by Robin Leaf
I nodded. “Okay. Good.”
“You believe me?”
“Yes, why wouldn’t I?”
He looked down again. “My dad didn’t, even when proof was staring him in the face. I haven’t spoken to him or Mom since.”
Tears filled my eyes. “Jeez, Jase, you’ve been alone over here this whole time without your family’s support?”
“For all the good they would do. Noah came to be with me during my treatments.”
“So every time he went out of town on business?”
“He was here with me. So I have Noah, you, and Tillie who are my family.”
I smiled. I liked that.
Then a thought came over me, and I became a bit miffed.
“Jase, why didn’t you tell me then? I could understand not telling me when we were just friends, but after that… Why?”
He sighed and ran his hands over his head. “I tried, Darby. I was going to tell you when you were to spend the weekend with me, but you caught that woman in my apartment and assumed the worst.”
“Which you allowed me to assume. You didn’t come after me.”
He smiled sadly. “That’s because when you left that day, I had another little incident.”
I took a second to absorb his words. “Holy fuck, Jase… but you were okay.”
“Yes, but it just solidified that I needed to get away from you. We could not be together.” He moved that errant piece of hair one more time, running his fingers across my forehead. “When I said being with you would kill me, I meant it literally.” He smiled. “I was willing to risk it for me; God knows you were worth it, but I couldn’t hurt you that way. I couldn’t ask you to take care of me, to stop living your life because you had the bad sense to fall for someone who could drop dead at any second.” He grabbed my hands. “Plus, I couldn’t love you the way you needed. I was basically a eunuch.
“By chance, I found this super-secret clinical trial in Switzerland.” He cleared his throat. “I am still bound not to tell anyone about it except family, so…” shrugging, he added, “Hell, Darby, you’ve always been my family, but I didn’t want to tell you before just in case it didn’t work. They did some aggressive stem-cell replacement therapy to heal the damaged tissue in my heart. It took three years, two for the treatments and one for the healing.”
“Stem-cell research is nothing big,” I scoffed.
“At the time, this method was pretty controversial, and it has since been shut down. I was the only one involved in the heart experiment. You don’t want to know how the stem-cells were generated.”
I blinked and let it go. “But three years? That means you were…”
“Yes, I was better, completely healed, when we offered Allison the gym.” He looked deeply into my eyes. “I was going to tell you everything then, to offer myself to you. But…”
“You thought I was in love with Allison.”
“Darby…” he looked down. “I saw it. I knew you were.”
Staring back at him, I couldn’t mask my anger. “Only because you and Noah pushed me toward her.” I pushed him back and jumped off the stool. “Newsflash. I never was in love with her, Jase. I loved her as a friend… a roommate… as someone who had grown on me over time who was always close… close in proximity, never in my heart.” I paced. “She couldn’t be in my heart, because you took it with you when you left me.” I stopped and pulled at my hair. “You fucking left me!” I screamed. “You left me to do this all on your own. Without me. Fuck, I was miserable without you. I was only with her to attempt to fill the giant chasm you left behind.
“And what’s worse is that I could have been here to see you through it all, but no, you had to ‘protect me’ or whatever other bullshit you’re going to say, relying on that big protective jerk, Noah, to take care of you and keep your fucking secret.” I stomped back and forth. “You wasted ten fucking years that we could have been together because of your foolish…”
“There’s nothing foolish about loving you enough to let you go, Darby.” He stopped my pacing, pulling me to his chest. “I could not ask you to stop living so that you could live for me.”
“Goddess, Jase, you never let go! And I lived for you anyway.” I sobbed. “And the kicker is by not telling me, you took that decision away from me.”
He pulled back to look at me, his patient brown eyes searching my face. “I didn’t do that lightly, love.”
“So why now? Why this year?” He looked nervous. “What has changed?”
He blinked, and it told me volumes. He was about to lie to me.
“Whatever you have cooking in that brain of yours, Jason Patrick Heywood, better be the entire truth. Do not fuck with me right now.”
His blank expression morphed into a smile. “God, I missed your sass.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Tell. Me.”
His smile faded, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Fine. I figured out that you were planning to have a baby with Allison and I had to get there before it happened.”
I looked at him skeptically. “Is that it?”
He stared at me blankly for a second, then he looked down and shook his head.
“It seems as though the treatment might be in the beginning stages of reversing itself. It was a possibility, which is why I didn’t come for you sooner.”
I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach, and my knees got weak. “So, you could…”
He caught me before I face planted. “No, Darby. No. I have time. A lot of time, actually. It’s possible that nothing further will happen. Nothing has in months, but if the damage gets bad enough…” he sighed, “I’ll have to be placed on the heart transplant list.”
“How long?”
“Over the past three years, I only have lost about eight percent function. And in the last three months, nothing has changed.”
“Has anything with you changed?”
He smiled. “Just deciding to fight for you.”
I rolled my tongue across my teeth. “Well,” I said through the emotion clogging my throat. “I guess you’re stuck with me, then.”
