One Day After Never (The Second Time's the Charm STANDALONE Series Book 1)

by Whitney Walker

  I owe her an explanation. “I almost ditched the bed for a cold shower.” She should know that was not rejection. “I’ve never wanted anyone so badly, Peyton.” I breathe into her hair then lift her chin to brush my lips tenderly over hers. She is motionless and doesn’t kiss back, probably waiting for me to add a “but,” followed by something she doesn’t want to hear. I run my thumb over her full, soft lips until it seems she realizes I meant what I said.

  “Well, the feeling was mutual,” she finally returns, leaning forward to meet my lips.

  Her kiss lingers. I feel her body soften. She’d been tense. “Peyton, I want to know you better before we go there. I want to know about you. Your back story. We haven’t talked about anything.”

  Any minute the man-card police are going to barge in demanding I hand mine over. I just put talking before sex. Where does this come from? First and foremost, if she shares her back story I have to share mine. My roommates, meeting mates, and mom are the few who know my past, and that’s the way I like it. If I share, there is a good chance I’ll never have the chance to make love to her. I remind myself of my promise to myself. Be authentic even when uncomfortable and surrender the outcome. Why can’t I just have sex and keep it light?

  “First time for everything, I guess. It’s not every day that a guy stops a sure thing to, um, talk.”

  An unwelcome smirk happens from her sure-thing comment. I’m glad it’s dark so she doesn’t see it.

  She doesn’t hide her speculation, voice full of concern, “Was it something I did? Or didn’t do?”

  “No. No. Nothing like that,” I reassure her. “It was all good. Incredible, Peyton. I don’t know either. I just—” I really don’t know how to finish the sentence. There is no explanation that makes sense to me so how can I explain it to her? “I just want to take this slower, okay?” I sense her hesitation.

  “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  What now? Ask her to start at the beginning? We spent the day together and kept it at surface conversation, talking to others, watching hockey, or were busy kissing. Anything but this is so much easier. I knew why I hadn’t given up any information, but what about her? Is it the same? I decide to risk it and be vulnerable though it’s damn scary. I extend the olive branch. “Okay, I’ll go first. I was raised by a single mother.”

  “Oh. Me too,” she returns.

  Not uncommon, of course. “She is truly the best. Amazing. Beautiful. The best.” She offers nothing so I ask, “How was your relationship with your mom?”

  “Fine.”

  I feel her shrug against my arm. No expounding. Awkward silence follows until I break it.

  “I don’t know my dad. My mom was traveling for work in Paris and had a fling with a Parisian. Want to take a guess what he said his name was?” It isn’t a laughing matter, but the tone is serious and I want to lighten it up. She finally finds her voice.

  “Jacques?”

  “But of course,” I say in my best fake French accent.

  “Seriously?” she chuckles.

  Success. “She didn’t know anything about him and didn’t know, of course, that she was pregnant until she got back to the U.S.”

  “Wow.”

  I assume she will be unsure what to say in response, but instead, she starts to speak.

  “Mine is kind of the same story. My mom was married to him but left him when I was a baby. I don’t know why. She would never tell me. I found my birth certificate and called every Michael Jennings I could ever find a phone number for. Nine hundred and forty of them. There are over fifteen hundred in the United States. Can you believe it? None claimed me. I’ve thought about doing the DNA test someday, but wouldn’t he have tried to find me if he wanted to know me?”

  Her voice rises, emphatic, “And now, I just found out that my mother had a boyfriend for ten years that I never knew about! He just told me the same thing. Some BS about protecting their children and love being the excuse for not telling the whole truth.”

  Anger drips from the word love. I wonder how she found out about Jack. It is strange to mesh what I am hearing about Caroline Jennings with the woman that I knew as counselor and teacher. Mrs. Jennings had played a huge role in helping me pull my life back from the brink. How can it be that Peyton’s mother is one of the only people in the world who knows everything about me, and soon enough, her daughter is going to be one of the only other? Is this coincidence? God’s work? Fate? Whatever the answer, it’s strange.

