeing a strange car parked outside, praying even harder that Vince hasn’t decided to make a reappearance and found her after all this time.

“It hurts! No more! Mother-fmmfmf!”

Her voice is coming from what sounds like her bedroom. I race toward it, grab one of Jack’s lacrosse sticks that was sitting in the living room, heart still pounding. Her bedroom door is open, but the door to her bathroom that’s attached to it is closed.

I open the door with the stick raised over my head, ready to take on whoever is hurting my girl, but what I see… a man can never, ever… ever un-see. Carly is sitting on the edge of her bathtub in just a bra, one foot on the ground, the other foot resting on top, but her thighs awkwardly stuck together. Her head is tilted down, and she has what looks like a strip of goo dangling from her fingertips. Tears are in her eyes, her hair that looks like it was once in a messy bun is now completely disheveled, she has the same dark-colored goo in a couple places on her forehead, and mascara streaks run down her face. She’s still beautiful — but funny. Definitely funny.

“Next time I see Tess and Lauren I’m so-o-o-o kicking their asses. I can totally do it, too. They told me this wouldn’t hurt. This. Flippin’. Hurts!” she mumbles to herself.

“How’s… it going?” I ask from the doorway, the smile evident in my voice, even to my own ears. I lean the lacrosse stick against the wall, pretty positive I don’t need to be fending off any dangerous intruders.

Her head jerks up, and nervous eyes land on me.

“James?!”

“Hi, baby. Havin’ fun?”

Her gooey fingers make for a swipe at the hair on her forehead, and she sticks her bottom lip out and tries to blow the hair that’s sticking to her head out of her eyes. “Wha — what are you doing here?” she asks with a slight tremble in her voice.

“Finished packing up early. Wanted to surprise you.” I grin and raise my hands out to the side. “Surprise!” I can’t stop smiling. The look on her face combined with seeing her in person for the first time in over a week has my body on fire, but clearly now isn’t the time. I point down to where she’s sitting. “Whatcha doing?”

“Waxing. Or something. I haven’t dared look at the stupid strip.”

I press my lips together tightly and cock my head to the side. “The goo strip?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s goo on it.”

“Duh. I know that! Is there hair on it, too?” she asks me, completely unashamed as she lifts the goo strip up to show me.

“Uh, is there supposed to be?”

She groans. “No. None at all. I just tried ripping the skin off my crotch and hoped that all the hair would stay there. It’s a new thing.”

“Then you accomplished it! Good job, baby! Congratulations!” I chuckle, to which she doesn’t return.

She glares at me. “I’m so excited to see you! I missed you so much. Why don’t you come a little closer, baby?”

“Not a chance.”

“I haven’t seen you in over a week. You don’t want to give me a kiss?”

“Not until you’ve dropped the goo strip.”

“You don’t trust me?” she asks in a sweet and entirely adorable voice, one that I would have caved to had I not seen the gleam in her eye and been able to see what she was plotting.

“Nope. Drop the strip. Step away from the wax, then I’ll gladly give you a kiss.”

“I don’t think I can exactly step away.”

“Come again?”

“I’m afraid… I mean… I’m a little worried that I may or may not be glued. To myself.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. “Can you repeat that?” I ask as I get my cell out of my pocket and aim it at her face.

“Put. The. Phone. Away,” she grits out.

“Oh, come on! I need proof!”

“Put it away, James,” she says in a voice I imagine makes Jack quiver.

I reluctantly slide my phone back into my pocket. “You’re no fun.”

“Ha! Right. Help!”

“How am I supposed to… help?”

“Well, I had a plan. And that plan didn’t exactly unfold as I expected.”

“What was your plan?” I can’t wait to hear this.

“James. For the love of all that is holy. Stop messing around! Obviously, I planned to wax. Myself. Because I didn’t want to go to a salon and kick the torture specialist in the boob when she rips the hair off me, I decided to save my time, and money, and do it on my own. Apparently, I need help.”

“Okay, I got this.” I crack my neck, reach my left arm over the other, then bend it behind my head to stretch out. I repeat the process with my right arm then shake my body a bit while bouncing on my toes.

She rolls her eyes at me. “You’re such an idiot.”

I grin. “Want my help or not?”

“Please,” she says on a sigh.

“That’s what I thought.” I slap my hands and rub them together. “What do you need me to do?”

