by Serena Bell
And then there was a little stir at the front of the Cape House lobby. Someone had come in. Someone wearing a tuxedo, which was total overkill for the dress code, but holy shit—
He was tall and broad and filled out that tuxedo like he’d been made for it. He was wearing a bowtie and a cummerbund that exactly matched her dress. His eyes were vivid green and fixed on her, and he was crossing the room with purpose, like, oh, God, like he was coming for her.
Bruno Mars’ Just the Way You Are came on.
Startled, she tilted her head, asking, You?
Because she’d loved that music video so hard. It had appealed to the cartoonist in her. And of course, he’d known that.
Jax grinned and nodded. “Will you dance with me?”
Her heart was pounding and her eyes had filled up with tears that right now were in the process of totally ruining all of Vannah’s amazing makeup work, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care at all, because here they were, and he hadn’t ghosted her, and he hadn’t left her—or if he had, he’d come back for her.
There were a million things to say, but she didn’t really want to say any of them right now. She just wanted to follow him out on the dance floor—which she did—and let him take her in his arms—which he did.
He was warm straight through all the layers of their clothes. His arms held her tight, but not too tight, and she felt the muscles in them flex. And the muscles of his abs, too, against the soft curve of her belly. That flex of hard muscle had always caused an instant and fierce melting, and now was no exception. She rested her head on the strong curve of his pec and ached.
She didn’t know what it meant—whether he was here just for the reunion or whether he was here for the reunion and her or whether he was here for her and forever, but right now it didn’t matter at all, because he was here.
When the song ended, he said, “You want to take a walk and talk?”
As soon as they were outside in the fresh air, tangy with salt and heavy with the fog moving off the ocean, she demanded, “Why didn’t you reply to my texts?” It wasn’t at all the thing she wanted to ask but it was the only thing that came out of her mouth when she opened it.
“You texted me? But I was such a dick to you in the hospital and at my brother’s apartment—”
“You were a dick,” she said. “But your little brother was sick and you were scared, and if I’d had any idea that my father had made you feel like you weren’t good enough for me, I never in a million years would have tried to give you money. So—yeah, you were a dick, but I also get it. And I freaked out, too.”
They climbed over the seawall and onto the beach—he lifted her down, making sure no part of her dress snagged on the concrete. She held her skirts up with one hand and he took the other one and held it tight.
“He should never have done that,” Chiara said. “He was so wrong. But—I still wish you’d told me. You’re right, though. He would have known if you had. And you needed that money.”
Jax nodded. “In my heart, I don’t believe he would have taken the money away from us. Not Evan’s therapy money. I should have stood up to him and told him that if he believed in me enough to give me all that money, he should also know I’d do what it took to be a good partner to you. But instead, I bought his version of us, and I regret that more than anything else I’ve ever done. Kee, you have to believe me. Knowing I’d hurt you ripped me apart.”
She let him pull her back into his arms, and she lifted her face to his for a kiss. And she felt it all in that kiss—all the fear and the pain and, especially, how much he’d missed her.
“I thought he was right, too, you know?” Jax said. “I thought that if I stayed away for five years or ten years, I could do what he said. Build a life for myself, figure out how to stand on my own two feet. Take care of the people in my life. Earn a second chance with you.”
“He—he said that?”
He nodded. “It was the last thing he said to me before I left.”
She’d moved past the capacity to be shocked by her father’s cruelty. She understood, a little better now, that he’d held himself and everyone around him to impossible standards, and that for him, challenging Jax to meet those standards had been an imperative. A sick one, but a real one.
She also understood exactly how devastating it must have felt to Jax.
“You know that you’ve already done that, don’t you? I can’t imagine a man I would admire more, Jax. It’s true now and it was true then. You were working a job, supporting them, taking care of your mother and your brother, which isn’t something every man would do. Your dad didn’t. Evan’s dad didn’t. But you did. You always have. I never, ever, not for a second, doubted that you would take care of me the same way you took care of them. I never doubted that your love would make me safe.”
“And I didn’t trust that,” he said. He said it like it hurt him, like the words were knives and he was trying not to cut himself.
“Well, of course you didn’t. No one had ever given you any reason to feel like you were safe or loved or taken care of, except maybe my father. And then, when it mattered, he found a way to tell you you were good, but not good enough to be his family.” Saying it out loud, so baldly, made her stomach hurt.
She took a deep breath, held his beautiful green gaze. “But you’re good enough to be my family. I have always wanted to be your family.”
He pulled away from her then. And stared back at her, and she saw it there, finally, laid completely bare for her. All the hurt. All the fear. All the vulnerability.
And all the love.
52
“You—” he said.
The wind had whipped tears up in his eyes.
No, he was actually crying.
“You’re—”
She stepped up and wiped the tears away. Put her arms around him again and held him. She was smaller than he was, but it felt like he could fold himself into the comfort she offered. The promise.
“Of course you’re my family,” he said.
