Jade
The ride back was quite melancholy. Remembering how Zach was with Tiffany and Breanna…those scars have never healed. He did it all the time—smile to my face with his girlfriend on his arm and then swear he loved me when it was us in a foggy back seat. Yet his love hurt. The phone call with Belinda reminded me that he’s allowed to do as he pleases. He’s not mine and never has been. And that thought hurts too. Knowing that even when I’m holding his child, another woman could be lying in his arms.
As much as I’m crazy in love with him, I don’t want a relationship with him. Not even together, he causes hurt.
Freya is in her room when I come home. She’s lying in the bed, her hair on top of her head as she watches something on her tablet.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, stopping at the door frame. I’m not going to enter and chance myself with that virus again.
“Better.” She sounds exhausted. “I’ve not gotten sick since yesterday. I managed to bleach the bathroom this morning, hopefully sending the evil virus to hell where it belongs.”
Smiling, I drop my shoulder to the door frame. “I’m not coming any closer, just in case,” I titter. “So, something happened this weekend.”
She pushes up, crossing her legs in front of her. “You ran off and married Zach?”
My face scrunches and I shake my head. “No. Not quite. Not ever. My loving brother took the liberties to set me up and make me tell my parents.”
Her mouth drops. “Aww, Max. Dammit. Why the hell did he do that?”
“‘Cause he’s pissed and he can.”
“I’d rather him murder Zach than to rat you out. That’s a low stoop.”
I tighten my lips and nod. “So my parents know. Dad’s really upset, but Mom seemed okay. She might be shocked into being okay though.”
She runs her hand over the top of her hair that’s pulled in a messy as hell bun. “I can’t believe Max did that. What did Zach say?”
“He was disappointed. He wanted us to do it together.”
Freya giggles. “Your brother is so pissed and angry as hell that he can’t kill Zach, so he’s having to take other, less bloody measures to cut throats.”
“I guess. But I’m his sister with the Lauder blood. I verbally cut his throat back.” I snicker at how ridiculous that sounded.
Freya rubs her hands together. “Sooo, how did your weekend go with the hot baby daddy?”
I cross my arms over my chest. Self-defense to protect my stupid heart. “It went well,” I rock my head back and forth. “Sort of. Depends on how you look at it. He was sweet, romantic, loving… But I’ve seen it before. He’s showed me the same while we were sneaking around and then had no qualms walking away from me into someone else’s arms.”
“He’s a different guy. It’s a different scenario.”
“It’s hard to forget everything when everything still feels like it did. I’m waiting to blink and see him walking away with another woman.”
“He’s not going to do that. He loves you.”
“He did back then too,” I say poignantly. “Anyway, I’m going to take a shower. Do you need anything?”
“No. I’m on the up and up. Death knocked and I didn’t answer.”
I laugh heading down the hallway to my room to unpack. I toss my dirty clothes into the hamper and grab the clean shirts I didn’t wear when something crinkles under my hand. It’s a piece of paper, folded neatly in half.
Years ago, I met this girl who was beautiful inside and out. I used to dream of running my hands through her hair and over her body. She had awesome boobs and all I wanted to do is cop a feel, but I was scared she’d slice my hands off or have her brother do it.
Like a lovestruck creeper, I used to watch her all the time. When she studied, her tongue would play with her upper lip and it made my dick twitch. When she walked, her ass had a natural sway and no matter how hard I tried not to look, I always did. It was involuntarily forced. Had you seen her ass, you’d understand. But because of her, I had to find creative inconspicuous ways to walk around with a stiffy.
We grew close as friends and I got to watch her grow into a young badass woman with incredible dreams. She was angelic, had a heart of platinum, funny as shit, and even on my worst days, her smile would lift me up. If I was having a bad day, often she’d tell me to suck it up with the sweetest grin and I came to crave those words.
One night after a volleyball game, her brother and I were walking down the hall toward the locker rooms to wait on her when she appeared around the corner with some of her friends. After she had told them goodbye, she joined us and started yapping away as I stared ahead to keep myself in check. She nudged me with her hip to get my attention and when I looked at her, she was smiling. Her eyes were gleaming, and the floor disappeared out from under me. I realized in that very second, I had fallen for her pretty damn hard. She had me in the palm of her hand and didn’t realize the powers she had on me. I would’ve bungee jumped off the Eiffel Tower without a rope had she told me to.
Fighting the foreign and forbidden emotions, I did what any guy would do, I ran off and got a girlfriend trying to distract myself. It didn’t help. Those feels had already embedded deeply into my chest. And when this girl got a douchebag boyfriend who stayed at her side, my distraction still didn’t help the weird fluttery shit in my chest, nor the ache in my dick.
One glorious night, all my dreams and fantasies came true. This girl jumped me and made sweet, sweet fuck to me. The world had absolutely no place for me—I was on top of it. She took pleasure to another level. And also took my feelings deeper. It scared the fuck out of me. I also knew by the way she was looking at me, she felt the exact same way as I did. Or so I thought.
I told her I loved her. She destroyed me.
Things only heated up between us and whether she realized it or not, I thought about her all the time, even when I knew shouldn’t.
Our feelings didn’t let us stay away from each other for long. A lot of marvelous sex has been had between us. I’d use sex to get any crumbs of attention from her that I could. Knowing it was me pleasing her and bringing her to new heights did some prideful shit to my chest.
I watched her cry once because of me. As her tears fell, my world crumbled. The floor gave way and the walls tumbled down. She had confessed her feelings to me and I did something I never wanted to do—I walked away. Not because I didn’t want to be with her, I did (do) for the rest of my life. But because after a year of the give and take, I knew it would tear apart our worlds. No matter how right we felt together, it was wrong. The timing was wrong. And she was saying what she was because of hurt.
Going away to college nearly killed me. I was hours away from her, going from a daily dose to seeing her once a month if I was lucky. I had to watch from a distance as her relationship with a douchebag blossomed, pissed that it wasn’t me.
Fast forward years later…she told me she was pregnant and although I was so fucking happy it was mine, it wasn’t the way I pictured getting her into my life. I wanted to win her over with my charm, sex, good looks, and love. But even so, this pregnancy has reignited everything so fiercely that it’s given me so much hope that one day I’ll have her as mine. All mine. That same girl who I watched grow into a woman with her stunning personality and twice as gorgeous tits that I fell so hard for all those years ago is now just out of reach.
I’m determined to prove how much I feel for her and that I will never, ever hurt her, ever again. I’m not the stupid teenager. I’m a grown man with a grown dick with grown pockets and a grown heart that still holds all this love for her. Although she denies her feelings for me, fighting it with every ounce of her stubbornness, I know she loves me. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have given me all these years, or showed up on my doorstep—invited. If she didn’t have a sliver of love for me, she wouldn’t keep giving me the glimpses.
I’m not afraid of showing her how I feel. I’m not afraid of the hurt she keeps handing over every time she shuts down. I’m afraid of being without her.
All I want is a chance.
I drop my butt onto the bed, staring at the blurry letter with tears spilling onto my cheeks.
A chance.
One chance.
With the man I love so very much.
The same one who has caused so much heartache and heart break.
One chance…
Without a known outcome.