jasper
Two years earlier
“Oh c’mon, you’re not still mad, are you?” I chuckled as I unlocked the front door.
“Oh, this isn’t mad; trust me, when I’m mad you’ll know all about.” Hannah shot me a death glare, and I was seriously a little bit afraid.
Ah crap.
I loved pushing her buttons, I really did, but I never wanted to make her doubt the way I felt about her.
I was hoping the surprise I’d had organised might have gone a small way to gaining her forgiveness.
She was still pissed at me for the way I asked her to move in with me. She thought I’d left it until the last minute to be funny – but truth was, it wasn’t until I’d walked into the half-empty apartment that she’d been sharing with Lotte that I realised how much I wanted to ask her to move in.
It was as though it hadn’t really sunk in that Lotte was moving in with Park until that moment. It wasn’t until I’d listened to her talking about how she was going to have to get a new coffee table to replace the one Charlotte took with her that I knew the only place she belonged was at my house with me. She didn’t need a new table and washing machine, she needed to pack her shit and get her ass where it belonged.
So I’d told her that.
I wasn’t exactly known for being diplomatic, and I knew damn well that Hannah loved a show, so ideally, I would have planned something that would have swept her off her feet, but unfortunately the blurt-out-before-thinking method was far too common of an occurrence for me.
“I’m sorry I messed it up for you, it should have been special.”
She sighed and turned back to me. “You haven’t even given me a key, Jasper, it makes me think you felt pressured into this… I’m worried you only asked me because you felt sorry for me being on my own.”
I laughed loudly at her ludicrous statement, which apparently was the wrong thing to do.
She stamped her foot and grumbled. “I’m serious, dickhead.”
I took a couple of slow tentative steps toward her, like I was approaching a wild beast, which essentially, I was. “If I didn’t want you here with every god damn last bit of me, you wouldn’t be here, Hannah.”
I wrapped my hands around her and felt her relax into me.
“Trust me, barbie, there is nothing in the world I want more than to have you living here. I want your ridiculous amount of clothes taking up all the wardrobe space, I want to have to yell at you at least twice a week about clogging up the drain with hair, I want all those stupid beauty products that you don’t even need all over the bathroom vanity, I want you next to me every night… I want it all.” I kissed her forehead.
I wasn’t accustomed to seeing her this vulnerable and exposed.
“What if you get sick of me? Working and living together now?”
So this was the real crux of it. She was scared. Hannah came across as a fearless warrior, but when it came down to it, inside she was often still a scared little girl.
I gripped her chin between my thumb and finger and lifted until she was looking me in the eye.
“I could spend every minute of every single day with you, Hannah, and it still wouldn’t be enough. But since that’s the only option there is, that’s the one I’ll take, okay?”
I could tell she got the message this time. She looked like she might have been going to shed a tear.
“Okay,” she whispered simply.
“Okay?”
“Okay… but…”
I braced myself for the ‘but’.
“But your hair is nearly as long as mine, and if we have clogging issues, I am not taking the rap for that one.”
She had me on that.
I chuckled. “Alright, that’s fair enough.”
She pulled free of my hold and grabbed my hand.
I tugged hard, pulling her back against me. “I meant what I said, I love you more than anything and there’s no one else I’d rather have sharing my life. I never want you to doubt that again.”
She shook her head. “I can’t promise that… you know how I get.”
I sighed dramatically. “I’ll just always have to be there to make you see sense then, won’t I?”
I placed a chaste kiss to her lips and tugged her along behind me into the living room.
“Jasper?” she asked cautiously as she looked around the previously cluttered space. “Where’s all the boxes?”
I grinned with my back to her and shrugged. “I put them away.”
“Put them away where?” she demanded, panic rising in her tone.
I grinned wider. She was so much fun when her temper was rising.
“Drawers, wardrobes, wine cellar.” I marked the locations off on my fingers.
“Oh god,” she groaned. “Look… it’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but I have a process, Jasper, I have a process, alright? And now there is going to be shit all in the wrong places and I’ll have to hunt for stuff…”
“Breathe.”
“And stop being a smartass, you don’t have a bloody wine cellar.”
“Have a little faith, barbie.”
I swear her eye twitched.
I subtly shifted my arm to cover the crown jewels.
She hadn’t stooped to the nut-tapping level just yet, but I was walking a fine line right now and I knew it.
I watched her take a deep breath – her go-to technique when I was grinding her gears.
“You.” She pointed at me. “Sit. And don’t touch anything for five minutes. Got it?”
I saluted her and sat my ass down on the couch.
* * *
She came back downstairs about half an hour later, as quiet as a mouse.
I held back a smirk as she slowly approached the couch and sat down next to me.
I didn’t say a word, just flicked the channel up one and took a swig of the beer I’d gotten for myself in her absence.
I chuckled at a familiar scene in the movie I was watching.
Happy Gilmore, an oldie but a goodie.
We sat there like that for a solid five minutes, me watching the movie, waiting for her to crack, and her squirming in her seat.
