Tessa Ever After (21 page)

His soft expression sends a wave of regret through me that I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion when I didn’t find him in bed with me. Because this smile . . . it’s for me.

It’s mine and mine alone.

jason

It’s been only fifteen minutes, but it feels like it’s been fifteen hours by the time Haley is finally engrossed enough in coloring that I’m able to sneak out of the living room and into the kitchen. I walk up behind Tess, bracing my arms on the counter on either side of her as she flips the pancakes.

She smells like her fruity shampoo and sex and
me
, and it does nothing to assuage the overwhelming want I have to bend her over the counter and fuck her against it.

I brush my lips over the base of her neck, smiling into her skin when she shudders.

“You were gone when I got up . . .” She doesn’t pose it as a question, but I know she wants to know why I wasn’t there.

“Yeah, I set the alarm on my phone for the ass-crack of dawn. I wasn’t sure you wanted . . . Well, I didn’t know if you’d ever had someone . . .” Christ, why is this so hard to say? Probably because I’d rather slice off my own balls than think of Tessa’s previous circumstances . . . circumstances where men might’ve stayed the night. I clear my throat and try again, “I didn’t know what you wanted Haley to know.”

She freezes, the spatula in her hand poised and ready to flip a pancake, and then she looks at me over her shoulder. “I thought you left. I thought you bailed.”

And even though I figured it would take more than a night full of amazing sex to convince her this was different for me, her words still cut deep. I grip her hips, lower my face until I can press a kiss on the side of her neck. Quietly, I say, “I wouldn’t do that. Not with you.”

She nods, her face turned toward mine, so I drop a kiss on her lips, too.

“Believe me, I’d much rather have stayed in bed with all your sweet parts pressed up against me.” She drops her head back to rest on my shoulder, and I brush my lips down her neck. “Would’ve been a lot better than lying on a couch by myself at five in the morning.”

She laughs, but it dies off, and by the way she’s scraping her teeth against her bottom lip, I know she’s got something to say. I grab the spatula from her and finish the job of flipping the rest of the pancakes, then I spin her around to face me. Raising an eyebrow, I stare at her and wait.

She tries to outlast me, but eventually she huffs and crosses her arms, rolling her eyes. “I hate when you do that.”

“If you’d just tell me what’s on your mind from the get-go I wouldn’t have to do it.”

Her eyes narrow for a moment, then sincerity takes hold of her features. “I wanted to wake up with you, too . . .”

“But?”

She heaves a deep sigh. “But I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. Yet.”

Despite the disappointment that settles in my gut, I nod. “Okay. Because of Haley?”

She nods in confirmation. “I’ve never had someone stay the night, Jason.
Never.
And as much as I want to see where this thing between us goes, I have to look out for her. Her comfort is my number one priority.”

I get it. I understand completely, even if I wish it were different. But the part I’m focusing on is when she said she’d never had anyone stay the night. And how I can’t wait to be the first.

tessa

“Is Cade coming home this week?” Jason asks.

“No, why would he be coming home this week?”

Jason’s eyebrows lift as he looks at me over a stack of pancakes drenched in syrup. He’s worse than Haley, I swear. “Thanksgiving . . . ?”

“That’s
this
Thursday?”

“Yep.”

“Crap, I forgot all about it. Um, no, I don’t think he is. He was just hoping he’d be able to get back for Christmas. His schedule’s pretty crazy right now.”

“So what are you guys doing, then?”

I shrug, taking a bite of my breakfast. “I dunno. I’m certainly not cooking a turkey, that much is for sure. Probably just hang out at home, unless Paige drags us to her parents’ house.”

He’s quiet for a minute, the kind of silence that’s weighted, and I lift my eyes to meet his. “How about I drag you to mine?”

I stop chewing. I’d probably choke if I attempted to swallow. And then with a mouthful of food, I ask, “Do what now?”

I couldn’t have heard him right. Because anything to deal with his parents is a no-go zone. We don’t talk about it, unless I bully him into it, and he certainly doesn’t bring people to his childhood house unless he’s forced to.

“My family dinner was switched to Thursday instead of Tuesday this week, so I have to be there. I want you to come with me.”

“To your parents’.”

“Yes.”

My eyes flit over to Haley, because Jason’s parents have never
made it a secret that they don’t approve of my choice to keep her at my young age. While I’ve met them only a few times, Cade had that privilege plenty more, and every time he came back, he’d be fuming. Finally I flat out asked him what the problem was, and he managed to evade the question. Then one day both he and Jason came back, and neither knew I was home. Cade ranted to Jason about how narrow-minded his parents were, about how they had their heads so far up their snooty asses, they couldn’t see an amazing girl making the right choice for her—a
hard
choice, yeah, but one they should accept and let be. Jason didn’t disagree, but neither did he ever extend to me an invitation to his house.

“Haley would be with me,” I say.

“I know that.”

“And you’re still inviting us?”

He stares at me, his eyes locking on mine, locking me in, and there are a thousand things in his glance. This is one way for him to show me I’m different. And that he doesn’t give one single shit about what his parents think of us—of me and Haley. That he wants us in his life, and, unfortunately, that life sometimes includes the assholes he came from. The assholes he’s nothing like.