“Well, I’m not really sure.” She blushes, “Umm… okay, this is beyond awkward. You may have to… umm… look?” Her arms flail a bit as she points at her actual bits and then spreads her little fingers apart again making a weird awkward-as-hell motion that actually looks like she’s mimicking a dog barking or something.

“Look… where?” I just love messing with her. From the moment I met her, she has kept my life interesting. Keeping a straight face is downright painful.

“James!” Her scream probably reached the neighbors— Was that a dog howling?

“Okay, okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with.” I rub my hands together again in anticipation. Damn. I’m like a surgeon performing a heart transplant.

“I’m not a damn horse, James!” she snaps.

“Ha! Oh, trust me, I realize that. But I need to know what got you to this place. Tell me a story, Carly,” I croon, folding my twitchy hands and crossing my arms.

Her eyes narrow. “You’re really not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“And I’ll never live it down?” she says quietly while looking at me from under her lashes.

“Nope. We’ll be telling this story to our grandchildren one day.” Her eyes widen at my statement. Not that I’ve hidden the fact that I plan for us to be together for the rest of our lives, but neither of us have really said anything that solidifies it, either. But I’m not going to be sidetracked with my slight blunder.

“Grandchildren?” she asks, her voice small as she ducks her head.

“Well, yeah. Blended families still get to share grandchildren. Don’t distract me, woman. Tell me.”

She blows out a breath, her hair now sticking to the wax that’s on her forehead. Hot mess doesn’t even cover it. It is a good thing she’s beautiful — because we may have to shave her bangs. Maybe it would be the start of a new trend?

“Obviously, like I said, I decided I would try waxing myself. For the first time. I warmed up the wax in the microwave, just like the back of the jar said to do. But when I got it out of the microwave, it didn’t seem like it was hot enough. I put it back in to zap it for a… bit.”

I keep my expression indifferent. “How long, babe?”

She waves me off. “Not important.”

By the looks of her, I’d say it’s pretty damn important, but I keep my mouth shut. I actually want to live past today.

“Let’s just say, the second time, might have been a bit too long. See, I didn’t realize that once I used the little stick to stir it up, it would warm the rest of the jar. So, by the time I got it stirred up, it was a little runny. But I thought, well, it’s better than too thick, right? I’ve heard that if you put the wax on too thick, it won’t yank the hairs out. Which is kind of the point of all this anyway. So, I got undressed then sat on the edge of my bathtub…”

This time I do smirk. “Where you haven’t moved from since.”

“Right,” she keeps talking as if I said nothing. “Then I lifted my leg and gave myself a little pep talk.”

“I would literally give up cooking to hear this pep talk.”

Her eyes narrow a second time. “There was a bit of stretching, a few jumping jacks, and I took a shot — or two — of whiskey.” She exhales a curse.

“But you don’t drink,” I remind her not being able to stop my eyes from drifting to her forehead covered in wax.

She glowers in my direction, again. “Don’t judge me, you ass, and for the love of God, stop staring at my forehead!”

I raise my hands in surrender, still wondering how the hell I was going to salvage the hair covered in the wax that was sticking on parts of her eyebrows and forehead.

She huffs. “So, I grabbed the little spreading stick and got what I thought was an appropriate amount of wax then spread the lava on my—” Her cheeks burn bright red as she coughs out. “—area. It burned. A lot. I figured well, my hair must be singed off. No need to wax. But no such luck.”

I choke down a laugh.

“Anyway…”

Ah, hell, there was more? Just how long has she been in here?

“I grabbed one of the wide strips because I figured the bigger the strip, the more leverage, you know?”

“Makes sense,” I murmur, trying desperately not to smile, because it actually makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn’t work. I rub my hand over my face to hide it.

“I thought so too!” she says excitedly as if I completely agreed with her asinine logic and understand her inability to read directions correctly. “Then, after the wax is smeared in the right place, I take the strip and press it into the goo. Only, the wax may have still been too hot and runny because it just sort of bled through the strip. By this time my hand that I used to press the strip into the wax is all sticky, and the strip is almost flimsy. I took a deep breath and r-r-r-i-i-i-p!” She makes the hand motion along with the ripping sound, and now I can’t hold back the laughter. “I saw stars. STARS, James!” she yells, pointing at me like I had something to do with it. “The pain! Oh, the pain. Sweet mother, it hurts! So, after the blinding pain finally settled, I thought, well, I can’t stop now. And I had to look at the strip, you know? To make sure that it actually helped, or whatever.”

