Page 49 of The Risk Taker
I shake my head. “No, I don’t.”
“Life goes on whether we want it too or not. It’s time for us both to move on with it.” She gives me a wobbly smile. “Actually, I change my answer.”
I give her a perplexed frown.
“You know what would make me happy, Jamie.” I stare at her, wait for her to continue. She pokes me in the chest, and I capture her hand. Her other hand goes to my face, a soft caress that soothes my tormented soul. Need blows through me like a summer storm. Fuck, I missed her. Missed us. “For you to be happy,” she whispers, her breath shuddering against my skin. “The accident wasn’t your fault, and never once did I think it was. You need to let go of the guilt. You are the best guy I know. The best guy I’ve ever known. No one blames you.”
“Sara blames me. She wouldn’t have left otherwise.”
“Not true. I never blamed you and I left. Maybe she just has some things to work out in her head.”
“Fallon,” I begin quietly as loss and sorrow squeeze my heart.
“Yeah.”
“You left. You…didn’t turn to me. I thought…thought you blamed me. You always used to turn to me.”
She wraps her arms around me and holds me close, loosening the knot of tension between my shoulder blades, and calming the heavy thud of my heart. “Oh, Jamie, no. Believe me, the accident was not your fault. Please tell me you believe me.”
“But I wasn’t—”
“No, Jamie. Stop.” A small shaky breath passes her lips as she shuts down my argument. “You need to stop. You need to just trust me, okay?”
“I do trust you, Fallon. Trust is one of the most important things to me. You know that, right?”
“I do, and I would never ask for it, if I wasn’t sure the accident had nothing to do with you.” She pounds softly against my chest, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Okay,” I say quietly, some of the tightness in my chest ebbing away as a small measure of guilt lifts from my shoulders.
She never left because she blamed me.
Beneath the moonlight, we hold on to one another like our lives depend on it, and somehow I think it does. She sniffles against my shirt, and lifts her gaze to mine. Streaks of yellow, marbled in her pretty blue eyes, sparkles in the moonlight as the connection between us, the need, becomes emotionally charged.
“In a perfect world, what would make you happy?” she asks as I rest my forehead against hers.
Damned if that isn’t a loaded question.
“To turn back time,” is all I say, and she nods as I put my arm around her and start walking along the shore again. Yeah, if I could I’d go back to many years ago, and make Fallon my girl before Ethan had the chance. But that’s a selfish thought because Ethan isn’t here, and Sara and I lost our unborn baby, and life just isn’t fucking fair.
But does that mean I can’t have what I really want, can’t move forward…can’t find a new normal. I pull Fallon close. Every fiber of my being tells me there’s more between us than sex. I can’t change the past, and I’m not sure I can ever fully forgive myself. But after being with Fallon—her belief in me filling that hollowed-out spot in my chest, and lightening the heaviness in my heart—I don’t think I can live in that past any longer either. Maybe we can somehow find our normal together and I can be the man she needs, the father Chase needs. Maybe she’s right. Maybe Cole is, too.
Maybe I do deserve happiness.
13
Fallon
As I pack things up, our glorious week at the beach over tomorrow, I think back to my conversation with Jamie that night we walked along the shore. We talked about what our lives would be like in a perfect world. I love my son more than life itself, but my life with Ethan was far from perfect, and crumbling more with each passing day.
Jamie told me if he could, he’d turn back time. I can only imagine he meant he’d go back to before the accident, when Ethan was here, when Sara and his unborn baby were living in his house. That was his perfect, obviously. A place where grief and guilt didn’t weigh on him heavily. But it wouldn’t have been perfect for long. Once the baby was born, I’m pretty certain we all would have had lost anyway. My mind rewinds to my phone conversation with Sara. She’d told me she loved him. But him might have meant Ethan, not Jamie. And the baby she was carrying, well…
Trust is so important to Jamie and I wanted to tell him my suspicions. Lord knows he can’t keep blaming himself for an accident that
wasn’t his fault, but I don’t want to hurt him—it would shatter him to learn my husband and his fiancée were having an affair— a woman knows these things. But I need to have the proof—which undoubtedly exists on Ethan’s phone—before I do or say anything. But what if Sara shows up and wants him back? Will he want her back too? If he does, what do I do? Tell him what I think, or keep my mouth quiet? How could I let my best friend, the man I’ve loved for many years now, go back to a woman who was carrying a baby that likely wasn’t his? I wrack my brain and as my stomach cramps, I work to clear my thoughts, leaving them to mull over later, when we’re back home.
This is our last night in the gorgeous oceanside cottage, and with Chase sleeping over with the other kids at Nina and Cole’s, I plan to have Jamie all to myself in that king-sized bed. I plan to give him a part of me I’ve never given another, and hope that on some level, he realizes he is the man for me—that we belong together. I spent years hiding what I felt and I can’t do it any more, not after this incredible week in his arms. I can’t pretend this is just sex when it’s so much more. Yes, I’m risking losing my best friend if I’m mistaken about his feelings, but I’m taking a chance that when we leave here, we can be so much more. Jamie just needs to open up, and take a risk on us.
With Jamie getting Chase settled in for his overnight sleepover, and taking an awfully long time doing it, I finish packing, jump in the shower, and grin as I think about the plan I schemed up today. I rinse the rest of the sand and salty water from my sun-kissed skin, dry off with a big fluffy towel and pull on a sexy little camisole and underwear set that I picked up that day I got the bathing suit. I’ve been saving it for a special night—and this is it.