Falling for Jillian

by Kristen Proby

  She pulls the sugar cookies out of the oven and sets them on a rack to cool as we replace them with a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

  Finally, when those are in the oven, she sighs and blows a wayward strand of hair out of her face. “You know, maybe we can bake the peanut butter another day. This is hard work.”

  “Pansy,” Seth taunts her and then laughs his head off.

  “No chocolate milk for you,” Jill replies, throwing him a mock glare.

  He quickly recovers. “I was just kidding.”

  While the cookies bake, I order pizza, and when the first batch of chocolate chip is done, we all sit at Jill’s table and sip chocolate milk and nibble the hot cookies.

  “So good,” Jill moans.

  “These are even better than Grandma’s!”

  “Don’t tell her that,” I warn him with a laugh.

  “Nah, that would just hurt her feelings.”

  There are moments when my kid can be the most compassionate person I’ve ever met. He’s always worried about hurting the feelings of those he loves. I hope he never loses that.

  “I accidently farted in class today.”

  “Aaaand we’re back to being twelve,” I mutter under my breath as Jill chokes on her chocolate milk, laughing her ass off.

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  “Dude, really?”

  “You asked how my day was.” He grins and stuffs a whole cookie in his mouth.

  “No, I don’t believe we did, actually.”

  “Well, you were gonna. I could feel it.”

  “Never a dull moment with you two, that’s for sure.” Jill wipes the tears from her eyes and then coos down to Thor, “No, buddy, you can’t have these cookies. Chocolate is very bad for puppies. Yes it is.” She cups the canine’s face in her hands and kisses his forehead, points to his blanket, and turns around when Thor obeys her, lying down.

  “I’m glad we’re here,” I murmur to her and brush my knuckles down her cheek, wiping a speck of flour away with my thumb.

  “Pizza!” Seth exclaims when the doorbell rings and he runs to the front door to retrieve the food.

  “I’m glad you’re here too,” Jill replies softly. “I’m having fun.”

  “We are having a blast, sugar.”

  “Jill, can we eat our pizza in the living room and watch a movie?” Seth calls out.

  “That sounds perfect,” Jill calls back and then turns to me. “Snuggle up on the couch with me?”

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I reply.

  Jill loads Transformers into her DVD player. Seth and Thor settle on the floor with blankets and pillows, and Jill and I are on the couch. The pizza is devoured within minutes, so we settle back to watch the movie.

  “We have to frost the sugar cookies,” Jill announces halfway into the movie, then glances down and laughs. Both Seth and Thor are out cold, snoring deeply. “Or not.”

  “Can we stay tonight?” I ask without thinking, and then decide fuck it. I want to be with her.

  “We can’t . . .” she begins, but I hush her with my fingers on her lips.

  “No, we can’t. But I can hold you, and Seth and Thor are out for the count. They won’t stir until morning.”

  “I’ve missed sleeping beside you,” she admits with a whisper, and the tension I didn’t know I was holding melts out of me. I hug her close and bury my nose in her hair, breathing in scents of vanilla and chocolate.

  “Me too, baby. I say we take it where we can get it. I want to hold you tonight.”

  “Okay.” She smiles up at me and finally presses her lips to mine. She drags her small hand down my face, and before I can push the kiss any further, she backs away, leans her forehead to mine, and brushes her fingers through my hair. “I’d love nothing more.”

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  JILLIAN

  “So what you’re saying is, you like bacon,” I say dryly while Seth chomps on his sixth strip of crispy bacon.

  “Yeah.” He nods. “Bacon should be on everything.”

  “I’ve seen it on doughnuts. And ice cream,” Zack mentions, pouring me another cup of coffee.

  “Really?” Seth perks up and slips half a slice of bacon to Thor, who is sitting patiently at Seth’s feet. “Did you try it?”

  “I tried the doughnut. It was good.”

  “That sounds . . . interesting,” I reply with a laugh and sip my coffee. “It’s snowing pretty hard out there.”

