I shouldn’t be here.
I feel weird being here.
He won’t want me here. He doesn’t want to see me. After the way I treated him a few days ago, there’s no way he’s going to be happy when I rock up at his home.
But I couldn’t not be here. After everything he’s done for me, I couldn’t just… not come.
His mom fucking died.
So, I donned the only somewhat conservative black dress I own and suffered through the long drive to Serenity Ranch, deja vu hitting me when I felt like vomiting the whole time. We skipped the service but judging by the number of people pouring out of the main house, we make it just in time for the reception.
The fidgeting I’ve been doing the entire drive here amps up a notch as the six-seater we rented rolls to a stop and my friends pile out. I, however, stay exactly where I am, too busy convincing myself of all the terrible ways this will go wrong to move.
Again and again, I twist the ring on my forefinger. The one he got me. I don’t wear it usually anymore. The sight of it makes me sad but I sucked it up and slipped the thing on today. A peace offering, of sorts. Me trying to convey that I’m not here to pick a fight or cause trouble.
And maybe, I just missed wearing it and I like having an excuse.
Blowing out a sharp breath, I force myself out of the car. I barely have my feet on solid ground before Kate is taking one hand, Amelia grabbing the other. “You okay?”
I’m not the person she should be asking that but I nod anyway. They offer wary looks but when I nudge them forward, they follow the guys toward the house.
I, again, hang back a little. Just so I can soak up being back in this place again after missing it for so long. And God, did I miss it.
Jackson himself is nowhere in sight but his sisters are. I watch from the relatively safe distance of the bottom porch step as my friends embrace the grieving girls, unsure how or if I should greet them. I’ve almost convinced myself to join them when Eliza’s teary gaze flicks to me and I freeze.
She doesn’t hesitate before running down the steps and throwing herself in my arms, knocking the breath out of me. Instinctively, my arms sneak around her back and hold her tightly. “I’m so sorry, Eliza.”
She sniffs loudly, head buried in the crook of my neck. “I missed you.”
Fuck, she might as well have punched me right in the heart. Tears tickling the back of my throat, I return the sentiment. “I missed you too.“
So much more than I ever thought I would.
When she pulls away, I grasp her by the shoulders, holding her still so I can just look at her for a second. God, she looks so much older. I can almost hear the arguments that must have been had in this house about the light brown streaks in her dark hair and the new jewel sparkling in her nose, another couple decorating her ears. She must be, what, almost sixteen now? Jesus. “You punch anyone lately?”
Despite the tears staining a path down her cheeks, Eliza snorts a laugh. “No one who didn’t deserve it.”
“That’s my girl.”
The youngest Jackson attempts her brightest smile. My hands drop as she maneuvers to my side but the connection is quickly replaced by one of hers slipping into mine as she drags me inside.
Within seconds of entering, Grace is at my other side, wrapping an arm around my waist to give me a brief side-hug. Even Lottie offers a stiff nod of acknowledgement before dropping her watery gaze to her shoes.
They’re putting on brave faces but, God, they look crushed. I know none of them were close to their mom—I don’t think Eliza even remembers her all that much—but, like Jackson told me once, she was still their mom. She was still a part of them, however fucked up that part might have been.
Jackson said something to me before, how he doesn’t have the energy to hold a grudge, how she had her reasons and sometimes, he could understand them. It looks like the girls have adopted that same mentality.
I brace for impact when Lux floats into view, half expecting, I don’t know, a punch to the face, maybe. It’s safe to say I’m surprised as fuck when instead, she nudges her sisters aside and wraps her arms around me. “It’s good to see you.”
“Is it?” I joke before I can stop myself. Thankfully, I receive a snotty laugh in reply.
Lux pulls back, one curled up fist meeting my shoulder in a playful punch. “Yeah, it is. He’ll be glad you’re here.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Red-rimmed eyes roll. Eliza clinging to my arm, Lux gripping the other, I’m guided into the living room.
It’s almost instantaneous, how I find him. Tucked away in the corner, surrounded by our friends.
