Fighting Absolution

by Kate McCarthy

  Her driver mutters something about payment and it seems to jolt her, as if the two of us were caught inside our own bubble and he just popped it. Jamie frees a hand from her pocket, coming out with a crumpled wad of cash. She doesn’t even count it. She just hands it over. The man counts it for her, brightening, telling her to have a good day before he walks off to his car. He gets inside, shutting the door and zooming off down the street.

  “Kyle.” Her eyes roam over my face. “What happened to you?”

  I brush her question off with a shake of my head, not wanting to explain. How can I tell her I lost my mind at our weekly card game last night? I acted like an animal. But Nathan was poking at my wounds. Taunting me over Jamie. His piss poor attempt at getting me talk about it as if “card night” was code for “therapy session.” I even told them all he accused me of cheating, knowing it would get him kicked from the game.

  My plan had been to pound out the frustration in rugby this morning. Instead I’m here, and suddenly Ryan’s parting words make sense.

  Jamie gestures towards the beach with her chin. “Can we walk?”

  “Of course.” Whatever she wants, I’ll do it with bells on.

  She reaches my side and bends, trying to take off her shoes, but she struggles, the bulk of her jacket seeming to get in the way. “Let me,” I say, and crouch down.

  Her hands land on my shoulders like two hot brands, keeping her steady as she lifts a foot. I slide a boot free and set it aside. The second boot comes off and I set them both aside on the grass. I straighten, close enough now I could lean in and kiss her lips. Goddamn, she smells good. I inhale and almost weep like a baby.

  Her eyes drop to my mouth like she hears my thoughts. Then her gaze shifts outward, over the horizon, her cheeks pink as if she’s flustered. Jamie? Flustered? It doesn’t compute.

  She starts walking across the soft grass. I fall into step beside her, tucking my hands back inside my pockets. I don’t know what else to do with them besides reach for her and never let go.

  “I’ve missed the beach,” she says, breathing deep as if the salty air is a magic elixir.

  We reach the edge of the grass where it butts up against the sand and keep on walking. I don’t have shoes to take off. Our rugby game was played the way God intended, barefoot and primeval. I left them by the side of the field in my haste to catch up with Ryan. “You have beaches in Townsville.”

  “I never went. They weren’t the same,” she says as we trudge through thick, white sand. “Not like home.”

  We reach the shore and start walking north along the water’s edge. “And home is here?”

  Jamie hesitates, glancing across at me before she answers. “Home is wherever you are, Kyle.”

  I stop dead, absorbing her words deep inside my skin. She stops with me, looking at me, then down, then out across the ocean. Does she really mean that? Because I’ve never had anyone say something like that to me in my entire life.

  My eyes burn and my jaw works hard to hold back the wild surge of emotion. “Jamie,” I croak. “You—”

  “Please don’t say anything. Let me speak, okay?”

  I nod, grateful, because I’m not sure I can articulate anything right now that would make sense, and we start walking again.

  “My father told me I was born a fighter. I’ve spent my entire life trying to prove it. Only I never knew what I was supposed to be fighting for. I joined the army because I thought it might hold all the answers. And I don’t regret it. Not for a single second. I wouldn’t be who I am today without it. Without you, and Wood, and Jake, and everyone else I’ve met along the way. I’ve lived an extraordinary life in such a short amount of time, and I’m grateful. Grateful for all of it. And I could never see that until now. Stupid, huh?” She laughs at herself, hugging her arms around her middle.

  My eyes prickle with heat. I reach for her. “Jamie—”

  “Hear me out, please,” she begs, sounding desperate, stepping back like she needs space to get the words out. “I know you’re not Jake. And I know you think you’re not the one I wanted. But you are.” Her throat works as she swallows, her eyes blinking hard. “Since the first time you sat on the other side of the fence and told me not to cry. I was breaking apart inside, and you were a lifeline. I barely knew you and yet you were all I had in the world. Even after you left, I’d talk to you as if you were still there. I thought about you every day. And I wondered where you were, and what you were doing, and if I’d ever see you again. When you came to visit me in Townsville, you spoke to me as if Jake was the one I couldn’t let go, but all along it was you, Kyle. You’re the one I couldn’t let go. I know you believe he saw a life with me, but it was one that was never meant to be. That life was meant for you.”