“Alright, I’m sorry,” she eventually blurted out. “I should have known you wouldn’t stuff it all anywhere.”
“Keep talking…”
“It’s perfect, thank you. I don’t know how you did it.”
“I’m a genius.”
“You’re a genius,” she agreed. “And you’re gorgeous, and an absolute king in the sack…”
I chuckled. “Anything else while you’re kissing ass?”
She smacked my arm and then moved closer to snuggle in. “Seriously though, how the hell did you know where to put everything?”
“I hired a magical unicorn to help guide me.”
“Jasper, don’t be stupid.”
“You’re right, unicorns aren’t real. I used my crystal ball.”
“You’re impossible,” she groaned.
“C’mon now, barbie, you know a good magician never reveals his tricks. So, stop asking and open your present already.”
“Present?” She perked up. If there was one thing that could shift Hannah’s mood it was the promise of a present.
It wasn’t about the material item, I think it was more about the gesture… about her knowing that I’d seen something and thought of her.
I’d once gotten her a new set of laces for her chucks and I swear she’d acted like all her Christmases had come at once.
I could pick her a bunch of wild flowers and she’d almost well up with tears.
I tilted my head towards the light pink box I’d sat in the middle of the table.
She squealed and leapt to her feet.
She returned with the box clasped in her hands and a sparkle in her eye.
“Open it,” I encouraged.
She carefully undid the satin bow on the top and lifted the lid off the box.
She lifted the tissue paper and gasped.
“Jasper…” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
The first thing to come out was her house key. I’d had it cut on the day I’d asked her to move in with me, and when I’d seen that they could make the keys coloured, I couldn’t resist.
“It’s pink.” She giggled.
“Of course it is… keep going.” I nudged her knee with mine.
Next was a pink garage door remote control – I’d ended up having to drop my name to get the rush order on that one. That had been a surreal experience to say the least. I’d gotten quite accustomed to dropping Park’s name, but never my own.
“What’s this for?” She pulled the plastic card out of the bottom with a puzzled expression.
“That’s your all-access pass.”
“Is it for the gate?”
I shook my head. “Nah you already have the pin number for that… this is a little more personal.”
She looked me up and down. “Please tell me you didn’t make me an all-access pass to get into your pants?”
“You can thank me later.”
“Oh I will.” She winked at me before making a show of tucking the card into her back pocket.
She was so gorgeous. I still couldn’t figure out how I’d managed to pull a woman like her. She was so full of light. She made everything better.
“What?” she beamed at me.
“Nothing, I just love you.”
“I love you too. Thank you for my key.”
“This is your home, baby, our home, okay? You’re not living in my house, we are living in our home, you got it?”
“I’ve only been here five minutes and you’re already bossing me around,” she answered with a cheeky grin.
“Oh, baby, if you want me to boss you around, you only have to ask.”
“Where do I sign?” She smiled. “Seriously though, thank you.” She kissed my cheek. “I’m sorry I went all crazy bitch on you earlier.”
“It’s all good, I’m used to it… you’re an absolute fruit loop.”
She smirked. “I know, but I own it.”
I’d heard that very line at least a hundred times from her mouth.
She snagged the remote from my hands and changed the channel to some trashy reality show.
“So, this is how it’s gonna be, huh?”
“You want me to make myself at home, don’t you?” She batted her lashes at me innocently.
Dammit.
She had me wrapped so firmly around her little finger it wasn’t even funny.
I glanced between her face and the absolute nonsense she was watching for a few minutes.
“I haven’t had a chance to really thank you. What you and Lotte are doing for us is perfect.”
She smiled and turned her attention away from the screen. “It’s gonna be so fun. And now I’ll be able to fend off any skanks trying to get their hooks into my man myself.” She smiled wider, her expression turning almost wicked.
My possessive lioness…
“You’ll save Sammy a job.” I shot her a cheeky grin. “But you’re really okay with giving up your business, barbie?”
Hannah was an incredible hairdresser. She’d taken me on a shoot with her a few months back, and the respect that both her and Lotte had from everyone in the industry was amazing to witness.
I was proud as hell of my woman that day.
I was stoked she was joining us on the team, but I was worried she’d miss her old life and end up regretting her choice.
“Hair is what you’re, ya know, passionate about and shit, you’re not gonna get pissed with me for taking it away?”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, number one, you didn’t ‘take it away’, Lotte and I restructured. Number two, I’m not giving it up entirely. And number three, you are what I’m most passionate about. I can go back to being a full time stylist anytime I want. Right now, I’m exactly where I want to be.”
I rubbed my hand over my chest. It got hard to breathe when she said stuff like that to me.
I nodded. “So, do you actually know how to be a manager and run PR?” I asked with a shit-eating grin.
She stood up from the couch. “Not particularly. Do you actually know how to be a rock star?” she quipped.
“Touché…” I chuckled as she walked away with a sassy grin. “Touché.”