Chapter Eight

By the time my eyes fluttered open, the watery early morning sunlight was filtering through the windows. It couldn’t have been later than eight, but Jones was already up, standing by the balcony door and staring out over the smattering of buildings beyond. I lay there for a moment, not wanting to disturb him, savoring the chance to wake up with him like this -- it was so new but so welcome after all the time I’d spent away from him. In reality, it had only been a few weeks, but it felt like a lifetime. And I wasn’t going to waste another moment.

“Good morning,” I murmured, and he turned around and smiled upon seeing that I was awake.

“Well, hello there,” he threw himself back down in bed next to me, making the whole mattress bounce. I couldn’t help but laugh as he crawled towards me and put his arms around my waist, pulling me on top of him to kiss me.

“Ugh, I have morning breath,” I twisted my head away from, but he darted forward and planted a quick kiss on the corner of my mouth.

“You taste pretty good to me,” he shot back playfully, and I laid my head on his chest and closed my eyes. I could so easily just stay here for the rest of the day, pretending that nothing else was happening…but memories of the evening before were forcing their way into my brain, and I knew that my family would probably be demanding an explanation by now. I sighed heavily, and looked up at him.

“What is it?” He asked, wrinkling his brow.

“Just…” I tried to find a way to phrase it correctly. “I don’t want to go home, that’s all.”

“I feel you,” he agreed. “I’m in the same ball park.”

“Why did you come back?” The words had fallen from my mouth before I could stop them, and I immediately went to take them back- but instead, forced myself to let them sit between us. I deserved an explanation, and besides, he had been all too happy to offer one yesterday before I pounced on him.

“I…” He lightly rolled me off of him, and sat up so he could look me in the eye. “I never should have let you leave in the first place.”

I stayed silent, meeting his gaze, waiting for him to continue.

“I know I should have dealt with it better,” he went on, talking slowly, as though picking out his words with care. “But I was so shocked. I had no idea what…I mean, how are you supposed to react to something like that?”

“I know,” I bowed my head, acknowledging how hard this must have been for him. “I went through the same thing, but it wasn’t as though I could kick that knowledge out of my brain like you.”

“Hey, I didn’t kick you out,” he protested. “I just…didn’t stop you from going. And that made me feel bad enough, trust me.”

“How did you find me?” It suddenly hit me how strange it was that he had come across me in the restaurant like that.

“I had your address, thanks to David,” he explained, “So I went there and I couldn’t find you. So when I was going through some of my old messages from David, I saw that he was complaining about going to a family meal with you at an Italian restaurant in town, and it just happened to be exactly a year from the day, so…”

He shrugged.

“I tried it, and I saw you guys there and overheard all the bullshit they were feeding you, and I had to jump in.”

“So David was actually good for something,” I remarked flippantly. “There’s a surprise.”

“Nah, he’s a good-for-nothing bastard,” Jones shook his head. “Just occasionally useful, that’s all.”

“Agreed,” I nodded emphatically, and it hit me that this talk of David wasn’t upsetting or irritating me like it had been before.

“You know, I’m so glad he left me at the altar,” I admitted. Jones turned, his eyebrows raised.

“Oh yeah?”

“It was way too soon,” I shook my head. “I mean, we’d been together…so long, and neither of us had experienced anything else. We were idiots to think that we’d been lucky enough to find the one in high school. It happens, yeah, but we were just too pig-headed to accept that it might not have for us.”

Jones smiled to himself, but there was something else there, too- something I couldn’t quite read.

“What is it?” I prompted him, and he shook his head. I nudged him with my foot, trying to get it out of him, and eventually he turned to me and let out a small sigh.

“I’m just pretty sure I met the person I’m supposed to be with in high school,” he met my gaze, and my heart lurched up in my chest. My mouth hung open stupidly.

“Are you talking…are you talking about…” I repeated, and he took my hand.

“Yeah,” he answered the question I had never gotten out. “I am.”

I closed my eyes and raised my eyebrows; this was a lot, but I knew exactly what he meant. I had been feeling the same way about him since we started hanging out at his apartment; our connection was electric, our lives meshing together well despite their differences. It just felt…right.

“I think I knew that in high school, too,” he went on. “But David was the one to ask you out first, so I backed off.”

“And let me waste my time with that asshole?” I teased. Even though David leaving me had left me feeling as though the world had shifted on its axis, thinking back on it now, it seemed so obvious that things had to happen that way. We were both happier now, no doubt-- well, that was me being kind, as I couldn’t have given less of a fuck whether or not he was happy. I just knew that this was how things were meant to work out between Jones and I, and they had finally come to fruition after a false start. Jones interlocked my fingers with his, and I felt a tingle run up my spine.

“Sorry about that,” he tilted his head at me. “Bro code, and all that.”

“You chose the bro code over me?” I teased, and he held his hands up.

“Hey, I was sixteen,” he protested. “I didn’t know there was much more to life than the bro code.”

I smiled, and he pulled me into his chest. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, making me jump.

“Who’s that?” I sat up straight, but Jones smoothed out my hair and spoke in a soothing tone.

“I ordered room service,” he explained, getting to his feet and grabbing a robe. He opened the door, exchanged a few words with the person outside, and came in carrying a tray.

“You want to eat outside?” He asked. I glanced through the large windows, and saw the sun beginning to rise, burning off the last few curls of the morning cold. I nodded.

“Why not?”

We sat out, wrapped up in robes, and went to town on all the food that Jones had ordered; tea, coffee, pancakes, fruit, croissants, toast. I hadn’t realized how starving I was, having skipped dinner the night before. Once I was satiated -- and trust me, that too an impressively long time -- I sat back in my seat and looked over at Jones. Okay, there were some things that needed to be said here.

