Fluke, page 20
Me:
Banks: I can’t even text because MY PHONE WON’T STOP GOING OFF.
Me: Aw, Sparkles. Look at all the attention you’re getting. They all want you. This is the pinnacle of your dreams, isn’t it?
Banks: I hate you. Also, I AM FIVE-ELEVEN.
Paige: I have to get back to work. Can someone make sure there’s no bloodshed?
Moss: Big nope.
Me: Want me to deactivate your account?
Banks: It would be nice.
Me: Will the rooster be gone when I get back?
Moss: SO WELL PLAYED.
Maddox: It really is impressive.
Banks: The rooster will not be there.
Me: I come home tomorrow.
Banks: I said it won’t be there.
Me: Deal. But I’m just deactivating it—not deleting it. Don’t fuck with me.
Banks:
I swipe open the app and, as promised, deactivate Sparkles’s account.
Pippa sighs. “I wish I had siblings like yours.”
“You want Banks? I’ll let you have him.”
She laughs. “I can’t imagine what it’s like having that bond. Greg and I never had it. He was the golden boy, and I was the kid sister who couldn’t shine bright enough. I was the diamond in the rough who didn’t come out of the rough. I just got in the way.”
Nope. I pull her into my chest and look down at her.
“But it’s fine,” she says, smiling sweetly at me. “They’re my family but not my people.”
“So you wish you had a big family growing up, but you don’t want one now. Right?”
She starts to frown but catches herself. “Exactly.”
I search her eyes, wondering how much I will have to dig through to get to the truth. The diamond in the rough. Because maybe she’s right. Maybe she’s been pushed down for so long—maybe even hiding—so she doesn’t shine too bright and attract all the goodness that’s coming to her.
I’ll help you, Pippa. You just gotta trust me.
“Wanna blow this joint and go back to our room?” I ask, wiggling my brows.
She laughs. “No, I don’t. Bloom Match paid for this. We need to experience it because I have to be prepared to give Bridgit the details.”
I groan, rolling my eyes.
“I’ll tell you what,” she says, playing with the collar of my shirt. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“What’s that?”
“If you can make it through this cooking lesson, I’ll let you pick what we do for the rest of the night.”
My brows lift to the ceiling. “Really?”
“Really.”
“And you have to do it.”
She gulps.
“Deal,” I say before she can change her mind.
She’s going to squirm for the next hour and a half. I’m going to try not to be too bored with chicken tikka masala. But when this is over, I know what we’re going to do.
And it’s not what she expects.
I grin. “Here comes Bobby. Let’s hurry this up and get out of here.”
Then I go to the sink to wash up again, trying not to laugh again at Banks’s reaction to his successful foray into app dating. The fool.
24
PIPPA
“This is what you wanted to do?” I ask, laughing.
“Don’t laugh. It makes me self-conscious.”
“Right.”
I’m sitting at the bistro-esque table on the balcony of our room. Thunderclaps sound off in the distance before bolts of lightning strike through the sky.
Jess hands me a glass of wine and then sits across from me.
We had dinner at a small restaurant by the river that Bobby suggested. As promised, it was quiet and slow—and the food was delicious. The owner, Ted, came out to check on us, and he and Jess hit it off. I sat back and watched them chat it up about lumber prices, cars, and the best place to fish in the state.
I sipped my wine and appreciated the moment. They welcomed me into the conversation and listened to my unsupported opinions as if they mattered. But even more impressive was how easy it was for Jess to make friends with Ted.
Making friends has never been super easy for me. Growing up, my parents didn’t have people they hung out with on the weekends. Greg was always too busy wrestling or preparing to fulfill his destiny to know other kids’ names. Even in the two semi-serious relationships I’ve had, the guy wasn’t overly friendly to other males.
I’ve never stopped to think about why that has always been a reoccurring theme in my life. But now, after seeing Jess and his interaction with Ted—and thinking about the way Jess interacts with the world, I can honestly link my previous choices back to my parents.
I never felt valued. Never felt as though I was worthy of notice.
I orbited their world, but I was never part of it. I was always so … alone.
In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that I dated egocentric men whose worlds were equally small and whose interest in others was virtually nonexistent.
And that is not Jess Carmichael at all. He treats me as if I am his world.
“It was nice of Ted to send us back with a bottle of wine,” I say before taking another sip.
“I don’t even like wine, and this shit is good. It’s from a winery in Georgia. Landry Family Winery or something like that.”
“We’ll have to see if we can find them at home.”
Something I said makes Jess’s eyes light up, and he sets his glass down.
“We go back to Kismet Beach in the morning.”
I can barely hear his voice over the wind.
“Yeah,” I say.
“What happens then?”
