“Ashley invited us to her photography exhibit.”
“Oh, that’s too bad because we’re leaving tomorrow.” I give him a tight-lipped smile.
He nods. “Yeah but our flight isn’t until five, so we have some time.”
I never take my eyes off of him. I know everyone is staring at me but I don’t care. “We can’t make it.”
“Sure you can,” Gary says, holding up his wine glass when the server passes by. “We’ll stop by on our way to the airport.”
“Jacey, that would be awesome!” Ashley squeals. “You have to see those shots of you I took–you look amazing. I’ll make you a CD tonight so you can have them, okay? Just make sure you give the credit to me.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter under my breath. There are a million questions I will ask Jace once we are back home in privacy, things such as who the hell is this bitch and why did she take photos of you? But right now, I am so livid I will surely explode if I don’t get the hell out of here. My chair slides backward and I stand up sharply. “I have to pee,” I announce just before I walk away. Luckily the anger boiling inside of me keeps any hint of tears far far away. I am nowhere close to crying. I’m more likely to punch a random stranger in the face.
Once I’m inside the bathroom, I take out my phone and open it to Becca’s text. Now I know what to say that will put her back on my side, however irrational my side may be.
Me: She keeps calling him Jacey.
Becca: What a bitch!
Chapter 16
Our brief visit with Jace’s parents flies by much sooner than I had anticipated. Now that it’s the morning of our last day here, I’m not so sure Sacramento is all it’s cracked up to be. I stand on the second floor balcony, sipping on some hot chocolate and watching the sun rise in the distance. Sure, the scenery is beautiful but the people are beautiful, too. And they all seem to have a thing for my boyfriend. Well, at least the ones that I’ve met. As I look around the massive house and take in the scenery, all I feel is a deep longing for home.
I don’t feel safe here. I feel exposed and ignored at the same time. Jace had spent most of last night cuddling up to me and making not-so-subtle attempts to get me naked. But the last thing I wanted to do was have sex with someone who had spent a good deal of the night before chatting with some blonde chick he never bothered introducing to me.
I take in a deep breath and sigh. I’m still pissed about that. The whole time that Ashley chick was talking to us, he never once decided to bring me into the conversation. That is so unlike him. I probably should have swallowed my pride and brought it up last night, had him explain it all to me and tell me that she was no one to worry about. But I let my anger and annoyance rule and instead, I fell asleep early to avoid talking to Jace.
And now I’m awake at the crack of dawn. It wouldn’t have been fun to lie in bed next to the man who ignored me while talking to that Ashley girl. I try to tell myself that it was all some misunderstanding, because every single time I get upset about something like this, it always ends up being a misunderstanding. But my brain refuses to believe things like that.
When my hot chocolate is gone, I slip back inside and rinse out my cup in the kitchen. I make sure the bag from my hot chocolate mix is in the trash and that the place looks as immaculate as it was when I first walked in this morning. As far as I know, everyone in the house is still asleep.
With nothing else to do, I walk up the stairs and slip back out on the balcony. Not even a minute later, the sliding glass door creaks open, startling me so much I jump. I turn around expecting Jace.
“Oh!” I say when it is most definitely not Jace standing on the balcony with me. “I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Nope, you’re fine,” Julie says, pulling a metal chair away from the wall and sliding it to where I’m standing. She holds a coffee mug steady while she wipes the morning dew from the chair and sits down. “I love drinking my coffee out here in the mornings.”
“It’s a pretty view,” I say. I wonder how long I have to stay around out here before I can politely excuse myself and go back to the room I’m sharing with Jace. Not that there’s anything wrong with Julie, but I am so not in the mood to talk to anyone right now.
“Are you feeling well?” Julie asks, glancing from my eyes to my stomach.
I nod. “I don’t really get morning sickness. Usually I get sick in the afternoons.”