He’s offering me something he hasn’t ever offered anyone before, and yet again, a piece inside me holding tight to fear wriggles loose. I never expected something like this from him, not in my wildest dreams. Never allowed myself to imagine it. But what would it be like if the future I’m so desperate for could be found with the one guy who makes me see stars?

“Okay.”

His smile would’ve knocked me on my ass if I weren’t already
sitting. Relaxing back into his chair, he gives a satisfied nod, then starts up a conversation with Haley, asking what her favorite foods are at Thanksgiving. And when he bends his head low, his brow creased in concentration as though the fact that she likes green beans over peas is the most interesting piece of knowledge he ever gained, I melt.

Right there at the dining table over a late breakfast with my daughter—the person who’s my whole world—and Jason—the person who’s beginning to take a place right next to her—I melt. And I’m finally honest with myself.

Despite all my best intentions, all the walls I put up and precautions I made sure I took with him, none of it matters.

I’m falling for him whether I like it or not.

NINETEEN

tessa

I get to the restaurant late, having had to give Haley fifteen good-bye and good-night kisses as she simultaneously talked the ear off Becky, the sitter I use as often as I can because she gets along so well with my daughter. Paige is already seated when I slide into the booth across from her, blowing my hair out of my face.

She looks up at me, a smile on her face. “Hey! I just got here, so I haven’t ordered drinks yet.”

“I slept with him.”

The smile disappears as her mouth drops open. She slams her menu closed and leans toward me across the table. “Girl, you had better give me every gory detail right fucking now.”

And so I do. I tell her everything—about Jason coming over Saturday morning, about him spending the day and night with us, about what it was like to see him with Haley and how the chemistry between us was as potent as it was undeniable.

“I knew it. I
knew
it would be good. He totally fucked those cobwebs out, didn’t he?”

A throat clears from off to the side, and I look up into the smirking face of our waitress. With my cheeks as bright as a neon sign, I turn to my best friend and shake my head. “Oh my God, Paige. You should not be allowed out in public.”

“What?” She shrugs. “I’m just sayin’.”

After we order our drinks and dinner, the waitress leaves us and Paige digs for details, completely undeterred by what happened not even three minutes ago. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“
Well
, how was he? God, it’s like we’ve never had the sex talk before. I always tell you
everything
.”

“Not because I ask.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a good friend that way. I like to share the wealth and all that.”

I shake my head at her and thank the waitress when she places a much-needed glass of wine in front of me. “I’m not saying anything.”

“For fuck’s sake, Tess, I didn’t ask you to draw a diagram of his cock. I just wanna know if he was good . . . if he wasn’t a two-pump chump and he made sure you got yours before flopping on top of you like a dead fish.”

I laugh over the rim of my glass. “Fine, yes, he was good.”

“Just good?”

“No, not just good. It was . . .” I sigh and slump back against the booth. “Unparalleled.”

Paige stares at me, hanging on every word. “Damn.”

“Yeah, and he absolutely wasn’t a two-pump chump. And
even if he was the first time, I would’ve forgiven it because of the sheer quantity of opportunities he had to make it up to me.”

“Twice in one night?
Nice
.”

“No, not twice . . .”

Her mouth drops open and her eyes grow wide. “Holy shit, you bitch, I’m jealous. Me, the girl who gets laid every weekend, is actually jealous.” She heaves a giant sigh and rests her elbow on the table, palming her chin. “I forget what that insatiable want is like . . .”

“What do you mean, you forget what it’s like? You just said yourself you get laid every weekend.”

“Yeah, but that’s different. These are guys I only know at the most artificial level. It’s different when you have a connection beyond just insert peg A into slot B.”

“Well, we definitely have that.” I take another swallow of wine, then say, “He asked Haley and me to his parents’ for Thanksgiving.”

Her eyebrows shoot up on her forehead. “No shit? Well, well, well . . . It seems this isn’t just insert peg A into slot B for him, either.”

“Yeah, I sort of got that when he asked, but, shit, Paige . . . they are going to hate me. They
do
hate me. They think I’m some kind of evil slut woman, what with those three times I had sex—with the same guy—before I got pregnant with Haley. This dinner is going to be awful.
Awful.
And I’m willingly subjecting myself to it.”

“It’s going to be fine. They’re too classy to be openly rude to you. Rich, snooty people always are.”

I’ve been so worried about how they would receive Haley that
I didn’t even have time to think about how they’d receive me—the woman I am now. “Oh God. I have purple hair, Paige.
Purple!
” I reach up and grab a stripe of the bright violet as if she can’t see it from two feet away. “This is not the kind of hair one has to meet rich, snooty people! There’s probably some law against it in their handbook. There has to be.”

Paige rolls her eyes and laughs at me. “Since when do you give two shits about what people think?”

“Since they’re the parents of my . . . my . . . Jason.”

“Your Jason, huh? This might not take as much persuasion as I thought it would.”

“What won’t?”

“Getting you to see how great you two could be together.”

I deflate against the back of the booth, my shoulders slumping, because she’s right. It’s not going to take much persuasion. Or any at all.

“What’s with the slump over there?”

“I . . . I think I’m in trouble.”

“Why would you be in trouble? You finally have a man to help you relieve some tension whenever you want.”