I stood in my living room, with Jessica standing just a few feet from me. So why did she feel so far away? I hadn't explained to her about Natalia, and I wondered if she even knew about the whole fiasco. It had taken telling Natalia to leave to make me realize I hadn't seen Jessica in a while, and that was enough to worry me.

That she stood with her arms crossed over her chest and a guarded look on her face bothered me greatly, but I had no one to blame but myself for this one. It had been hell just convincing her to come to my place after she was done with school so we could make use of the privacy.

“Jessica,” I started, breaking the silence that had been between us for the past several minutes.

Neither of us made a move to sit down.

“What is it, Ross?”

I couldn’t read her voice at all to figure out what was going on. I took a deep breath, deciding it didn’t matter, as I took a step closer to her. I wasn’t sure enough of myself to move any closer, though.

“I’m sorry.” The blunt apology seemed to surprise her, making her eyes widen. “I don’t want to keep apologizing to you for the rest of our lives because I did something stupid again, but this time… I want you to forgive me, Jessica, please.”

She looked hesitant. “You haven’t done anything I need to forgive you for.”

She didn’t sound sure, though, and that broke my heart a little.

“The past week has been… a little too much for me.”

“You do look exhausted,” she murmured, and I could read some sympathy in her eyes.

It gave me hope.

“I know I never told you about Sophia’s mom, my ex. Natalia went to our school, but she graduated a year earlier than us. I met her after my senior year, and we were… together. We were a little reckless. I’m pretty sure Sophia was conceived in the bathroom of some bar outside of town.”

Jessica had a look of slight disgust on her face, probably wondering why I was telling her this. It made me smile a little.

“The point is, I loved her. But it took having Sophia for me to realize she wasn’t really good for me. It’s probably why I didn’t fight her so hard when she said she wanted to leave. We argued, but I never once told her to stay. My mom was the one that made me realize that.”

There was finally a loosening in her stance, her arms falling to her sides as she frowned at me.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said, which made me relax, then wonder if that was true, or if she just thought it was. “I’m just wondering why it took you a week to finally talk to me.”

I shrugged, then sighed. “Because Natalia is very good at talking me into things. Not always the safest things. She was just… I wasn’t at my best when I was with her. But it’s different with you.” I hesitated but took a step closer. She looked wary but didn’t try to step back. “I feel like I made a fool of myself, acting so fucking indecisive. You… I guess the best way I can put it is, you make me feel like a man. Not just some idiot you’re using to cure your boredom. Somehow, I’d forgotten I’d felt that way plenty of times with Natalia.”

She wrinkled her nose. “This Natalia sounds like a real piece of work.”

“Oh, she was. I can only blame it on teenage stupidity and naïveté. But that’s the past, and the past is over now, isn’t it? I want you in my life, Jessica. And I absolutely don’t want anything to do with Natalia. And I’m sorry it took me a whole fucking week to come to that conclusion.”

The hesitation was back in her face. But I got the courage to close the space between us, and I held her by the tops of her arms. She looked up at me with an unsure expression. I pressed a kiss to her forehead, and felt her sigh and relax against me.

“I can promise with full confidence that this won’t be happening again. I’ve been serious about you since I met you, Jessica. Though it took me a decade to realize it. I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.”

She looked up at me with a suspicious look on her face, though I caught the amusement in her eyes.

“Are you sure about that?” she teased. “Because if it happens again, I’d have to hit you, Ross. I’ve given you way too many passes.”

I snorted, and teased back, “You’d have to get in line. My mom’s the only family that’s constantly around, but I have aunts, uncles, and cousins that live out of town. You’ll get to meet them if you spend the holidays with us, and if they ever found out how stupid I was about all of this, they would be lining up to hit me first. And my mom would be first in line.”

She laughed. “My mom would probably worm her way into being second. Though, yeah, when we didn’t talk for a week, she got a little antsy, even got my Aunt Hayley to come back. They’ve both been begging me to take you back because they’ve never seen me so happy as when I’m with you.”

I smiled and pulled her in for a hug. She held on fiercely, and I placed a kiss on her hair as I sighed.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make you happy enough to stop both our moms playing their silly games,” I watched as she giggled at my statement. I knew that I had a chance, and all this tension would come to an end.