Chapter 35

Jack

I wiped the sweat from my brow and stood back to admire my work. My boss, Marshall, came over and, seeing my smiling face, inspected my project.

"Yep," he said. "That's an IKEA bunk bed."

I laughed. "I struggled with this one, okay? The instructions were impossible."

"You're a man, you're not supposed to use instructions." He playfully smacked me on the shoulder, chuckling. "You did a good job though. I didn't think it was possible to get all the furniture put together in the time we had today. You've got some impressive work ethic, just like Neil told me."

I bent down and started gathering up all the garbage from my work. "You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

“Funny, too. Just like he said.”

The burly foreman's face split into a wide smile. "You keep it up and once you're finished getting that GED I can take you off odd jobs and start you on carpentry. I've got a buddy down at the trade school and it wouldn't be hard to get you in there."

I stopped and stood to my full height, unable to hide the smile on my face. "Thanks, Marshall. That means a lot."

"Not as much as it means having a worker who's actually worth their salt." He clapped me on the back so hard I jerked forward. I still hadn't gotten used to that. "Aren't you glad you moved out of that nowhere town?"

I laughed. "You have no idea."

All Melissa and I ever told anyone about Cannon or why we left was that it was too small and we wanted to be somewhere more connected. She and Melissa spent a lot of time together now that we lived here and I loved it. It was good for both of them.

Marshall strode off and I finished cleaning up my work area, still pleased with his comments. Neil must have felt pretty bad for firing me, since all three jobs who checked my references offered me the position. In the end I got to choose my favorite of the bunch, and I was more certain than ever that I'd made the correct decision.

Finishing time rolled around faster than I expected, and my heart started to race when I realized that I was only a ten minute drive away from home and from Melissa. We'd only been here a couple of weeks, but so far the happiness refused to dwindle. I got excited every morning to see what the day was going to bring, and I could tell Melissa was feeling it too. We were different here. Better. We were the versions of ourselves we'd always wanted to be before but didn't know how, and distance and a little time had helped us get there. The money from Donnie's dad didn't made things harder either.

I bobbed my head to the radio the whole way home, soaking in the cool air from my air conditioning and thinking about the night to come. We were having spaghetti for dinner, something I was looking forward to. Melissa discovered a love for cooking when we got here. She'd never explored it before because she didn't want to cook for Donnie, but now that we had a proper kitchen she excitedly made dinner every night. And hell, I wasn't going to complain—even if she wasn't nearly as good a cook as she was an artist.

I pulled up to our little stucco paradise and strolled up the tidy front path. I was barely inside the door before Melissa came bounding into the foyer covered in paint.

"Baby!" she cried, throwing herself at me.

I caught her and held her in a tight hug, not caring if any of her paint got on me. These were my work clothes, and besides it was worth it just to touch her.

"Hey sweetheart." I pulled back and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips.

Her eyes were bright with excitement and she grinned up at me. "I sold another painting."

"What? That's amazing!" I picked her up and spun her. "Which one?"

"The bigger cactus."

"I liked that one. Your patron has good taste."

"You like all of them," she said, punching me in the arm. "And stop calling the people who buy my paintings 'patrons'."

"That's what they are."

She rolled her eyes but I caught the corners of her mouth twitching. Grabbing my hand, Melissa dragged me into the living room.

"Sit, I have more good news."

I sat down on the leather recliner and waited patiently for her news. I could tell it was something big because I hadn’t seen her so excited since the day I got out of jail.

Melissa clasped her hands in front of her and bit her lip. "The University of Tucson finally got back to my about my application."

"And?" I leaned closer.

This wasn't just big news, it was the biggest. Melissa spent a lot of her time working on her art recently, but still didn't know where she was going to go with it. Being accepted into a fine arts program was the next big step that would take her to the next adventure.

"They want to offer me a spot in the program!" she squealed. "A full ride!"

My mouth dropped open. I shouldn't have been surprised to hear it since she was incredibly talented, but it was still a shock. An amazing shock.

I charged up out of the chair and wrapped her in my arms, swinging her around the living room. We laughed, a silly, carefree laugh.

"I gotta tell Sadie," I said, depositing her back on her feet. "We can have her over for celebratory drinks."

I slipped my hand into my back pocket for my phone but Melissa stopped me. "Wait, not yet."

"Not yet?" I grinned. "More news? Not sure I can take any more."

"This isn't news so much as a thought." She turned bashful all of the sudden, letting her gaze drop to the floor.

I lifted her chin with my fingers and stroked my thumb over her cheek.

"What is it?"

"I..." Melissa smiled. "I want to have a baby. I know that we said we would wait and that it wasn't the right time... but things have been coming together so perfectly lately and—"

I cut her off with a swift kiss on the lips, wrapping my arms around her waist and squeezing. My heart pumped into overdrive and my head spun. I didn't say anything more, just swept her into my arms and took off toward the bedroom.

I remembered the days when our whole lives took place in a room the size of our living room. I remembered the days when the future was a scary place, when we didn't know whether we'd have two dimes to rub together at the end of the week. I remembered the days when we were in transition from our past lives to the life we had now. We were happy then and we were happy now. And with a baby in our future, I knew we would be happy always.