Her eyes were big and shiny, watching him, and when he said that, her mouth quivered and one tear slid down her cheek.
“And I’m so, so sorry I ever made you feel like you weren’t. You and Evan. And my mom, on good days, when I don’t want to kill her.”
He kissed her hair. Then lifted her chin so she was looking up at him. Tears shimmered in her eyes, too. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then to her mouth, and she reached up and wrapped both arms around his neck and kissed him like the world depended on it.
“I won’t leave again,” he said. “I won’t walk away from this. I’ll stay and I’ll fight for it, and I’ll talk about it, and we’ll figure it out. I promise.”
She tilted her face up and let him take her mouth, let him sweep his tongue in and show her how he claimed her and would not, ever, let her go.
When they pulled apart this time, she said, “Auburn says if my dad hadn’t died I would have had to rebel eventually. I spent way too long seeing things through his eyes. Signing up for extracurriculars to get into college instead of going after the things that really mattered to me. And believing that I was better off without you instead of going after you. He told me that, after you left. That I was better off without you.”
Once, the words would have made him flinch, but Rich had lost his power over them. Jax nodded. “I figured he probably had.”
“It makes me mad that he’s gone, and I can’t ask him why he did it. Or whether he regrets it, now. I can’t stand up to him and tell him off.”
“But we can have a lot of sex, live together, get married, and have babies, which would be good revenge,” Jax said. He hadn’t exactly meant to say all that, but it felt like the truest thing either of them had said yet.
Her eyes were huge. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely. I mean, not right this second—except the sex part—but when we’re ready.”
“Are you—staying in Bakersfield?”
He shook his head. �
��I was thinking I’d come back up here and shack up with Evan for a while.”
“Or me,” she whispered.
That made him smile. A lot. He bent and kissed her, taking a nip of her soft lower lip. Then a lick. Then he was kissing her again, until her tongue started stroking over his in a way that was causing a serious tuxedo-pants tent problem.
“We could go back to my place now—”
“We could,” he agreed. “Or we could go back inside and dance some more.”
So they did. They danced to every song, until they closed down the dance floor. Then they said goodnight to their classmates and went back to Chiara’s house.
In the truck on the way home, she said, “You know, you don’t have to let me help with Evan’s treatment. I get why that struck a bad nerve. But if you want my help, it’s yours. And family does help each other out,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “I’m sure if you told Levi you needed help—”
“Don’t do that,” Jax said, alarmed.
She laughed. “I won’t. Unless you want me to.”
The thought of all the Campbells mobilized on his behalf terrified and thrilled him. Because he knew: They would help if he asked.
He had to hold his breath for a second then. Otherwise he might have been crying again, and twice in one day was too much for him.
“What?” she asked.
“If you’re my family, does that mean they’re my family, too?”
“Of course,” she said, in a “no duh” voice. “Have you met us?”
“It’s not an inn,” Chiara said, as he unzipped her dress, his lips warm against her neck, one hand already reaching for the clasp of her bra, the other dipping into her barely-there lace panties, finding her wet and ready.
“And you’re not a virgin,” he said.
The dress fell to the floor. He picked her up and deposited her on the bed. “No,” she agreed, giving him a coy smile.
“Which is good. Because I’m really, really impatient.”
He showed her. She was impatient, too, even after he’d rolled on the condom and was buried all the way to the hilt in her softness. She wanted more, and she grabbed his ass and worked her body up against his to show him. “It’s been way too long,” she grumbled, when he pulled back, teasing.
So he didn’t hold back. He gave her what she wanted, long and slick and full and deep and more forceful than he’d ever been with her, until she was moaning his name and begging for more, and then he pushed them both over the edge.
Afterwards they lay side by side on the bed, holding hands. He was smiling ridiculously.
“Stay right there,” he said, rolling over. “I have something for you.” He crossed the hall to toss the condom, then tugged on his tux pants—commando—and ran out to the truck. He came back with the project he’d been working on the last three days. A balsa wood storage tray that would fit perfectly in her Terraforming Mars box.
“Oh, my God, Jax, it’s perfect.” Her eyes filled up with tears. “I love it.” Then she grinned and swiped at her eyes. “I have something for you,” she said.
“You do?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said. She rolled over and dug her sketchbook out of the nightstand and handed it to him.
“When did you draw this?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” she said.
“Before you knew I was coming back?”
“Around the time I realized I was going to have to come get you if you didn’t come back.”
His heart, which he’d been pretty sure couldn’t be any fuller, grew another size or two.
In the first frame of Chiara’s cartoon, SuperKee and SuperJax meet up again at a superhero reunion.
“As one does,” Jax said, smiling.
It’s been years. And they miss each other. But they’ve been kept apart because superheroes can’t be together. The Cosmic SuperHero Organization forbids it. So for years, ever since they got caught messing around in high school, SuperKee and SuperJax have been denying their feelings for each other.
