“You were seriously an unhappy person to be around.” Roman dropped to the chair next to Babushka’s bed.
Heather hadn’t spoken again. She just stared at Jase. Stared at him like he’d crushed her heart.
He took a step toward her.
She shook her head, backing up.
“Sugar,” he started.
“Don’t ‘sugar’ me here,” she whispered, her voice wobbling slightly. “You don’t get to do that.”
She took the four steps to Babushka and gave her a hug. “I have to go now, but I’m really sorry that I missed your party. Please let me know that you’re okay. And take it easy, don’t do too much.”
Heather was barely holding it together. Jase knew her well enough to know this was killing her.
Babushka caught on, too. Patting her back and glaring at Jase. If looks could kill, he’d be flayed open right there by her oxygen tank.
Heather started for the exit.
“I’ll walk you out,” Jase said quickly.
She did the little head shake again. “I’m good. You should stay with your family.”
He wasn’t going to let it end this way. “Heather—”
She held up her hand. “Really, you should stay.”
Turning on her heel, she left for the parking lot. He followed her to her new van.
“Don’t do this,” he heard himself say.
“Do what, Jase? Lie about our relationship? Tell people I care about that we aren’t together? Worry about my own comfort over everyone else’s? Fall in love with a guy who isn’t all in? What, Jase? What exactly am I not supposed to do?”
Wait.
The fuck?
“You fell in love with me?” he asked.
“We all make mistakes.” She unlocked the door, pulled it open, and climbed inside.
He caught the door with his palm. “Don’t make this one.”
Please don’t make this one.
“I think you made it for me.” She turned the engine over.
“Let’s just take a step back.” He’d fucked up, he got that.
“You want to take a step back? Fine. We’re stepping back. This is us stepping back.” She reached for the handle on the door.
That’s not what he meant at all. “Heather.”
“No, Jase. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to step back. I don’t want to go backward. I’m done with that. It’s time to go forward. With or without you.” She pressed her fingers against her eyelids. “And you’ve made it clear it’s without you.”
She pulled the door closed. He couldn’t move, just watched as she backed out of the lot. He returned to Babushka’s curtained room.
“You let her go.” Babushka pursed her lips. “I thought you were smart boy. But you let her go.”
“Nadzieja,” his mother said. “This is best.”
“No.” Jase shoved his hands on his hips. “It’s not. But thank you for ensuring that the best thing in my life just walked out.”
“Jason.” His mother gave him her look. The one that nearly always got her whatever she wanted.
“I am not speaking to either of you.” Babushka held her head high.
Somehow, he had to figure out how to make things right.
“Your problem”—Babushka shoved a finger toward him—“is that you let your mother and your father, and your brothers and your sister, tell you vat you vill do.”
Also, his grandmother. She forgot to add herself to the list.
“You come home from combat and you are a mess. Ve help you. Ve make decisions for you. I vait for you to be ready to make your own. But you don’t.” Her moratorium on speaking to him apparently hadn’t started yet. “A little shove I give. And still you don’t choose for yourself.”
A little shove? She’d totaled Heather’s van.
That was her little shove?
He could admit he’d been a wreck when he’d returned home four years ago. He’d lost most of his team in an explosion. He’d come home ready to retire from a life of defusing crude roadside bombs and IEDs. Ready to stay.
He’d given it his best effort, but he wasn’t the same guy who had left. The shit that happened changed him. One night he’d shown up with flowers and chocolates only to find his house vacant. Divorce papers laid out on the counter.
The last time he’d reenlisted, Angela had told him she was done if he went through with it, but he hadn’t believed her. Hadn’t believed she’d actually leave. And she hadn’t. Not right away, anyway. But she’d never forgiven him, either. And that shit ate through their marriage.
He’d taken the flowers to his mother. The chocolates to Babushka. Bought himself a bottle of Jim Beam and tracked down his wife. Her mind was made up. Time to move on. He had downed the whiskey and signed the papers. Pretended to feel nothing. But inside? Inside he’d been shredded. A pile of mush stomped down with no hope for the future.
And, yeah, that’s when his family had started making decisions for him. He’d let them. They told him to be a florist? He agreed. They moved him back into the family home? He let them. He appreciated not having to think about shit. When they encouraged him to move into the apartment above the flower shop, he’d embraced that too.
But, fuck it all, he was ready to start making his own choices. Now he was ready to handle his own life. With gratitude for all they’d done, but with an eye for the future.
“When I convince her I’m all in, you will apologize.” He stared at his mother. “And then you’ll welcome her to the family, because she’s going to be part of it.”
The chains he’d wrapped around himself started to break free. He looked to Babushka. She nodded.
“She’s going to be part of it, even if we don’t work out. Even if she decides she wants someone else.” Now he was really on a roll. It’d have to be her who left, because there was no way he could choose to be away from her. “Because she loves Babushka. And Babushka loves her.”