“Oh, well that’s no good for your flight,” she says, furrowing her brows. “You should see if they’ll let you change your flight date. Maybe something for early tomorrow morning.”
I shake my head so furiously I fear it might fall off. “No, that’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t want to stick around?” she asks. Her eyes give me a coy look over the rim of her coffee mug. “Are you missing home?”
“More than you know,” I say quietly.
“Aww, is it really that bad? You guys don’t have the puppy yet, do you?”
“No. Wait, what? Why would we have a puppy?”
She makes the motion of zipping her lips closed. “No reason. I just thought maybe ya’ll had a pet or something to get back home to. Kennels are expensive around here. I don’t know about down there in Texas…”
“Did Jace tell you I want a puppy?” We had talked about it a few weeks ago when Jace’s schedule had picked up a lot in preparation for the national motocross races. I was home by myself a lot and wanted to get a puppy or a kitten for companionship while he was away. He kind of shot down that idea instantly. He said a pet would be fun for a short while but then taking care of it and a baby would drive me insane. I had agreed and told him that he was right; a baby and a puppy that would need training and daily walks would be a difficult responsibility to handle. But I still wanted one. I’m always thinking about bringing it up again and sometimes I drop hints by leaving my computer screen open to the local pet shelter’s adoption page, or making a big deal when I see photos of cute puppies online. Jace is a rock though. When he’s made up his mind, he won’t budge.
“He might have mentioned something about you wanting one,” she says. “I was just trying to think of reasons why you’re ready to go home so quickly. We love having you here, you know.” She leans forward in her chair and lowers her voice. “And forget all of Gary’s bullshit about selling that house in Salt Gap. If Jace wants to keep it, then let him. He doesn’t need to do something he doesn’t want to do just because his father wants him to.”
“Good to know,” I say. “Jace doesn’t really talk about that house much. But I wouldn’t want him to sell it. It’s where we met.”
Even though I am still mad at him, my heart melts a bit when I remember the day I met him. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but I did think he was crazy hot, walking around shirtless and sweaty from riding his dirt bike in the back yard. He was a guy who had his shit together–at least that’s what it had seemed like. Turns out he had just as many holes in his life as I had in mine. Together we make a whole person. And soon we’ll have another person to share our lives with.
“My god, you are adorable,” Julie says, pressing her hand to her heart.
“What do you mean?”
“The look on your face right now was…” She shakes her head slightly while taking another sip of her coffee. “You really love my son. There’s no denying that.”
“I didn’t know anyone was denying it,” I say with a shy smile.
“No, of course not. I am so happy for you, dear.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling a mixture of happiness and awkwardness at our intimate conversation.
“It’s too bad you can’t stay longer,” she says. “There are so many places in California that I’d love to show you.”
“Maybe we can come back another time,” I say.
“You better come back! I hope to see my grandbaby as much as possible. I’d even love it if you and the baby came over and spent weeks with me while Jace was working his butt off in Te
xas.”
I smile at the sentiment. I know she’s just exaggerating, but it’s a cool thing to hear. “Can I ask you something?” I swallow and then quickly add, “About Jace?”
She tries to sip from her coffee mug, but there’s no more left. “Of course. What’s up?”
I kind of want to shrink back and tell her never mind. Avoiding the pressing question in my head might work for a little bit, but eventually it would come right back to haunt me until I found out the answer. “That Ashley girl...who is she? Did they used to date or something?”
Julie’s eyes seem to widen in surprise and then relax a bit as she takes in my questions. “I thought you were acting weird at dinner last night. Did you ask Jace about her?”
I shake my head and look toward the wooden floor beneath my toes. “No, but he didn’t even introduce me to her. That was the worst part. Usually he introduces me to everyone. Usually he seems proud about it.”
“Ashley is a...unique person,” Julie begins. She sets her coffee mug on the balcony railing and I wonder if she’s taking her time talking because she’s trying to lessen the blow of telling me that Ashley was his former soul mate or something. “She never really knew how to pick up on signs and well, Jace isn’t good at saying no, I guess.”