  I press my lips to her temple and deposit a kiss. “I knew your mom well enough to say that she had a good reason. And I would bet that reason was you. I think parents do a lot of things, maybe right, maybe wrong, but for the right reasons. There isn’t a better reason than love to do anything.” I hope I don’t piss her off. Perhaps this isn’t a good time to start sharing what I learned earlier than most. Deflecting is more my style, but this time, like a boomerang, I pull my past to the forefront. Into this bed. Hoping she doesn’t want to hightail her ass back to Detroit in the middle of the night.

  I want her to know I understand, from experience, what she is telling me. “What my mom did, because she thought it was the right thing to do, was work seventy-hour weeks as an executive. She flew around the world and left me with a nanny. In her mind, she was doing the right thing because we had money and opportunity, and she was teaching me to be independent. Yeah, well, how’d that work out for her? I decided I was independent enough to live on my own at fifteen. She was in Europe, and coincidentally, we were living in L.A. She upgraded the house. I had to change schools. At no worse time. The year I started sophomore year of high school. Being the new kid when everyone had their groups from freshman year sucked. Rather than make friends, I ran away. I thought I would show her.”

  “Where did you go? What did you do?”

  I feel her arm draped across my chest pull a little tighter. I shift, sliding my arm from behind her head. I need more space if I am going to confess my sins on our first day together. I interlace my fingers on top of my chest, protective armor over my heart. I should shut up, but instead, take a deep breath, “I did the usual stuff homeless people do. Found a crowd to hang within a bad area of town. Panhandled during the day. Used the money for things I shouldn’t have to fill the hole in my heart and pass the time.” My right hand moves to my left arm, rubbing up and down elbow to wrist. It’s a reflex that happens in every group meeting I’ve ever shared my experience, as if it might erase the scars if I just keep it up.

  Peyton’s hand reaches for mine, stopping the movement. She tightly clasps it in hers. I roll toward her and our bodies face one another. She kisses my jawline tenderly. The sentiment eases the pain. The more I tell the story the less it hurts, but still, facing her potential rejection makes it more difficult this time. She’s still here, but I haven’t finished the story.

  “There was a cop who patrolled our area, every night. One night when I was stoned out of my mind, he arrested me. I was too doped up to fight and he put me in the back of the cop car. When we were about a mile out, he took off the handcuffs and let me sleep in his back seat as he drove around his entire shift. In the morning, he dropped me off at the most affluent Starbucks in the area and I made just enough money to get my next fix before heading back to my dealer, then my crew that congregated under the viaduct.

  “A couple of nights later he arrested me again, drove me away again, and undid the handcuffs again. I wouldn’t speak to him. I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t say anything. I was just high, pissed off at the world. The next morning he told me the rowdies would get suspicious if he continued to arrest me. I had told them I was eighteen so they knew I wouldn’t get set free with repeated offenses. He told me I’d need to keep myself together and walk to meet him. He promised me a hot meal and the backseat to sleep in. It was warm and it was safe, and I would have been a fool not to take him up on the offer. The nights were long. And scary. That’s what we did for many nights. Sometimes I was too high to get there but
when I got hungry enough or tired enough, I’d make my way to him and he was always waiting. I still have no idea what made him take pity on me but I wish I did.”

  “How long did that go on, J.T.?”

  “About four months.”

  “Wasn’t your mom looking for you? Didn’t she go to the police?”

  “Of course. But it’s pretty easy to hide and, well,” I am so ashamed of this part, “I told Tim, Officer Reilly, that I would just run away again if he turned me in. I think he knew it wasn’t just a threat. He said that his wife told him to let it work itself out. He said she was the smartest woman in the world and he always listened to her. Sometimes he would tell me stories about their life. If I say anything that sounds smart, it’s probably from Tim. The first time I understood my mother’s hell was when I heard her tell her side of the story. She would work a fourteen-hour day and then drive around the streets of L.A. for hours, not sleeping for months.” I blow out a long breath.

  Peyton removes the space between our bodies completely by swinging her leg up over mine. “Hold me,” she whispers into the darkness.