Crushing me to his chest, he sighed. “I was planning to come and get you later this afternoon anyway, and then someone informed me last Saturday of Bryan’s affair with Allison.”
“I’ll fuck Noah up the ass if he knew about that and didn’t tell me.”
“You and fucking up the ass.” He chuckled. “But actually, the email came from a dummy account.”
“So, it had to be Bryan.”
He pursed his lips. “It came from the IP address of the computer at your apartment.” At my confused look, he added, “When I was in college, Noah taught me how to trace an email.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So Allison sent it?”
“If it wasn’t you…”
“Based on how she set me up, I don’t think it was her.” I frowned. “Why were you waiting until today?”
He blushed. “Because I needed to delegate the details of this project at work so I could take an extended amount of time off. I was going to do some ridiculously romantic gesture.”
“Ridiculously romantic, huh? What were you planning?”
He smiled. “I had something delivered to Noah. It is supposed to arrive today.” He pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons. “I need to ask him to hold on to it for us.”
I grabbed his cheeks and made him look at me.
“What is it, Jase?”
He pursed his lips together, wondering if he should tell me. I raised my eyebrows as a warning. “Fine. It’s a book I’ve been making with Tillie’s help.” He pulled up a picture on his phone. “It contains our story.”
I looked at his phone. A black book with a picture of the two of us taken sometime during the beginning stages of our friendship embedded in the cover. “Darby and Jase” was painted or stitched into the cover.
“The idea is that he would get you by yourself, show you the book to remind you what you mean to me. Then you would as
k to come see me, but I would already be there. You would run into my arms, profess your undying and everlasting love, and we’d ride off into the sunset together.” He smiled. “I even considered getting a horse, but I don’t know how to ride one, so I rented a convertible Mustang that I need to cancel.”
I laughed. “I can’t wait to see this book.”
“Honestly, I couldn’t be happier with the way we worked out.” He kissed me sweetly, a kiss that quickly turned less sweet and more desire-laden.
Next thing I knew, Jase had me bent over the couch, with one hand rubbing my clit and the other pinching my nipple, as he slowly fucked me from behind, explaining, in detail, what he wanted to do to me later.
Life was good.
Forty Eight
“Sunshine of Your Love” – Cream
“Jesus, why did we wait so long to do this?” Jase whispered in my ear while catching his breath.
I tightened my arms around him. “I don’t know, but we ought to get dressed and leave the house. We haven’t been outside in four days.”
He lifted his head and kissed my forehead. “That’s probably not a bad idea.”
I blinked. “Jase…” I began skeptically. “How have you not had sex in so long?”
He smirked. “I was wondering when you were going to ask.” He rolled over, pulled me to his chest, and stroked my hair as he spoke. “After I returned from the trip to L.A. when we gave Allison the gym space, I tried to resolve myself that you were with her. So, after about a year of sulking, Tillie encouraged me to move on.” He moved my hair out of my face. “I went on three dates with three different women.” He sighed. “I felt guilty each time, like I was cheating on you.”
“But…”
“We weren’t together, I get it. It just felt… wrong. I stopped trying after that.” His arms tightened around me. “About a year later, I met a woman who stirred something in me on a purely physical level. We went on a sort of awkward date, awkward for me because I don’t think she even needed the date… she just wanted to have sex. So, I went back to her place, and…” He looked down at me. “Are you sure you want to hear the next part?”
“I know you didn’t have sex with her, so yeah.”
“We didn’t even get in her doorway when she immediately went down on me.” He stopped, closing his eyes tightly, clearly pained by his admission.
“Jase, it’s okay. I never expected you to be celibate. You were allowed…”
“No, Darla. Hang on, because you don’t understand. I couldn’t get it up, no matter what she tried. Finally, I closed my eyes and fantasized about you.” He ran a hand over his head. “It helped… a lot. After a couple of minutes, I looked down at her, forgetting for a minute my fantasy wasn’t real, and when her brown eyes looked up at me,” he swallowed nervously, “my stomach cramped and I immediately…” Sighing, he continued, “Well, let’s just say that it turns out I had bad fish for dinner. Several others who ordered the fish from the restaurant got sick that night, too.”
A giggle bubbled up from my chest, and I tried to suppress it. It was no use. I couldn’t stop it. I laughed, rolling away from Jase and doubling over until tears poured out of my eyes.
“You know, that was pretty humiliating, so having you laugh right now is doing nothing to help.”
“Holy shit, that poor woman.”
“Yeah, well, that poor woman got all new carpet courtesy of me.”
That just made me laugh harder.
“Jesus, Darla, this really isn’t funny. It kind of traumatized me. Both of the last two times I had sex…”
“Oh my goddess, Jase, did you…” I snort laughed, “did you have post traumatic sex disorder?”
He stared at me for a minute before he got out of bed. “I’ll be in the shower while you laugh at my pain.”
“Wait, I’m sorry.” My apology to his back did no good.
I took a minute to collect myself before joining him in the shower. I dropped to my knees and wrapped my lips around his cock, which immediately hardened in my mouth.