He mother didn’t meet his stare.
“And I love her,” he continued over the lump in his throat.
And it’d taken him too long to realize that bit.
His mother’s expression softened. “Jason, if she means that much to you, then—”
“Then you’ll accept her. You’ll accept her, or you’ll lose me, too.” He didn’t need her acknowledgment. He knew she’d heard.
He had to get back to Heather. Back to her shop. He bolted to the ER entrance. Since he’d taken the ambulance with Babushka, he started to request a car on his phone app.
“I got you.” Roman stepped beside him, jingling his keys. “And I’m sorry I fucked this up.”
“You didn’t fuck it up.” Jase had done that all on his own.
Now he had to fix it. Stop running and letting life happen to him, and start taking it back. They piled into Roman’s rental and Jase dialed Heather’s number. The line went straight to voice mail, which was bullshit because she never turned off her phone. She’d leave it in her purse or around her apartment or in her office—but he never went straight to voice mail.
He’d hurt her and that was unacceptable.
Roman dropped him at her store. Jase shoved the front door open. She wasn’t up front.
“Where’s Heather?” he asked Candy.
Candy glanced up from ringing up a customer. “I thought she was with you?”
Fuck it. No.
He bolted through the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time to her apartment. He knocked on her door.
She didn’t answer.
There was no tactical breathing now. He needed to find her. Needed to make this right.
He pounded harder.
Nothing.
28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She’d broken it off. Heather refused to cry.
What she needed was a night with her best friends. After she left the hospital, she drove her fancy new cookie van straight to Velma’s Washington Park apartment.
Brek answered the door.
/>
One look at Heather and he turned full glower. “The fuck did he do?”
“I was hoping Velma’s around?” Heather asked.
Brek stepped back to let her through. “She’s shoppin’ with her mom. Should be back soon. You can hang with Lily and me while you wait.”
“You don’t mind?” The last place she wanted to go was back to work to deal with staff and customers, or back home where she’d be alone.
“Wouldn’t invite you in if I minded.” He ticked his head, effectively inviting her in a second time.
Heather slipped by him.
“I’d like to know what the fuckwit did.” Brek went to the kitchen and poured her a glass of white.
He slid it across the island before pulling out his phone and typing something on the screen.
Heather hopped up onto a barstool. Then she spilled her guts to Brek—everything from the cockies in flames to Babushka’s birthday to the hospital. She should’ve waited for Velma, but Brek was, actually, a good listener.
“You want me to kick his ass?” he asked. “He’s my buddy, but I’ll do it.”
Heather shook her head. She didn’t want that. What she wanted was to rewind to a month prior and park her van somewhere else. She wanted to rewind and not fall for him.
Not fall in love with him.
Because, if she were being honest, that’s exactly what she’d done.
She thought she’d been in love before. With her latest ex and a few guys before him, she’d been certain what she felt was love.
But it was nothing compared to the way Jase made her feel. Or the way it killed her that they had to end. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. Dammit, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.
She was not a crier.
Brek leaned forward, elbows on the counter. “Shit fucked him up good before he came back. Don’t know what. Don’t need to. All I know is the buddy who went over wasn’t the buddy who came back. Something big happened and part of him shut off. With you around, he started to come back for real.”
“You don’t think I should’ve ended it?” The tears flowed freely now.
Brek handed her a paper towel. Velma must’ve bought the roll because it was soft like cotton.
She wiped her eyes.
“Nah, think he’s had his head shoved up his own ass. He’ll need the kick to knock it free.”
“And if it doesn’t?” She ran the paper towel between her fingers. “Doesn’t come loose?”
“Then I think you’ll still be okay. You’re a strong one. It’s him I’m worried about.”
Velma burst through the door. “I’m here. Where is she?”
She beelined straight to Heather, barely pausing to acknowledge Brek. Then she hugged Heather, and Heather knew she would be okay. Because she was Heather Reese.
Jase worked alone in the construction zone that would soon be the bridal shop. Having hung the drywall, they were down to only needing to paint all the spaces. Eli would be in before his current lease expired, and the other spaces would be ready soon after. It was finally all coming together. Business-wise, at least.
He waited for his phone to ring. Waited for the lights to go on at Heather’s apartment.
His phone buzzed.
“Brek,” he said in greeting.
“Heather came by,” Brek said.
“She broke it off.”
“I heard.”
“I fucked up.”
“Yup.”
Neither said anything for a moment.
Finally, Brek broke the silence. “She’s still here. Talkin’ with Velma and Claire. Figured you’d be lookin’ for her.”
Yes. Yes, he was.
Jase stood, confident in what needed to be done.
He was going to convince her to give him another shot.
29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Heather had moved to lemonade. Sad drunk wasn’t fun, and she wasn’t ready to head home alone yet.
Velma had put on a rom-com, but Heather was only mildly watching from the periphery, bundled on one end of the white leather sofa. Claire was curled up on the other end. Mostly, Heather was planning how she could go through life with as little contact with Jase as possible.
