Chapter Sixteen
Jax
After the third call, she finally picked up. My heart clenched in my chest. I’m sure she knew who was calling, but I didn’t know if she’d answer. My head was spinning and my stomach churned; it felt like I was trying to repair a lifetime of mistakes in the span of one phone call.
“Marty?”
No hello. No how are you. No nothing. Just…her name.
“Yeah?” I heard her croak out. I knew something was wrong. I knew she was crying. But I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable and risk having her hang up on me.
“Em…” I trailed off.
“Don’t you fucking dare call me that,” she hissed.
“Em, we really need to talk. Do you have some time?” I asked. But, before she could answer me, I heard her heave in the background before a loud clatter rang in my ear.
“Em? Em?”
I yelled into the phone as panic filled my chest. Somewhere on this planet, Marty was sick, and I wasn’t there for her. Instead, I had taken off like a goddamn pussy. I’d hid my vulnerability from her; fuck, I even physically ran away when I saw her in New York.
Instead of being a man, I was a fucking coward.
But, finally, I heard shuffling at the other end of the line before a vaguely familiar voice rang out into the phone.
“She’s at my house, Jax. You really should come over.”
“Marianne?” I asked.
“Yeah. Do you remember where my house is? That’s where you picked her up for your first date before I got married.”
“Yeah, I remember. Is…is she alright?”
“You really should come over…” she trailed off.
I cranked the ignition of my car and peeled out of my parking space at the shop, and I told Marianne to stay with Marty until I could get there. I raced across town and sped through red lights, all the while thinking of everything I needed to say to Marty.
I needed to tell her about why I’d left her that night at the hotel; how it was actually my mom who had called, saying an ambulance was on its way and that she wasn’t feeling well before she passed out right then with me on the line.
I needed to tell her that I couldn’t let her in close because I was afraid she’d see me as the fragile, eighteen-year-old boy her parents forced her to leave all those years ago. I didn’t want her to think I had abandoned her; in my weakened state, I simply…didn’t want her to be exposed to any more of me.
She watched my father die in high school and put up with my bullshit while we were dating. I thought I was hot shit and I treated her like dirt back then, but that night, I wanted to leave her with a good memory of me—until my mother had called.
I squealed into Marianne’s neighborhood and skidded to a stop in front of their house. I shoved my car door open and slammed it shut behind me, and I stumbled up the steps before my fist pounded heavily on the door. I knocked for what seemed like ages, and just as I thrusted my shoulder back to take the damn door down, a man with a disapproving look on his face whipped it open.
Memories of high school came flooding back, like the first time I met Marty’s father. He had that same fucking look on his face, with his sour eyes and his tight-lipped frown. I recognized him, the man Marianne married that day, and I balled up my fists. I was ready to take down anyone that stood in my way. I was getting to Marty one way or another, and when another heave ricocheted down the hallway, he sighed and stepped away from the door.
“Down the hall, last door on the right,” he pointed.
I stepped into their home and barreled down the hallway. I was going to drop to my knees and beg for her forgiveness, telling her how much of a shithead I’d been. I was going to apologize for not telling her about my mom and try to explain how I thought I’d been saving her from the train wreck that was my life.
That is my life.
But when I rounded the corner and saw Marty on her knees, the only thing I could do was rush over and brush the hair from her face.
“I’m right here, Em,” I hummed lowly in her ear.
“What… are you doing here?” she choked out.
“Sssshhhh…” I soothed. I began to lightly rub her back, and when her body started trembling from exhaustion, I wrapped my free arm around her to steady her as she heaved, but nothing was coming up; she was as white as a sheet and sweating bullets, and I knew I had to get her to a doctor.
I’d lost my father and I just buried my mother; I wasn’t about to lose Marty, too.
“Come on, we need to get you to a doctor,” I grunted.
“No…I don’t—” she started, but her sentiment was cut off by another heave.
“You’re sick, Em,” I whispered. “You need a doctor.”
“I’m—,” she began to sob. She went from vomiting to crying into the toilet, and I sat down onto the bathroom floor beside her and pulled her onto my lap, cradling her in my arms. I didn’t care if she threw up on me; she was shaking like a leaf, and I couldn’t stop the tears from pricking the corners of my eyes.
“Please let me help you, Em.”
I buried my face in her hair and inhaled deeply; I could smell her strawberry conditioner, the same kind she used all through high school, and all I wanted to do was hold her close and never let her go.
I’d been such a fucking asshole.
She mumbled something into my chest and I couldn’t quite make it out, and when I crooked my finger underneath her chin and lifted her gaze to mine, tears were falling down her cheeks. There was fear behind her eyes, and my chest tightened at the possibility that she might be in trouble.
“What’s going on?”
I watched her mouth open before she closed it again, and I leaned my forehead down to hers. I wanted to scream at her to tell me, to let me in and give me one more chance to prove that I could stay. That I wouldn’t leave a big, gaping hole in the doorway of her soul if she simply cracked it open one last time.
But I settled for being patient, because after all the wrong I had done, I needed to make sure I did this right.
“Jax…I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
I was stunned. I could feel the blood drain from my face while my eyes danced between hers, and a part of me was not sure I had heard her right. Pregnant? We’d only slept together once, and that was—
“What the hell happened to you?” she whispered.