If I didn’t have morning sickness before, I do now. “What exactly does that mean? They dated because Jace couldn’t say no?”
She shakes her head. “No, dear. They never dated. But we’ve known her since she and Jace were little kids out at the motocross track. Her dad runs the races so we were always over there visiting and the kids played in the sand when they were little. She always wanted to play with Jace and he was always so annoyed with her.”
This makes me smile, but tales of little kids hardly equates to how they are around each other today. “Jace doesn’t seem like someone who would be friends with a person he didn’t like,” I say. I hope the tone in my voice doesn’t make me sound like I’m being disrespectful, but her backstory so far isn’t helping calm my fears.
“No, he normally isn’t that kind of a person,” Julie says with a nod. “But I think he felt sorry for her. Ashley was always a super eager little kid and then when they were about thirteen, she obviously had a big crush on him and she followed him around the track like crazy. At one point she started telling everyone she was his girlfriend. Oh man, you should have seen how angry he got. I remember him stomping back to our truck at the races, his face all red and his jaw clenched tightly. I asked him what was wrong and he said that all the boys he raced with were making fun of him for being Ashley’s boyfriend. Apparently that was the first time he had heard that she declared them boyfriend and girlfriend.”
As she’s telling me the story, it dawns on me that Jace must have a pretty close relationship with his mom. I would never have told my mom those kinds of things when I was kid. I don’t really tell her much about my life now. It’s not that I don’t want her to know it’s just...weird.
Julie’s eyes roam over the horizon as she talks. “You should have seen how mad he was. Ashley and her dad had already left for the day but he spent the entire week waiting until the next race so he could yell at her for lying about being his girlfriend. He wanted to embarrass her in front of her friends the same way his friends had embarrassed him.” She sighs and her face softens into something like regret. “Of course then when the weekend came, Ashley wasn’t there. We found out that she’d had a tumor on her lung. It was cancer. She had to have surgery and chemo and when she finally did come back to the track, she didn’t have any hair. He wasn’t about to yell at her then.”
“Well whatever happened with the rumors she started?” I asked.
Julie shrugged. “I think he told her privately something about how she can’t tell people they were dating when they weren’t. Then of course, she begged him to be her boyfriend and he told her was he too busy for girls.” Julie snorted in laughter. “That was his excuse for a long, long time. He was going to be a professional racer. He didn’t have time for girls. Of course he would have had time if he didn’t spend every waking moment of his life on a dirt bike. For a while there I thought I’d never get grandkids.” Her lips purse into a smile and she reaches forward and squeezes my shoulder. “Luckily my fears have been resolved now.”
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but well, we’re already talking and no one else is around so it’s kind of the perfect moment to speak my heart. “Are you really not mad about this?” I gesture to my stomach which looks much smaller under folds of fabric from Jace’s t-shirt that I stole to use as pajamas. “I mean...we’re young and we’re not married yet and…”
“Bayleigh, you listen to me.” Julie’s eyes flicker with an expression I can’t quite place. It’s a little scary, but not in the traditional sense. “Gary and I raised Jace to be the man he is today and I trust him quite a bit. I would trust him with my life. He makes good decisions and I’ve only known you a few days but I can tell he made a good decision with you. So no, I’m not mad about your pregnancy. Why on earth would I be mad about gaining a precious grandson?”
I don’t even realize I’m crying until I blink and tears fall down my cheeks. Then, as if that tiny teardrop managed to rip open all of the emotions I’d been holding back, I burst into tears. Julie’s out of her chair in an instant, her warm arms encircling me in the most mothering way possible. “Oh, honey,” I hear her murmur into my hair. “Everything will be just fine, I promise.”