  Jamie slips her hand inside mine, twining our fingers together. She takes a step closer, moving inside my space. I dip my head, pressing my forehead to hers, still struggling to believe she’s standing here with me. Her nose nudges mine and our eyes meet.

  “I love you, Kyle Edgar Brooks.” She kisses me, brief, soft, loving. So unlike our frantic kisses of the past. “I’m in love with your impatience and your childish antics.” Another kiss. “I’m in love with the way you tease me, and laugh with me, and care for me as if I’m the most precious thing in your life. I think you’re amazing.”

  Warmth floods my chest. Jamie loves me. She loves me. Her strong, beautiful heart is mine, and damned if it doesn’t make my chest puff out like a goddamn peacock right now. I feel ten feet tall. “Totally amazing,” I agree, my lips curving at the corners. Her admission makes me greedy for more. “What else?”

  Jamie laughs. “You’re really hot!”

  Her palms slide over my shoulders and down, resting on my pecs. “I love your big strong body.” Her lips brush mine. “And your hairy chest, even though it gives me rug burn every time I kiss it.”

  I grip her hips, my palms skating around until I get a good handful of her ass, despite the odd bulkiness of her jacket getting in the way. I give the round flesh a good pinch. “Take that back.”

  Jamie squeaks. “Ouch! You want me to lie?”

  “It’s not that hairy!”

  “Well, you’re not Chewbacca, but …” she trails off, suggesting I’m not far off the mark.

  I pinch again and she leaps away with a laughing shriek. “Take it back, Jamie Juliet Murphy, or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  I take her hand and pull her back against me. What the fuck is with this massive, ungainly coat? It’s in my way. “Or else I won’t fuck you good and hard, just like I know you want it.”

  Jamie’s eyes flare with heat. “Kyle.”

  My thumb skims along the side of her jaw, across her bottom lip. My voice lowers, husky. “Take it back.”

  “Never,” she whispers and I love it. Her stubbornness. Her teasing, rebellious heart. I want her so bad.

  My mouth comes down on hers, covering her lips, pushing them apart with my tongue. She lets me in with a soft moan, her fingers digging into the skin of my shoulders. We stand there by the water, making out for endless minutes, my cock getting hard and pushing against the front of my rugby shorts, reminding me we’re in public and I’m making her grubby.

  My tongue rubs against hers, lazy and slow, and when I pull away, I pepper little kisses along her jaw with my lips. “I’m sorry for the way I left you in Townsville. For leaving at all. I’m such a fucking moron.”

  “It’s okay. I get it.”

  “It’s not okay. It was three months of torture.”

  “I’ve left the army, Kyle.”

  My breath catches in my throat. “What?”

  “I never re-enlisted. I had that paperwork filled out before you showed up, but I had to talk myself into it. For so long I told myself it was where I wanted to be. Then you showed up out of nowhere telling me you loved me, and it made me realise I’d changed, that my world had grown beyond what I wanted at the age of eighteen.” Jamie takes my hand. “Come wi
th me.” She leads me up over the sand dunes, back in the direction we came. “I want to show you something,” she says, acting as if she just told me she went to the store to buy a loaf of bread and milk, rather than left the career she always insisted was her whole entire life.

  “Jamie.” I squeeze her hand, tugging, slowing her momentum. “Stop.”

  “I can’t. I have something I want to give you.”

  “It was never my intention to make you choose.”

  She stops then. “You never made me choose between you or the army. I chose something else entirely.”

  “What?” I ask, my chest tight from all her revelations. I’m reeling, but in the best possible way.

  A bittersweet smile crosses her face, there and gone in an instant. “To be happy.”

  To be happy.

  How simple she makes it sound, as if it were just that easy, but I know that it’s not. Leaving the army will change her life, for the better, or worse, I don’t know. But it’s going to take weeks, maybe months, for the change to sink in. And what if she resents me for it?

