Just Jack: Everything laid bare

by K. L. Shandwick

  Staring up at me with pure adoration in her bright loving eyes, Mya continued. “You’re our guy who sings a mean loud tune in the bath and shower and you’re definitely our rock star. Also, while I’m on a roll let me tell you something else. Your sense of humour is extremely sexy, and you have an armoury of skills in the bedroom at your fingertips that makes me want you all the time.”

  She smirked knowingly and slipped her free hand between us to rub it across my dick through my trousers, “And let’s face it, you are an awesome headache cure, Jack Cunningham.” Suddenly she stopped joking, stared intensely at me then reached up and placed her hand onto my face. I leaned into it and felt instantly comforted.

  “You are so special to me because of everything you do, everything you say and everything you are. You always know exactly what to do to lift me when I’m feeling down and you’re an amazingly supportive and loyal person. I’m so honoured to be your wife.”

  I was touched by her adulation of me. Most of my friends would say I am a very confident man. That’s my public persona and I used to think I was as well. But that part of me changed when I finished with Rosie, or perhaps that’s when I grew from being Jack the frivolous playboy into Jack the man. By facing up to what was wrong in my life with Rosie, I had inadvertently thrown myself the biggest curve ball life could possibly throw me. However, the twist in my journey tested me and I rose to the challenge it delivered to me in a blink of an eye.

  Had I known Rosie was pregnant before we split, would I have stayed? That question mulls over in my mind every now and again and I’m glad I never had to answer it. What happened to Rosie and Stewart was a terrible tragedy and my heart aches a little that Ava will never know her biological mother. But, I’ve never been completely grief-stricken about it because Ava came to me because of it when I might never have known that she was mine.

  Something led me to my decisions and steered me in the direction I took and it led me to Mya. One year is all it took.

  When I’d first met her, I remember feeling ashamed of my experience with other women, but when I reflect on that I was thankful to have met all of them, it gave me the presence of mind to know a good thing when I saw it. And in Mya and Ava’s case well… A good thing doesn’t even cut it.

  Turning Mya in my arms I held her and our baby close to my chest. When I bent to nibble Mya’s earlobe, she cringed and Ava grabbed my hair.

  “Ow.”

  Mya struggled to free my hair from Ava’s grasp and chuckled.

  “Good girl, Ava, it’s two against one now, Jack,” she joked.

  I leaned forward, firstly to kiss Ava on the nose and then Mya on the lips much more passionately.

  From that day forward, I was a husband and father, a completely different man. I’d like to think I’m a better man. A year ago I felt lost and thought I was just Jack, but maybe I wasn’t lost at all. Maybe I was just waiting. You may ask what was I waiting for: Love? Romance? The stars to align? I don’t know but I definitely wasn’t aware I was on the path to love when I took that assignment with Cobham Street.

  When we were kids Lily used to say our destiny was written in the stars. Maybe it is. All I know is that I struggled with my identity when people stopped referring to me as part of a duo: Lily and Jack, and I’d put Lily on a pedestal by thinking I was lost without her. Now when I look back it’s much clearer to me, that title was only ever going to be temporary between us.

  Sometimes we have to make room to grow and in losing Rosie I grew faster than I ever thought possible, in losing Lily for a time taught me I could live without her, living without Mya taught me I didn’t want to. The difference is right there. It was my decision to be Mya and Jack and in making that choice I know in the way she looks at me, in our future I’ll never be just Jack ever again.

  Epilogue ~ Three years later

  Peering over the heads of all the mothers in the school playground, I caught sight of Mya, her arms waving frantically towards me.

  “Quick, Jack, she’ll be out in a minute.”

  Squeezing past the bodies all around me, I passed one young mum who caught my eye when she raised an eyebrow at me and licked her lips; she gave me a certain smile I recognised from my single days. She was coming on to me. Right there in the playground in front of my wife. She wasn’t in the least bit fazed by the month old baby I had wrapped in a sling around my front with my hand held protectively at the back of his head.

  We had been caught in traffic and were late back from visiting my parents while Ava was at school on her first full day. I had dropped Mya off at the school gates and drove the short distance to park the car at home then walked back with our baby son, Freddie, swaddled against me.

  Mya had given birth to our boy a week before Ava started school and that felt a little cruel having a new born baby and sending another off to the care of someone else during the day. However, Ava is a secure little girl and has the smart mouth gene from the both of us. I’ve never known a child with the level of psychological smarts she’s been dealt and took Freddie’s birth in her stride. Her only comment was to warn Mya that he looked like her daddy so she’d probably kiss him a lot.

  As the youngest kid in her year at school, Ava had only turned four the week before school started. That caused us issues with sending her off into an environment where there were kids of eleven in the same building. I mean some of the kids were huge and boisterous and I was ready to do battle with anyone who hurt a hair on her head or who gave me cause for concern about her. We’d opted for state school because I was determined that Ava should learn to earn her way in the world and not live a life of privilege until she understood the value of money and how hard everyone else had to work just to get by.

  The bell rang just as I reached Mya and she glanced at the woman who had been checking me out. Mya looked her over from head to toe and then smirked knowingly as she tugged gently on the sling to draw my face nearer to hers. Kissing me slowly on the lips, Mya was making a bit of a spectacle of us, but I hadn’t had any action for a month and a half so I wasn’t going to complain about her amorous little show of affection.