“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I sputter, pulling away from her hug. I shake my head and try unsuccessfully to wipe away my tears with the back of my hand. “I’m just…”
“I get it.” Julie smiles, tilting her head. “Pregnancy sucks. But you look at it this way...you’ll be a young mother, which is awesome. I know because I am one.” She puts her hand on her hip and winks. “When all your friends are wiping snotty noses and changing diapers, you’ll have a kid who can take care of themselves. It’s amazing.” Her eyes light up a few moments later. “Unless of course, ya’ll decide to have more kids which would make me, Grandma, very excited.”
“I can’t even imagine that right now,” I say with a laugh. “One epic life changing thought at a time, please.”
Julie laughs. “I have no advice for you on that one. Jace was our only child so I have no experience in raising more kids. But he was so easy. Such an easy baby. Hopefully yours will be, too.”
I nod even though I’m not really sure what part of raising a baby could ever be easy. I’m not even sure I still know how to change a diaper. It’s been a long time since my little brother wore them. I’d like to think I did a good job in raising him as a baby, but truthfully, any time something was hard, I’d make Mom do it.
“So are you excited about the wedding?” Julie asks.
I nod. “I’m really excited about my dress and everything, but it’s kind of scary because it doesn’t feel like it’s as big of a deal as it should be. I keep seeing wedding shows on television and it’s all so big and fancy and important...my wedding planning hasn’t been like that at all.”
“That’s because television makes everything out to be more dramatic than it really is.” She waves a hand through the air dismissively. “Your wedding doesn’t have to be that. Besides, a small wedding like yours will be amazing and you’ll make so many great memories of it.”
“So it’ll be small?” I ask casually, gnawing on my bottom lip. “Can you tell me anything else about it?”
“Oh my God, I forgot!” Julie’s eyes widen and she slaps a hand over her mouth. “You don't know the venue! I can’t believe I almost said it out loud. Jace would have killed me!”
“So everyone already knows my wedding location but me?” I laugh. “This is probably the weirdest way to plan a wedding.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll love it,” Julie assures me. “But let’s not tell Jace that I almost said too much.”
The glass door slides open and we both spin around, eyes wide a
nd guilty expressions that could be seen a mile away.
Jace stands at the doorway, a cup of coffee in one hand. He lifts an eyebrow. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Nope,” Julie says, glancing at me with a smile. “Just talking about...a sale at Nordstrom.”
“Bayleigh doesn’t shop at Nordstrom,” Jace says skeptically.
Julie shrugs. “All the more reason to talk about it.”
He rolls his eyes, showing us that he doesn’t believe a single word of our shenanigans. When he wraps his arm around my waist and kisses me good morning, the smell of his coffee makes my stomach hurt. But I smile anyway so it won’t upset him.
“Well, whatever you were talking about, I’m glad the two of you are having fun.”
“Oh we definitely are,” Julie says, smiling.
“Yeah and by the way,” I tell Jace. My heart starts pounding in my chest but I don’t care. I’m going to say this. “I’m not going to Ashley’s stupid photography show.”
“Yeah,” Julie says defiantly. “Screw that bitch.”
Chapter 17
One week before the wedding
I can always tell when it’s Saturday morning compared to every other morning. These are the days when Jace doesn’t have to wake up before the sun, throw on some clothes and rush off to work. These are his off days. Well, usually. Spending Saturday mornings in bed with him is one of my favorite things. The bed is always warmer when he’s in it, snuggled up next to me. I can’t imagine a better paradise than being curled against his chest in our plush mattress, in the place we’ve made a home.
Unfortunately, today is the last Saturday Jace and I will have as single people. Next Saturday we’ll be married. The unfortunate part is not because of the marriage, obviously. It’s because this is a freaking Saturday, unofficially known as my snuggle day, and Jace is still up at the butt-crack of dawn. His best man and best friend Park is arriving today and Jace has to pick him up from the airport because unfortunately for us, he’s also not of legal age to rent a car.
The Beginning of Forever (Summer Unplugged Book 5) Page 11