A lump settles in my throat. The question I feared—the topic that I’ve worried about off and on all day—is now in the open.
As much as the thought of hearing it made me want to puke … I also wanted to hear it. It’s confusing. The only way this conversation didn’t scare the bejesus out of me was being able to partially control when it happened. I knew if I let Jess pick what we do tonight, he’d pick this. And I’ve spent all day trying, and failing, to prepare my response.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, turning it around on him.
His eyes shine. “You know what I want to do.”
I hum.
He reaches across the table and takes my hands in his.
My chest wobbles as I prepare to be the most vulnerable that I’ve ever been with another person.
Why?
Because he deserves it.
Because I think I love him.
“When I’m with you, life makes sense,” I say simply. “When I wake up in the morning, I don’t feel so … small.”
He wants to say something. He bites the inside of his cheek, and I know him well enough now to know that means he’s holding back.
“Until recently, my life felt like an island floating around in the middle of the world. Other people lived on continents and in island chains, but I was on this rock all by myself. And it was fine,” I add as his brow furrows. “It was just the way it was. But then you come along and muscle your way in, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn’t alone.”
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. No matter how embarrassing or sad or terribly wrong this conversation went, I wouldn’t cry.
So I blink back tears as they start to form in the corners of my eyes.
He rubs my knuckles with his thumbs, waiting on me to continue.
“Jess, you won me over before we got here,” I say, my voice cracking. “And it scares the crap out of me to say this to you, but I know we have to have this conversation, so I’m trying to just be honest and lay it all out there.”
“Why does it scare you? I don’t understand.”
“Because …” I blow out a breath. “What are your life’s dreams? What do you hope for?”
“Happiness.”
“More specifically.”
I know his answer—he wants a family. Of course, he does. But I need him to say it, to admit it to me, so I can show him why I’m not sure what I want when we go home.
Or, rather, I know what I want and what I can’t have.
He lets go of my hand and sighs. He sits back in his seat, watching me. “Pretty sure happiness is a full sentence.”
“You’re not getting out of it that easy.”
“What do you want me to say? Do you want to go back to the kid thing? Because that’s the only argument you’ve ever proposed about why we could never work that made any sense at all.”
I still.
My heart pounds, and blood pressure soars. Panic rises through the bile at the base of my throat.
All I want to do is run.
But I don’t.
“Yes,” he says. “I’ve always thought that having kids was in my future. I saw myself doing the same things I did with my dad with my son or daughter. Is that what you want to hear?”
No.
He leans forward, his fingers locked around the base of his wineglass. “Why do you not want kids?”
“I don’t like them.” I give him my canned answer, but it’s the truth. It’s been the truth for as long as I can remember. “I’ve built my whole life around not wanting children, and it’s a relief every day when I wake up without a screaming kid. I’m genuinely happy with my life choice. I realize it’s not the popular one, but it’s how I feel.”
“All right.” He holds my gaze. “Now what’s the real answer.”
I push my glass into the center of the table. “I gave you my answer.”
“I’m not going to try to change your mind, Pip. I just want to understand you.”
Why do you have to be so fucking perfect?
Why do you absolutely terrify me?
I stand, needing to move so I can think. Sitting in one place and looking at him won’t help me recall years of trauma.
My heartbeat races, amping up another notch. My palms sweat, and I blame it on the humidity, even though I know that’s untrue.
I take a deep breath and blow it into the wind.
This is going to hurt. It’s going to be salt into a wound, and it might very well be the moment that I see the disappointment in Jess’s eyes. It’ll be the moment he realizes I’m not the person he wants forever.
“It took me a very long time to detach emotionally from my parents,” I say, my voice hollow. “I had a very … dark time when I felt this crushing loneliness. But it was that or allow myself to be reminded at every possible moment that there was something I was doing that wasn’t good enough.” I blink back tears again. “Or, sometimes, that me as a person was somehow flawed. It didn’t matter if I dotted all the i’s. I dotted them, so they were blemished.”
I walk to the other side of the balcony and face him.
“I’ve managed to make a life I love,” I say, lifting my chin. “And I worked damn hard for it. I can’t imagine having a child with someone and then …”
Hot tears fill my eyes.
“Then what?” he asks, his tone heavy.
“Then have them change their mind.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “Or what if my child doesn’t love me? What if I’m a terrible parent and they grow up hating me? What if I’m really my mother and—”
“Stop.”
“But what if?”
Lightning marks the sky, but it has nothing on the intensity on Jess’s face.
I suck in a breath. “I’m not lovable.”
“Fucking stop it, Pippa.”
“It’s true. There’s something inside me that’s a fatal flaw. I can’t fix it. I’ve tried.”