  I wrap my arm around her, our bodies connected from head to toe. Her fingers traverse my sternum. This time I accept her closeness. I can’t express what it means for her to be accepting me despite what I’ve revealed. “Thank you,” I say sincerely.

  “Okay, tell me more. I have to hear what happened, how you got home. Not to make light, but this is like a movie.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought about that. Spoiler alert. It gets more dramatic and the ending sucks. One night, when I didn’t come to meet him, he came to look for me. An assholes I hung with was really jacked up and recognized Tim as the cop that had arrested me before. He had noticed my pattern of bailing and somehow put two and two together.”

  I close my eyes knowing it’s futile to attempt to push the memory away. I will forever be indebted. Consciously, and in my nightmares.

  “I hear Scout, as we called him, for the obvious reason, assessing Tim, circling and taunting with his raspy Freddy Krueger villain voice.”

  “Well, well, what do we have here? You been helping out our little friend? Let me guess, he’s a rich kid from the burbs and his mommy sent you to keep him safe.”

  “I was frozen with fear. Scout’s arm reached behind his back and I let out a bloodcurdling “No!” as he lunged. I can still hear my own scream in my ears and feel the vibration of the sound in my chest. I’d thrown myself forward to protect Tim, but it was too late. Scout had drawn a knife. Even in his compromised state he was too fast for us to stop him.

  “The whole group had scattered, leaving me alone with no way to call 911. I’d kneeled beside his bleeding body for hours until another cop drove by and I ran for help.”

  “What happened, J.T?” She is tapping on my chest impatiently. I had been silent, watching the scene play out in my head.

  “He was stabbed. It was my fault. I held him and he told me to go home and clean up my act. He told me to take care of his wife. Her name is Ellie. He told me to forgive myself. To make something of myself. To make a difference.” My voice chokes, trying to suppress the suffocating emotion rising. “He said Trouble was my middle name. That’s where J.T. came from. He said, “Happy Sixteenth Birthday,” and pointed to his pocket. I reached in and pulled out his dog tags from the service. He said he’d brought them for me. His hope was to take me home for good that night. He told me he loved me and sometimes you didn’t understand the rules but trust that love would always win out. Tim died in my arms. I was helpless. No phone or way to call anyone and I couldn’t leave him. I saw a cop passing hours later and ran to flag him down.

  “I was a minor, and it was clear I was too broken up about what happened to have killed him. Scout got away. No one spoke a word about him helping me for four months because my mom and Ellie were afraid they would say he got what he deserved. He was a hero and didn’t get honored the way he should have dying in the line of duty. I have no doubt he saved my life. Needless to say, I don’t celebrate birthdays anymore.”

  I tell her almost everything. My burden shouldn’t be her burden, and I don’t want to wreck special days for her too. I press my lips together tightly and blink hard to keep the tears at bay, thankful for the dark. Peyton snuggles in tightly. She doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. I reach for her face to kiss her in gratitude, brush her cheek and feel wetness. Damn it. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Peyton.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine.”

  Her words are shaky through the tears. When she processes this in the morning she may run away, but for now, she’s still here. I’ve never told a woman this much of my past.

  “So, did you go home, J.T.? What happened with Ellie after Tim died?”

  “Obviously, I was crippled with grief and guilt. I went home and made amends with my mother. Classic prodigal son. I went to rehab for a month, and I am sorry for not telling you sooner, but I don’t even drink. I can’t. Ever. You were probably wondering about that. I totally understand if it’s a deal breaker. I still attend AA and NA group meetings as often as I can. Do you know them?”

  “Not really, but I probably should.”

  “Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous bring people together who follow a twelve-step process to staying sober. It’s about admitting you are powerless over your vice but becoming powerful over yourself with your higher power’s help.”

  “Do you ever still want to use? Is that why you still go to meetings?”

  She is brave to ask. I am glad that I can be truthful with my answer. “Addiction is never cured, but I know I will never use again. I’ll be ten years clean soon. It helps to help those who are new to the process. I want to show them that it can turn out okay. It’s about offering experience, strength, and hope, and sharing what I’ve learned about gratitude and giving back.”