  Jamie tugs at my hand and we reach the porch of the house where the cab driver delivered her luggage. The house is set beside a small side street, a cul-de-sac that fringes the entrance of the beach. The porch is large, more like a veranda the way it wraps around the back, the large expanse facing out across the ocean.

  We stop in front of it, and I scan the exterior. “Are you renting this place?”

  It’s a one-level house and a little rundown for what you’d expect from a weekend rental. The timber slats on the veranda need replacing, as does the railing around it, but the front door appears oddly brand new—ready for a clean, stained finish. The yard and gardens look like they were beautiful once, but they’re overgrown now—a tangle of sweet-smelling jasmine, long grass, and weeds set around two large magnolia trees along the fence line, one of them big enough to climb, its branches wide and lowset.

  “No,” she tells me, biting down on her bottom lip. “I’m not renting it.”

  “You know the owner?”

  She laughs at that as if I told a great joke. “Intimately.”

  My brows snap together, a possessive growl climbing my throat. I need to get a hold of myself. We both have a past. I’m just not sure I appreciate Jamie rubbing hers in my face.

  “Here,” she says, smirking like she knows exactly where my mind went as she takes my hand. She turns it palm up and puts something on it.

  I look down at the small slip of silver metal in my hand. “What’s this?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “A key,” I say, staring at it, not understanding.

  “To your new house.”

  “My house?” I look up, standing there like a dumb lump as I take in the exterior all over again. “I don’t understand.”

  “What? You think you’re the only one capable of grand romantic gestures?”

  My heart begins to gallop inside my chest, my fingers curling around the key in my hand until it forms a fist. “Grand romantic gestures are where you fly across the country to surprise someone you love. Or a bunch of flowers and jewellery. They’re not houses,” I say, struggling to catch my breath. Jamie has winded me with her gift, but I can’t accept it. It’s a house.

  “I got your folder, Kyle,” she says softly. “I know how much it cost you. I know it’s something I can never repay.”

  “How do you know the cost?”

  “How could I not?” she replies, evading my question. Yet I’m not so stupid I can’t put two and two together. Ryan has conspired behind my back to get me here, so he’s likely the one who told her. I can’t be mad—well, I can, but not right now because … a house?

  “I have selfish motives. I want to live here with you.”

  Jamie makes her way up the three steps and turns, looking out. She beckons me. I hesitate, dumbfounded by her bombshell. She wants to live here? With me? My heart pounds as I climb the stairs, and when I turn to take in the view, my vision blurs. This is all I ever wanted—not some colossal mansion with all the latest gadgets, but a charming house by the beach I could turn into a home with someone I love.

  I swallow around the thick lump in my throat. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything yet. I have one more grand gesture.”

  I rub a hand across my heart. “I’m not sure I can take anymore.”

  “Deep breaths, babe,” she tells me. “This is a big one.”

  Babe. The endearment goes straight to my dick. I love it. “Bigger than buying me a house?”

  “Not physically,” she mutters beneath her breath, though I hear it anyway. “At least I hope not.”

  A flash of nerves crosses her features before she dips her head, her dark hair falling forward in a thick sheet and her eyes on her hands as she fumbles with the zipper of her jacket. Her fingers shake and it isn’t like her. Jamie has always been assertive and sure.

  “Hey.” I take hold of her elbow, making her pause. Whatever this grand gesture is, I don’t like how apprehensive it’s making her. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  Jamie takes a deep, determined breath and slides the zipper down. It snags at the end and she lets out a curse, jerking at the clasp. “This is not how I planned this in my head.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve said that.”

  She huffs, jerking some more. “Are you sure you want me? Because I suck. I suck so bad right now. I wanted to make this perfect and instead it’s about as romantic as a dog taking a shit.”

  “Make what perfect?”

  Jamie throws up her arms. “This!” she yells at her jacket.

  “Here, let me.”

  Jamie

  Kyle pockets the key and takes over, his chuckle low and deep. “It’s not funny,” I hiss, my bitchy hormones coming out to play.