With an unfamiliar pretty girl glued to his side.
A carefully manicured hand wraps around Jackson’s bicep, big doe eyes blinking up at him. When she rises up on her tiptoes to whisper something in his ear, he barely seems to hear her, just gracing her with an absent smile before shaking her off.
Eliza lets go of me to run up to him, and I watch as he crushes her to his side. My stomach drops when she pokes and says something to him, my whole body tense when she points my way.
His gaze flickers to mine and whatever semblance of a smile he was faking, it drops. I expect the worst as he says something to the people surrounding him and strides towards me. I would step back, would maybe flee the scene, if his sister didn’t have a death grip on me. His last few steps are cautious, almost disbelieving. He nods and smiles at his sister first but his eyes are back on me in a second.
“You came.”
I hate how surprised he sounds.
Because I have no idea how to respond to that, I just nod. Obviously seems a touch too sarcastic given the circumstances.
I barely even notice Lux dropping my hand and disappearing into the crowd. I’m too focused on watching Jackson take another step forward, close enough that I have to tip my chin up. Close enough that if his hair weren’t tied back, it would probably fall forward and tickle my cheeks. Close enough that I could reach out and grab his hand, easy.
I don’t.
My gaze drops momentarily, needing a minute to right myself because, after all this time, he’s still so fucking disorienting to me. I hear him clear his throat, see his hands flex at his side. “How are you?” he rasps and I almost laugh.
“I think I’m supposed to ask you that.”
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look fine. He looks exhausted. Stressed. Handsome in his suit but nothing like my Jackson.
Painfully aware of everyone watching us but pretending they’re not, I shuffle forward, lowering my voice. “I’m so sorry, Jackson.”
He lets out a heavy breath, surprising me by reaching out to take my hand. “Thank you for coming.”
I squeeze his hand. “Of course.”
It could be a minute, it could be an hour, but his gaze remains locked on mine for what feels like forever, stealing my breath from my lungs, before it reluctantly shifts to something behind me. When his eyes return to mine, there’s something apologetic lurking in them. “I have to talk to some people.”
I force myself to drop his hand even though I really don’t want to, force myself to take a step back. “Go.”
“I’ll find you later?” He doesn’t sound too sure, like he’s expecting me to flee the moment he turns his back.
I hope my firm nod is as reassuring as my words are meant to be. “I’ll be here.”
I’m chugging red wine like it’s going out of style.
Despite being so uncomfortable I could cry, I stayed. Partly because I told him I would, mostly because Eliza would probably rugby tackle me to the ground if I tried to leave. And also because my ride is Nick and I don’t think he, or any of the others, have any plans of leaving soon. I heard whispers about staying overnight, which makes me want to vomit and weep at the same time because I can’t help but think of how different everything was the last time I spent the night.
I don’t blame them for not wanting to leave. Even under the circumstances, it’s hard not to get roped into the allure of Serenity Ranch. The boys have been here before, but it’s Kate and Amelia’s first time, and they looked just as entranced as I always have been. I think it helps Lux, having something to do in showing them around, giving her regular spiel, talking up the place she worked so hard to make as amazing as it is.
I haven’t talked to Jackson since he hurried off. I haven’t had the chance; he’s being pulled in every direction, talking to everybody in sight. The whole socializing thing is wearing him out, making him miserable, I can see it in his face. He looks like he could use a drink. And a nap.
And maybe surgery to remove that girl that’s been clinging to him all afternoon.
Caroline.
When Eliza spilled who she was, it wasn’t too hard to gather that she’s not happy about her presence. Neither is Lux, if the sketchy glances she keeps shooting her brother’s ex are anything to go by.
God, the girl is all over him. Groping him like we’re at a club, not a funeral.
That might be the slightly tipsy side of me talking but still.
Ugh.
When the sun starts going down and the temperature drops, an itchy feeling overwhelms me. Everyone who was lingering outside piles into the house, and I hate it.
Outside, I can deal with, but inside is just… too much.