I wipe a tear from my eye and beg her to continue. “And? Don’t leave me hanging, beautiful.”

“And nothing! Not one single hair! Dammit!” she hollers while shaking her fist, having to pry her fingers apart when she tries releasing her fingers because they are covered in wax. “I thought. Okay, maybe that side was just not ready or something?”

“Not. Ready,” I repeat. How the hell does a strip prepare itself anyway?

“Whatever.” She motions at me with the flick of her wrist. “I moved to the other side of my… you know… area.” She whispers in a low voice like I’ve never seen an area before and had to tread lightly lest I scar said location. “By this time, I can literally hear my heartbeat pounding away in my ears. It sounded like a steel drum. I thought, well, I’m in this deep, so I can’t go back now. I take the wax-covered stick and put more of the molten lava on my other side. It’s not quite as hot now, but it’s still to the point where I have to look down to make sure nothing just sizzled away. After using another one of the big strips — because, remember, leverage—” she says logically.

“Leverage. Got it.” If she says leverage one more time I’m going to lose it. And I’m barely hanging on as it is.

“I grabbed hold of the corner and r-r-r-i-i-i-p again. Only this time. Nothing came off. NOTHING! As in… no wax. No hair. NOTHING! I threw the malfunctioning strip on the ground because clearly it was the stupid defective strip’s fault that time. But then I had all this hardened wax just kind of sitting there, so I had to remove it.” She points to the ground where I see a washcloth covered in wax.

“So you rubbed it off?”

“Well, I tried. But as you can imagine, it’s kind of sticky. I did the best I could do and got it cleaned off. Went back a THIRD time. Yes, third. I have inflicted this pain upon myself three times now, mind you. Not a single hair has been removed in all this busted-up mess. So, back I go to smear and rip and hope for the best, but as you can see… I have been defeated by the MOOM wax. And bonus is that it’s in my hair — and not the hair I wanted it in. And on my forehead. I have to pee but well… I kind of closed my legs slightly after the last time I tried and failed to rip the strip off, and now — I’m stuck. So yup. That’s the gist of it. That’s what I need help with. Getting hair off and my legs to separate — and possibly maybe help getting off the tub because I’m a little stuck to that too.”

There’s no way I can hold back. I fall to my knees laughing.

“James! Just wait ‘til we try it on your chest!”

I’m wiping the tears from my eyes but manage to inform her, “Uh, no. I’m not planning on modeling any time soon, so I have no intentions of shaving — or waxing —my chest hair.”

“Little help? Please?”

I’m still on the ground from laughing so I crawl over to her. She’s looking so pathetic on the tub, her big eyes staring at me.

“Hi,” I tell her when I get close.

She sighs. “Hi. This was supposed to be kind of for you. Or us. Whatever. I wanted to surprise you. And it’s your sister’s fault! She and Lauren…”

I hold up my hand. “I’ll stop you there. Any time she and Lauren are together, they come up with doozies. Nothing good comes of their ideas.”

“You tell me that now,” she mumbles. “They told me it wasn’t that bad.”

“Carly, it’s ripping hair off your body with hot wax. When does that ever equal not bad?”

“Well, I’ve done my eyebrows. It’s never this bad.”

“I can’t be certain because we are made from entirely different parts, for which I’m very grateful, but I’m pretty confident that I can say your area, as you call it, is probably slightly more sensitive than your eyebrows.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Can you just help me?”

“In a minute.” I smile.

“Wha—”

I cut her off by kissing her. My hands go into her hair at the base of her neck that’s not also covered in wax. My tongue begs for entry to which she immediately allows. I angle her head back so I have better access, and she responds by moaning slightly. I know if I continue this I won’t be able to stop, and we have something a bit more pressing to deal with at the moment. Like ungluing her girly bits from the tub — and her legs. I pull away from her just slightly, rub my nose up and down her neck, then rest my forehead on hers.

“Sorry, I needed to do that first. Damn, I missed you.”

She swallows and croaks out, her voice husky, “No problem. I missed you too.”

I smile at her. “Let’s see what we can do about unsticking you.”

After several minutes of spreading lotion and very gently pulling apart her legs, she’s free, albeit with several curse words involved. She also swore me to secrecy. I denied it. There’s no way I can’t at least tell Tess. Or let her tell it. But this story — it’s too good. It should be on the internet. It’s like those reviews of Sugarless Gummy Bears. They bring people happiness. And this would bring others so much joy.