Chapter 7

chapter

seven

Jack

I hug Lucy’s warm, curvy body closer to mine. She’s sleeping and making the cutest noises. I can’t explain it, but everything about this moment fills me with a sense of contentment I haven’t felt since I was a kid.

I could love this woman. Hell, I probably already love her. I can’t understand it, let alone explain it, but I feel it. It’s a certainty in my bones the same way I knew how or when to do something on a military assignment.

Out there you follow orders and you learn to trust your instincts. You have to or you die. This isn’t a life or death situation, at least not in a physical sense. But I know, without any doubt, that this is where I belong.

In this bed. With this woman.

We made love twice more before we finally fell asleep and nothing has ever felt so good or so right. But it’s too early to tell her that. She’d think I was a whacko. Or that I had just emotionally attached to her because she was my first. It’s not that. I know it in my soul.

I don’t like to think about my parents too much because they died when I was overseas. I missed all of it. They were hit with the first wave of the Coronavirus right after the Pandemic hit. They died together which is how they always said they wanted to go. Of course their plans had them living longer and holding hands in an assisted living place when they died.

Right now while this woman is nestled close to me, my hand resting close to her heart, I let myself go back and remember them. They were madly in love. It was like something out of movie. I was their only kid, though not for lack of trying.

I remember the way my dad would look at my mom, like she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He’d bring home flowers every third Tuesday of the month. He thought it was random enough that she’d think they were no-occasion flowers, a just-because kind of thing. But she caught on to his pattern pretty quickly. She never said anything to him, of course.

He told me once when I was too young to understand, that when I met the right woman, that loving her would be as easy and as necessary as breathing. That I’d feel a pang in the center of my chest at the thought of losing her. That she’d be the most amazing and infuriating person I’d ever met.

I kiss Lucy’s shoulder, then close my eyes. Someday I’d tell her how I feel. Until then, I hope beyond hope that she feels the same way.

A shrill alarm wakes me up and it takes a moment to remember where I am. Lucy’s sitting up in bed, not caring at all that the covers pool around her waist, baring her breasts to me.

“I think it’s your phone,” she says.

Right, the noise. I pull my eyes away from her perfect tits and find my jeans where I left my phone. I pull it out from the pocket and see I’ve got six missed calls. What the hell? I don’t even know that many people.

I’m scrolling through to see and the phone rings again. I don’t recognize the number, but I do know that area code is from where I grew up.

Angie. She’s clearly found another way to reach me. A number I haven’t yet blocked.

I glance up at Lucy.

“You might as well answer it, they’re just going to keep calling.”

I swallow hard and swipe to answer. “Hello.”

“Jackie,” Angie says from the other end.

I cringe, because she only ever called me that when she wanted something. “What do you want, Angie?”

Lucy tenses, but I reach over and squeeze her thigh.

“I miss you. I wanted to talk. I heard you were out of the Army finally. So where are you? And why did you block my number?”

I blow out a breath. “In Texas. A buddy of mine is from here.”

“I’m going to go make some coffee,” Lucy says, then she stands, grabs her robe hanging on the door and leaves the room.

“Who was that?” Angie asks. Her voice is sharp like she’s pissed.

“Her name is Lucy.”

“Oh is that your buddy that you went to see?” She says the word ‘buddy’ like it’s a curse word.

“That’s none of your business. Again I’ll ask, what do you want, Angie?”

“I miss you.”

My gut tightens and not in a good way, like it does when I see Lucy. Nope. This is more of shit’s-about-to-go-south tension.

“I miss us,” she coos.

Part of me wants to laugh at the irony. She misses us? Now?

The urge to laugh fades.

I don’t miss us. I don’t miss the way she manipulated me or tried to control me. I sure as fuck don’t miss her.

But maybe, I miss the guy who believed in forever love. The boy who had hopes and dreams of a future with one woman forever.

Angie’s betrayal crushed those hopes.

I don’t miss being that kid, but I missed having that kind of hope. When I left the army, I worried I might never find that kind of hope again.

I must be one lucky son of a bitch, because instead of the vague hope I used to feel, I found Lucy. I found a woman who not only gives me hope, but makes me believe that future is possible.

“There is no us,” I tell Angie. The sound of something falling in the kitchen got my attention. Yeah, there’s probably more I could say to Angie, but frankly, I don’t care. I don’t care what’s going on with her, not when Lucy is here. Not when I could be holding her in my arms. “Look, I gotta go. Take care of yourself and have a good life. And stop trying to contact me.” With that I end the call, and then turn off my phone. The only person I want to talk to is here.

I pull on my boxers, then pad to the kitchen.

Lucy is standing at the stove scraping a rubber spatula across a frying pan. I go behind her, put my hands on her hips and kiss her neck.

“What are you making?”

“Eggs.” Her tone is clipped, but not exactly angry.

I glance at the pan and note several egg shells. I turn off the heat and pull her away from the stove.

“What are you doing?” she asks, with a narrowed-eyed glare.

“Pocket, you had pieces of eggshells all in there. You don’t want to eat those.”

She tilts her chin up defiantly. “I like the added crunch.”

I laugh and walk us backwards until I sit in one of the chairs and pull her into my lap.

“I know you heard that that was Angie. Do you want to ask me anything?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“I think it would feel very much my business if an ex-boyfriend called you.”

She looks up at me, those brown eyes filled with emotion and I want so badly to tell her how I feel, but I know it’s too soon.

If I play my cards right, I’ll have a whole lifetime to tell her how I feel. To hold her hand and buy her third-Tuesday flowers. I can be patient.

“I like you a lot, Lucy. I want you. Only you. Angie is my past. Her call meant nothing.”

She searches my face for several minutes, then nods and kisses my chin.

“Do you want me to make some breakfast?”

“Let’s go out to Ruthie’s,” she says.

“Perfect. I’ve gotta shower, then we can go.”

“I need a shower as well. We could conserve water.” The expression on her face is pure mischief.

I stand and toss her over my shoulder, then take us to the bathroom where I fuck her against the shower wall before we finally get ourselves clean.