  “It dumped another eight inches, easy,” Zack agrees and grins knowingly at me as I stretch my lower back. We ended up falling asleep on the couch before the movie ended. At some point in the night, Zack turned off the TV, covered Seth with a blanket, and just tucked me against him on the couch, and we had our own version of a slumber party in my living room.

  We woke to Seth and Thor both peering at us with wide smiles, demanding to be fed.

  “My lower back is a little sore,” I murmur.

  “You’re too old to sleep on the couch,” Seth remarks matter-of-factly and stuffs more bacon in his mouth.

  “How old do you think I am, Seth?” I grin and watch while he narrows his eyes, giving his answer a lot of thought.

  “Maybe twenty-six? You know, old.”

  “Well, I’m twenty-nine,” I inform him with a sniff and then tickle his ribs. “And I’m not old!”

  “Old lady!” He giggles. “What are we doing today?”

  “We have to frost those cookies we baked last night.”

  “I’m going to take Thor outside with me and shovel.” Zack walks around the table to me and kisses me softly. “Have fun with your cookies.”

  “Have fun in the snow,” I reply. “And thanks.”

  “Be good, brat.” Zack ruffles Seth’s hair, then whistles for Thor to follow him outside.

  “Are you about finished?” I ask Seth. He nods and immediately helps me clear the table and load the dishwasher. “You’re good at cleaning up.”

  “Dad and I share the cleanup, since it’s just us guys now.” He takes a plate out of my hands, rinses it under the faucet, and sets it in the dishwasher. “It’s kind of fun to talk to Dad while we do KP duty.”

  “Kind of catch up on your day?” I ask and hand him a glass.

  “Yeah.” He shrugs and places the glass in the dishwasher.

  “Your dad loves you very much.”

  He nods, fills the soap compartment, and starts the washer. I gather the frosting, knives, and the trays of cookies and carry them to the table.

  “Red or green?”

  “Green, please.” Seth dives for the green frosting and begins coloring his cookies. He sticks his tongue out as he concentrates on outlining a gingerbread man with the frosting, doing a pretty good job of it.

  He looks so much like his dad it’s startling. The only difference really is that Seth’s eyes are a light hazel rather than chocolate brown. He has the same dark hair, dimple in his left cheek, and square jaw. He’s going to be a knockout someday.

  I reach over to ruffle his hair, but he flinches out of my reach, his eyes suddenly wide and wary.

  “Sorry, buddy. I was just gonna touch your hair.”

  His shoulder jerks up in a shrug, and then he pins his eyes back on his cookie, avoiding my gaze. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

  “You didn’t seem to mind being touched last night,” I comment casually and frost an ornament in red.

  “Yeah.”

  Geez, what do I say? The playful, carefree boy from just a few moments ago is gone and has been replaced with a pensive, wary kid, and my heart breaks for him.

  “Wanna talk about it?” I ask and set the finished cookie aside, then reach for another. My voice is calm and casual, as if I asked him what he thought about the movie we watched last night.

  “You just surprised me,” he whispers. I glance over to see his lower lip wobbling, but I don’t offer him comfort, sensing that it wouldn’t be welcomed.

  “You know,” I begin, “when I wa
s a kid, my dad beat on my mom.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Seth’s head whip up, his eyes wide.

  “He did?”

  “Yeah.” I nod and continue to frost. “He was a really mean man. Sometimes he’d pound on Ty too.”

  “Did he hit you too?”

  “Not really. He mostly just ignored me. My mom and dad both just sort of ignored me. I hid in the closet a lot.” The pain that I grew up with has long since healed, and in its place is a numbness that I find equally sad. I feel nothing at all when I think of my parents.

  “My mom ignored me too.”

  I nod and work to keep my hands steady as anger washes through me. Who in their right mind could ever mistreat this gorgeous boy?

  “For a long time after Dad went away, she would leave me with babysitters and just go have fun,” he tells me, his voice low.

  “Were the babysitters nice?” I bite my lip, not sure that I really want to know the answer.

  “Some were.” He shrugs again. “Most of the time, they made me watch a lot of TV. Then she started bringing men home with her.”