I owed her so many answers, so I put my own selfish questions aside for the time being. I started by telling her about the phone call in the hotel room and how sick my mother had become. I told her about how she was unconscious on the floor by the time I’d gotten to her house. She’d called for an ambulance and even though they did their best to try and resuscitate her, they couldn’t.
I then rambled on and on about how I wanted to call her and tell her, but that I couldn’t handle piecing myself back together; I was a fucking mess. When she saw me in the city, I bailed because I wasn’t ready to face someone who reminded me so much of the woman I had just lost.
I expected her to be livid. I knew she was close with my mother years ago, and had I stopped being angry and selfish, I would’ve realized that she probably would’ve wanted to come to the funeral. I expected her to rip herself out of my embrace and scream at me, telling me how much of an idiot I was.
But instead, she wrapped her arms around me and nestled into the crook of my neck. That’s when I realized tears were streaming down my cheeks, and she pulled her weak, pale body closer to mine.
“Em, you’re pregnant?” I whispered.
And all she did was nod into my neck.
My mind slowly started to process our new reality. Her body felt so perfect against mine, like a puzzle piece, and I couldn’t help but think about how amazing it would feel to hold her when her belly would be rounded out with my child. I wanted to hold her hair back every time she felt sick, to have her roll me out of bed at 2 AM when she was craving macaroni and cheese, to be by her side when she started ogling baby clothes, and to hold her hand through every ultrasound and needle prick she’d need to endure. Marty fucking hates needles.
I felt her body pressing further into mine, and her trembling fists began to clench onto my shirt. She was scared and she felt out of control, and for a woman who prided herself on always keeping it together, I could only imagine the fear that was coursing through her veins.
And I didn’t want her to keep thinking about the one question I knew was shooting through her head.
I didn’t want her to ever question whether or not I loved her, or if I’d want her body, ever again. My dick jumped at the idea of having her next to me every single night for the rest of my life. My heart fluttered at the idea of seeing her widened hips adorned with silvery stretch marks from bearing my child. My pelvis burned at the idea of sinking in between her legs every night while her body grows and shifts to bring my child into the world.
I’d bring her any relief she begged of me, if I could convince her to stay.
“Marry me,” I blurted out.
Honestly, the statement shocked even me, but just because I was shocked didn’t mean it wasn’t the truth. I meant it.
I wanted her for the rest of my life. I wanted to hold her close at night and help her with our screaming child, and I wanted to spoil her on the days she refused to leave the house because she had other things to do. I wanted to take her out on dates and watch the gray slowly grow in at her temples, and I wanted to fill our home with children and shake her body with orgasms every night for the rest of our years.
“What?” she asked.
I tipped my gaze down and locked my eyes with hers, and when she shifted to sit up, I took her left hand and started tracing the outline of her ring finger.
“Marry me, Em,” I said lowly.
“You can’t be serious.”
I watched her eyes dance along my face, and I couldn’t help but raise my fingers to her hair and tuck a piece of it back behind her ear. As tears blurred her gaze and flowed down her cheeks, I brushed them away with my thumb and slowly pulled her close to my chest.
“Give me one more chance to prove I’m not the shithead you left behind in high school,” I whispered.
“Jax…” she breathed. I watched her pull back before she slowly shook her head. “You were never a shithead. You just…you always think you have to do things on your own. And you don’t. Not with me. You never have to.”
I held her gaze while her hands curled around mine, and I said the only other thing I had on my mind out loud for her to hear.
“I don’t have a family anymore, Em,” I choked out. “But…I see one when I look at you.”
She dove into my arms and wrapped her hands around my neck. I buried my face into her hair and gripped my arms around her back, and for the first time since that day her parents ripped her from my house, I felt complete.
All throughout high school, this woman had kept me together. She helped me pass my classes, she encouraged my dreams, and she stuck by my side even though I was some lanky, idiotic boy who thought he was hot shit. I didn’t give a fuck, and she never tried to change that.
But the word that tumbled from her lips broke the lead dam in my gut, and I started crying into the crook of her neck while her trembling body pressed against mine.
“Yes. A million times, yes.”
I held her in my arms in the middle of her best friend’s bathroom while her body was slowly growing my entire world. I knew I’d do whatever it took to keep the both of them happy and safe, and for the first time since my mother died, I felt I had a purpose. In high school, it was taking care of my dad. After I’d graduated, it was taking care of my mom.
And now? It would be taking care of the family I had created.
“I promise you,” I choked out, “whatever you want, you name it, it’s yours.”
She pulled back and flashed me her beautiful smile, and I saw that little spark of mischief ignite behind her eyes. Her beauty had always been dazzling to me, but nothing could have prepared me for the words that came pouring from her lips.
“I’m yours, Jax. I’ve always been yours.”
“I’ll spend a lifetime making sure you have everything you could ever want, Em.”
And then, I put my hand lightly on her stomach before I crouched down and kissed it. The dancing, the random hook ups, the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants lifestyle…it all melted away. I was responsible for the wellbeing of two people in this world, and for protecting the family I had found when I lost my own.
If she wanted to be in New York City, I’d put one of the guys in charge of the garage. If she’d rather stay in town, she could set up her own recording studio at our place; I’d clean out our basement and let her buy whatever equipment she needed. And if she wanted to quit, I’d support her until my very last breath.
Marty, my high school sweetheart, was going to be my bride—and the mother of my child.