Watching Caroline fucking fondle Jackson is something I prefer to observe from afar. Or not at all.
No one notices me slipping away. Like I always used to whenever I came here, I naturally gravitate towards the barn. A neigh greets me as I shoulder the heavy doors open, and I smile as I approach the beast calling out to me.
“Hey, buddy,” I coo quietly as Clyde rattles the stall door gently, whinnying happily when I run my fingers through his soft mane. He tosses his head, knocking it against mine and I laugh as his soft coat tickles my skin.
Big flirt.
“He missed you.”
I jolt as I spin toward the ajar barn door and find Jackson leaning against it, watching with a soft smile. Clearing my throat, I return my attention to my monstrous friend. “I missed him too.”
If someone had told me a year ago that I’d feel a genuine longing ache in my chest for a creature that gave me thigh burn and a bruised ass, I would’ve laughed in their face.
“You can take him for a ride, if you want.”
Clyde and I snort in unison. Raising a brow at Jackson, I gesture at my dress. “Not exactly dressed for a ride.” Besides, me riding off into the sunset during a funeral is a touch dramatic, even for me.
Jackson’s gaze burns into me as he agrees with a brisk nod.
I avoid looking at him, focusing on the hand stroking Clyde. “Is it okay that I came?”
Out of my peripheral, I see him take a couple of steps towards me. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“I always want to see you.”
My head jerks up so fast I almost give myself whiplash. “What?”
Jackson shrugs nonchalantly, as if what he just said is nothing. Narrowing my eyes, I scan him quickly. Swaying a little, looking a touch more dishevelled than he did when I first arrived, eyes red-rimmed but I don’t think it’s just from crying. “Are you drunk?”
Cracking a boyish smile, Jackson holds his forefinger and thumb a small distance apart in the universal sign for ‘just a little bit.’
“Jackson…”
“My mom is dead, Luna. I’m allowed to have a couple of drinks.”
Those blunt words shut me right up. “I’m-”
“Please, don’t say you’re sorry.“ The stall door next to Clyde’s groans as Jackson leans against it, shoving his hands in pockets. “I’m so fucking sick of people saying they’re sorry.”
I snap my mouth shut.
“She was in Michigan,” Jackson says after a beat of silence. “This whole time, she was in Michigan.” He kicks at the ground, a sarcastic laugh leaving him as he shakes his head. “I dunno, I just thought if you abandon your kids so you can live your own life, you’d go somewhere cooler than Michigan. Europe, maybe. Or Japan. Her mom still lives there.”
“You ever meet her?”
“I don’t think she even knows we exist.”
This would be a great moment, I think to myself, for empathy. To tell him I can relate to that. Family not knowing you exist.
I don’t.
“You know I didn’t know I was Japanese until I was seven? No one thought it was important to tell us.” His laugh, God, his laugh, so bitter and hurt it hurts me too. “I heard her talking in a foreign language on the phone, I asked what it was, and she said Japanese. And that was it. That’s all she ever gave us.”
I don’t reply. I wouldn’t know what to say. All I can do is listen.
“I hate that I care enough to hate her.”
Fuck, and don’t I understand that too.
Jackson’s gaze flicks upward, landing on me, and I shift under the weight of its intensity. An involuntary shiver shoots up my spine when he takes a step forward, hands outstretched ever so slightly. “I’m gonna hug you now, okay?”
I’m pretty sure it’s a rhetorical question because the words barely leave his mouth before I’m enveloped in a strong pair of arms, the smell of hay and horse mixing with fresh grass and spring and a hint of booze.
I don’t give myself time to overthink it. I just wrap my arms around his waist, wanting to cry at how my body melts, comfortable for the first time in months. Except for a few days ago when I woke up with him in my bed, before the panic and the gut-wrenching sadness set in, and I chose to be angry instead of relishing in it.
I hate that this moment of pure content is happening because something horrible happened to him, but I don’t think about it right now.
I’m just thinking about him, hugging me like his life depends on it, and me hugging him right back.