It’s the last night of the reunion, and SuperKee and SuperJax are on guard duty—someone has to stand guard because obviously if anyone disrupted the superhero reunion, the world would be very vulnerable. It’s like the G8 summit in that regard.
So they’re alone in the dark, standing out on the edge of the hotel roof. The sky is vivid with stars. Below them, the rest of the superheroes are dancing and partying.
Jax turned the page.
“Wait, what?” he demanded. “You stopped?”
“Well, of course I stopped,” she said. “You have to help me write it.”
Her cheeks were pink, from the orgasm and the excitement.
“Well,” he said. “I want SuperKee and SuperJax to realize that there’s a loophole in the rules. It says that if you are willing to give up your superhero powers, you can live an ordinary human life. And you can love.”
She was very quiet for a minute, gently brushing her fingers over the stars she’d scattered in the sky. “What happens if you give up your superhero powers?” she asked, finally. She turned her head and looked at him—full on, for the first time. And he looked right back, steady and sure.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think,” she said. Her eyes were wet again. “I think they realize that all the powers they thought they had because they were superheroes, they actually had because they loved each other. And they don’t have to give up those powers at all. They’re just as brave and just as smart and just as able to do scary or difficult things as they were before. They just have to go ahead and do them.”
“That’s what I think, too. And I think when you give up your superhero powers, then you just get to be exactly who you are. With no pretending or hiding.”
“No pretending,” she repeated. “No hiding. And no—no running away.”
He shook his head. “No running away.”
Very slowly, because she wanted the moment to last a long time so she could remember it and savor it later, she moved into his arms.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too,” she said.
His mouth came down on hers, a long, sweet, deep hello-again.
Epilogue
The door of the shop chimed. Evan and Asher jumped, Jax looked up, and Chiara—snapped out of her own trance—set down her drawing tablet.
“Dinner’s here!” Auburn announced. She came into the store holding several brown bags full of food, trailed by Trey, Levi, Mason, and Hannah.
“Welcome to the first ever Campbell family game night,” Chiara said, grinning.
Asher got to his feet, looking uncomfortable. “I’d, uh, better go—”
“No way,” Auburn said. “I got you lasagna. That’s what Evan said you liked.”
Asher looked around, blushed, and sat.
Auburn began passing out food.
“It looks ahhhhmazing,” Auburn told Chiara, gesturing at the mural behind the registers.
It was a montage of SuperEvan scenes. In one, he was building Gizmos as big as his own body. In another he was using an asteroid storm to raise the temperature on Mars. Building a small development at the juncture of three hexes of Catan. Riding railroads across the Ticket to Ride U.S. Map, hand out the window, waving.
“You put me in the games,” Evan had said, with so much delight that she had felt like she’d done magic instead of just drawing. She said as much to Jax, and he said, kissing her nose and her chin and then her mouth (with a lot of tongue): “Your drawings are kind of magic.”
When she’d finished the mural, she’d been alone in the shop. She added the last brushstroke, set the brush down on the can of blue paint, stood back a long time, and looked at her handiwork. Then she said, out loud, “Dad, look what I did.”
And since all she had now was the father she gave herself, and since she had faith that people could change to become more like the people they wanted to be, she imagined that if her father had lived, he would have see
n the error of his ways and grown to understand that she was perfectly capable of finding her own way in life. So she let him say back to her, in his warmest voice, “That’s my girl.”
She’d been drawing a lot more recently. She wasn’t sure where it was all going, but maybe there would be a book someday. She was taking cartoon and illustration classes online, and even though she still couldn’t draw a human hand that actually looked like a human hand or a nose that actually looked like a nose, it didn’t matter because she could tell a story with pictures. Which, it turned out, was all she’d been trying to do in the first place.
She’d kept her business going, but she’d scaled it back so she had a lot more time to work on her newest project, which was making posters for events. She did a lot of them gratis for the businesses in town—but she was starting to make money doing high-end posters for other organizations, too. She was starting to earn a word-of-mouth reputation that in recent weeks had brought in phone calls from Portland companies and nonprofits, including Powell’s Books, her second favorite store in the entire world, after Meeples. And, she, Asher, Tamara, and Evan were designing a game together. It was a game about saving a small business from bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, Jax had moved his contracting business to the Oregon coast—which mostly meant starting from scratch. But he was cheerful about it, and his work, too, spoke for itself. Last week, he’d gotten a job building a ten-thousand square foot oceanfront home for one of Trey’s rich friends.
“No one needs a ten thousand square foot house,” Jax had confided to Chiara.
”Don’t tell him that. Promise you won’t,” she’d whispered back.
“It’ll be our secret.”
Evan and Jax’s mom was contemplating a move to Tierney Bay. Jax’s relationship with her had softened considerably recently, especially after she chipped in a thousand dollars to the cost of Evan’s treatments.
“Where did that come from?” he asked.
“My skirt business has really taken off. I’m doing kilts now. Are you interested?”
“No, Mom,” he’d said. “Not in the slightest.”