  “Oh wow.” Her voice is filled with compassion, thankfully, not pity. “What happened with Ellie?”

  “It was harder to make amends with Ellie. I wanted her to hate me. But you know what she said?” I pause. This part of the story is even harder for me to hold it together. I swallow. “She said it wasn’t my fault. It was Tim’s choice. He died doing what he loved, protecting someone he loved. For some reason, he thought of me as the son he never had though I gave him no reason and I told her so. She said it didn’t matter, you didn’t always understand. I still don’t. I don’t think I ever will. She was never mad or bitter, and wanted to stay close to my mom and me. When she moved to Detroit to be near their only daughter, my mom quit her job and we moved there too. She became our family and we celebrate holidays together. It’s the strangest thing, yet it all seems normal now.

  “It’s been a long time, but I still have to work at forgiving myself every day when I look in the mirror. Forgiveness of others is hard. Forgiving yourself is nearly impossible. Forgive and forget? Longer than never.”

  This part she might like. “This is where your mom comes in. When we moved to Detroit, I met her, and Jack. I don’t know where I’d be today if she didn’t help me stay on track when I got there. She was my rock, Peyton. And obviously, my profession is the best thing to do to honor Tim and your mom. It’s the least I can do.”

  She doesn’t speak, but I feel her stiffen next to me. The mention of Jack? I’d seen him at the funeral making a hasty exit. Maybe that I had said her mother was my rock? Or maybe it is my story altogether. I’ve accepted this is mine to carry around forever. I don’t expect anyone else to share the weight of my past. “If you want to leave this bed right now and this house in the morning, I won’t blame you at all.”

  “I’m not leaving, J.T.”

  I’m grateful for her words.

  “I just wish I could say I was an angel and couldn’t relate.”

  Well, that hadn’t made my list of reasons for her consternation. If she isn’t an angel as she has confessed, perhaps she can accept me without judgment? Maybe she can see beyond the horrible things I�
��ve done to my mother and tearing Tim and Ellie apart. Beyond the things that could make someone unlovable. I can’t fathom there is anything she can say that would surprise me or make me care for her any less.

  “I think we need a little break from all this drama.” I roll her onto her back and lovingly kiss her neck. Her hands find my shoulders and gently push me back.

  “No, wait. Please. What if—” Her words are full of fear. “What if you don’t want me after I tell you about me?”

  “You are still lying here next to me after what I’ve just shared. I can’t imagine anything you’ve done can measure up to my wrongdoings, Peyton.” I hold her face between my hands. “I’m not here to be judge and jury. Sharing my story with you right now felt really freeing. I just want to give you the same chance.” Then I kiss her for real, as tender as I possibly can. “Maybe we are uniquely qualified to accept each other.”

  “Wait! Stop. You mentioned Jack. How the hell did you know about Jack when I didn’t?” She pulls away again, not acknowledging a word I’ve just said.

  I prop my head on my hand, lying on my side facing her. “I caught them kissing once. In her office. It was a tough day and I didn’t knock. We’d gotten pretty close so it wasn’t unusual, but yeah, I saw them. She told me that she would get fired and her daughter would disown her if word got out. As she knew all my secrets, I assured her that hers was safe with me. At the funeral, I saw him and when he recognized me he gave me the ‘don’t say a word about me’ look on this way out. I took the hint.”

  “What did she mean I would disown her if I found out? I have no idea what that means.”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. It never came up again. How did you find out about him?”

  “I met him at the funeral. He was hiding in the corner where I tried to escape. He ran away from me. I saw a Bible with his name on it in my mother’s bedroom, and male clothes. I tried to track him down at the same time I was tracking you down. The address I got for him was my house. Well, my mother’s house. When I went to the cemetery he was there. I invited him to dinner and that led to my being in Detroit for Thanksgiving. With him. And his kids. And grandson! It was my first real holiday with a family that didn’t hate me. I don’t usually do holidays.”