  He swallows hard and lowers his frosting to the table. His eyes are fixed on his cookie, but that’s not what he’s seeing. Instead the horror of the last few years with his mother is playing through his mind. I want desperately to pull him into my arms but I wait, sensing his need to talk.

  “Most of the time, they just liked to yell a lot. I was in the way.” The last few words are said with a whisper. “Then one day, this one guy slapped me.”

  A tear slips down his cheek and without thinking, I reach over and cover his hand in mine. “What did your mom do?”

  “Nothing.” He raises his head and meets my eyes with his bright hazel ones. “She didn’t tell him he couldn’t do that. She just . . . laughed.”

  I swipe at my own tears and clench his hand in mine even more tightly.

  “And she always said really horrible things about my dad. She said he left on purpose because he didn’t love me. And lots of other things too. I didn’t know that he asked to talk to me when he called. She didn’t tell me.”

  I didn’t know it was possible to feel the physical pain of your heart breaking until this moment with this amazing boy. She had the gift of a beautiful child, something I would have given anything for, and she treated him like trash.

  I want to rip her apart.

  “Seth,” I say softly and scoot close to him so I can wrap my arms around him. I tuck his head under my chin and kiss his head, soothingly rub circles on his back. “I want you to hear something very important. Are you listening?”

  He nods.

  “You are loved very, very much. Your dad talks about you all the time, and you are the most important person in his life. That will never, ever change.” I press my lips to his head and breathe in his shampoo. “Your mom was a shitty mom, Seth.”

  “I know. Cara said that too.”

  I grin and nod. “Cara is a smart woman. That’s why she’s my best friend.” I lean back so I can cup Seth’s face in my hands, wiping his tears with my thumbs. “You’re with all of us now. Your dad, grandparents, Josh and Cara, Ty and Lo and me, we all love you and best of all, Seth, we like you. We like having you with us. You make us laugh and there is nowhere else we’ll ever want you to be. Got it?”

  His lips twist and fresh tears fall from his eyes as he nods. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” I kiss his cheek and pull away and we both busy ourselves wiping up our faces and sniffling, then look at each other and laugh a little.

  “Jill?” Seth asks tentatively as he chooses another cookie to frost.

  “Yes, sweetie.”

  “I really like it that you’re with my dad.”

  I raise my eyes to his and offer him a wide smile.

  “I like it too.”

  Suddenly the front door opens and Thor comes clomping into the kitchen, covered in snow. He hops his front paws onto Seth and then me, licking, tail wagging furiously, happy to be back inside. He backs onto all fours and shakes frantically, sending snow and water all over us.

  “Thor, no!”

  “Damn dog!” Zack comes running behind him into the kitchen, scowling and holding an old towel. “I went to get a towel to wipe him down and he ran away from me.”

  “It’s okay.” I take the towel from him and run it down Thor’s back, rubbing him vigorously. “Did you have fun in the snow?”

  “He did,” Zack confirms and sniffs. “It’s damn wet out there.”

  “Here.” I hand the towel to Seth. “You help Thor get dry. I’m going to help your dad.”

  “Okay,” Seth agrees happily and falls to his knees on the floor to wipe down his dog. Thor sits on his haunches, his tongue hanging happily out of his mouth, and enjoys the massage from his young master.

  I stand and take Zack’s hand and lead him through my bedroom to the master bath.

  “You’re freezing.” I lean against the sink and hold his hands between mine, rubbing them. “You didn’t have to do all of that.”

  “Why have you been crying, sugar?” he asks quietly. He tips my chin up with his cold finger and cups my face in his chilly hand. “What happened?”

  “Seth and I had a heart-to-heart,” I reply softly. Zack’s brow wrinkles in confusion.

  “Did he say something to hurt your feelings?”

  “No, not at all, babe. He just confided in me about some things that happened when he lived with his mom.” Zack’s eyes close on a sigh. I hold his face in my hands and kiss his chin in comfort. “We’re fine. He’s fine. In fact . . .” I grin up at him when he opens his eyes and gazes down at me. “He said he’s happy that you and I are seeing each other.”