I pulled away, stroking him with my hand. “Think of this as therapy. Now tell me all the things you fantasized about while she was sucking your cock. Tell me what made you hard.” I took him in my mouth again.
He cupped my cheek. “I’ve lived out all those fantasies this weekend.”
I smiled. “Then we’ll need to think of some more.” I sucked him once more. “I can guarantee you I’m game. One of mine is you coming down my throat, which you’ve yet to do.”
He threw his head back and moaned. “God, I love you.”
~~~
“I need to go back,” I announced over an early dinner at a quaint little restaurant close to the townhouse.
“I know,” he smiled. “I’m going with you. I already booked an eight o’clock flight for us in the morning, so no keeping me up all night again.”
I giggled. “I’m perfectly okay with just sleeping tonight. Honestly, I’m exhausted. I don’t think I’ve slept for more than four hours straight since I’ve been here.”
His face became serious. “Darla, I know you’re not one for commitment, but…”
“Yes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Wait… huh?”
“Whatever you’re going to ask or say, the answer is yes.”
That smirk appeared. “So if I was going to ask if you wanted to have a long distance, international relationship, you’d be okay with that?”
My face fell. “Well…”
“And if I asked if you wanted to join my gym with me?”
“I mean I would, but that’s not where I thought you were going with this.”
He grinned. “So maybe you should let me finish before you agree?”
“Ugh. Fine. Ok. Go on.”
“I just want to make sure you’re in this for the long haul. I don’t need for you to agree to marry me because I know that isn’t your thing. But my plan is for you to be by my side forever. I want to know that’s in your plan as well.”
I twisted my lips to the side, watching him carefully while he fidgeted nervously, waiting for my answer.
“Jase, tell me honestly, if I was someone who didn’t have a thing against traditional commitment, would you want to get married?”
He hesitated to answer before he shook his head. “I don’t need…”
“I didn’t ask what you needed, I asked what you wanted.”
He smiled. “I would marry you in a fucking heartbeat if you wanted.” His smile faded. “In the future, if things with me get… bad, we may have to get married so that you can make decisions for my medical care.”
“There is such a thing as medical power of attorney.”
“Yes, but depending on where the papers are drawn up, it might not be accepted everywhere. As my wife, decisions are just easier. For right now, I don’t need anything but your word that we are together, and we will be forever.”
I smirked. “Just try to get rid of me.”
~~~
I stood outside the door to the apartment I’d called home for so long. For a few seconds, I actually contemplated knocking. Inhaling deeply, I unlocked the door, swallowing through the tightness in my throat at the thought that I might be… interrupting anything.
“Allison?” I tentatively called.
All was quiet.
I came here to talk to Ally, but I decided to start packing things up while I waited for her.
An hour later, I had made a huge pile of stuff to take to charity when I heard the door open. She wasn’t alone. I wasn’t going to give them the opportunity to get anything going, so I quickly exited the bedroom.
“Hi, Darby,” Bryan said, not surprised at my presence.
“Hey,” responding to him but looking at Allison. “I came to talk, but if you don’t want to…”
She smiled tightly. “No, it’s fine.” She laid a hand on Bryan’s arm. “Babe, can you give us a few minutes?”
Babe?
He kissed her lips. �
�Sure thing, Al.”
Al? And he’s comfortable enough to just kiss her?
Instead of leaving, Bryan headed toward her bedroom. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
What the hell?
“Before you say a word, I do love him.”
I blinked.
“I know. Me… loving a cootie-filled boy. Ew.” I smiled at her teenager tone. “Darby, he’s been amazing to me these last few months, and after you left, he was even more amazing. He wasn’t exactly very tactful, but he wasn’t wrong. He gave me some hard truths I needed to hear.”
“So you are together now?”
She smiled and nodded. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Is he going to be… enough for you? You’ve never liked boys before, Allison.”
She shrugged. “You can’t help who you love, Darby.”
“No, you’re right. You can’t.” I smiled. “If you’re happy, I’m very happy for you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
She nodded again and sniffed, her smile turning sad. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make you happy.”
I walked toward her and took her in my arms, where she buried her head in my neck. “It was never about you making me unhappy, Allison. I was happy. It’s just… well, I wished I could have given my heart to you, but it was never mine to give.”
She pulled back, looking at the floor. “Jase had it.”
I lifted her chin to meet my eyes. “C’mon. Let’s sit. I’ll tell you the whole shebang.”
~~~
“So, you told her… everything?” Jase looked at me nervously.
“She already knew about Noah and me, so yeah.”
“And is she… okay?”
Smiling, I cupped his cheeks. “I love that you are concerned for her.” I gave a quick caress of his lips and continued. “Yes, she seems to be okay. She and Bryan have decided to make a go of it, which is a good thing considering I’m pretty sure she is pregnant. Her aura has changed and her boobs seem bigger.” Noah entered his living room with Fionn in tow. “She denies sending the email though. So that’s still a mystery.”