  Just as she broke the kiss, Ava came bounding out of the door, hand in hand with Nathan who was in his last year of infant school. She was carrying a drawing of an elephant Nathan had given her and proudly thrust it in Mya’s face.

  “Look, Mummy, Nathan did this for me. Can I have one for Christmas? Can I mummy please? Can Nathan come for tea? Please Mummy, please?” Ava gave Mya a stare like she was pleading for her life and I grinned because, Lily used to have the same skill in her armoury to achieve what she wanted and I’m pretty sure it was one that Mya also had.

  The emotional blackmail escalated when Nathan entered into the conversation.

  “Ava asked me to come to tea. Should I tell my mum you said yes, Aunty Mya?”

  I’d spoken to Maddie about how the kids should refer to us because of my own experience with Lily. I’d have hated them to feel the same way about each other as we had as teenagers. They were close and we encouraged that, but I didn’t want any blurred lines for them later. It wasn’t that I was a killjoy, I just wanted to save them some of the angst I felt when I had with all those mixed up feelings about Lily that prevented me from forming platonic relationships with other girls at school.

  Besides, Ava was a girl and if Charlie had known about Lily and I having spooning sessions he’d have kicked my arse black and blue. If I could protect them from some of those feelings I saw that as my mission in life until they were old enough. If anything developed between Nat and Ava later, then it would be a natural progression and not through confusion.

  As a family we were settled and secure. Mya and I were as close as any couple could be without smothering each other. We had great balance. She’d graduated from music school and we bought a small commercial property in Meadlands Village and one in London where she ran music schools for kids. The one in London was for music appreciation for kids from underprivileged families. Her stat
us had long been resolved a few months after our wedding but she’d had to leave the country for two weeks during a recess in her studies while that happened. Ava and I simply went on holiday with her to her parent’s place.

  During our visit I came face to face with Rick again, who hugged me tightly and couldn’t stop staring at Freddie and Ava.

  “So…Jack. Family man? No after parties in that gig are there?”

  Smiling slowly I raised my brow.

  “All the after parties involve your niece these days, Rick.”

  He gave me a low growl and Mya wandered over and snaked her arm around my waist.

  “All our parties tend to be at home these days aren’t they Jack? He hates buffets, Uncle Rick.”

  “Jesus, you’ve even primed her with that response.” Rick chuckled heartily.

  Mya looked puzzled and bunched her brow at him.

  “What’s funny? Partying at home or having buffets?”

  Rick looked a little awkward and changed the subject and it was funny to see Mya put him in his place, but he couldn’t deny how happy we were and finally apologised for his ’shitty behaviour’.

  My parents and friends took time out from work as well and came to California with us because Mya and I took the opportunity to have our wedding blessing in front of our parents, friends and families in the church she attended as a child. Mya was insistent that it not be a grand affair so the atmosphere was relaxed and romantic and it turned out to be a really fun day for everyone. Both of our mum’s bawled their eyes out and I noticed my dad touch the sides of his eyes with his thumbs more than once. It was emotional but in a good way.

  I finally met all of Mya’s friends and realised just how much she’d given up to be with me. Two friends in particular were of interest to me: Jacob and Alison. Jacob reminded me of myself and Alison of Elle. When I asked Mya about them she told me that her and Jacob were close friends as kids but that they dated for a while when she was eighteen. It didn’t go well and she called a halt to it and since then they weren’t as close as they used to be. It explained how easily Mya accepted my friendship with Lily. Mya had been there already but had taken the plunge. It also made me think about how she’d been brave enough to take that risk with me.

  After the wedding dinner Sam had obviously had more than a few and approached me wanting to tell me about him and Lily because it had been playing on his mind for a while. Slapping his back I took him over to the edge of the room, I thanked him for trying to be honest about it but it really wasn’t my business and from what Lily said, he’d done us a favour. Dave and Emily had gone from strength to strength and Dave confided that he was ready to ask Emily to marry him. When I joked he’d be having kids next, I chuckled as I noted how pale he became.

  As we stand, Mya and I are more than happy with our lives and feel blessed by our beautiful children. I still have a column in Muzikvibe and Mya’s music schools are doing well. Our test for the coming years is to keep our kids grounded around their extended rock star family. Lily, Alfie and Rick have all become stakeholders in the upbringing of our children and Ava is already exhibiting some of her mother’s musical talent.

  I can also see some of the same traits in her as I saw in Lily when she was that age so if my powers of observation are correct I have a feeling she’s never going to be just Ava.

  The End

  About K.L. Shandwick

  K. L. Shandwick lives on the outskirts of London. She started writing after a challenge by a friend when she commented on a book she read. The result of this was "The Everything Trilogy." Her background has been mainly in the health and social care sector in the U.K. She is still currently a freelance or self- employed professional in this field. Her books tend to focus on the relationships of the main characters. Writing is a form of escapism for her and she is just as excited to find out where her characters take her as she is when she reads another author's work.

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  Other Titles By K L Shandwick

  Lily’s Story (The Everything Trilogy)

  Enough Isn’t Everything

  Everything She Needs

  Everything I Want

  Alfie Black’s POV on The Everything Trilogy

  Love With Every Beat

  Last Score Series

  Gibson’s Legacy (Last Score Book One)

  Trusting Gibson