  “Good.” He boosts me up onto the sink and leans down to brace his forehead on mine. Even his head is cold from being outside so long. “Death is too good for her, Jilly.”

  I brace my hands on his rib cage and stay silent, letting him talk.

  “For a while, I wished her dead for what she put him through, but honestly, that’s too good for her. I want her to suffer. God help me, I know it makes me a monster, but I want her to feel every bit of pain she ever put him through times a million.”

  “You’re no monster, babe.” I kiss his lips and then wrap myself around his torso, holding him close. “You’re a daddy. She hurt your boy.”

  He hugs me tight, then backs away, helps me off the sink, and accepts the towel I pass to him. He rubs it over his head and tosses it into the hamper.

  “You’re sure everything is okay?”

  “Yep, perfectly fine.”

  He nods and kisses my forehead, then leads me back to the kitchen, where Seth is talking to Thor and frosting the last of the cookies.

  “And then Josiah said, ‘There’s no way you can climb to the top of that snowbank and jump onto the roof!’ So I did.”

  My heart stops as I halt beside the table and gape down at Seth. “You did what?”

  “Oh, hi. I didn’t know you were back. I figured you were doing mushy stuff.”

  “No, we were talking, and what did you just say?”

  Zack grins and crosses his arms over his chest, watching me with his son. “Did you hear him?” I ask.

  “I did.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” I demand.

  “It sounds like you’re about to do something about it,” he replies calmly.

  “It wasn’t that far of a jump,” Seth assures me. “It was like, super short. And not that far off the ground.”

  “It was a roof, Seth.”

  He bites his lip, aware that he’s been caught. “Well, the snow was super high.”

  “I’m super mad at you,” I reply.

  “Why?” Seth asks, confusion written across his face.

  “You could have been hurt! Didn’t you think of that?”

  “I didn’t get hurt.” He sounds so calm, like I’m the one being unreasonable.

  “You could have.”

  “But I
didn’t.”

  “No more jumping on roofs, and that’s all there is to it,” I insist.

  Seth looks over at his dad, who shrugs and nods.

  “Fine.” His shoulders droop in defeat.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt, buddy. You just took ten years off my life.”

  His lips twitch as he tries to fight a satisfied smile. “You’re already old.”

  “No more cookies for you,” I inform him sternly, fighting a grin.

  “But you’re pretty,” he quickly adds.

  Zack bursts out laughing and ruffles his son’s hair as he saunters past him to the kitchen to pour more coffee. “You’re just like your uncle. Always the charmer.”

  “I don’t know.” I pick up a green-frosted sugar cookie and take a bite. “I think he sounds a lot like his dad.”

  My phone pings with an incoming text.

  Grace: Jacob has reserved rooms for you all here at the lodge tonight after the parade. So bring an overnight bag! His treat. Xo

  “That’s Grace,” I inform Zack. “She says we’re all to bring overnight bags tonight to stay at the lodge, on Jacob.”

  “Does this mean I get to stay with Grandma and Grandpa again?” Seth asks hopefully.

  “Looks like,” Zack replies with a grin.

  “Yessss!” Seth pumps his fist and does a happy dance in his chair. “Grandma said the next time I stay over, she’ll help me order some Christmas presents online.”

  “I told you I’d take you shopping,” Zack says with a frown. His dark hair is messy from the towel, and he just looks delicious leaning against my kitchen counter with a coffee mug in his hand. It occurs to me that I’ve done hardly any shopping yet this year, and make a note to take care of that this afternoon after Zack and Seth leave.

  “I know, but what I want to buy I can’t find around here, so she’s gonna help me order it.”

  “What is it?” Zack asks.

  “Can’t tell,” Seth replies with a grin. “But it really sucks. Whoever gets it is gonna hate it.”

  I laugh and shake my head at the silly boy. “I doubt that.”

  “We’ll see.” He grins widely and bites a cookie. “This Christmas is gonna be the funnest ever.”

  “What did you ask for?” I ask Seth.

  “Nothing.” He frowns like it didn’t occur to him to ask for anything.