“When are you going back?” I asked, my voice small. I didn’t want to have to imagine him leaving, not so soon, but this had obviously been some kind of desperate mission of romance, and I couldn’t imagine he’d be let off from training that easily.

“Tomorrow,” he admitted, and my heart sank. He took my hand reassuringly, squeezed, and then spoke again.

“And I’d like you to come with me.”

“Huh?”

“The way your family were speaking to you back there…” he trailed off, apparently too annoyed to go on. “It’s your decision, but I’d love it if you didn’t have to put up with that shit. And maybe…it would be easier to raise the baby together if you were a little closer. I can’t leave the city, but if you like…”

“What, would I be moving in with you?” My voice was higher than I had expected. I was excited at the prospect, but nerves were nagging at the edge of my brain; I wanted to take this slowly, wanted to take my time.

“I was going to set you up with an apartment in the city,” he replied casually, as if offering to buy me a place was nothing.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I know it’s a lot, but I can’t ask you to drop everything and move across the country for my convenience and not offer to pay for at least, well, all of it.”

“I have some savings put away,” I waved my hand. “And you know I wouldn’t let you pay for everything by yourself. I’m a self-sufficient woman, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, I know,” he flashed me a smile. “Just that the prices in the city are stupid-expensive and I’ve got all these earnings that aren’t going anywhere.”

“You can help out,” I responded carefully. “If you want.”

“I do,” he confirmed. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to interfere. I just want you and the baby closer, that’s all.”

“That sounds pretty fucking good,” I nodded with a sigh, draining my fruit juice and placing the glass back of the table. “I don’t think I can bear it here another day.”

“I know, I heard the shit your family--“

“And not just them,” I cut across him, glad to finally have someone to bitch about this to. “Everywhere I go, it’s people looking at me like they’re embarrassed for me. Everyone knows about David and the wedding, and you can be sure that if my family knows about the pregnancy, now everyone else does too.”

“I forgot how bad this place could be,” he groaned. “I remember when we were in high school, everyone knew everything about everybody.”

“Yeah, it’s still pretty much just as bad,” I agreed. “Except that instead of who’s throwing up their lunch, it’s who got dumped by their fiancé at the altar. I think that little escapade provided gossip for this place into infinity.”

“Probably,” he shrugged. “So you’d be happy to get out?”

“Hell, yes,” I nodded. “And that money that we were supposed to use for our honeymoon, it’s got to go somewhere.”

“Well, you will be getting out of town,” he pointed out. “So, I suppose it’s not being entirely misused.”

“Exactly,” I raised a new glass in a mock-toast towards him and took another sip. “God, I can’t wait till I can have champagne with this OJ again. That’s the one thing I miss about not being pregnant.”

“Well, not long to go now,” he glanced towards my stomach, even though my bump was hidden under swathes of dressing gown.

“Well, five months,” I pointed out, placing my hand on my bump for comfort. It was small but certainly there- I wondered how big it would get over the next twenty weeks. Mom had been tiny, but then, her sister had grown into the size of a boat over the course of both her pregnancies.

“It’s going to go so fast, I promise,” he smiled. “By the time we’ve got you all moved in and set up down there—“

“And then all the time I’m going to spend in bed with you,” I raised my eyebrows at him playfully. “It’ll fly right by.”

“Is sex good for the baby?” He looked confused. “Sorry, I’m so clueless about all this stuff.”

“I don’t know about the baby, but it’s good for me.” I fluttered my lashes up at him in an exaggerated tease. “And I’ll lend you all the baby books I own. You can read up on everything before she comes.”

“It’s a girl?” His face lit up, but I shook my head.

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “I guess I just can’t imagine having anything but a little girl.”

“Fair enough,” he took a bite of his toast. I hesitated before I spoke again, knowing that there were some questions that hadn’t been addressed that I needed dealt with.

“Jones?” I looked up at him, my brow furrowing. His eyes widened with worry.

“What is it?”

“Those…other women,” It was painful to even talk about them, painful just to linger on their existence, but I knew I had to know the answer to my question.

“Yeah?”

“Are they still in your life?” I forced myself to meet his gaze, however much I wanted to pretend this conversation wasn’t happening. “Are we…exclusive, now?”

“Yes,” he looked relieved, as though he had been expecting something so much work. “Oh God, yes. It’s just you. It always has been.”

“But you said about the--” I was confused, but he held his hand up.

“She asked me out, but I said no. I was asking you about it because I wanted to check if you were in the same place I was,” he explained, and when I opened my mouth to point out how dumb it was, he got there first.

“And yes, it was pretty fucking stupid,” he agreed. “But I was stupid. Am stupid, probably, in ways I haven’t even thought of yet.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “So…it’s just us?”

“Kyra, I don’t offer to get apartments for all my women in the city, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he pointed out gently. I grinned and looked down at my lap for a moment.

“I know, I know,” I nodded. “I just needed to hear it.”

“You know I’ll never have a problem saying it,” he murmured, leaning towards me over the table. I lifted my gaze to meet his, and I knew then and there that we were going to say it; that it was going to happen. It was soon, too soon by all the standards I’d lived my life by, up until that point, but I couldn’t have given less of a damn. I needed to hear it, and I needed to say it. We were just waiting in that sweet moment before it happened, both of us taking our time, urging the other to come out with it first.

“I love you,” I whispered, and a smile so enormous it looked as though it would split his face in two erupted across his cheeks.

“I love you too,” he affirmed, and leaned towards me to kiss me. All morning breath forgotten, I kissed him back, happily losing myself to this man, this man who’d waited so long for me, who’d come back for me, and who loved me. It didn’t get much better than this.