It’d be easier that way.
She toyed with the edge of the blanket, the movie soft in the background.
“Heather,” Jase said her name.
She glanced up over the edge of the sofa. The world pressed pause on her heartbeat.
Jase stood in the doorway, Brek holding the door wide.
She’d never even heard him knock.
But he didn’t just stand there. No, he stood there in his Navy dress whites, his hat under his arm, a stack of papers in his other hand.
“Holy crap,” Velma said.
“Whoa.” That was Claire.
Heather’s heart ached just looking at him. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Couldn’t bring herself to move at all, because this was obviously a hallucination.
“Heather,” he said again. “Hey.”
He shifted the cap under his arm and strode toward her with a military precision that seemed so appropriate with his uniform.
“I’m working on a project,” he said when she didn’t say anything. “I was hoping you might hang a poster for me.” He set the stack on the edge of the sofa and tapped the top copy.
“Jase…” she said.
God, this killed.
“It’s for a dance I’m helping out with. Planning,” he continued.
She glanced to the stack. Jase and Heather Love Dance was written in black Sharpie, the date, time, and details underneath.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. Why couldn’t they just be done? Why did it have to hurt so bad to look at him?
“The thing is, I think it could work out between us.” He pushed the stack toward her.
She gripped the blanket tighter, unable to do this. Not again. “No, we tried it, it didn’t.”
“Then let’s try again.” He set his hat on the sofa and braced his arms there. “And again. Until we get it right.”
If he wanted to play, she’d have to play. It didn’t matter; the game they’d played to start this whole thing always ended with heartbreak. But if he wanted to do it once more…what the hell. “Your family would get involved. Things would get messy. We’d both end up resenting each other.”
He, apparently, wasn’t going to let it go so simply. “See, my grandmother might get involved. But she’s kind of fun and she’s got a good heart.”
“And she’d crash her Buick into my cookie delivery van.” In a fit of elderly, misplaced rage.
His expression gentled. “It’s okay, I’d promise to buy you a new one.”
“Then she’d decide she’s going to work for me.” Despite her best efforts, Heather’s chin trembled.
Dammit, she didn’t want to change any of this. And yet, she wanted to change all of it.
“And you’d take her to lunch at Pistol Polly’s.”
“You’d be furious.” Maybe she should look at the posters. She pulled them to her. He’d drawn a little drawing of two stick figures next to the words he’d printed.
“I’d get over it.” He didn’t touch her, but his hand inched toward where she sat.
“This is the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever heard,” Claire said to Velma.
Velma shushed her.
“Then we’d end up at a casino with her and her boyfriend.” Heather only had eyes for Jase. The outside world didn’t matter, it was just the two of them.
“I think we should skip this part.” The edges of his lips twitched.
“We’d end up at your apartment.” Her body warmed, like a switch she’d turned off earlier flicking back on.
“That’s when the fun would start.” His hand crept close to hers.
She released the blanket. Sat taller. “After which, you’d be ready to break up with me.”
“But I wouldn’t, because I’d
realize what I had was worth fighting for.”
Did he mean that?
“Then your family would get involved again and everything would go to hell.” She glanced to the hardwood. This was where it would end. This was where things would fall apart.
“After my family fucked everything up, I’d politely tell them to fuck off. Then I’d come to you in my dress whites and ask you to forgive me for being an idiot.”
Her breath caught. He’d told his family to fuck off?
She kicked her legs over the edge of the sofa, her head in her hands. “I know you think I’m strong, but I can’t keep doing this. I want forever, but I want it with someone who wants what I do.” A tear trailed down her cheek. Twice in one day. What the hell? She batted it away with the back of her hand.
“If you aren’t ready to hear it, and you aren’t ready to do it…” His voice went husky. Effectively breaking her heart and her resolve. “I’ll ask if I can come back every day until you are.”
She hiccupped.
“And if you tell me it’s really over, I’ll turn and leave. Because that’s what you want.” His voice broke on the last word. “Please tell me that’s not what you want.”
“It’s not what I want,” she whispered.
“Then we’ll work through this, because I love you.”
He loved her? She glanced to him then.
“And eventually, we’d get married,” he continued. “Or we can just live together. I’ll be good with whatever you want.” He took a long breath. “And if you want kids, we’ll have kids. If you don’t want kids, I can live with that, too.” He paused. “Because I’ll be the luckiest man in the world if I get to sleep next to you every night.”
“Oh my gosh…” Claire said, reminding Heather they weren’t alone.
Brek shushed her.
“And we won’t break up?” Heather stood, facing him, letting the blanket drop to the floor.
“Not as long as you’ll have me.” He trailed a fingertip along her jawline.
“Okay.” She nodded. They’d do this. All of it.
Just the Tip of the Iceberg: Mile High Matched Books 1-3 Page 48