  It shouldn’t be this hard. The plan was to present him with a house and a baby in that freaking order—a tender moment we could cherish together for as long as we lived. But I’ve never been in a proper relationship before and romantic gestures feel foreign and stupid.

  “I’m not laughing,” he says, fiddling with the clasp of my zipper, his chest shuddering as he holds it in.

  “You are too.”

  He ducks his head for a closer examination. “Don’t be childish.”

  “But I learnt it from the best.”

  Kyle tilts his head, looking up at me. I poke out my tongue. He laughs out loud. “I love you, Jamie Juliet Murphy. Please don’t ever change.”

  “I love you too, Kyle Edgar Brooks.”

  Please don’t ever leave me.

  The clasp breaks apart beneath his large fingers, and I don’t even care. The jacket is hot and clunky, making a sweat break out across my brow. I’m about ready to toss it in the bin. I only needed it to cover the bump until I could say what I needed to say.

  I slide the jacket free and set it on the railing to my right. Then I turn back. Kyle’s gaze slowly runs the length of me and back up again, halting at my belly, stuck.

  He exhales an audible breath, his eyes wide. “That’s a …” He shakes his head, swiping a hand over his face. “You’re …” His eyes find mine. “Jesus fuck.”

  The relief of finally sharing the news is overwhelming. My chest wells up and a big fat tear forms, spilling over, rolling down my cheek.

  “Oh, baby. Don’t cry.” He steps forward, smoothing his thumb across my cheek, wiping the tear. “You’re pregnant?” he asks, his eyes searching mine as if the evidence isn’t proof enough.

  “No. I just ate a really big burrito,” I reply. I’m aiming for sarcasm, but the words come out all weepy.

  Kyle’s laugh huffs out, a little hysterical. He’s stunned, but I know it’s in a good way when he takes my cheeks in his hands, his fingers trembling against my skin. “We’re having a baby?” He kisses me, his mouth smacking against mine before he draws back. “We’re … I’m going to be a daddy. Fuck me. Fuck me.” His
lips hit mine again, once, twice, before he sinks down before me, eye level with my belly. My pregnancy tee shirt is fitted and pale pink cotton. It stretches wide across my abdomen, and he’s reading the words printed across the front, silently to himself. I’m creating a tiny human. What’s your superpower?

  He takes hold of the hem and looks up at me in question, his eyes full of wonder. “Can I?”

  Of course he freaking can. So much yes. I try to convey all that in a single nod because I can’t speak.

  Kyle pushes my shirt up, underneath my boobs. It bares my stomach to the cool breeze off the ocean. He takes a deep, shuddery breath and places his two big palms on my burgeoning little belly. They brand me with their heat, making me shiver.

  His voice is gruff when he speaks. “How far along?”

  “Eighteen weeks.”

  “Was that … Christ, I can’t do math right now.” His hands smooth across my stomach before winding around my hips. He takes a handful of my ass and presses his lips to the taut skin near my belly button.

  “The road trip, yes.”

  “The pill …”

  “Didn’t work.”

  Kyle rises to his feet until I’m tilting my head to look at him. His lips curve into a grin of pure male satisfaction, his eyes dancing. “My swimmers are too strong for the likes of you.” He flattens his palms across my belly again as if he can’t stop touching it, his eyes flaring with hunger. “It shouldn’t make me hard that I knocked you up, should it? I want you so fucking bad right now.”

  He winds his arms around my middle and lifts me like I weigh nothing, his big strong body pressed against mine. A wild surge of lust floods my veins and my voice comes out raspy. “I want you too.”

  Our mouths meet in a tangle of lips and tongues and heat. My arms slide around his neck, hugging him close. He groans deep in his throat, liking it, kissing me like it’s the last kiss he’ll ever have.

  “One down, four to go,” he manages to say before his mouth hits mine again.

  “What?” I mumble, squirming against him.

  “Kids,” he replies, setting me down. I stumble, my legs weak and mind in a fog, having no idea what he just said. He grabs for me with one hand, keeping me steady while he uses the other to slide the key inside the lock of the door. He turns it and shoves it open, coming back for me.