Tears cascade down my cheeks as I say the things aloud that I’ve never had the courage to say before. Expelling them into the air feels like a dam is breaking, and all of the emotions held hostage by those words come spilling out.
“How? How could you possibly be happy? Look at your life and then look at what it could be and explain to me how you could possibly be happy? I’d hope that maybe you’d grown up. Maybe you had run the defiance that’s nearly ruined your life out of your system.”
“You are the biggest disappointment of my life.”
“My own parents didn’t love me forever, so the chance of some random person choosing to do it for the rest of their life is pretty null.”
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand as the tears keep coming. I can’t stop now—I have to say it all. I have to tell him my greatest fear so he understands.
“No one has ever loved me, Jess.”
His chair scoots back so fast that it falls over, dinging against the sliding glass door. He takes my hand and pulls me into him. His arms wrap so tightly around me, he holds me so close to his chest that I can barely breathe.
My body shakes as I sob against his pink polo shirt that I teased him about all evening. He rubs my back, his chin resting on top of my head, and sways with me back and forth.
The thunder grows closer. In the distance, rain clatters against the tops of buildings and onto the streets. The wind picks up, but Jess holds me like none of that matters.
Finally, he pulls back and wipes my hair out of my face. “I’ve loved you for fifteen years. Doesn’t that count for something?”
I smile sadly. “You’re a fluke.”
“I’m a fluke that’s so in love with you that I can’t think straight.”
I sniffle.
He grins at me. “I heard every word you said. All of it. And you know what?”
“What?”
He holds my face and kisses my forehead. “Even though your parents purport to be highly intelligent, they’re clearly not. They’re missing out on knowing and loving the most wonderful girl I’ve ever known. Their loss, Pip. I absolutely, completely, stupidly love you, and nothing will ever change that. Nothing ever has.”
My heart swells.
“When I said my dream was for happiness, I meant it for me and you. Because the only way I’m happy is if I have you,” he says. “I want to create a life with you that’s a little of mine and a little of yours. I want you to help me make my life better, and I want to do the same for you. I want French toast breakfasts and the windows open and bottles of random wines on balconies while we talk about nothing and everything.”
I smile.
“This is the woman I love—right here. And I want you just the way you are.”
“But what about kids? I won’t change my mind, Jess. How can you give that up for me?”
Please be honest. Please don’t tell me things you think will keep me with you. That would kill me, Jess.
He sighs. “Because kids were a part of the picture—they were never the picture. I come from a large family, Pip. I don’t need to replicate that. I really don’t.” He gently kisses my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks. “I need you to hear me and believe me on this, because it’s the absolute truth. For the last half of my life, it’s only ever been my dream to have you in my life. For you to be mine. The picture was me and you.” He grins shyly. “It’s always only been me and you for me.”
I bury my head in his chest.
“Do you even know how many kids my brothers are going to have? And Paige? Fuck. Our nieces and nephews will run to our house to escape my siblings.”
I smile against him. “I could be okay with that.”
He groans. “Oh, wait.”
“What?”
“There is one more condition.”
My heart beats harder. What now?
“You’re going to have to be okay with raising Banks because I can’t get out of it. I’ve tried,” he says.
I laugh, my whole body shaking. The light is back in Jess’s face.
Rain begins to fall around us, coming in at an angle and drenching us from head to toe. But we don’t move. We don’t even flinch. We just stare at each other and smile.
“What about your family?” I ask.
“They love you. My dad thinks you’re his long-lost daughter.”
I laugh.
We begin to sway back and forth, my arms draped over his shoulders, as thunder fills the sky.
“I love you, Jess.”
He lowers his face and kisses me softly. “I’ve waited for you to say that forever.”
“I’ve waited to say it forever.”
“I was starting to think maybe you never would.” He grins. “I want to take care of you, Pip. We’ve given up so many years apart that I don’t want to give up anymore.”
I take a deep breath. I’m not sure where he’s going with this. I’m not sure where I want him to be going with this either. But for the first time in my life, I feel like whatever he says will mean the two of us together.
This must be what it means to be loved. If so, I’ve never had this before.
It’s a feeling of safety—not just physically, but emotionally.
It’s being respected enough to be honest.
It’s being valued enough to be transparent.
It’s not just being seen, but also being heard, and knowing that no matter what you do or say—the other person will still be there. Even if you screw up.
Maybe even because you’ll screw up. At least you know you won’t have to do it alone.
This is a feeling I’ll never forget.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I don’t want to leave room for misinterpretation.”
I grin, my heart so full it might explode. “So interpret.”
He chuckles. “It’s me and you. We’re doing life together now. There’s no more fake relationship situations, no more pretending. I’m extending my seven days to get you to fall in love with me until forever. I’ll make you fall for me every day for the rest of my life.”
My God, this man.
